Answer:
b. empties their minds
Step-by-step explanation:
From the passage, the Sage/leader's only way to achieve harmony is by keeping the masses ignorant hence feeding them full and making sure that there are no ambitions since there is no knowledge.
Therefore, according to Laozi, Dao De Jing the masses can only stay in harmony if there is no contention( as a result of knowledge) in the aim to acquire value. For example if the people do not know that gold is valuable and worth a lot of money, there will be no contention to get gold or theft of gold.