In 1565, the official Hai Rui sent the Jiajing Emperor a memorial. It said that the emperor had neglected the state for years, and that officials were corrupt and the people suffering. The emperor had him thrown into prison. Hai Rui was released only after the emperor died in 1566.
The Veritable Records say that the emperor first threw the memorial to the ground in anger. Then he picked it up, read it again and again, and kept it for months.
In 1961, the historian Wu Han answered Mao’s call to emulate Hai Rui’s frankness with a play, Hai Rui Dismissed from Office. On November 10, 1965, a critique of the play by Yao Wenyuan in Wenhui Bao became the fuse of the Cultural Revolution.