After Ming Xizong ascended the throne, he often did some carpentry because he didn't mean to. At that time, he gave all the power in the DPRK to the eunuch Wei Zhongxian around him. So Wei Zhongxian's power became more and more powerful, and he gradually cultivated his own power in the DPRK, making the whole court in a situation where eunuchs were in power. At that time, Ming Xizong died at a young age because he mistakenly entered the fairy medicine. After Zhu Youxiao's death, his younger brother Zhu Youjian succeeded him to the throne, which is also known as Emperor Chongzhen. After Emperor Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, he made great efforts to deal with the situation in which eunuchs were in power at that time. At that time, Emperor Chongzhen ordered all eunuchs to be put into prison.
Liu Ruoyu is no exception. At the beginning, he was also imprisoned as an accomplice of Wei Zhongxian. But he was innocent, remembering the example of Sima Qian's hard work in writing historical records in prison, so he followed Sima Qian's example and devoted himself to writing in prison, and finally wrote the Proceedings.
In this book, he strongly exposed the evil deeds of Wei Zhongxian at that time. This book is always divided into three parts, one is to recall the interesting things that happened in the emperor's childhood at that time, and the other is to record the very strange cases he participated in at that time and the details of these cases that were not exposed. The last part is to expose what Wei Zhongxian has done. At that time, because this book was deeply loved by people after it came out of prison, it attracted the attention of Emperor Chongzhen. After reading this book, Emperor Chongzhen realized that Liu Ruoyu was innocent and released Liu Ruoyu.