Hong Bin, who was a bureau secretary at the Ministry of Justice when he compiled the work but claims that even when living in the country before becoming an official he occasionally read rejected cases (居鄉里時偶誦西曹駁案), notes in his pref. that the rejection proposals forwarded by the ministry to the emperor were collected by the ministry’s Zhejiang bureau. He used his spare time at the ministry to assemble what he views as an anthology of the more significant and instructive pieces in terms of juridical analysis (蒐秋官奏牘, 擇其剖疑柝[析]似斷折若神者). The cases, all listed in the mulu with a short caption and with the criminal’s name, are arranged by chronological order of imperial rescript and cover the period 1736-65 (copy at Ōki, corresponding to the period indicated in Hong Bin’s preface, with 280 cases), or 1736-70 (copy at Columbia, featuring a supplement [續增] corresponding to the years 1766-70 in the mulu). In the body of the work there is no indication of year, content, or criminal’s name in the captions of the cases or in the central margin, making research somewhat inconvenient. There is no juan division, and each case is separately paginated, with indication of the ministry bureau in charge. The cases begin with a quotation of the original report and sentence proposal by the provincial governor, followed by the ministry’s comments and emperor’s rescript.