The second daughter was only ten years old. She was so frightened that she climbed out the window and ran to the neighbor's house crying and calling for help, and only then did she catch the man.
So the family is left with a ten-year-old daughter and a one-year-old baby boy.
According to the laws of the Song Dynasty, murder is punishable by death, and the criminal must pay compensation to the victim's family. However, this amount of money may not be enough to support the victim's family to adulthood.
If the criminals pay exorbitant compensation, it is another matter if the court appeases them properly and ensures that the money is used for the smooth upbringing of the victims’ families.
Therefore, after spending a large amount of money, the officials in the court felt that it was a good idea, and even Zhao Jun himself was a little shaken.
Don't blame him for wavering.
Because at first glance it seems quite reasonable.
In later generations in the West, even if someone killed someone, they could pay a sky-high bail or settlement money to avoid going to court and being tried.
This is the case in the United States. After committing a crime, one can avoid going to court by paying a fine or reaching a settlement with the US government, thereby obtaining a chance to be sentenced on probation or exempted from punishment.
If all else fails, you can hire a lawyer who pays a fortune to use various means to clear your name or reduce your sentence.
So this trick was very effective in the West in later generations.
The rationale behind this is that such a large amount of money can not only provide funds to the government, but also provide certain compensation to the families of the victims.
This is the difference between the Western maritime law system and the continental law system.
Even in later generations in our country, there have been such controversial cases.
For example, a drunk female driver named Tan caused an accident while driving a Maserati, resulting in 2 deaths and 4 injuries.
If the death penalty is imposed, the criminal's family will not be responsible for compensation, but the four victims are still lying in hospital beds and require sky-high medical expenses.
If the death penalty is not imposed, the families of the other two deceased will be very dissatisfied, and public opinion will also be very dissatisfied.
This made it very difficult for the court at that time to make a choice.
The final decision to sentence him to life imprisonment at least gives the four victims hope of treatment, and can be considered a certain compromise with reality.
The same thing happened in the Song Dynasty, and the other party spent more money and paid a higher price. They didn't care even if their hands and feet were cut off, they just wanted to save their lives.
In addition, the ambassador spent a lot of money and deliberately guided public opinion, making officials in the court and the public believe that the other party apologized sincerely and spent money to deal with the aftermath. As a country with etiquette, the Song Dynasty could forgive him once.
But after three days of discussion between the government and the public, Zhao Jun issued the highest instruction - to sentence according to the law.
It doesn’t matter even if the other party is a powerful person from a major Western country.
Kill those who deserve to be killed.
This has nothing to do with the reputation of the Song Dynasty.
Instead, it is to give an explanation to the victim's family and the rule of law.
Zhao Jun deeply detested the fact that before the Song Dynasty, sentencing often relied on the personal feelings of county magistrates, prefects and other criminal justice officials.
Therefore, as early as the establishment of the Constitutional Yuan, the concept and slogan of governing the country according to law were put forward.
He not only deprived local officials of their power of trial, but also separated the three powers and put forward the concept of presumption of innocence, which reduced the occurrence of a large number of false and wrongful convictions in order to provide justice for the judiciary.
Even if justice is only given to the majority, there will still be a small number of powerful people taking advantage of loopholes. That is still much better than the injustice given to the majority in ancient society.
So this man must be killed.
This is the only way to maintain the fairness of the law and prevent a precedent from being set where anyone can buy their life with money.
As for the issue of compensation, it was also simple. Since the criminal had no property under his name that could be executed, the ambassador of the other country saw that nothing could be done and was unwilling to pay compensation.
Then the Song Dynasty court would detain the goods shipped by the other country to the Song Dynasty for trade, exchange the confiscated goods for equivalent property, register it under the name of the victim's siblings, and let the welfare home raise them. Kaifeng Prefecture would send people to check on them regularly until they reach adulthood.
When the news spread, most of the people in Bianliang cheered.
Of course, they will not consider so many deep-seated issues, but simply think that killing someone should be punished with death.
For other countries, it was a great deterrent. For a time, envoys from various countries restrained their diplomatic corps members and no longer dared to commit any illegal acts.
Time soon arrived on December 28th, and the grand celebration was held as scheduled. The scene was even grander than the New Year's Eve celebration on the 24th.
There are not only activities such as flower boat parades, float parades, dragon and lion dances, and Nuo dances in the city, but also various musical performances. The royal court band's floats travel from the south to the north of the city, passing through every street once.
Flower boats were cruising on the Bian River, Jin River, Huimin River, Wuzhang River and other rivers, and lanterns hung by every household a few days ago were fluttering. A ban on firecrackers was issued in densely populated areas such as streets and markets, but firecrackers and fireworks were allowed in open areas.
For a while, no matter whether it was day or night, the sounds of firecrackers and fireworks continued to rang out, until the sleeping time after midnight and before noon, when there was a little quieting down.
By evening, Zhao Zhen climbed the city gate again, but this time it was the Donghua Gate. He brought his family, young and old, and stood on the Donghua Gate tower to greet the people.
There were still huge crowds of people outside Donghua Gate. When Zhao Zhen and his family appeared, there was a constant roar of applause.
Today, Zhao Zhen enjoys a very high reputation among the people, not only because of the benevolent rule of the Song Dynasty under his leadership, but also because he himself is a great scientist who has invented many things that benefit the country and the people.
And under his rule, the people of the Song Dynasty truly lived a good life, and many people naturally attributed this credit to him.
Therefore, it can be said that among the three people with the highest prestige in the Song Dynasty today, Zhao Zhen ranks first, Zhao Jun and Fan Zhongyan rank second and third. At least many people in the folk have built ancestral halls for Zhao Zhen for worship. This is called establishing a ancestral hall, which is a great honor.
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