Zhengyuan three years.

When it is another year's autumn harvest, the heads accumulated in the previous year will also fall to the ground this year.

According to Cao Chao's own thoughts, he wanted to execute Wang Rong and let everyone in the world see what the end of corruption was.

It's just that Wei Shu, the newly appointed secretary of the Criminal Department, wrote a letter to refute Cao Chao's proposal.

This is something that no one else has ever thought about.

After all, Wei Shu, like Zhang Hua, was one of the first henchmen to follow the emperor, and later sent to the local government many times to supervise the rule of officials, but the position was still with the emperor, and the emperor had just promoted him to be the secretary of the criminal department, what was the situation?

Cao Chao was also incomprehensible, but he was not angry.

Wei Shu is not the kind of person who will rely on rebuttals to gain fame.

Therefore, Cao Chao deliberately went to the Criminal Department to listen to Wei Shu's thoughts.

The original Shangshutai was one, and many Shangshutai worked here, and from this year, Cao Chao separated them, which is not that he does not believe in everyone, but with the complete decline of the Three Princes and Nine Qings, the number of subordinate officials of each ministry gradually increased, and Cao Chao expanded Shangshutai and created a separate mansion for each department, which revolved around the Shangshutai in the past.

When Cao Chao arrived at the Criminal Department, Wei Shu was leading his subordinates to deal with the accumulated beheading cases.

Upon learning of the emperor's coming, Wei Shu hurried to greet him.

Cao Chao beckoned, let Wei Shu follow behind him, walked into the mansion together, and walked directly into the study.

Immediately, Cao Chao sat in Wei Shu's position, raised his head, and examined the henchmen in front of him.

"Guo Gong, what's going on with your book? Why do you want to protect Wang Rong's life?! ”

Wei Shu faced the somewhat dissatisfied emperor, his expression was still as sluggish as ever, he was not moved, he said very seriously: "According to the law of Great Wei, the money he is greedy for does not meet the standard of beheading and showing the public, and the sentence can be changed to removal and exile." ”

Cao Chao laughed, "That's why you're against it?" ”

Wei Shu said again: "If Your Majesty insists on killing him, you can change the law and lower the standard required for the death penalty, but you can't execute him with the current law." ”

Cao Chao asked Zhang Hua to look at the door, and then let Wei Shu sit beside him.

"Wang Rong's reputation is known to the whole world, and I want to use him to deter the people of the world, so that officials will not dare to do such things again."

"I know that you are good at governance, but I don't know when you also became Zhang Shizhi?"

Zhang Shizhi was a court lieutenant in the former Han Dynasty, someone stole Liu Bang's funeral goods, Emperor Wen of Han was furious, and wanted to punish his clan, Zhang Shizhi thought that the crime of theft stipulated in the law was not such a high criminal law, everything had to be done according to the law, and he resolutely refused, and finally Emperor Wen of Han had to agree to him.

But Cao Chao knew that Wei Shu was not a strong legalist like Zhang Shizhi, although he looked sluggish, but there must be meaning in doing things.

Wei Shu explained: "Your Majesty, if the grace is too much, the subjects will be arrogant, but if the power is too much, it will make the monarch and the ministers frightened, which is not conducive to governing the world. ”

"Your Majesty has killed many ministers in a row, including many famous people in the world, and Your Majesty's current power has been felt by everyone in the world."

"Now, if Your Majesty releases some kindness, he will be highly praised."

"People who often show favor will be angry when they suddenly demonstrate, but people who often show show favor suddenly make people love."

"Now that Wang Xue is rising, if Your Majesty can slightly reduce the punishment and express your benevolence, it will have a better effect on the popularity of the doctrine, besides, in the past, Shang Shutai in order to cater to Your Majesty, the sentence was mostly the Zhu clan, Your Majesty, it is not a good thing to punish them too much, leave their lives, and let them go to the mine and continue to do things, the previous war, the manpower was insufficient, and it was useless to kill indiscriminately."

"Besides, what Your Majesty wants is influence, so that everyone in the world knows."

"Today, the minister wrote to refute Your Majesty, and Your Majesty reluctantly agreed, according to the law, this matter will be easier for the world to know than Wang Rong's death."

"In addition, Your Majesty wants to re-enforce the law and strict discipline, so as to govern the world, then the law must be convinced by the people of the world, in the past, the law was trampled on, Sima Shi and others killed indiscriminately, and the local officials also ignored the law, disposed of subordinates and domestic slaves at will, plundered merchants, and the power of the law cannot be ignored."

Wei Shu still looked stupid, but his words did not hesitate or pause at all, and he said everything he wanted to say at a very fast speed.

Cao Chao was stunned for a long time.

"I didn't know that Duke Wei was so talkative"

But at this moment, Wei Shu returned to his original appearance, sitting in front of Cao Chao in a daze, like a machine that had completed its work.

Cao Chao hesitated for a moment, and then said, "What you said also has some truth."

"Well, just do what you want."

Cao Chao didn't say anything more, and left here with Zhang Hua.

Looking at Wei Shu, who stayed in place, Zhang Hua sighed with emotion: "Duke Wei's talent can serve as Shang Shuling." ”

Just as the carriage of the two was about to leave, suddenly a carriage came hurrying towards here, with no intention of giving way at all.

A soldier followed on both sides of the carriage, and when he saw Cao Chao's carriage, he immediately wanted to reprimand.

At this moment, dozens of people suddenly poured out of the surroundings, and they seemed to appear suddenly, surrounding the carriage, many of whom were armed with strong crossbows and aimed directly at the carriage.

The groom, who had been angry at first, was already stunned at this moment, and he hurriedly reined in his horse, so frightened that he almost fell out of the car.

A man angrily stepped out of the carriage.

"Who dares to stop me"

The man got out of the carriage, saw the scene around him, and immediately stopped his voice, and then saw the carriage in the distance, and was a little surprised, until he saw the two people walking down from the carriage, and his legs were weak.

"Your Majesty!!"

The person who came was Cao Yan.

The moment he saw Cao Chao, he hurriedly rushed up and bowed to him.

Cao Chao looked at him angrily, "Zong Zheng is really majestic, at the entrance of the criminal department, he dares to ride like this." ”

Cao Yan hurriedly explained: "Your Majesty, the minister has something important to visit Duke Wei, so he was in a hurry, but he never collided with others."

Today, the three princes and nine kings are all being weakened, but this sect is still not weakened too much, after all, Cao Chao needs him to appease the clans everywhere.

But what is this person who manages the clan doing in the Criminal Department?

He looked at Cao Yan suspiciously and asked, "What's the urgency for you?" ”

Cao Yan sighed, "Your Majesty, Cao Zhi, the king of Jibei, had a dispute with the local clan, and the two sides fought, saying that they wanted to sue the king of Jibei for rebellion I heard that the current criminal department Shangshu is a strict person, so he specially came to find him, so he should not be in a hurry to accept it."

Cao Chao thought for a while, Cao Zhi, the king of Jibei, Cao Zhi's son? Your own cousin?

When Cao Yan was talking, he was still observing Cao Yan's face.

Cao Pi's vein likes to persecute Cao Zhi's vein, and it's not a day or two.

And what's worse is that this Cao Zhi is very remarkable.

He was young and intelligent, familiar with the classics, had great ambitions, and was also very good at riding and archery, and when he was still very young, Cao Zhi liked him very much, thinking that he was a person who could turn the tide.

He is Cao Zhi's son and very capable, if Cao Chao shows a little dissatisfaction with him now, Cao Yan will immediately change his tone.

Cao Yan's thoughts completely changed with Cao Yan's attitude.

Cao Chao was not surprised at the moment.

This is something he had anticipated for a long time.

When the confinement of the princes and kings is opened, they will inevitably fight with the local nobles.

The reason is also very simple, when the princes and kings turned over and were ready to exercise some of their own power, buy some family property, and fish and meat the people, they suddenly found that in their own territory, they said that they didn't count, the family property was in the hands of others, and the people had already been finished by the fish.

How can the princes and kings endure this?

How bad was the monopoly and merger of the Wei and Jin clans?

Don't think that Cao Chao is rectifying the rule of officials at the moment, cleaning up the temple family, and letting the people at the bottom live a good life, this is impossible.

Land annexation was very acute, except for those public land, private land was basically stamped with the seal of the big clan, and the people were forced to become tenants and clusters of the big clan, and Emperor Cao Wei himself was the largest slave owner, owning the most land and the most tenants.

For such a situation, Cao Chao has no way to deal with him with the law, and the powerful annex of land only needs to be grabbed, but the big clan does not need it, they can obtain a large amount of cultivated land with just a few simple operations, and even you can't find the slightest problem, everything is legal and compliant.

The land of the Great Wei is allowed to be sold, and the old men of the big clan are kind-hearted, and when they see that the common people can't survive, they are merciful, buy their property, give them a way to live, and let them farm for themselves, what law does this violate?

The clans will defeat the yeoman farmers in a very simple way, just hoarding and distributing grain, they can toss the yeoman farmers enough, and the fluctuation of grain prices is the most devastating for the peasants.

Cao Chao only suppressed the discourse power of the big clans in the temple, so that they could not achieve their goals through the temple, but Cao Chao had not been able to solve the serious local annexation problem.

This is the foundation of the great family.

And the princes and kings who are released will definitely have conflicts with the big clans, after all, the big clans of the Wei and Jin dynasties are all a group of Pixiu, they only enter and can't leave, even in the face of the princes and kings, they will not easily give up a single benefit.

However, this problem is still difficult to solve at present, and we can only try to solve it after the world is unified.

But judging from what Cao Yan said, the princes and kings began to play a role.

A smile appeared on Cao Chao's face, "King Jibei, I know, he has always been kind, how could he have a dispute with someone?" Could it be that the local clan despised the clan and humiliated him? ”

Cao Yan nodded immediately, "That's right, Your Majesty, that's it!!" How can my Great Wei Sect be insulted by these villains?! ”

"Gong Cao, you have to handle this matter properly, you can't let the clan be wronged, as for those big clans, they probably also have hardships, don't let them suffer less."

"Only !!"