"Congratulations, Lord Li! We finally don't have to worry about the opinions of our colleagues anymore."
"Indeed, Your Majesty is truly wise. I have been a judge in the Transportation Department my entire life, suppressed by my uneducated colleagues. Now I can finally hold my head high and be proud of myself."
"Yes, His Majesty has dismissed all those unlearned and incompetent officials from the court, and he didn't even give them any pension. Just look at how miserable Lord Qian looked when he left. Just thinking about it makes me feel better."
"Hahaha, that's right, that's right. Lord Qian usually orders me around, but I never thought he'd end up like this."
"Hahaha……"
…
In charge of the examination hall of the Ministry of Revenue.
"Sir, we have caught a cheating official." A soldier of the Imperial Dragon Guard arrested a deputy official of the Ministry of Revenue.
The official in charge of the examination wrote with a flourish: "This person will be dismissed immediately. Take off his pants, drag him outside the examination hall, and give him twenty lashes of the cane. Put his name on the register and he will never be employed again!"
This measure was ruthless enough: any official who dared to cheat would be stripped of his pants and dragged outside the examination room and beaten with a stick once discovered.
Therefore, a large group of people would gather outside each examination hall to watch the fun.
The so-called twenty strokes of the cane were actually just a ruler like the one used by teachers, not a big cane.
But these scholars were too proud to be dragged outside and spanked after their pants were stripped off. They allowed the common people to point and criticize them, and many of them were extremely ashamed and angry.
The common people applauded the sight of these usually overbearing officials displaying their ugly behavior. Watching officials being spanked outside the imperial examination hall was a favorite sight for the common people.
Whenever an official was taken out of the imperial examination hall by the soldiers of the Imperial Dragon Guard, the people would cheer. When he was beaten with a stick, the people would shout along: "One, two... thirteen, eleven, twelve..."
Sometimes the officials who were carrying out the caning would be so distracted by the people that they would forget how many times they had been beaten, and would have to start over again, often causing another round of ridicule.
Zhao Huan cleared out corrupt officials across the country, dismissing all those redundant officials who received salaries but did nothing, and the court increased taxes again.
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