Using Wu Jijue’s career as a focal point, this chapter explores the power of appointment, the process of assessment, and the culture of patronage, before offering a few overarching observations about Wu Jijue’s experiences and what they say about China in the second half of the sixteenth century. The chapter also throws into clear relief how dramatically contemporary perceptions of the Wu family had changed from the early fifteenth century to the late sixteenth century. Once newly arrived immigrants at the edge of the realm whose Mongolian names and origins were obvious to all, the Wu family were now unquestionably “one-percenters,” a capital family ranking among the elites of the elites and whose foreign origins were completely overshadowed by its century-old ties to the imperial throne and service in the highest echelons of the dynastic administration.