In the General Office of the Procuratorate on Criminal Department Street, Li Kuilong pinched his beard and said with some worry: "Is this Li Jin reliable or not, but I used my official position to guarantee it in front of His Majesty and the cabinet, in exchange for such an opportunity for Qian Shisheng to be publicly prosecuted." If he messes up, I'm afraid I'm going to be out of luck. ”

The cronies standing next to him hurriedly comforted him and said: "With Jin Guangchen supervising on the side, presumably Li Jin should not show any major mistakes, and please rest assured that you will wait for the approval results." ”

Being persuaded by his cronies like this, Li Kuilong became even more restless, and after walking back and forth in the hall a few times, he said: "When you talk about Jin Guangchen, I am more worried, this guy is too similar to me, and the wind has always blown in that direction, and he will fall wherever he goes." In the past few days, Yuan Dang in the Criminal Department has been jumping hard, this guy won't retreat, right? I knew we should have someone else to be the inspector of this case. ”

Seeing Li Kuilong's flustered appearance, his cronies had no choice but to say: "Otherwise, we will send someone to the compound of the Criminal Department next door to listen to the trial process of the case, and let them report it every few minutes, and the adults will know if there is a problem in this case." ”

Li Kuilong immediately stopped, looked at him and stared at him and said, "Then you don't want to send someone to keep an eye on it, do you want to be a door god here?" ”

The cronie shouted in his heart that he was obsessed, and at the same time he hurriedly agreed, and bowed down and exited the hall.

The compound of the Criminal Department, which is separated by a wall from the General Administration of the Procuratorate, is very lively today. The compound, which was once heavily guarded and forbade outsiders to enter and leave at will, is now crowded with citizens and reporters who have come to hear the trial.

This was the first time in the history of the Ming Dynasty that a high-ranking official in the imperial court had been forced to publicly accept a complaint from a prosecutor. In the past, only convicted officials would be tried in public.

When Qian Shisheng walked into the lobby, he shook his head vigorously and sighed: "Sven sweeps the floor, Sven sweeps the floor..."

Like Li Kuilong, Hui Shiyang, Ni Yuanlu and other backbone members of the Yuan Party who were sitting in the back hall were also extremely nervous. Hui Shiyang looked at Ni Yuanlu uneasily and asked, "Qian Zhizhi really doesn't want to hire a lawyer to defend himself?" Will he be able to handle it on his own? If this is not handled well, he will be completely finished. ”

Ni Yuanlu was much calmer than him, and after hearing Hui Shiyang's question, he explained: "Brother I think that those who are clean will clear themselves." If he really found someone to defend him, he proved that he was weak-hearted. Besides, Li Jin is just a vulgar villain, and if he wants to convict him with scripture and righteousness in front of everyone, he will not be afraid of this kind of battle of tongues.

In addition, the official who presided over the trial this time was Zhang Shenyan, who had just been transferred from Nanjing to Beijing. This person has a good official reputation and has a reputation for being honest and honest. With him, my brother shouldn't suffer anything..."

In the lobby of the Criminal Department to hear the case, Ao, according to the name of Chongzhen after changing his name in the ninth year, it should be called the court. There are three reconstructed courtrooms in the compound of the Criminal Department, and the first courtroom that tried Qian Shisheng's case today is the largest courtroom in the compound.

Although the first courtroom is the largest, the citizens and reporters who came to hear the trial were only isolated by a wooden fence under the steps, standing in the open-air courtyard and watching the courtroom debate.

After the reform, the court is obviously more popular than in the past, and although there are still some officials in the hall who maintain order, they no longer hold water and fire sticks in their hands to scare people.

The judge presiding over the trial sits in the middle of the lobby, and the judge sits diagonally on either side, with the supervisor supervising the trial on the right and the clerk recording the trial on the left. As for the prosecutor who used to sit one step below the judge, now he has moved to the west seat, facing the east of the prosecutor, which is the seat of the person who is being accused by the prosecutor.

After this reform, it means that the prosecutor no longer has the power to convict the person who is prosecuted, and only the judge in the court will be able to make the final decision.

This kind of formal change is obviously more progressive than the previous method of triage by the three legal divisions. At the very least, the subject of the trial is not presupposed to be a guilty person before the trial.

However, the citizens of Beijing who came to watch the public trial obviously did not understand what this change in the pattern meant, and they just came to watch the excitement. Even those reporters sent by the newspapers and periodicals in Beijing were just thinking about whether they could hear some exciting news today, so that they could go back and report to the editor-in-chief.

Obviously, the wishes of these people and reporters have not been disappointed, although the young prosecutor Li Jin was a little nervous at the beginning, which made the courtroom look a little dull, but then he became more and more sophisticated, and firmly grasped the hearts of these people outside the courtroom.

At the beginning of the first year, Li Jin successively asked Qian Shisheng on the opposite side about several subordinate officials offering and accepting bribes to him, but the other party unsurprisingly denied all of them, or immediately asked him to let some officials appear in court to confront him.

Publicly accusing Qian Shisheng, a high-ranking official from Sanpin, is already the limit of the cabinet's concessions, and it is obviously impossible to bring other officials to court to confront him. Qian Shisheng obviously also understands this fact, so he can have the courage to confront him, and by the way, he scolded Li Jin, saying that he was a villain, trying in vain to frame the minister, and trying to get into the clouds.

Seeing that the people who were watching gradually began to lean towards Qian Shisheng's false accusation, Zhang Shenyan, who was in charge of the case, did not want to continue the trial, thus damaging the reputation of the Criminal Department.

He couldn't help interrupting the trial, summoned Li Jin and Jin Guangchen and asked in a low voice: "Is there any actual evidence on the prosecutor's side to prove Qian Shisheng, if not, don't go on with the trial later, so as not to embarrass the procuratorate." ”

Jin Guangchen was a little hesitant, but Li Jin took a deep breath and replied to Zhang Shenyan: "Please give me a little more time." ”

Zhang Shenyan looked at him, then at the people listening outside the courtroom, and finally nodded and said: "Okay, if you can't find any more favorable evidence, I will immediately pronounce that the charges against Lord Qian are not established, I hope you will do it yourself." ”

After Li Jin returned to his seat, he pulled out a stack of papers from the bottom of the document on the desktop, and then turned to Qian Shisheng and said, "Lord Qian, as an official of the imperial court, you enjoy the preferential treatment of the imperial court, and you should serve the country and be loyal to the country and Your Majesty. But you, your family, and your in-laws have unscrupulously undermined the laws of the imperial court, do you admit to the following acts..."

Before Li Jin finished speaking, Qian Shisheng had already interrupted him angrily and said: "It's just nonsense, the old man has a clear conscience in his life since he was promoted, and he has always been loyal to His Majesty and Daming."

You villain, you can't frame the old man today, do you still want to pour dirty water on the old man's family and relatives? ”

Li Jin replied without any confusion: "Lord Qian doesn't have to be angry, I have something to read here, whether it is to pour dirty water on the adult's family and relatives, the adult will know when he hears it." ”

Without waiting for Qian Shisheng to object, Li Jin looked at the document in his hand and read it out, "Since Jiajing revised the rules for the preferential exemption of officials and gentry in the 24th year, it has been indicated that the ding, grain, and fields outside the quota must be on the same errand with the people. In the first year, the third year, and the fifth year of Chongzhen, the imperial court once again discussed the revision of the rules for the preferential exemption of officials and gentry.

The main changes are: the preferential treatment of Beijing officials and foreign officials is treated equally; The preferential treatment is only allowed to benefit relatives within three generations, and in-laws and donors are not exempt; The food exemption for officials above the fifth grade has been changed to a subsidy; Tian and Ding shall not fold each other, etc.

But Mr. Qian, now someone has reported you, you have taken the subsidy of grain exemption, but you still enjoy the grain exemption of your family's fields, and Chongzhen has not paid a penny of tax and grain since the first year. Moreover, the preferential treatment given to you by the imperial court not only benefits your family and relatives, but also your in-laws and your donors.

And that's not even counting the fact that your own land alone is ten times more than your credit, not to mention the fields of your clansmen, in-laws, and donors. According to our verification investigation, in addition to these fields, there are more than 6,500 acres of Weiji fields and more than 12,500 acres of Huafen fields in your home, and the state will lose more than 5,000 stone of tax grain every year on your family alone.

Do you know that every 25 stones of grain in Shanxi, Shaanxi and other places can save the life of a disaster victim. The national tax you steal every year is enough for the imperial court to rescue 2,000 people.

In addition, the imperial court has repeatedly reiterated that the preferential exemption from Ding service is not a single exemption, and there is no one hundred servitudes. However, your relatives and contributors have never been drawn into conscription since the forty-fifth year of Wanli, and during the same period, at least one-third of the people of Jiaxing Prefecture have to serve every year. Lord Qian, is this how you serve the country and Your Majesty? ”

The people, who were originally quite sympathetic to Qian Shisheng, suddenly changed their attitude after listening to Li Jinnian's document, and they couldn't help but despise Qian Shisheng.

Although the bribery between officials is hateful, the main concern for this point is the imperial court, and most of the people do not feel it.

But tax evasion is different, officials have already received so much preferential treatment, and they continue to evade the state's taxes and rations, and forced labor, isn't this just snatching food rations from the rice bowls of their people.

Since Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, he began to clarify the use of the world's tax revenues and distinguish between state and household use. Over the years, public investment in water conservancy and disaster relief has also made the people of the Ming Dynasty gradually understand that state tax revenue should be used for national construction, not for the enjoyment of the emperor and bureaucrats.

Therefore, the people of the capital, who were just watching the excitement just now, suddenly stood on the side of the prosecutor psychologically.

Qian Shisheng naturally would not answer Li Jin's question head-on, and the evidence presented by the other party was not incriminating evidence at all in his opinion. Since ancient times, the bureaucrats and gentry of which dynasty did not do this.

That is, now the emperor has to separate his family and the country, and the emperors of the past dynasties did not regard the country as their home, and the national wealth was the family wealth. What happened to them, the ministers who managed the common people for the emperor, to move some of the people's wealth to their homes? Isn't this the biggest part in the hands of the emperor?

This kind of unspoken rule in officialdom, how could Qian Shisheng say it in front of these people outside, he could only close his eyes and shake his head and say: "Villain, really villain." It's insulting, I don't know what to say..."