Wait, why are you speaking English? Are you my friend Ker? We don't know what exactly Xun was thinking – nobody does. All we have are his deeds - and my speculations are based on these deeds. Xun has worked towards Cao’s goal in the earlier years, but has firmly stood against him later. My theory is an attempt to rationalize these contradictions. All theories are speculations. How could any Historian infallibly prove anything? That kind of perfection belongs to no social sciences or humanity. Only mathematicians focus on pure logic. I’m not a professional and my goal was not perfection. I only want it to be reasonable and logical. In this sense, I don’t see why my arguments are illogical. I lay out the background to support the theory, and from records, we know that Xun believed in classical Confucianism. Given that, my deductions focus on what a Confucian would think under that circumstance. Now if there’s anything illogical, I’d be glad to know. Please give me a counterexample or point out the impossibility in my theory. But requiring me to definitively link the background and Xun’s thoughts is completely out of the reach of my knowledge and imagination. I believe no historian could claim to have done that.
My earlier reply could answer these questions as well. But let me summarize it: when a mathematician proves anything correct, he has to prove it correct under any circumstance. When a historian proves something reasonable, he only need to show that it is reasonable under a (ya, I mean "one") reasonable circumstance. In this sense, a historian cannot be surely correct, because he has only limited means to probe into the past, and he has to rely on assumptions about "facts". Of course Xun doesn't "have to" think like this (or that), yet it is reasonable for him to think this way - that's all I need to prove, and that's all I want to prove. I don't need historical records to definitively support my theory. I only need it to NOT contradict it. I'd be glad to hear about your opinion on the logical problems of the background. I hope they are constructive. BTW, Xun is a "impotent politician"? What do you mean by that?