In August of the fourth year of Song Jingyou, this major corruption case that took nearly half a year finally came to an end.

At the end of August, more than 80 officials and businessmen involved in the case were killed, more than 500 were sentenced to exile, and more than 1,000 people involved in less serious crimes were held accountable and sentenced to other punishments, such as imprisonment, flogging, caning and buttocks, and dismissal.

In September of the same year, Dali Temple, Yushitai, and the Trial and Criminal Court arrested the remaining criminals who were involved in the case at that time and were later transferred to other places, including the former Huainan Road transfer envoy, shipping envoy, judge, and other officials.

According to past experience, they were only deposed from their official positions, and they were not even exiled.

However, the Constitutional Yuan quickly issued a guiding opinion, allowing the three divisions to sentence the main officials involved in the case to death, and the rest of the accomplices could be dealt with lightly.

Qian Zhengwei, the secretary of the Dali Temple, Zhang Kui, the same acquaintance of the Criminal Court, and Cheng Fan of the Imperial History were not convinced, and asked the Constitutional Yuan to give an explanation.

After all, Zhao Jun killed people in the past, firstly, he killed officials of not such a high grade, and secondly, Zhao Zhen gave the Imperial City Division the power to dispose of it on its own.

Although hundreds of officials have written against it and kept impeaching, the determination of the officials was very great that time, and they had nothing to do with Zhao Jun.

But now that Zhao Jun is no longer in Bianliang, why do they still ask them to do what Zhao Jun wants?

Unexpectedly, the Constitutional Yuan only gave an explanation, that is, "do things according to law!" ”

This left the three of them speechless for a while.

Because in fact, there is no article in "Song Criminal Rule" that "can't be punished by doctors".

Even in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, because the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms had just been pacified, it was necessary to restore social order with heavy canons, so when the Criminal Law was just formulated, Zhao Kuangyin was still strict.

According to the "History of the Song Dynasty", during the 17 years of the reign of Zhao Kuangyin, Taizu of the Song Dynasty, more than 4,000 officials of all sizes were executed, and Zhao Guangyi also killed a lot.

It's just that in the period of Zhao Zhen of Song Renzong, after the constant flickering of the scholars and doctors, Zhao Zhen's father and son were finally fooled.

So if they say "do things according to law", they really have no reason to refute it.

It's just that leniency towards doctors is an unspoken rule.

Originally, Song Taizu and Song Taizong severely cracked down on corrupt officials, and even included in the ranks of non-pardon together with major crimes such as "heinous rebellion". Therefore, the unscrupulousness of the officials at that time has greatly improved compared with the greed and unscrupulous practice of five generations.

However, with the development of the economy and the relaxation of the law, it led to the resurgence of corrupt officials and corrupt officials.

For example, during the reign of Renzong, Bao Zheng once lamented: "Tyranny of greed and Guizhou, six or seven times out of ten." Although the imperial court has a capable official like Bao Zheng, it is also a drop in the bucket.

By the time of Zhezong in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, there were more than 260 executions of officials in a year, but only 25 of them were executed.

Now the three divisions and yamen want to treat prisoners leniently according to the previous practice. It's just that they didn't expect the Constitutional Yuan to have a clear attitude and want to return to the period of Taizu and Taizong, which is really difficult for them to accept.

Therefore, although the Constitutional Yuan gave a decree to "act according to law", the three divisions and yamen still dragged on without a verdict. As a result of their verdict, the Constitutional Yuan did not sign it, and they did not accept the opinions given by the Constitutional Yuan, and the two sides were at a stalemate for a while.

If Zhao Jun was here, it is estimated that he would not ignore them, and directly let the people of the Imperial City Division drag those who should be sentenced to death to behead outside the eastern city.

But Lu Yijian's gang still has to talk about the rules of officialdom, and they are not so arrogant.

So Yan Shu stepped out, Xiaozhi was moved by emotion and reason, and told the Sansi Yamen that the reason why those people were sentenced to death was because of their corruption and serious consequences.

Da Song can not be punished by doctors, but the problem is that it can only be punished by officials who are not too serious.

For example, it is not impossible to reduce the punishment for a small amount of money, or use some privileges, engage in private business, and crack down on competitors.

The only condition is that no human life can be killed.

As the saying goes, human life is greater than the sky, this is the unchanging slogan of justice since ancient times!

If you kill tens of thousands of people, but in the end you are lenient, then where is the majesty and face of the court?

So for the sake of the face of the court, these people must be put to death.

Yan Shu's statement is tenable, but at that time, the three demons were stunned, and they just didn't let go.

After that, the Constitutional Yuan made a trick.

They asked some people to spread the news that the three divisions were covering up major offenders.

When Ouyang Xiu found out, he was furious and immediately wrote an article in the newspaper to lash out at Sansi's behavior.

Under the guidance of dual public opinion, a huge storm of public opinion has been triggered.

There was also a discussion in the early morning.

They had a heated debate about whether all the scholars should be given a lenient sentence, or whether only those who did not have serious consequences should be given a lenient sentence.

In the end, under the rhythm of Ouyang Xiu and others, it was concluded that "not punishing the doctor" was indeed a preferential treatment of the scholars in the Great Song Dynasty, but this could not be a reason for the scholars to be lawless and reckless.

If the scholars and doctors were to plague the people everywhere and kill innocents everywhere, it would be a very big blow to the imperial court, and the consequences would definitely be unbearable for the imperial court.

Therefore, "the punishment cannot be punished by the doctor" must be limited, and if it causes huge consequences, it must be punished canonically.

At that time, the scene was still quite spectacular, and most of the hundred officials belonged to the kind of mentality of watching the excitement, and with Ouyang Xiu, Cai Xiang, Yu Jing and other young righteous people, they scolded the three divisions bloody.

Even Zhao Zhen went down to help Ouyang Xiu and them speak.

As soon as the officials saw this situation, they immediately changed their stance on eating melons, and blamed the three divisions one after another.

To say that those people can do such unconscionable things, they are no longer considered scholars, and they do not deserve preferential treatment at all.

There are also real scholars and doctors who should benefit the people for the sake of official integrity, instead of such chaos and so on.

This directly expelled those people from the scholars' ranks.

Qian Zhengwei, Zhang Kui, and Fan Wei couldn't withstand such a big pressure at all, so in the end they could only compromise and sentence the person to death according to the explanation of the Constitutional Yuan.

In this way, the imperial court gained face, Zhao Zhen and Lu Yijian were able to give Zhao Jun an explanation, and the people got justice.

At the same time, the officials also understand where the bottom line of "not punishing the doctor" is, and they will surely think carefully and restrain themselves in doing things in the future, and they will not dare to be as unscrupulous as before.

For several parties, it is a win-win good thing. Only the world where the inmates who were injured by the severed heads was achieved.

On Zhao Jun's side, he went south to Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

On the day he left, the people of Zhenzhou gathered at the ferry and bid farewell one after another.

In fact, Zhao Jun didn't do much for the people of Zhenzhou.

Because he visited many places and spent less time in Zhenzhou, except for inspecting the situation of Cao Yun, he was working in the Yamen of the transit envoy, and only occasionally went to the countryside to have a look.

But even so, many people spontaneously came to send each other, even if they didn't receive his favor, they kept shouting Lord Qingtian.

The world is like this, if you stay in the dark for too long, and suddenly someone gives you a touch of light, then this light will become a lifesaver.

In his own opinion, Zhao Jun didn't do anything more than investigate some old cases and crack down on some corrupt officials.

But to the people, he is the benefactor who is moving the mountain that weighs on their heads.

That's enough to remember.

Zhao Jun was in the midst of this farewell, and the fleet headed south.

After crossing the Yangtze River, it is Jiangning Mansion.

He also took it with him in Jiangning for a while, and then went to Runzhou, Changzhou, Suzhou and other places to inspect the local agriculture and commerce.

And everywhere Zhao Jun went, he opened a government office and welcomed all people to report illegal acts of the government.

If there is a grievance, he will also send someone to deal with it impartially.

It's just that unless he is met by him like Guo Chengyou, or a big case like the Huainan corruption case, he will generally transfer the case to the local criminal prison department for disposal.

Otherwise, if he is allowed to do everything, what else will the local judicial yamen do? Just undo it.

During the period of going down to the grassroots level, the most common thing is to encounter the illegal acts of local officials and landlords.

This is Zhao Jun's favorite thing.

Because he can justifiably confiscate the homes of some unscrupulous landlords, confiscate their land, and nationalize it.

Although it is still the same problem, just as low-rent housing is not necessarily rented by the poor, the state-owned land in the county may not end up in the hands of the landless people.

But even if it is divided, in the future, those landlords will still use various means to take away the land, so it is better to keep these fields in the county government.

As long as the state government and the four divisions of the road and platform keep a file to clarify which land is owned by the state, it will be able to supervise it in the future.

For example, Zhao Jun plans to wait for the situation to stabilize and support Fan Zhongyan to implement the Qingli New Deal reform. In the future, every road of the Imperial Historical Observatory will be stationed in a department, and it will be inspected every month. In addition, the Department of Criminal Prisons will also visit and conduct multiple supervision.

Therefore, once it is discovered that there are landlords plotting to seize the land owned by the government, it depends on whether Zhao Jun's blade is not sharp, and whether the land under their name will also be confiscated as state-owned.

By the end of October of the fourth year of Jing You, Zhao Jun inspected Liangzhejiang Road and Jiangnan East Road, and went south to Fujian Road.

He is now famous all over the world, and everywhere he goes, it is really welcomed by the people, and the people all eat pot pulp to welcome the courtyard, and there are even many children's songs.

Such as "Yingzhiyuan, looking forward to Zhiyuan, there is a blue sky when Zhiyuan comes", "The whole city looks at Zhiyuan, and the officials are so frightened that their faces turn white. Killed them with snacks and food, and ate the lotus leaves of the heart. "If you want the red flowers to bloom, you have to wait for the governor to come" and so on.

Especially in the second song, it is to kill corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and to eat their hearts and livers, which shows how much the political darkness and corruption of officialdom at that time made the people at the bottom hate.

However, Zhao Jun's appearance was like a beam of light in the darkness, giving hundreds of people hope, so that they could see that the mountains that had once oppressed their heads were removed by Zhao Jun one by one and cut off by Zhao Jun one by one, making them full of gratitude and love.

The people are like that, and they thank whoever is good to them.

On the contrary, it is natural that many people in the officialdom are very dissatisfied with Zhao Jun, and they continue to impeach the imperial court, even if they fabricate facts, or say some reasons such as excessive killings, they also hope to impeach Zhao Jun.

The main reason is that Zhao Jun is not engaged in any reform, if he carries out reform and the decree is passed on, those officials at the grassroots level will have tens of thousands of ways to turn the original good decree into a bad decree and harm the people.

But he didn't change anything, nor did he issue any decrees, just to investigate corruption and officials' violations of law and discipline.

These things are justified as superiors, and there are no non-rules.

And it is also the responsibility of the criminal and prison departments of all walks of life.

Like "The Criminal Officer of the Great Song Dynasty" Song Ci, who is the official of the Criminal Prison Department, is at the same level as Li Khan and is responsible for the whole criminal prison proceedings.

It's just that in the past, because of the officialdom, or simply the criminal officer was a corrupt official, everyone turned a blind eye and beat each other haha, even if it was in the past.

Now Zhao Jun is serious, and he is ruthless, which is equivalent to a power-supreme Bao Zheng, and it is no wonder that the local officials are not heavy.

Therefore, they had no other way to attack Zhao Jun, so they naturally had to impeach, hoping to stop him from continuing to patrol.

However, even Zhao Zhen can't control it, let alone these people.

Anyway, the slashes sent up were all sunk into the sea, and there was no response.

Zhao Jun continued to go his own way.

The key is that if he is alone, there may be corrupt officials who will take risks.

The problem is that he runs around with an army.

The local army was returned to his control.

Now the local Xiang army all over the world knows that he is coming, not only is there no disgust, but even the Xiang army is looking forward to him coming.

Because the superiors drank the blood of the soldiers and ate the soldiers' salaries seriously, the soldiers also hoped that Zhao Jun would come to make the decision for them.

Therefore, no matter what state he went to, wherever Zhao Jun went, it set off a storm.

This can also be regarded as paving the way for Fan Zhongyan's reform in the future.

Zhao Jun didn't stay long on the other side of Fujian Road.

The original Fujian Road transfer envoy Bian Su, because of his son-in-law Sun Wei's corruption and perversion of the law, did all kinds of evil, was impeached by the imperial history, and now he is demoted to the Nankang Army Festival Envoy, which is regarded as suffering from the disaster of pond fish.

Zheng Zai, the newly appointed Fujian Road Transit Envoy, is the elder brother of Zheng Jian, who is also in the Privy Council.

This person is a Jinshi in the third year of Xianping, and in the ninth year of Tiansheng, he was known as a staff member of Fuzhou, and was called Xunliang when he was called virtuous in folk songs. From the first year of Mingdao to this year, he successively served as the transfer envoy of Guangnan East Road and Jiangnan West Road, and his political achievements were outstanding.

Originally, this year happened to be his third year as the transfer envoy of Jiangnan West Road, and it should be time for the change, but the imperial court considered that Zheng Jian held a high position, and it was inconvenient for him to return to the central government, so he didn't know how to arrange it.

As a result, Bian Su was implicated by Sun Wei and deposed, and he had been a governor in Fuzhou before, so he pushed the boat down the river and let him go to Fujian Road.

Zheng Zai was quite prestigious on Fujian Road, and after Zhao Jun went, he found that the people of Fuzhou still loved him very much, and learned that this person was indeed a talented and honest official, and he admired the talent.

Accompanied by Zheng Zai, Zhao Jun toured some places, listened to Zheng Zai talk about many of his previous things in Fuzhou, and talked about his ideas about local governance.

Zhao Jun felt that Zheng Zai's governance method was still good, so he talked to him about Zhao Jun's own governance methods, and the two sides talked happily.

When Zhao Jun left Fujian Road, he gave Zheng Zai some political tasks.

For example, if we crack down on corruption and crack down on landlords, especially those who violate the law and discipline, then the imperial court will have an excuse to recover land and ease the problem of land annexation.

Zheng Zai accepted them one by one and said that he understood.

By November, Zhao Jun had been on Fujian Road for about 20 days, and then went to Jiangnan West Road.

He didn't stay here long.

First, Zheng Zai was a transfer envoy on Jiangnan West Road before, and his local political performance was still quite good.

Second, the successor is called Zhou Zhan, a science and technology jinshi in the Tianxi year, he is an official in various places, and his political achievements are remarkable, and his achievements are recorded in the "History of the Song Dynasty", "Fu Zhi" and "County Chronicles" of later generations.

Although Zhao Jun didn't know these things, he could find out what Zhou Zhan had done before, and it was indeed very good.

After inspecting Hongzhou, Junzhou and other places, and finding that the governance of Jiangnan West Road left by Zheng Zai could still meet the standard, Zhao Jun reluctantly instructed Zhou Zhan, and in mid-December, he went west into Tanzhou on Jinghu South Road!

He has returned to his hometown of Hunan!

(End of chapter)