Chuzhou is located in the southeast of Datang and the south of Yangzhou.

The current state is not the state of later generations, of course, the name of the state may be a little unfamiliar, in fact, it is the Lishui of later generations.

Chuzhou was founded in the reign of Emperor Kaihuang of Sui, according to which it was only more than 30 years.

The remoteness, poor transportation, lack of people, and the uncomfortable climate have caused a relatively closed environment.

Climatic problems are present in almost the entire south, mainly because most of the ancients were active in the Central Plains, or further north, with four distinct seasons and dry air.

In the south, there is a lot of water, especially in the coastal areas, the air is humid, and in the winter it is even colder.

Not to mention the Tang Dynasty, even in the later dynasties such as the Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty, the south was not the center of gravity of these dynasties.

It is precisely because of the special geographical location of these places and the relatively closed environment that the army has to focus on defense, and there is almost no decent war there, so the daily life of the army is all kinds of training.

caught this gang in training again and wiped it out, I have to say that luck still occupies a large part.

What Zhang Xingcheng brought was a simple directory and a basic summary, and the specific files were archived in the Criminal Department.

Although the emperor has to review a person's life and death, he does not have time to go through the specific files one by one, and if he really wants to do this, he will waste at least half of his time in a year.

Therefore, for the officials who write the summary of the directory, the requirements are relatively high.

The most important thing must be expressed in the shortest possible content, and in addition to this, Li Yuanji also implemented two different systems.

Take the outline of the directory in hand, in fact, it was completed by two officials, and these two officials represent different departments, to put it bluntly, these two people are the lawyers within the criminal department.

One is in charge of the guilty plea and the other is in charge of the not guilty plea.

Those in charge of guilty prosecution should discuss all the specific charges and so on, and no suspicious points should be let go.

And the not-guilty defense is actually a literal meaning, looking for a trace of cattiness from the file, even if there is even the slightest possibility, it is necessary to conduct a not-guilty debate.

The disadvantage of this is that it greatly increases the workload of the Criminal Department, prolongs the time for handling cases, etc., but the advantage is that there will hardly be any unjust, false and wrongful cases, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, but after all, as an emperor, he has the power to decide a person's life and death, and Li Yuanji does not want to make a decision to disregard people's lives one day.

"Have you found out the exact number of victims?" Looking at the contents of the directory summary, Li Yuanji seemed to have found some minor problems.

"Avoidance, I've basically found out." Zhang Xingcheng responded.

"How can the investigation be described as basic? Clear is clear, unclear is unclear! Li Yuanji reprimanded with a serious face, not that he felt that there was any grievance in this case, "Continue to investigate, these more than 30 people have all human lives in their hands, how can there be only more than 30 victims?" I know that this case is a bit difficult to handle, but no matter how difficult it is, I must find a way to figure out all the circumstances, otherwise once these people are executed, those victims who have not been recruited will not become lonely ghosts? ”

With such a large gang and such a shrewd criminal mind, and such a strong sense of investigation and counter-reconnaissance, is it possible that the victims are only equal to the number of members of their gang?

Although this is indeed possible, Li Yuanji does not believe it.

According to the confession, the targets they chose were all selective, first, the children of the little rich families who had a domineering personality and liked to wander outside. Second, don't attack the eldest son or grandson of the other family, or important clansmen. Third, every crime requires a long period of stalking and investigation, and even the escape route has been carefully planned and stepped on.

This is the main reason why these people have survived to this day.

A small rich family, what is a small rich? The landlords in the village, the down-and-out aristocrats in the county, these people often do not have too many connections in the officialdom, as long as they can clean up their tails, the possibility of the crime is not very large, plus the victim's personality and behavior problems, even if they are missing, there is almost a high possibility that they will be considered to have run away.

Of course, this group of people is very smart, so smart that they even found a few women to join the gang together, and according to their confessions, their methods are not much different from those of the immortal jump, which also makes the other family even more convinced that their descendants were not killed, but ran away.

At this time, don't say it's reporting to the official, as long as people don't report to the official, it's okay.

And when they encounter some really powerless and powerless little rich families, they will even come to the door to ask for compensation, but this is only a few cases.

And the capital of the little rich is nothing compared to those big families, how much money can these uncompetitive children have?

Even if you kill it, how many of them can get your hands on it?

How much money is needed to maintain a gang of more than 30 people?

These people must not be viewed with the living standards of ordinary people, after all, they are living a life of licking blood from the knife, who will wronged themselves?

With just these 30 or so victims, it is far from being able to sustain them for so long.

Li Yuanji didn't think that they shouldn't be killed, but before killing again, he wanted to bring more cases to the surface and let more souls who were still under the haze see the light of day.

Keep reading, the people on the list are complex, and there are all kinds of people.

Because of some trivial things, after years of accumulation, they finally broke out, and then rose up to kill people.

There are people who kill people because of mistakes, in short, compared to that gang, these people can only be regarded as pediatrics in terms of their means of crime and brains.

Li Yuanji just drew a circle on the names of some people he thought were suspicious, and motioned to the criminal department to continue the in-depth investigation.

Although the system already exists, it is still difficult to put some relevant norms in place in one step, after all, they are not professional lawyers, and there is no legal provision that there is no doubt about the guilt in these years.

As for whether those suspected crimes are from nothing or from there, it all depends on the emperor's personal mood, the emperor said that there is something, and the emperor said that there is nothing.

However, in the third stage of the list, Li Yuanji saw an old acquaintance.

Hou Junji.

The charges are obvious, cholera military discipline, and disobedience to military orders.

The Innocence Defense Division of the Criminal Department has abandoned its defense, and military regulations are often simpler and more straightforward, with no justification at all.

Hou Junji is a boss, he gave the order, and he robbed the most, how can this be defended? Someone instigated? But as the commander-in-chief, you can be instigated by others, where is your IQ?

In addition, the case itself involves the military, so the criminal department did not plan to go too deep, but just listed several regulations that violated military regulations and laid out the evidence.

That is to say, the criminal department does not excessively do guilty lawsuits, nor does it do not defend innocence, and you have the ability to let the emperor's general Hou Junji's name come out of here, and we are only responsible for seeking truth from facts and handing over the existing information, and the rest has nothing to do with us.

Regarding Hou Junji's matter, Li Yuanji did not follow the prescribed process.

After all, Hou Junji is a general of Datang, although there are big problems with his personal character and discipline, but after all, he has a huge contribution to Datang.

So before that, Li Yuanji had already reviewed it twice, and the results were all beheaded, and now for the third time, Li Yuanji was still a little hesitant.

On the one hand, he didn't want to kill a person who had contributed to Datang just like that, and what he did was nothing more than to satisfy his greed.

But on the other hand, if you don't kill Hou Junji, you can't explain to the military regulations and other soldiers, the military regulations are used to restrain all soldiers, not only to restrain grassroots soldiers, if Hou Junji doesn't die, other generals will do the same, what should I do? And what about the army?

Li Yuanji was very entangled and hesitant.

These three stages did not really set the process of Hou Junji's life and death, although he was put together with the death row prisoners.

But in fact, these three stages just made Li Yuanji make up his mind, and saw whether to put him on the list of death row prisoners, if he also signed the letter this time, then next, a new round of death row prisoner process will be carried out, first by the emperor for the first time, after the cabinet review the second time, the emperor for the third time, and then after the autumn.

The process of ordinary death row prisoners only takes one year, but Li Yuanji gave Hou Junji two years, a total of six opportunities.

Li Yuanji tried to convince himself, but in the end he failed.

It's not difficult not to kill Hou Junji, just exile him and never hire him.

But on the one hand, the words he once said in history, whether it was a complaint or a truth, for the emperor, this kind of remarks could not be ignored.

Li Yuanji didn't want to raise the second eldest grandson Wuji, in fact, compared with the eldest grandson Wuji, Hou Junji was obviously more threatening to the imperial court.

He knows soldiers, he knows soldiers, he can use robbery to improve the combat effectiveness and morale of the army, although the final result is unlikely to succeed, but if he is really allowed to rebel, how much will Datang lose?

As a monarch, he has great ambitions, and he is far less useful than knowing how to balance the various forces.

I hope Hou Junji can be as sensible and witty as Cheng Zhijie or Fang Xuanling, if that's the case, I don't have to have a headache because of these now.

Kill? Don't kill?

It's a dilemma, but Li Yuanji prefers to kill this side.

After thinking about it for a long time, Li Yuanji still couldn't make up his mind, once he signed it, he would have to go through the process officially, even if he got the cabinet, no one would dare to refute it.

"I'll wait a minute, I'll see him before I make a decision!"