Audit

After a brief moment of silence, my friend went on, “You know, there’s a deeper water in this matter.”

“What’s that?”

“Let’s take the record of our great historian as an example,” L became serious, “To understand what happened at Changping, it is perfectly acceptable for an ordinary college student to read Sima Qian – and nothing else.”

“I see what you mean. It’s a matter of how deep one should dwell on the problem.” I continued for my friend, “Although reasonable for a college student, we would expect a PhD thesis to cover all first hand material of the Battle rather than simply citing the description from the great historian’s Record. Similarly, it is generally OK to go through the discharge summary alone when we see a simple case in the clinic. However, the consideration is different when we talk about doing a death audit.”

“Your conclusion is correct – but not the analogy,” my friend smiled, “We are not PhD students writing thesis on the Battle of Changping. We are the King of Zhao and wish to find out why our soldiers died – and so many of them, too – and why Zhao Kuo (趙括) failed!”