At noon on the morning of May 14th, Zhao Jun visited Bi Sheng.
Zhao Jun is still very interested in this man who lives in junior high school history textbooks.
Bi Sheng was already 65 years old at this time, but he was in very good health, with neither deafness nor blindness, which was very rare in ancient times.
Upon learning that Zhao Jun was coming, he hurriedly brought his family to greet him.
Zhao Jun expressed his condolences to the great inventor, and then, surrounded by many officials and neighbors on the scene, expressed his views on inventions and creations.
He pointed out that scientific and technological inventions are the key to improving the convenience of life. Hoes, bows and arrows, and knives are actually inventions.
Some schools of Confucianism denounced craftsmanship as "strange and frivolous tricks" and "trivial skills." This is certainly wrong. As long as inventions and creations benefit people's lives, they are not a bad thing.
However, this criticism of Confucianism was often misunderstood by the world, and even caused disagreements within Confucianism itself. In fact, Confucianism did not say that inventions and creations were bad, but rather that useless but novel things should not be presented to please the emperor.
Therefore, when it comes to inventions and creations, we must have a good sense of innovation and correct ideas.
Zhao Jun emphasized that inventions should not be made for the sake of making contributions or pleasing others, but to make life better. Just like the inventions of the hoe, the curved plow, and the waterwheel, they have changed people's lives and brought the world a step forward.
Therefore, the imperial court encouraged everyone to give full play to the wisdom of the working people, and specially established a creation bureau for this purpose, hoping that the common people all over the world would participate in invention and creation and actively promote a new style of construction.
This time, Zhao Jun came to represent the Imperial Construction Bureau to award Bi Sheng a medal for inventing movable type printing. The court not only issued Bi Sheng a certificate for his invention, but also gave him a cash reward.
In the presence of many officials and neighbors, Zhao Jun personally handed over the certificate he had written last night and stamped with his seal as the director of the Ministry of Political Affairs, as well as twenty strings of cash, to Bi Sheng. The old man burst into tears and lamented that his invention had finally been valuable.
This series of processes was naturally planned by Zhao Jun.
In fact, Bi Sheng's movable type printing technology had little significance at least at that time, or in feudal society. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China that people knew its true use because Europe used movable type printing to strengthen the publishing industry.
So even if Bi Sheng invented this thing, in the Song Dynasty, except for those who came to see it as a curiosity, people still preferred to use woodblock printing rather than the movable type printing he invented.
However, Zhao Jun knew its value. Clay movable type did have great disadvantages, but it could be improved to lead movable type in the future, which would have better effects.
With movable type printing, the publishing industry will flourish and will bring huge publicity effects in the future.
In addition, Zhao Jun himself attached great importance to invention and creation, and proposed the concept of developing the country through science and technology. Therefore, in addition to seeing the characters in the history textbooks, the most important thing about his visit to Bi Sheng was that it had certain political significance and served the purpose of buying horse bones for a huge sum of money.
In the afternoon, at the Criminal Justice Office, after more than 20 days of investigation and evidence collection, all the evidence of Sun Mian's crime was available and the evidence was conclusive. Li Jianzhi, the Censor of the Criminal Justice Office, followed the order of Zhao Jun, the Director of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, to approve the death penalty for the criminal.
Sun Mian was shackled and remained silent throughout the entire sentencing process because he knew that with the previous experience of Guo Chengyou, he would definitely die if he fell into Zhao Jun's hands, so he simply remained silent.
After several rounds of trial, Li Jianzhi read out his charges and decided to execute him immediately.
He panicked when he heard this.
In the court, Sun Mian shouted that the local criminal justice department did not have the power to try him, and according to normal procedures, it must be reported to the court.
This reason is actually quite sufficient.
Because in the past, although the investigation of local officials was under the jurisdiction of the Luxingyusi, the trial often had to go through the Censorate and the Dali Temple. Therefore, the trial of local prefecture, county and city officials had to wait for the reply from the court before it could be carried out.
However, doing so would cause the litigation process to be extremely lengthy, leaving a lot of room for maneuver, so Zhao Jun ignored it and directly issued the execution order.
Rules are made by people, and Zhao Jun already has the power to break the rules.
Therefore, under this ineffective protest, not long after, Sun Mian and his accomplices Bian Xun, Hangzhou Prefecture's second officials, assistant officials, and more than one hundred clerks were beheaded or exiled.
Sun Mian never revealed the mastermind behind the incident until his death.
Later, some other not-so-good news came back, that is, four of the five county magistrates involved in corruption in Huainan West Road died.
In addition, serious corruption incidents also occurred in Mengcheng, Bozhou and Zhaoxin, Sizhou in the eastern Huainan Road.
After investigation by Lin Zhu and the people sent by Jiang Tang, it was found that the incident in Mengcheng was exactly the same as that in Shouzhou. It was done by the former prefect Guo Chengyou and two Mengcheng county magistrates. However, Guo Chengyou was dead, and the former Mengcheng county magistrate was not killed, but died of illness.
As for Zhaoxin in Sizhou, it was a different situation. Zhaoxin was not only affected by the drought, but also by the plague. Many people died from the plague, but there was still some relief food left over from the disaster relief food issued by the court.
The magistrate of Zhaoxin County and other officials in the county did not store the extra relief grain back in the Changping Warehouse, but embezzled it themselves. This is a bit like drawing a salary without working, and has nothing to do with that side.
It was precisely because he had taken the empty salary that the former Zhaoxin County Magistrate actually distributed disaster relief food, instead of failing to distribute the food and letting the people starve to death, that he was able to conceal the truth.
This time, Zhao Jun investigated the corruption case in Huainan West Road and brought up this matter by catching rabbits while hunting.
The former Zhaoxin County Magistrate was naturally also ordered to be arrested by Zhao Jun.
However, as the relevant personnel were silenced, Sun Mian refused to speak until his death, and Huang Wei was too far away to know the situation over there, so all the people involved behind the scenes still remain a mystery.
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