Mencius said: “The people are the most precious. The altars of the land and grain come next. The ruler counts least.” (民为贵，社稷次之，君为轻) Whoever wins the common people, he continued, becomes the Son of Heaven.
The founder of the Ming dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor, disliked the book’s low view of the ruler. He ordered passages like this one cut. The shortened book, the Mencius Abridged, was issued across the country, and the civil service examinations had to follow it. It did not stay in use for long, and the court later returned to the full text.