Guo Shi, the son of Guo Xun, Marquis of Wuding, was sentenced to death by Shuntianfu for raping a folk girl to death.

Guo Xun, Marquis of Wuding, therefore neglected Emperor Zhu Houzhao of Zhengde and hoped that a new sentence could be made, on the grounds that he should not be punished so severely after meritorious service.

And Zhu Houzhao directly asked the cabinet to vote and send the performance of Guo Xun, Marquis of Wuding, to Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, and Zhang Zilin decided.

The reason is that the constitution stipulates that Dali Temple has the supreme judicial power of the Ming Empire.

Because Zhu Houzhao did not support Guo Xun to interfere in the judiciary, Guo Xun had to come to Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, by himself.

"The law of the Ming Dynasty stipulates that the rapist should be hanged! Marquis Wuding, there is nothing wrong with the case adjudicated by Shuntianfu! ”

Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, has always been upright and did not leave any affection for Guo Xun, the Marquis of Wuding.

"That can't be judged! After my son is a nobleman, he just humiliates a people's daughter, why should he be executed! This is a random sentence in your Dali Temple! ”

Guo Xun slapped the table on the spot and scolded angrily.

Zhang Zilin also unceremoniously returned the color: "Dali Temple has the right of final adjudication, which is stipulated in the outline of the Constitution!" If the Marquis of Wuding feels that the trial of Dali Temple is unfair, he can directly present it to His Majesty and let His Majesty remove the official! But as long as the official is still Dali Siqing, this case will have to be judged like this! ”

Constitution?

Guo Xun didn't expect that Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, would refute himself with the "Constitution", he thought that he would force Dali Temple to make concessions and punish his son lightly by virtue of his status as a noble, but now he suddenly moved out of a constitution, and he didn't know how to fight back for a while.

This was also a change in imperial politics after Zhu Houzhao promulgated the outline of the King James Constitution, and the officials of the empire began to inadvertently use the constitution as the basis for exercising their power, instead of breaking the rules at will based on the circumstances they found themselves in at the time.

For example, now, if there is no constitution, Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, has no way to stop the interference of Wuding Marquis Guo Xun in criminal cases, because although the authority of Dali Siqing is to finally adjudicate all cases, in fact, the final trial power is only owned by the emperor.

The emperor's laziness can make Dali Temple have the highest judicial power, and the emperor's diligence can make Dali Temple have no power, to put it bluntly, Dali Temple was an agent of the emperor in the criminal trial in the past.

However, now, the constitution clearly stipulates the power of Dali Temple, so Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, can justifiably stop Guo Xun's interference in the judiciary, and is not even afraid of offending the emperor, because the emperor can remove him if he is not satisfied, but he cannot deny his rights and responsibilities during his tenure.

Guo Xun, Marquis of Wuding, touched his nose and could only watch his son being executed for breaking the law.

Many court officials, like Zhang Zilin, the secretary of Dali Temple, began to clarify their powers and responsibilities because of the emergence of the constitution, and used it as a weapon to prevent some powerful people from interfering in government affairs.

Of course, while the civil officials discovered this wonderful feature of the Constitution, they also felt the constraints brought to them by the Constitution, because the Constitution also involved some power over the common people, so that they could not overly oppress the people and ignore the demands of the people, for example, there is no way to prohibit the right of the people to discuss political affairs.

But they can't let Zhu Houzhao ban the constitution now.

This is because from the very beginning, the constitution was formulated by the court of the Beijing officials above the fourth rank and the foreign officials above the third rank in the DPRK and the central government.

There were even the participation of nobles, relatives, and royal relatives, as well as a few squires and elders who were specially invited from the north and south, as well as the rural people.

After more than a year of quarrels worked out.

This constitution is a relatively acceptable product of all strata of the empire, although it is generally beneficial to the imperial court and unfavorable to the people, but except for the emperor Zhu Houzhao, who has the ability to deny him, no one dares to deny him.

After all, most of the people who signed the original were the bigwigs of the DPRK and China, and if you want to abolish the constitution, it is equivalent to going against the entire civil officials, nobles, military generals and even the emperor.

Even if it were to be amended, it would have to be persuaded that two-thirds of the deputies at the time of the first draft of the constitution would agree to a joint petition to the emperor, and the emperor would have to agree to the amendment.

After the amendment, the emperor also had one veto.

Therefore, it is very difficult for civil servants and other powerful people to ban the constitution or even revise the outline of the constitution.

What's more, Zhu Houzhao still abides by the outline of the Constitution.

Others, civil servants and other elites, can only obediently obey the rules laid down in the outline of the Constitution.

Confucianism made the Ming Dynasty an empire with strict hierarchical and ethical order, from the emperor to the officials to the common people, from the state to the family, all of them had a regular hierarchy.

All men obey the rule that the Son obeys the Father, and the Servant obeys the King.

Because of this, in the Confucian society, both the dynasty and the family can only hope that the monarch will be wise and the head of the family can make the family and the country prosperous, and this kind of society has high requirements for the monarch and the head of the family.

Moreover, the monarch or the head of the household thus has the power to make the rules, but they must require themselves to follow the rules, and if they themselves do not follow the rules, the rules are equal to none.

And now, Zhu Houzhao has taught the rulers of the Ming Dynasty to make their own social rules, and no one dares to obey these social rules, including the emperor himself.

Although this social rule still has the shadow of Confucianism, it is still more in line with the interests of the emperor and officials.

At the very least, let the powerful of the empire know that there is a way to make a social rule that everyone to abide by in a negotiated way, instead of blindly following the words of the saints.

Zhu Houzhao hoped that if there was no foreign invasion, the new political forces would have been able to re-establish the rules with the old forces and avoid war, or avoid the division of the country because war would have made each other unforgivable and intolerable enemies.

The invasion of foreign races is the biggest external cause for the Chinese civilization to be repeatedly beaten back to its original point, and Zhu Houzhao, as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, must let the empire avoid such external factors again.

The little prince was executed to warn those who had committed sins against the Ming Dynasty.

The Hetao is now back in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, the military depth of the Ming Dynasty has been extended, the military defense capability has been enhanced, and even if it is handled properly, the Gengxu Revolution that occurred in the Jiajing period will not appear again.

What's more, the current Mongolia has not been unified by the little prince as in the original history, and it is still a divided situation.

In fact, Mongolia has begun to decline in this era, and Zhu Houzhao is not worried that the Mongolian power will rise again, after all, this nation has been baptized by Confucian culture, coupled with the change of combat methods, so that they can no longer rely on cavalry and archery to win the world.

But Zhu Houzhao still wants to reform them to prevent them from becoming accomplices in the rise of other alien races in history in the future.

What Zhu Houzhao is really worried about is the Jurchens, especially the Jianzhou Jurchens.

Of course, the current Jianzhou Jurchens are still in the stage of living by fishing and hunting, and they will not settle in Hetuara until Nurhachi's great-ancestor Fuman inherited the governor of Jianzhou ten years later, and began to change from fishing and hunting civilization to agricultural civilization.

Of course, it was also from that time that this inconspicuous Jurchen tribe would continue to grow in strength because of its transformation to agricultural civilization, and finally with the connivance of Li Chengliang, it unified the Jurchens in the Wanli period, and eventually became a military force that threatened the Ming Dynasty.

It can be said that now if Zhu Houzhao is willing, he can easily exterminate this Jurchen tribe by sending an army.

But Zhu Houzhao had to admit that it was easy to exterminate this Jurchen tribe, but he could not guarantee that under the influence of the Ming Empire, there would be other surrounding alien races that would grow stronger because of the progress of civilization, and eventually rise to become an alien force that could not be ignored by the Ming Dynasty.

Nurhachi can be eliminated early, but there is no guarantee that a character like Nurhachi will appear.

The root of the Ming Dynasty's extinction by alien races is still in itself, if it is not for the decline of the Ming Dynasty itself, it will not easily replace the country by alien races.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao is still trying his best to transform his Ming Empire, as for the Jianzhou Jurchen, he does not plan to touch it, let the Jianzhou Jurchen continue to develop according to the original history, at least the alien race that Zhu Houzhao is familiar with, even if it rises, it can be more sure to eliminate it.

But Zhu Houzhao affirmed in his heart that if he was about to die one day, he would have to stipulate in his edict that the kings of later generations would first get rid of the Jianzhou Jurchens, or he would get rid of the Jianzhou Jurchens in the last few years.

The current military strategic center of the Ming Dynasty is still in Outer Mongolia, and the forces left by the former Yuan are still the alien races that the Ming Dynasty needs to guard against the most.

But because they have been in charge of the Central Plains, although they owe a lot of sins in the process of becoming the master, they are also affected by different degrees of sinicization, so Zhu Houzhao feels that it is not difficult to transform Mongolia, and he is confident that they will continue to be sinicized, and eventually become a historical term like the Xiongnu Turks.

But the real pressure still comes from within the Ming Empire.

After the Hetao was recovered, Ma Wensheng said that the imperial court needed to formulate a strategy to defend the Hetao, and also provided advice, saying that what was needed most now was not soldiers and horses, but grain and grass.

After all, after the Ming Dynasty recovered the Hetao, they could not let the border army go to other border towns like the Mongolian iron cavalry to supplement their supplies by plundering their own people.

The problem of whether there is enough food is not big, the territory of the Han and Tang empires was so vast, and the grain output of the inland farming society can still be supported, and it has also created a glorious prosperous era.

Daming can naturally do it too.

But the big problem is that the transportation of grain, this cost, will drag down the finances of the central court.

In the past, dynasties mostly used the way of tuntian, and the Ming Dynasty also used this method.

However, one of the drawbacks of Tuntian is that it is easy to turn professional soldiers into professional farmers, so that although the financial pressure on the empire will be reduced, the national defense strength will be sharply reduced, and the ability to expand abroad will also be reduced.

Ma Wensheng didn't understand why His Majesty hadn't issued an order to allow him to be in Hetao Tuntian, because if he didn't want to do it again, he could only retreat with the border army and take the initiative to give up the land of Hetao, and he didn't have more silver taels to mobilize more grain to Hetao.

He was worried that next year, once the military department recruited more soldiers to enrich the border army, the financial pressure on the empire would increase a lot, and if he could not make the Hetao realize the self-support of the army, he had been a secretary of the household department, and he knew how much financial resources it would take to continuously supply the food of the border army in the entire Hetao area.