The xiangyue, community compact, is Confucian local self-government. The first, written by the Lü brothers in Shaanxi in 1076, bound signatories to four articles: mutual encouragement in virtue, mutual correction of faults, mutual courtesy in social relations, and mutual aid in difficulty. Zhu Xi revised and promoted it, and it spread widely; Wang Yangming used a version as an administrative instrument when pacifying southern Jiangxi. The mechanics matter: the community assembles at fixed intervals, the compact is read aloud, and two registers are maintained — one recording good deeds and one recording bad — with the entries read out publicly, followed by a communal meal seated by age. Korea adopted it as the hyangyak and it became a central institution of Chosŏn local order, promoted by Yi Hwang and Yi I among others. It is, in effect, government by mutual moral bookkeeping among neighbours, which worked and which is also an unusually complete surveillance mechanism, and both descriptions are accurate.