Chapter 238 It’s hard to go against the will of the people, peel off the skin and make the grass solid
In the end, Lu Zhaoji never thought that he would be arrested and punished by the court for falling into public opinion.
Not only Lu Zhaoji didn't expect it.
Even Xu Hao, the Secretary of the Ministry of Punishment, did not expect it and had to say: "Since Taizu, the people have never punished officials. The officials have always managed the people. When will the people force the officials? But now the number of mobs in the world has increased sharply. , but the people forced the court to punish the traitors with the law, and it was difficult for the officials to protect each other. I don’t know whether it was a blessing or a disaster for the country and the country of the Ming Dynasty! "
Xu Hao didn't know what to think about the phenomenon that public opinion forced His Majesty the Emperor and officials like him to punish some corrupt officials, even those who had resigned.
But he knew that if he wanted to be a good Minister of the Ministry of Justice in the future, he would not only have to avoid making mistakes in front of His Majesty the Emperor, but also avoid being caught by the common people.
Xu Hao did not dare to be rude and careless. After arresting Lu Zhaoji, he immediately began to interrogate and investigate and collect evidence. After confirming that Lu Zhaoji was indeed suspected of selling his official position and getting a title, he immediately wrote to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and requested the Metropolitan Procuratorate to file a case against Lu Zhaoji and initiate a public prosecution. .
This is a complete set of judicial procedures that Emperor Zhengde has re-clarified.
Only the Metropolitan Procuratorate has the power to file cases and initiate public prosecutions.
However, the Ministry of Punishment did not dare to go against public opinion and protect Lu Zhaoji, and now the Metropolitan Procuratorate does not dare to protect Lu Zhaoji. Moreover, Lu Zhaoji's selling out of his official position and title should have been discovered by their Metropolitan Procuratorate and not by the people many years later. Therefore, it seems that the Metropolitan Procuratorate has neglected its duties. If Emperor Zhu Houzhao wanted to change all the censors of the Metropolitan Procuratorate now, he would have a reason.
Therefore, the Metropolitan Procuratorate did not dare to delay any longer and immediately submitted a memorial to Zhu Houzhao, asking His Majesty the Emperor to allow the Ministry of Punishments to try and convict Lu Zhaoji.
All of this was done by Zhu Houzhao behind the scenes. His purpose was to punish a scholar like Lu Zhaoji who was slandering himself and the queen behind his back. Naturally, he would not refuse. Zhu Zhu approved the Ministry of Punishment to try and convict Lu Zhaoji.
then.
Less than a year after Lu Zhaoji resigned, he was taken to court by the Ministry of Punishment for trial and conviction on suspicion of selling his official position and accepting huge bribes.
The Metropolitan Procuratorate and Dali Temple will also participate in the trial.
There is also the Dongchang Inspectorate, which supervises the trial scene on behalf of the emperor, but mainly to see whether these civil servants will act loyally and seek truth from facts.
In addition, after Zhu Houzhao strictly ordered the Ministry of Punishment to have a civilian jury for public trials, a number of voluntary civilian juries would also join in at the trial site.
But only officials from the Ministry of Punishment are qualified to interrogate, and only Xu Hao, the Minister of Punishment, is qualified to judge any crime.
However, it was obvious that anyone present at the trial had the opportunity to interfere with Xu Hao's conviction criteria.
Lu Zhaoji was taken in. His family was rich, so naturally he would not suffer any loss in the Penal Department Prison after being taken care of, and there would be no jailers in the Penal Department Prison to make things difficult for him. Therefore, he who was just taken in would not suffer. Even though he was embarrassed, he was still graceful and calm.
However, not long after he walked in, the people in the civilian jury seat became angry and threw rotten vegetable leaves directly, hitting Lu Zhaoji in the face: "Corrupt officials! Corrupt officials!"
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Tang Bohu also threw out a rotten egg in his hand, and hit Lu Zhaoji on the face with a slap, making Lu Zhaoji's face covered with yellow and white things, and also made Lu Zhaoji stink so bad that he only had a big Cursed: "You are insulting politeness, insulting politeness!"
Xu Hao, the Secretary of the Ministry of Punishment, couldn't stand it anymore and hurriedly took pictures of the gavel. However, people from the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Dali Temple and Dongchang were here. After all, they were first-class high-ranking officials with some self-restraint, so they were not too showy officials. Wei, just said:
"Silence! Dear elders, this is the court of the Ministry of Criminal Justice. It is a serious place. Do not act recklessly. He, Lu Zhaoji, has not been convicted yet and still has the right to be respected. This is what His Majesty emphasized during the criminal reform. I hope you will Don’t violate the Holy Will!”
The common people were still instinctively afraid of the panic in the hands of officials, so they all fell silent soon after Xu Hao spoke. Tang Bohu also signaled that the group of common people he organized did not need to disrupt the order of the trial anymore.
These common people were naturally organized by Tang Bohu. Although Emperor Zhu Houzhao of the Ming Dynasty intended to establish a fairer judicial system and established a common people's jury to ensure mutual supervision of imperial power, official power, and civil rights, the people of the Ming Dynasty obviously did not have the awareness to participate in the judiciary. , so there were actually not many ordinary people who actually applied to join the jury. After all, everyone was busy earning work and farming the land, and few had the energy to participate in public undertakings like the gentry.
Therefore, Tang Bohu and some angry young scholars who really hated Lu Zhaoji's behavior of selling out his official position and conferring titles simply used their own money to organize a group of common people to form a jury, preparing to exercise their right to supervise justice.
Lu Zhaoji was very angry and helpless. He couldn't help but sigh in his heart. The Huangming Dynasty had really changed, and the number of mobs had increased sharply. However, the court did not control these mobs, but even had to obey the wishes of these mobs and deal with them. A gentleman like himself.
Hang Huai, the censor of Zuodu, watched this scene without saying a word. He thought that the scholar-officials had always used public opinion to advise the king, but now his majesty used public opinion to punish the scholar-officials. He didn't know whether the sage's words were meant to benefit the scholar-officials or the common people. , Confucian Neo-Confucianism has never stated the truth here, so it is no wonder that it is criticized by today's deviant and apostate scholars as not worthy of being the guideline for governing the country.
At this time, Lu Zhaoji looked at Tang Bohu and other people's representatives angrily. This was the first time that as a prisoner, he was despised, humiliated and even scolded by the people he had always ignored. Moreover, it was because of these people that he was actually detained. In the court where the three judges will hear the case.
"I need to take a bath and change into clean clothes!"
Xu Hao gave Lu Zhaoji a reminder, reminding Lu Zhaoji that when Emperor Zhu Houzhao was reforming the criminal investigation process, he once said that prisoners should not be treated as prisoners before the crime of the prisoner was determined.
Therefore, Lu Zhaoji now had the confidence to make demands on the officials present.
Tang Bohu and other scholars and common people were very unhappy when they saw this. But Xu Hao agreed to Lu Zhaoji's request and asked Lu Zhaoji to take a bath again and change into clean clothes. After all, Xu Hao and other civil servants still had sympathy for Lu Zhaoji. After all, everyone had been It's a civil servant.
After Lu Zhaoji returned to court, Xu Hao began to formally interrogate Lu Zhaoji.
The interrogation process was very simple. It was nothing more than citing Lu Zhaoji's criminal evidence one by one, and Lu Zhaoji confessed. After all, there were all kinds of evidence, and Lu Zhaoji was not a person who dared not admit it.
But Lu Zhaoji didn't think that these civil servants of the Ministry of Justice would sentence him very severely. After all, there are no civil servants in the world who are not corrupt. If he was severely punished, wouldn't it mean that they, the civil servants, would also be severely punished in the future.
Just as Lu Zhaoji expected, when Xu Hao pronounced the sentence, he only sentenced Lu Zhaoji to be exiled to Guangxi on the grounds that Lu Zhaoji had resigned and was not an in-service official.
Lu Zhaoji was very proud after hearing this. Guangxi was not too remote, and he would be able to find a chance to return to Beijing in a year and a half.
But Tang Bohu and other scholars were naturally dissatisfied. Tang Bohu, who had already expected that the civil servants would protect Lu Zhaoji, shouted loudly: "You can't sentence like this! The sentence of the Lord of the Ministry of Punishment is unfair. According to the law, corrupt people, especially A greedy person like Lu Zhaoji should be stripped of his skin and become a real person!”
"Yes, peel off the skin and make grass! This is a question left by Taizu and cannot be changed!" the people shouted one after another.
Seeing this, Xu Hao didn't know what to do. As the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, naturally he couldn't beat out these people like the local officials. He personally came to interrogate Lu Zhaoji today as a statement that the Ministry of Punishment attaches great importance to public opinion, but he Unexpectedly, these people were still not satisfied and insisted on dealing with Lu Zhaoji's sale of his official position and title in accordance with the law.
"When did the people start to pay attention to the laws of the Ming Dynasty! This, this, what should we do?"
Xu Hao thought to himself.
When other civil servants saw the people's passionate demands to skin Lu Zhaoji, they were stunned for a moment and didn't know how to deal with it.
Ma Yongcheng from Dongchang just smiled secretly, thinking that it was always the civil servants who used public opinion to force His Majesty and deal with his ministers, but now he did not expect that the civil servants themselves would be threatened by public opinion.
Xu Hao also didn't expect that the people were not satisfied with Lu Zhaoji's sentence. He thought that by arresting Lu Zhaoji for you mobs, he was already doing a great job for you. What else did you mobs want?
Although Xu Hao was disgusted with the people's behavior of asking him to re-sentence, he did not dare to express his position directly. He only said: "This official is just a preliminary judgment. The judgment will be judged by Dali Temple at that time. Today's decision will be made The final verdict, don’t worry, this does not represent the final result, go back first.”
After Xu Hao said this, he announced his withdrawal.
The people were obviously very dissatisfied. After being driven out by the government officials, they continued to shout, demanding that the court deal with Lu Zhaoji in accordance with the law.
Lu Zhaoji has remained silent. He is now really worried that the court will obey public opinion and skin him. He really hopes that the court can convict him according to the judgment of Xu Hao, the Minister of Punishment.
The civil officials of Dali Temple did not want to embarrass Lu Zhaoji, so they also passed the verdict against Xu Hao.
However, just when the chief minister of Dali Temple was about to send the verdict to the palace, the angry people blocked the main entrance of Dali Temple again.
After learning about it, Zhu Houzhao issued an edict: "Public opinion cannot be violated! Deal with it according to the law!"
"Public opinion cannot be violated, and public opinion cannot be violated. One day I will actually hate the public opinion of the world so much!"
Wan Jianzhe, the chief minister of Dali Temple, could not help but reject the trial result of Xu Hao, the Minister of Punishment, and complained.
"What else can we do? People's sentiments cannot be violated. His Majesty issued an edict to re-condemn Lu Zhaoji. He was sentenced to skinning and killing Lu Zhaoji, losing his family property, and his family members were exiled to Liaodong!"
Xu Hao, the Minister of Punishment, also replied, and immediately ordered the officials of the Punishment Ministry to re-draw the sentence. Dali Temple had to pass the trial, and then the emperor approved it.
When Lu Zhaoji learned from Xu Hao, the Minister of Punishment, that he was going to be skinned and stuffed, he immediately shouted: "Why, why is this! Why should I be skinned and stuffed!"
"It's hard to go against public opinion!" Xu Hao only said this.
Lu Zhaoji sat down dejectedly and said with a wry smile: "Public opinion, when did it become more terrifying than the king? No, it is not the public opinion that is terrible, it is His Majesty who is terrible. It is His Majesty who is manipulating the will of the people, and His Majesty who is dealing with me. Why did His Majesty treat me like this? What did I do..."
Lu Zhaoji thought about it and suddenly realized it, and he cried and shouted: "Your Majesty, I am wrong, I am wrong! I am guilty, I should not slander you and the Queen, wuwu!"
But it was too late for Lu Zhaoji to regret it now, and Zhu Houzhao couldn't hear it. However, after he was escorted to the execution ground for execution, all Zhu Houzhao gained was the support of the people and a considerable amount of wealth.
(End of chapter)