The list submitted by the Dali Temple and the Court of Criminal Justice contained more than 10,000 people. After a busy morning of review by the Constitutional Court, their request was rejected and a new reply was issued.
Among more than 10,000 people, there were more than 300 officials, more than 100 of whom were killed, and more than 200 people whose crimes did not deserve the death penalty were exiled to Lingnan at the lightest.
A large number of gang members and evil forces, except for a very small number who were forced to join and did not commit any serious crimes, were mostly beheaded. More than 7,000 people were sentenced to death. The rest were severely punished even if their crimes did not deserve the death penalty.
When the review order from the Constitutional Court was issued, the Dali Temple and the Court of Justice were shocked. Since the Song Dynasty, even during the reign of Emperor Taizu, there had never been such a large-scale killing, not to mention that there were so many officials involved.
Qian Zhengwei, the Minister of the Dali Temple, and Zhang Kui, the co-director of the Criminal Court, hurried to review the case.
At this moment, in the Dali Temple, the two of them gathered in the hall, looking at the approval documents sent down by the Constitutional Court, and their faces were not very good.
They weren't in collusion with the criminals, or had any other connections. They simply felt the Constitutional Court's order was absurd and unacceptable.
"Since the time of Taizu, it has been an iron rule in the Song Dynasty that officials should not be punished. The fact that the court sent the Imperial City Bureau to arrest officials before was already intolerable."
Zhang Kui spoke first, looking at Qian Zhengwei and saying, "Even though he arrested officials who had broken the law, this still had to go through the Censorate, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice, and the Court of Criminal Justice. Not only has this not happened, but he's also overstepping his authority to issue orders. This is a violation of the rule of law!"
Qian Zhengwei glanced at the other person. In fact, Zhang Kui and he were both admitted to the imperial examination in the same year. He was 48 years old and Zhang Kui was 46 years old. Moreover, Zhang Kui had served as the Shaoqing of the Dali Temple before, and he had been a partner with him for a while at that time.
However, Zhang Kui later resigned from his post due to illness and returned home to recuperate. He had not returned to officialdom for ten years and was only recently transferred back. Otherwise, he would not have been only a fourth-rank Tianzhang Pavilion attendant and co-director of the Criminal Court.
However, the Court of Criminal Justice is also a powerful department, in charge of officials and the Dali Temple's review of penalties. So although his position is not as high as Qian Zhengwei's, his power is relatively greater.
Therefore, Qian Zhengwei smiled wryly and advised, "You have only recently returned to Bianliang to take up your post, so I'm afraid you haven't heard of the latest developments. The bureaucracy has been restructured, and all departments will now obey the orders of the Political System Council. Moreover, with the power of the Political System Council, it can control all officials, and issuing decrees is not considered an overreach. Let's leave it at that."
"How could this be?"
Zhang Kui was dissatisfied and said, "Doesn't this go against our ancestral teachings?"
"Forget it, the dean doesn't care about ancestral teachings."
Qian Zhengwei shook his head. "Now that so many prime ministers and officials support him, the power of the Constitutional Council is inevitable. Hasn't the entire court, civil and military officials, opposed it? Is opposition useful?"
Zhang Kui was silent for a moment, then said, "Anyway, I won't sign this. I will directly ask the government to review it."
"If you don't want to sign, then don't sign."
Qian Zhengwei sighed and said, "All I can tell you is that it might be useless to ask the government for help."
"snort!"
Zhang Kui said nothing, snorted coldly, and stood up to leave.
Looking at the other person's back as he left, Qian Zhengwei shook his head. Old Zhang had just returned to the court recently. Even if he had heard something, he had not seen it with his own eyes. How could he know that the situation in the Song Dynasty had changed?
In the afternoon, the Dali Temple handed the ruling document back to the Civil Service Bureau. It was signed only by a few officials from the Dali Temple. This is the characteristic of the official system of the Song Dynasty.
Each department not only has directors and deputy directors, but also a large number of subordinate officials, whose titles include "Hou Dang", "Ti Dian" and "Gou Ya".
A document or a decree requires the signatures of these officials before it can be implemented.
The result is that various departments blame each other and argue with each other. If any one of them does not sign, the policy cannot be implemented, and administrative efficiency is extremely slow.
In other words, Zhao Jun arrested some officials from the Dali Temple and intimidated them, so these people did not dare to disobey. If it were someone else, it would probably be difficult to sign the document.
The Constitutional Court read the new document but said nothing and sent it to Kaifeng Prefecture and the Imperial City Bureau. The formulation of charges and sentencing are generally done by the Dali Temple and the Court of Criminal Justice, while the execution was previously done by Kaifeng Prefecture, but now the Imperial City Bureau has been added to the list.
As for the matter of the Court of Justice, Zhao Jun did not act immediately, but wrote it down in a small notebook. In the future, after the new system is implemented, officials with poor performance will be criticized and recorded, and the report will be published in the official newspaper.
Under the new system, anyone who was punished would not only have their promotions slowed, but if they were punished three times, they would be dismissed from office. Therefore, this little notebook would become the future death note.
Soon the decree approving the death penalty was issued, confirming that the first batch of criminals with serious crimes would be executed starting in December.
This process may take a long time.
Perhaps by the time Zhao Jun left Beijing, people were still being sent to the execution ground outside Tokyo every day.
The next day, the notice of the reform of the Ministry of Justice was quickly issued. The former Minister of Justice, Xia Song, was changed to the Grand Secretary of Baohe Hall. Because the previous six ministers were temporary officials, only the official title needed to be changed.
But now the Ministry of Justice was obviously going to become a department with real power. Li Di no longer served as the deputy envoy of the Three Departments of Salt and Iron, but was changed to the Minister of the Ministry of Justice. He was sent on an assignment, and only his current position was left.
In the past, people would have thought that Li Di had been dismissed from his sinecure, but now, with a new notice, the officialdom was in an uproar.
This day happened to be the time for the monthly court bulletin.
In the past, court reports were issued by the Jinzouyuan, which was simply the court's propaganda agency. It forwarded the court's decrees to various regions, and also transferred the official business submitted by various regions to the various departments of the court.
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