The shadow of the sun is frosty, and the sound of the wind is thin.

In the afternoon, near dusk, at the intersection of Yujie and Renhe Yaqian Street, a low platform was hastily erected.

Around the platform, there was a crowded crowd of people, not only more than 1,000 people in scarves and shirts, but also people who should have gone home to celebrate the New Year.

Perhaps, for many people, eating melons is more interesting than celebrating the holidays.

At first, most of the people were in high spirits and jubilant, thinking that they were going to put on a big show.

Because the busy soldiers of the Eastern Guards in the field are the messengers who send blessings to every household today.

It wasn't until fifty or sixty men and women with their hands tied on their backs were escorted onto the platform that the people realized that something was wrong with the atmosphere.

"Huh? It's a big holiday, which one is this singing?"

"This posture looks like a court execution platform......

"Hey, hey... There are a few officials in official uniforms, and most of the others seem to be from the yamen, which is really unusual."

"What great sin has you committed that you have to deal with in this year? It's going to be a good time for people to spend the New Year."

"We don't know what's going on, but it looks like it should be what King Yan meant......

"Ahh What does His Royal Highness King Yan mean? That's fine, it's going to be these guys!"

On the platform, there were a total of fifty-eight people kneeling, most of them with blue noses and swollen faces, and they were not lightly taught a lesson, so even if they were shaking like sifting chaff, they didn't dare to make a sound.

Zhao Heyun walked to the front of the stage and read out the charges aloud.

The people gradually quieted down, but when they listened to it, they all became indignant, and before Zhao Heyun could read out the verdict, they shouted one after another.

"Kill! It's not as good as killing these pigs and dogs!"

"It's really a loss of conscience, such a wicked person, if you don't kill it, you can still keep it for the New Year!?"

"These corrupt officials who have entered the dog should be cut with a thousand cuts!"

"Even the lonely old people and children are not spared, is this still a human being?!"

"Such a despicable and shameless act is truly the wrath of man and God, and even a hundred deaths cannot justify his sins!"

"Amitabha, how can anyone do such an evil deed, I'm afraid that the Buddha will smoke when he sees it, so hurry up and send them to Abi Hell."

Zhao Heyun saw that the people's sentiment was boiling, so he had to wait for a while before letting the Eastern Guards blow the bronze whistle and restore order.

Then he continued to read out, "This case, the amount of money involved is not particularly huge, but it has cut off the last hope of the lonely people, caused hundreds of deaths, lost the court's sense of mercy, damaged the public trust of the government, shook the foundation of the country, and the circumstances are heinous, destroying the basic conscience of human beings, therefore, for the sake of righteousness and warning the world, His Royal Highness King Yan is determined to give a heavy sentence."

"Sentenced, the four criminals Lai Jiang, Guo Mei, Wang Laishi, and Lian Caiying were sentenced to capital punishment, and they were stripped of their skins and grass......

"Sentenced, the criminals Li Hongbo, He Fan, and Guo Sanqi...... Fifty-four, the heads of the owls are displayed to the public, and they will be executed immediately!"

Although the people shouted and shouted and killed just now, when they heard that so many people were really going to be executed at one time, they still felt their scalps tingle, especially the torture of peeling and pulling grass, which they had never heard of but understood as soon as they heard it, and they had goosebumps.

The criminal law of the Song Dynasty was mainly inherited from the Tang Dynasty, but the sentence was much heavier, taking the crime of theft as an example, those who accumulated more than five times of stolen money were executed, and those who were less than five times were also sentenced to 20 canes and three years of service.

In terms of the death penalty, in addition to the conventional hanging, beheading, and cane death, in the Xiaozong period, Ling Chi was officially included in the statutory punishment.

However, in actual judicial practice, special emphasis is placed on prudence and tolerance, and as long as it is not a crime that endangers the rule, it is often treated leniently, perhaps to highlight benevolence.

Among them, there is a system of reversal and special investigation, which seems to be full of human touch, that is, any condemned prisoner who shouts that he has been wronged before being executed will be remanded for a new trial, thus delaying the death penalty.

At this time, the government needs to send another official to review, or another judicial body to retry the case, in order to show fairness, and it generally takes half a year to go through the process again.

Of course, in order to prevent someone from taking advantage of this system to drag

Delay time, evade sanctions, the opportunity for everyone to change is limited, in the Northern Song Dynasty it was three times, and at this time it was five times.

There are exceptions, such as the Song Xiaozong period, which is relatively politically clear, and it is said that a person was sentenced to death, but he has always refused to accept it, and shouted that he was wronged every time he was beheaded.

may be in order to convince the prisoner, he actually let him avenge his grievances more than ten times, and in the end, even the officials on trial couldn't stand it, and obviously couldn't find proof of the prisoner's innocence, but this person just insisted on shouting injustice.

In the end, he had no choice but to ask Xiaozong, and Xiaozong didn't know what he thought, so he really approved him to be exempted from the death penalty and let the prisoner pick up a life.

Therefore, most of the time, the Song Dynasty did not execute many executions every year, and in a few years there was no one.

In Zhao Mengqi's view, this kind of thing is actually a kind of judicial injustice, and it is even a little hypocritical, so he doesn't feel that there is anything wrong with not sentencing according to the law.

In addition, it is particularly lenient for official crimes, and the Song Criminal Code even stipulates, "If an official commits a crime, he will go to the official incident, or if the incident occurs to the official, the public crime will not be counted, and the rest of the crime will be like the law." That is, after leaving office, some crimes will no longer be criminally responsible.

From here, it can be seen that the Song Dynasty is really fucking tolerant of civil officials, well, in fact, it is not only the Song Dynasty......

But at the moment, Zhao Mengqi is very unaccustomed to this, and can't help but want to bump into it, even if it can't be bumped at the moment, it's good to pry open a little opening.

What's more, if the corrupt atmosphere of this official rule is not stopped, everything else will be in vain, even if there are no Mongols, this country will collapse.

For Zhao Mengqi's thoughts, others may not be able to understand.

There were more than 1,000 people present, all of whom resented the crimes of the Salesian Bureau and the officials of the nursing home, but many people thought that King Yan's punishment was too brutal and was not done by the master, so the gaze on the platform was very complicated, and some people even had a feeling of sadness for the death of a rabbit and a fox.

In the outskirts of the crowd, a few people came late, and one of them said, "This punishment of skinning seems to be not inferior to Ling Chi, and I heard that it will be hung in the tribute courtyard afterwards, isn't this an insult to me and other scholars?"

A burly man on the side twisted his sword eyebrows, and worry appeared in his clear eyes, "Whether it is Ling Chi or skinning, it is too vicious, sentimental and peaceful, and the loss of benevolent government is really not suitable for the prosperous world."

"It's not a prosperous time now, and it's time to use heavy rules to govern." The other, who looked older, shook his head, as if he didn't agree with the two friends' views.

Kui Wei was stunned for a moment, then turned his head and looked back, "Brother Junzhi, do you think King Yan is doing the right thing?" Tianxiang is young and knowledgeable, and I can't see the deep meaning, so please advise."

It turned out that this Kui Weiju was surnamed Wen, his name was Yunsun, and his name was Tianxiang, but he used Tianxiang as his name when he participated in the test, and he was only twenty-one years old after the New Year.

And the first to speak was his brother Wen Bi, who was one year younger than him, and the older one was Xie Fangde, the word Junzhi, all three of them were from Jiangxi, and they came to Lin'an to take the exam together after passing the exam.

Xie Fang saw that the Wen brothers were looking at him with blazing eyes, and they didn't seem to give up without giving a good reason, so he couldn't help but smile bitterly.

"Hey, I can't say that I can advise, it's just that the ancestors were all in the officialdom, so the foolish brother knows a little bit more."

He brushed his thoughts for a moment and continued, "Speaking of which, after the Nandu, when the rule of officials was the strictest and the style of officials was the most upright, it was none other than the Xiaozong Dynasty.

"But after that, the atmosphere of officialdom gradually collapsed, and there were fewer and fewer honest people, and today, if it is said that the corrupt and stupid people often live in six or seven, it may be a bit too much, but half of them are absolute."

"The officials are having a rich salary, which is a little better, but the miscellaneous officials and the like have intensified, squeezing and exploiting the people and thinking that they can do something......

Generally speaking, in the early Song Dynasty, special attention was paid to the separation of powers and checks and balances in the system, and it was difficult for any official to hold absolute power.

Later, when the official system was changed, power became more and more centralized, and Taiwan officials became vassals of those in power, and they lost their effective supervision of power

It's getting worse and worse.

Xie Fangde finally said, "Therefore, His Royal Highness King Yan is now dealing with this corruption case seriously, not to give a warning to the officialdom."

After listening to these words, the youngest Wen Bi seemed to change his opinion, "In the past, my father also denounced the corruption of officialdom, but I didn't know the inside story, and I didn't know the specifics, Brother Jun's words made people feel relieved, it turned out that the rule of officials has been corrupted like this, so it is worth ...... to exchange dozens of heads for officials to rule Qingming."

"Erlang, don't make up your mind too early." Wen Tianxiang scolded his younger brother softly, "Anyway, if the head falls off, you can't take it back, no matter what, you should be cautious, King Yan...... Perhaps the higher-ups have different thoughts and worries than us, and it would be better to see what their original intentions are." qδ

"My brother taught me that I was superficial." Wenbi has a sincere attitude and is open-minded to be taught.

Looking at the appearance of the two brothers, Xie Fangde admired Father Wen's way of teaching his son.

"The world's comments on King Yan are mixed, and there are good and bad ones, which makes people look at flowers in a fog, and it is difficult to see the truth, so what he is doing now is indeed difficult to guess, let's take a look and talk about it."

At this time, the stage had already experienced itself and was ready to start the execution.

A row of eleven prisoners were escorted to the front of the platform and knelt down, each of them stuffed with gray rice balls, both for their decapitated meals and to prevent them from shouting indiscriminately.

At this point, it is obvious that Zhao Mengqi does not talk about tradition and rules.

The eyes of the prisoners were full of fear and remorse, and they probably felt that they were wronged, but it was so unfair that they had to lose their heads after taking "a little" money.

It's a pity that Zhao Mengqi didn't plan to be fair with them.

The Eastern Guard soldier who was executing took out the slender Qianniu knife at his waist and sprayed the wine in his mouth on the blade.

Judging from the movements, they were slightly stiff and seemed nervous, after all, none of them had actually killed anyone before.

Zhao Heyun had never even seen a killing, but today he was the one who gave the order.

"Prepare for execution! Raise the knife ......"

With a bang, the eleven sharp blades pointed diagonally into the sky, like a mirror, reflecting the blood-red rays of the sunset.

"Slash!"

The knife flashed, and the human head was washed out of the air by the blood spring, and fell into the snow under the stage, rolling indiscriminately.

"Mending ......"

Hearing the order, the soldier kicked the headless corpse that was still in a kneeling position, and was spewing bloody arrows.

"Thorn!"

The soldier held the hilt of his sword in both hands and stabbed the bloody knife into the back of the corpse's heart.

"Next round!"