In the summer of the third year of China, when the European continent was in turmoil, the whole country of China had just experienced a great debate, a great debate on the law. The cause of this unprecedented debate is very simple.

In the autumn of the first year of the Chinese dynasty, a sea ship of the Yanzhou Liangcheng Ji Trading Company docked at Jingkou, which was loaded with high-quality sandalwood, ivory and red and green gems and other Zhenla specialties transported from the Funan and Jiubu (i.e., Zhenla, present-day Cambodia) area of the South China Sea.

However, when the goods arrived in Beijing, the situation changed dramatically, or "the market changed dramatically", so what should have been a normal transaction suddenly became full of uncertainties.

Shortly after the ship set sail from Xianglin (present-day Da Nang, Vietnam), which had not long been occupied by the Chinese, in the spring of the first year of the Chinese era, more than 40,000 troops stationed in the northern part of Linyi fought with the troops who had rushed to the rescue of the country to the west of Linyi, and then involved the suzerainty of Funan, which had not been in trouble. The final result was that the king of Funan, Zhu Zhantan, issued an order announcing the severance of all contacts with the Huaxia Kingdom, the expulsion of Chinese merchants, the prohibition of Chinese ships from docking, and so on.

As a result, the various South China Sea specialties that were originally imported into China from Funan, Jiubushi and other countries are gone. And this kind of goods in the north and south of China was originally in great demand, basically in a situation where the demand slightly exceeded the supply, and now the goods are out of stock, and I don't know when the supply will be restored, the price of these goods has risen all of a sudden.

Just as the Jiangdong Trading Company was watching the price of the "Business Daily" change day by day, and thinking about how much profit it could make from this transaction, Liangcheng Ji played a trick that completely shattered the dream of the Jiangdong Trading Company.

The ship encountered a sea breeze east of Zhuya County (present-day Hainan Island, set up in the first year of Huaxia and placed under the jurisdiction of Guangzhou along with Hepu County). He almost sank to the bottom of the sea, but fortunately, God forbid, he struggled and floated to Xuwengang in Hepu County (now Xuwen County at the southern tip of the Leizhou Peninsula), where it took more than two months to finish. And some of the goods have also entered the water, and they will be on the boat after Xu Wen has dried them.

According to the usual practice in the past and the provisions of the Chinese Maritime Trade Law, these goods entered the water, and as the buyer, the Jiangdong Trading Company, they could ask for the goods or not want the goods, but they could ask the seller, Liangcheng Trading Company, to compensate a certain amount of money according to the selling price (the price sold to the Jiangdong Trading Company). But in this case, the Koto trading company can't take care of so much. As long as the goods are in hand, it is good because most of the goods here are different from tea, cloth and silk. The sea water is wet, and as long as it dries, it's fine.

However, the Ryosei Trading Company was reluctant to hand over the goods, and they came up with a way to try to make the goods their own. They took out the documents issued by the Xuwengang Port Bureau. Prove that your ship met the sea breeze. The goods were flooded, so they applied to the Jingkou Customs and the Gwangneeong-gun Shangcao, and took the initiative to ask for compensation for the losses to be treated as maritime losses and to be paid to the Koto Trading Company.

The Koto Trading Company did not agree, and now this ship of goods is really a strange cargo. Even if it enters the water, the quality is somewhat affected, but you can still sell it at more than three times the purchase price, what do I want you to do with the compensation equivalent to the purchase price? Don't agree, resolutely don't agree.

However, Ryosei Trading Company insisted on its own opinion. Jingkou Customs and Guangling County Shang Cao made a difficulty, Liangcheng Trading Company's trick is indeed not authentic, but they are in accordance with the laws and regulations, and you can't find a little mistake in the legal procedure, because the seller has the obligation and responsibility to provide the buyer with compensation for maritime and other transportation losses in accordance with the provisions of the contract agreement. The parties sat down to coordinate and negotiate for a long time. The merchants of Guangling County had to follow the provisions of the law. Ryosei Trading Company was required to compensate Koto Trading Company twice the contract price, and the Kyokou Customs also issued a document. As long as Ryosei Trading Company pays all the compensation, the "defective goods" of the ship entering the water will be released to Ryosei Trading Company.

The shopkeepers of the Jiangdong Trading Company were so angry that they vomited blood, what is this double compensation? With just one turn of hands, you can get twice the profit. However, these shopkeepers found commercial lawyers (that is, ancient lawyers, in the Beifu period, with the improvement of the independent judicial system in Beifu, lawyers whose duty as defense were recognized and regulated by Beifu law, and gradually replaced the informal profession of litigation-litigators)), and also listened to Guangling Shangcao and Jingkou Customs explain for so long, knowing that Liangcheng Trading Company was reasonable in terms of law, and Guangling Shangcao's decision was to try to make up for the loss of Jiangdong Trading Company, otherwise it would be less than half of the money to compensate for the price. Lin Lei

At the suggestion of a commercial lawyer, the Koto Trading Company submitted a complaint to the Kyoguchi District Court and sued the Ryosei Trading Company. Liangcheng Trading Company did not show weakness, hired commercial lawyers, and actively responded to the battle. This lawsuit lasted from the winter of the first year of Huaxia to the third year of Huaxia, from the Jingkou District Court to the Guangling County District Judicial Office, and finally to the Yangzhou Provincial Judicial Office. And this lawsuit has sparked more disputes.

Jiangdong Trading Company represents the interests of the nobles of the original Jiangzuo court, some of these nobles and nobles entered the three provinces, and most of them entered the national school, although they did not have the power of calling for wind and rain before, but their influence is still not to be underestimated, especially because of their identity, so they can also get the right to speak in public opinion.

From the beginning of the lawsuit, the people behind the Jiangdong Trading Company began to use their connections to find the Metaphysical Didi Newspaper and several private newspapers related to the old people of Jiangzuo, and began to report on the ins and outs of the case, and paid close attention to the trial process of the case. It is a sad thing that these people pointed out in the newspapers that the foundation of business is integrity, and that the Liangcheng Trading Company is using the law, which is supposed to be used to protect integrity, is a tool that should be used to protect integrity. Not to be outdone, the New School, which was morally inferior, fought back in order to ensure that the Chinese legal system, the result of the concept of the rule of law, was achieved. They pointed out in the newspaper that it is impossible for anyone to predict everything that will happen in the future, that only by eating and practicing can one become wiser, and only when there is a problem can the law be revised according to the problem.

The Koto faction, however, retorted bitterly that in the end, it was necessary to make the common people (and now these scholars have no choice but to consider themselves part of the people. How much is it to lose to make the law perfect? And if the law is never perfect, then is it necessary for the people to bear the loss forever?

In the end, the controversy began to turn into a big controversy between the old and the new schools, with the conservatives taking advantage of the problems that the radicals had managed to expose with great difficulty and concentrating their firepower to lash out, and the radicals using their superiority in public opinion and "academic circles" to fight back. In the summer of the third year of Huaxia. The two factions, who couldn't convince anyone, were no longer willing to quarrel endlessly like this, and they both turned their eyes to Zeng Hua, each sorted out their opinions completely, and asked Zeng Hua to make a decision. In this great controversy, the three provinces of China and the Dali Temple, which had already realized the shortcomings of China's legislation and judicial system, also put forward their own opinions and demanded amendments and improvements.

Zeng Hua followed these document reports, and muttered in his heart. He is not a law major in another world, but he only learned half-baked legal knowledge on the other world. But after all, Zeng Hua is a person who knows more about thousands of years of history, and he understands very well the final trend of the rule of law society and the rule of man, but the foundation of the rule of law cannot be abandoned! This is the first sentence Zeng Hua said to himself, but how to carry out an effective rule of law, instead of some kind of false rule of law?

Zeng Hua slowly summed up some of the legal education and impressions he received in another world. The rule of law is not about convincing people with virtue. But it is not a denial of morality, because many laws are based on the moral concepts of people and society. It is to restrain people's behavior with strict norms and harsh punishments. In order to guarantee the rights of the people.

But what is the legal standard? Equality and justice? Zeng Hua didn't have any bottom in his heart, at this time he began to regret a little, how good it would have been to learn more Fa back then.

When he collected all the argumentative papers, he found that the conservative leader, Xie An, had made a suggestion. Folk customs are also included in the law. In order to close the loopholes in the current law. This suggestion made Zeng Hua suddenly think of the controversy between the law of the sea and the civil law system that he had seen on the Internet before, and he suddenly realized that his intention to revise a civil law that encompassed all the norms was an involuntary study of Napoleon's compilation of the Civil Code.

At this point, Zeng Hua began to think about which direction he was going to take the Chinese legal system? Zeng Hua summed up the characteristics of the two major legal systems based on what he had known and heard before.

The civil law system, which seems to be based on France and Germany, seems to emphasize that there must be a legal basis for adjudicating cases, emphasizing a clear division of labor between legislation and justice, and emphasizing the authority of law-making, and this legal system is relatively centralized (and historically, centralized countries have preferred to adopt civil law systems).

The law of the sea system, on the other hand, uses case law in addition to making law. That is, the judge's judgment can also be used as a legal basis, and in a sense, the judge also has a part of the legislative power. Moreover, compared with the civil law system, the law of the sea system attaches more importance to the role of lawyers, as the agent and defender of the plaintiff and the defendant. They occupy a certain degree of dominance in the proceedings.

Which legal system should I use? The merits and weaknesses of each legal system have been debated for the twenty-first century, with no outcome ever forthcoming. As a layman in the law, Zeng Hua is really difficult to give up.

looked at Zeng Hua hesitantly. Di Zengwei, who was transferred to the state secretary of Shangshu Province, saw it in his eyes, and persuaded him: "Father, what are you hesitating about? ”

"I'm wondering where our laws are going from here? Because we must now determine the basic idea of the law, and once this idea is established, our justice, administration, and even our customs will be affected, so I must be cautious. Zeng Hua stood in the garden, bathing in the morning sun of Chang'an summer.

"Father, I have heard you teach that the standard for judging right and wrong is different in each period, that is, the law we have established now may have to be revised in the past tens or hundreds of years, father, according to the child, the law can only be revised with the times." Zeng Wei thought twice before saying. "I'm glad you have that idea." Zeng Hua knew what Zeng Wei wanted to say, with Zeng Hua's status as the founding monarch, as long as the Zeng dynasty continued, the laws he made now would be valid forever, and anyone who wanted to revise it would have an insurmountable obstacle. So in a sense, the more perfect the law that Zeng Hua is enacting now, the more far-reaching the consequences will be if there is a problem. Therefore, Zeng Weicai tactfully suggested to Zeng Hua that there is no need to pursue perfection too much.

"I'm fifty-three years old now, and the obsession in my heart is getting bigger and bigger, I always want to finish everything, but I didn't expect that maybe the more I do, the more wrong I will be in the future." Zeng Hua put his hands behind his back. Standing in the garden, looking at the Longshouyuan in the distance, where a new palace is still being built - Daming Palace.

Zeng Wei watched Zeng Hua's hair fluttering slightly in the wind, and the love string in his heart was quietly plucked, Zeng Wei always thought that his father always had a very heavy sense of crisis. This sense of crisis, worried about the post-millennium in China, led his father to fight in the east and west, and to fight in the south and in the north, and then went to great lengths to establish a completely different political and ideological system, and for the sake of this system, he did not hesitate to eradicate and suppress dissidents by all means to ensure the smooth implementation of this system.

What was his father worried about? Zeng Wei thought secretly in his heart, but he had to admit that his father's gaze was different from ordinary people. You can always see through the fog of history.

"Wei'er, your words today have sobered me up a lot. If it's too rushed. Maybe it's the opposite. After a long time, Zeng Hua finally retracted his gaze, turned to Zeng Wei and said, "All I can do is open a window and let the sunlight in." Only to see the sun. People will know what darkness is and what to pursue. ”

On the second day, Zeng Hua convened a joint meeting of the three provinces and Dali Temple in the Zhongshu Provincial Assembly Hall, at which he proposed the draft of the Common Law. The principle of common law is set out in the first clause of chapter 1 of the draft: unless the legislation of the place of an event needs to be enacted by statute because of the requirements of the objective circumstances or for the settlement of disputes, it is only necessary to assess who is right and who is wrong according to the local customs in the past with respect to the matter. Therefore, in the "common law", in addition to the enactment of the law, it will be more effective in the customs and customs of the time and the views of the people in society on the matter.

In the Ordinary Act, Zeng Hua authorized the Zhengqing and Shaoqing of Dali Temple and the judges of their subordinate judicial departments at all levels to have "passive legislative power". This means that judges can use the principle of stare decisis to decide cases. The judgment of the case can be used as the basis for the judge's subsequent judgment. Of course, the basis of a judge's case should also be based on the relationship between the superior and the subordinate, that is, the case case of a superior judge can be used as the basis for the judgment of a lower judge, but the case case of a lower judge cannot be used by the judgment of a higher level.

In the Ordinary Act, Zeng Hua also emphasized the role of the secular and customary, and established the jury system. The court must draw a certain number of "legitimate" jurors from among the people at will. They can have no restrictions, such as knowledge, knowledge of the law. What they have to do is listen to the defendant and the plaintiff. Then judge the basic facts of the case according to the principle of one's own likes and dislikes, and then the minority obeys the majority, that is, whether the defendant is guilty, and the judge will then sentence according to the jury's verdict.

In addition, the Ordinary Act establishes a set of legal procedures that determine the role and status of all persons, including plaintiffs, defendants, counsel for both parties, jurors, judges, such as judges acting only as "arbiters" and sentencers for both parties.

However, in order to supplement the shortcomings of the "Ordinary Act", Zeng Hua also promulgated the "Special Cases Law". When a defendant is dissatisfied with a judge's common law decision, he may file an appeal with another judge of the same court and a higher judicial magistrate for a special case trial.

Exceptional trials are conducted by judges in accordance with the provisions of the law, and if the conditions are met, special courts are formed, which are heard by the judge alone (i.e., without a jury), who decides the case on the basis of existing laws and cases, relying on fairness, justice and his own conscience. In the Special Cases, Zeng Hua introduced a large number of Roman law systems, which complemented the Common Law, which was based on traditional Chinese laws and customs. Zeng Hua also determined that the scope of application of the special case law is much less than that of the common law, and most of the special cases law is more focused on prohibiting and preventing the development of a certain incident, and its authority is higher than that of the common law, that is, the judgment of the special case court is higher than that of the ordinary court.

Zeng Hua unwittingly brought the Chinese legal system to the law of the sea system, and also laid the three foundations of the law of the sea system, namely the common law, the balanced law, and the statutory law, which were completed by the British more than a thousand years later.

At the meeting, Zeng Hua said to everyone: "The law regulates people's behavior, but there are always smart people who walk in front of the law, so we must add new legal standards in addition to the law, and people's evaluation of good and evil is this standard, because the norm and purpose of the law is to promote good and punish evil." ”

Speaking of this, Zeng Hua glanced at the people present and said in a loud voice: "Many well-educated people are full of learning, and they always think that ordinary people are not enlightened and stupid, and their ideas are not enough. But have you ever thought that it is you who want to do this, which is why our people are even more ignorant? Every common person has his own most simple understanding, he may not know what the detailed rules of commercial law are, but he knows that it is not good to deceive people, and it is good to know that honesty is good, and it is this tens of millions of simple understandings that have formed the consciousness of our Chinese nation and country. ”

Zeng Hua pointed to Zhongshu Province and continued: "You have the power to make laws, but if the legal details you make are denied by the jury again and again, what does it mean, the laws you make do not take into account the interests and ideas of the people at all. Think about it, a law that does not respect the consciousness of the people, a law that does not protect the interests of the people, can you expect the people to abide by and defend it? ”

Zeng Hua paused for a moment and finally said: "Here, I just want to announce three points: First, the law is supreme, the law is the foundation of our country and nation, and defending the law is to defend China, from the king to the common people, we must abide by the law. The Lord is our spiritual faith, but the law is our secular faith. ”

On the ninth day of October in the third year of China, Zhongshu Province and Menxia Province passed the "Common Law" and the "Special Cases Law", and Zeng Hua immediately signed them into effect, and these two laws and the "Magna Carta" constituted the three basic laws of China, which have been handed down.

At the same time as the passage of the "General Law" and the "Special Cases Law", the "Religious Affairs Law" was also passed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, but this law was somewhat quiet under the cover of the first two sensational laws.

In the Law on Religious Affairs, Zeng Hua guaranteed the status of the Holy Religion as the state religion, but further restricted the Holy Religion. According to the law, once a member of the clergy of a holy religion has been held, he is prohibited from holding political, legal or other positions for life; Ecclesiastical funds are governed by secular laws such as the Commercial Code, the Civil Code, the Audit Law, etc.; Ecclesiastical clergy do not have the right of legal pardon, and are subject to the jurisdiction of the procuratorate, the judicial office, and other legal departments like ordinary people; The Pope is the hereditary spiritual leader of the Holy Church, but he can appoint cardinal archbishops and archbishops only by election by the Archbishops' Council and the State Bishops' Conference; The Pope, the Cardinal Archbishopric, the Synod of Bishops, and no body of the Church can make or publish regulations with the force of law; The power of the church is limited to the church, and so on.

After reading the full text of the three laws published in the "Minbao", Zeng Hua said to Zeng Wei beside him: "Do you know why I am in a hurry to formulate a basic law for China? ”

Zeng Wei shook his head with a smile and said, "The child doesn't know." ”

"I am the last prophet of the Holy Religion, and if I die, these laws that I have personally proclaimed will become the texts of faith of the Chinese people who believe in the Holy Religion, just like the holy scriptures."

Zeng Wei's face suddenly became solemn, and he nodded thoughtfully. And Zeng Hua said leisurely after a while: "The law must be believed, otherwise it will be useless."