Lin Wei's remarks made the faces of the district government people look very unpleasant, for his words amounted to saying that the Lipei District Government was ranked lower than the headquarters and was not qualified to criticize or direct the actions of the headquarters.
However, the awkward truth was that the Lipei District Government was not under the jurisdiction of the headquarters but was accountable to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, with the headquarters generally only being responsible for military affairs.
Of course, to resolve this conflict, arrangements had been made by the superiors in the past, which essentially meant that affairs in Lipei were to be decided by the headquarters. So, in certain situations, the district government had to obey the headquarters; they could not simply ignore their directives simply because they weren't governed by them, and this was precisely what made the district government staff members so uncomfortable.