Yangming’s second “journey in the great capital” left a deep scar on his mindset. The impression of the rotten politics and the viciousness of the people involved in it engraved in his bones, and he realized the necessity of having someone heroic and independent, one who had really mastered the Way of the sages, to rectify the human heart, reorganize the social environment, and save the Ming Dynasty that was “about to end with terminal illness.”