After Zhao Yu took power, he always hoped to establish a system of governing the country according to law, and naturally made some research on the props of 'extrajudicial favor'. In fact, the so-called "gold medal for avoiding death" is a trick used by Emperor Zhao Kuangyin of Taizu at the beginning of the Song Dynasty to appease local warlords. Therefore, in the judicial process of the Song Dynasty, it was impossible to have a dramatic scene of Danshu iron coupons against Shang Fang's sword.

It can be seen that even if the person who receives the Danshu iron coupon, not all of them can escape to death, and it is Zhao Kuangyin's personal behavior, and then the good thing of giving the Danshu iron coupon will happen. As far as Zhao Yu knows, in fact, the Song people's concept of the legal system is to reject the gold medal of avoiding death. They said, "Dharma, what the Son of Heaven has with the whole world...... Therefore, the king does not distinguish between relatives and relatives, does not distinguish between high and low, and is consistent with the law. ”

During the reign of Taizong, Zhao Yuanxi, the king of Xu who served as the Yin of Kaifeng Mansion, was impeached by the Imperial History for making mistakes. Yuan Xi was unhappy in his heart and sued Taizong: "The son of heaven, he was scolded for committing a crime, and he is willing to give forgiveness." Taizong said: "This court etiquette, who dares to violate it!" If I have had, my subordinates will still correct it; You are the Yin of Kaifeng Mansion, can you not follow the law? In the end, Zhao Yuanxi, who was the prince, "punished him like a style".

Song Taizong also wanted to shelter his cronies who broke the law, and Chen Zhou's regimental training made Chen use himself to be favored by Taizong, murder and pervert the law, and was impeached by the courtiers, and should have been sentenced to death, but Taizong intended to protect him, saying: "How can the Lord of Ten Thousand Vehicles not protect a person?" Prime Minister Zhao Pu protested: "This giant beetle has committed more than ten capital crimes. If Your Majesty does not punish him, he will disrupt the law of the world. It's a pity, what a pity for this erection. In the end, Taizong had to agree to sentence Chen to death, thinking that the emperor himself could not shelter his cronies who committed crimes, let alone the gold medal for avoiding death?

It can be seen that the justice of the Song people did not rely on the power props that represented privileges, but emphasized the law of three feet. At least theoretically, if the Song Dynasty judges wanted to let the powerful who committed capital crimes be punished, they only needed to rely on the method of three feet on their heads, and they did not need to see whether they had Shang Fang's sword in their hands.

For example, the Chao drama "Bao Gongzhi Kills Lu Zhailang" and the Sichuan opera "Broken Iron Scroll" tells the story of Lu Zhailang, the son of the family, who has the ancestral Danshu iron coupon to protect himself, and does all kinds of evil and lawlessness. In order to eradicate it, in the end, Bao Gong had to use the extraordinary means of concealing the world and crossing the sea, and wrote "Lu Zhailang" as "Yuqi Ji" on the criminal reporting document, deceived the emperor into approving the death penalty, approved the document, and then changed it to "Lu Zhailang", and then took this big bully to the execution ground to be executed.

Therefore, Bao Zheng in this case is a 'second fool', and his hard work for half a day is completely to add to the snake, and he doesn't need it at all. In fact, it is like the two parties to the lawsuit in the Bao public trial case were taken to court, knelt down and kowtowed, and then the whole process was kneeling and "Why don't you kneel!" None of the drama will appear in reality.

Zhao Yu knows that according to modern research, in ancient judicial practice, whether it is a criminal case or a civil lawsuit...... Once the two parties involved in the lawsuit, including other witnesses, appear to be tried by the official, they will not only have to kneel and kowtow, but also be frightened by the 'shouting power'. This system is designed to "give the person involved in the lawsuit a psychological inferiority complex."

After the Song Dynasty, kneeling contained the meaning of humility and humiliation. In fact, Zhao Yu has been the emperor for so many years, and the ministers bow down to the court every day, and they don't have to bow three times and bow nine times, but they can't sit, they can only stand and listen to their own lectures. And the process of litigation is a bit like in modern justice, when 'it is not possible to determine who is guilty' before the verdict is pronounced, they can only be treated as suspects, and there will be no 'kneeling lawsuit', and of course it will not be like the modern ones who give them seats.

Of course, these are not Zhao Hao's nonsense, but there are clear provisions. According to the official book "Outline of Prefectures and Counties", the standardized procedure for the trial of state and county litigation is as follows: "On the day of receiving the petition, the lawyer (the litigant) enters from the west corridor and enters the courtroom, and orders Xiaoli to appoint three or four people in order, and successively executes the petition and personally pays the officials in the row, and the officials examine it slightly, order it to pass through the east corridor, listen to the name, and go out of the hall." It can be seen that civilians in the Song Dynasty did not need to kneel down when they went to the court to submit a complaint for prosecution.

When Zhu Xi was a magistrate, he even formulated a "restraint list" to further standardize the litigation procedures, one of which said: The state yamen is equipped with two wooden cards, one is the word lawsuit card, and the other side is called the complaint card. If it is a tense matter that needs to be sued by the official, then go to the "bending card" to submit a petition: "Those who have said that there is an urgent matter of real aggrief, stand under this card, and the minister of the supervision card will immediately accept it and wait for the implementation." The word "kneel" also indicates that people do not need to kneel when they go to the yamen to complain.

In the trial stage, according to the requirements of the "State and County Outline", when the trial is held, the judge "must first introduce two bidders (litigation and two lawsuits) and stand under the courtroom." The officials put the case in a few, retreated, and stood far away. If I (the judge) have any doubts about reading the case, I will consult the second bidder, and the judgment will be paid to the official to read the instructions." When Zhu Xi's second disciple Huang Zhen was a magistrate, he also issued a "restraint on word litigation", which stipulated: The court will "hear the complaint on the fifth watch of the same day, and first set up the name on the west side in front of the hall, and then pass under the east side after hearing the lawsuit." In other words, the court of the Song Dynasty did not require the litigant to kneel before the court when hearing civil lawsuits.

However, the system of kneeling litigation is indeed the prescribed action of the litigants of Mengyuan across the river, and they are all kneeling to hear lawsuits, so Zhao Yu thought that the Ming and Qing dynasties of later generations inherited this system of Mengyuan, and only the scholars and squires who have achieved fame can obtain the privilege of "seeing officials without kneeling". And the screenwriters of "Bao Gong Opera" obviously applied the court trial system of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to the Song people.

In addition, when we look at "Bao Gong Drama" or "Bao Gong Case", we will also find a detail: people go to Kaifeng Mansion to litigate, whether it is a big or small case, or a criminal or civil case, it is tried by Lao Bao alone, as if there is a huge Kaifeng Mansion, there is only one judge Bao Qingtian, plus the captain of the criminal police of Yumao Zhanzhao leads the dynasty, Ma Han, Zhang Long, Zhao Hu and several officials, and at most there is a Gongsun Ce who praises him behind the scenes, and others have few opportunities to play soy sauce.

But in fact, in the Song Dynasty, Kaifeng Prefecture set up a huge judicial body, among which the judges, push officials, divisions, left and right military patrol envoys, military patrol judges, and left and right office officials, all have judicial functions, and their main functions and powers are to hear criminal cases and civil lawsuits. When the people go to Kaifeng Mansion to complain, they are usually accepted by the left and right military patrol courts, and the Kaifeng Prefect is just an official matter of commanding a government. If every case had to be tried by Bao Gong, Lao Bao would probably have done his best.

In fact, when Zhao Yu first came to this world, he also thought so, in fact, he did this at the beginning of his reign in Qiongzhou, and the local government officials almost took over all the lawsuits. With the stability of the political situation and the relocation of the dynasty, he found that the Song Dynasty already had a professional framework for judicial specialization, and had established a professional and full-time team of judicial officials to deal with judicial affairs.

A state or county generally has three courts: the Dangzhi Division, the State Court, and the Administrator's Court. In some large states, the state courts and the courts of the administrators are divided into left and right courts, that is, there are five courts. Of course, some small states have merged the state court with the judicial court, leaving only one court. Each court is equipped with a number of judges, called the clerk to join the army, the secretary to join the army, the manager to join the army, and the judiciary to join the army. The magistrates and judges in charge of the local administration are also responsible for the administration of justice. They are all full-time judges, and they do not accept other assignments except for judicial trials, even if they are sent from the imperial court.

In addition, with the improvement and establishment of institutions at all levels, Zhao Yu also found an interesting thing, the judicial examination that appeared in modern times has actually appeared in the Song Dynasty, that is to say, the judicial officers of the Song Dynasty must pass the judicial examination before being appointed, which is just called 'trial judge'. The examination was presided over by the Dali Temple and the Criminal Department, and the two departments supervised each other to prevent cheating, and were subject to the supervision of the Imperial Historical Observatory.

The trial judges are held once or twice a year, and each time there are six examinations, of which five are for case judgments and one is for jurisprudence. The judgment of the case must state a convincing legal basis, the legal provisions to be cited, and if the facts of the case are found to be doubtful, they must also be marked on the examination paper. The examiner marks the papers one by one. To be considered passable, the test must be scored at a high standard, not 60 points, and there must be no errors in the judgment of a felony case.

It is a pity that the highly developed judicial system created by the Song people, as well as the historical direction of judicial specialization, were not inherited by later dynasties, and the judicial system of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties retreated to a very simple and rough state. The administration of justice in the prefectures and counties is entirely in the hands of the Chief Executive. The chief was unable to do anything, so he had to privately hire a criminal master to help.

Therefore, Gongsun Ce in "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness" was actually created by Qing Dynasty artists according to the image of the famous master at that time, and there was no such person as Gongsun Ce in the Song Dynasty, and there was no so-called "master" in the state capital of the Song Dynasty. Shiye is a product of the development of the administrative shogunate system to the Ming and Qing dynasties, also known as "shogunate". The history of the Song Dynasty is that although the military and political shogunate is still preserved, it is the only dynasty that does not have an administrative shogunate. It shows that the Song Dynasty has established professional administrative and judicial institutions in the local area, and of course there is no need for the administrative shogunate.

Bao Zheng in "Bao Gong Opera" is a scary super judge with great power who integrates the four powers of investigation, accusation, trial, and execution. By analogy, since there is a professional judiciary, there will certainly be no such procedural errors.

The design of the state system of the Song Dynasty paid attention to the separation of powers and checks and balances, which was also reflected in the judicial system, so Taizu established a set of very contradictory judicial procedures when he founded the country.

First of all, the power of investigation and interrogation is separated, the arrest and criminal investigation agencies in the Song Dynasty are subordinate to the state and road yamen, and the county lieutenant division is subordinate to the county yamen, collectively known as the "patrol lieutenant", which is equivalent to today's police department, its duties are to arrest and pursue criminal suspects, collect criminal evidence, preside over judicial examinations, etc., but according to the judicial system of the Song Dynasty, they cannot participate in the investigation, let alone convict suspects. A piece of legislation at the beginning of the Song Dynasty stipulated: "All the provinces inspect and arrest the thieves, and if they are robbed, they shall not be tortured first, and they will be sent to the state capital to which they belong." ”

After the case enters the state court proceedings, a judge first examines the facts, which is called an "inquest". Based on witness testimony, exhibits, forensic examinations, and the suspect's confession, the investigator will interrogate the facts of the crime clearly and be able to eliminate reasonable doubt. As for what law the offender has violated and what punishment he should be sentenced according to the law, he does not care. After the defendant drew the charge, there was nothing to do with the investigator. But if the interrogation goes wrong, he is responsible.

After this procedure, we will enter the second procedure. Another judge, who does not need to avoid suspicion, reviews the case with the defendant and asks whether the defendant's confession is true and whether there are any grievances. This process is called "questioning". If the defendant complains of grievance, the previous trial procedure is reversed, and the trial must be retried in a different courtroom. This is called "disparate investigation". If the defendant does not complain, then proceed to the next procedure.

The case file is transferred to another independent judge, who will check the file for any doubts and, if any doubts are found, return it for retrial; If there is no suspicion, he will find out the legal provisions that the suspect has violated based on the facts of the crime recorded in the file, which is called "prosecuting the law". The investigation and prosecution cannot be the same judge, which is the unique "division of the division" system in the Song Dynasty. The Song people believed that the "division of the prison" could form checks and balances of power and prevent the abuse of power.

After the prosecution, the case is referred to a Sentencing Committee. The adjudication committee is responsible for drafting the judgment and submitting it to all the judges of the committee for discussion. If there is no objection to the verdict, it will be signed collectively, and if a wrongful conviction is found in the future, all the judges who signed it will be held accountable. This is called "sitting in the same office". Judges who disagree with the verdict may refuse to sign it, or attach their own dissenting opinions, which is called a "writs," and if it is later proved that the judgment was indeed wrong, the judge in the "writs" can be exempted from accountability.

The verdict must be signed by all the judges before proceeding to the next procedure: sending it to the prefect or prefecture who is also the chief judge of the court for a formal verdict. After the Chief Justice has decided the verdict, he also needs to read the verdict to the defendant and ask whether he will accept the verdict. At this time, if the defendant claims that he is not satisfied with the verdict and has a grievance to be avenged, then the procedure of "reversing the difference and making a separate investigation" will be automatically initiated - the original trial judge will recuse himself, and the higher court will organize a new court review and go through all the previous procedures again. In principle, the defendant in a criminal case has three opportunities to "turn over the differences and make other investigations".

This is the standard procedure, but it is not the end, and the defendant still has a chance to 'seek justice'...... 8)