Supposing we think of the universe this way: there is Heaven and there is Earth; nothing else — no other worlds, no gods. "Heaven" is roughly analogous to what we moderns call "Nature." Heaven's laws, however, unlike Nature's, are moral, not physical.
Two substances pervade this universe: ki and ri . Ki, roughly, is matter and energy fused. Ri, equally roughly, is "principle."
Every material thing in the universe is composed of ki; every phenomenon is governed by ri. Modern education doesn't prepare us for this kind of thinking, but in 17th- and 18th-century Japan, as in China for thousands of years until very recent times, it came more or less naturally. The corollary is that according to Confucian philosophy — for that is what we're dealing with — good government is government in harmony with the universe. Misrule is not. Misrule riles Heaven.