Although well-intentioned and meant to serve as a call to action, the punishment for his transgression was originally decapitation, and subsequently lessened to banishment to Ili by the new Jiaqing Emperor.
[1] Hong was a proponent of the New Text scholarship, and felt that political remonstrance was part of his Confucian duty, as many other philosophers of his time did.
In Zhi Ping Pian, Hong points to the tension between the growth of the means of subsistence and the growing population.
"Hong points out that government can mediate the problem by policies like adjusting tax, encouraging colonization, and enhancing the social safety net.
Hong was a prolific writer, with more than 20 books published, including multiple volumes of essays, prose works and poems.