Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 238: Public opinion is hard to go against, skinning and feeding

Lu Zhaoji never expected that he would be arrested and punished by the court because of public opinion.

It wasn't just Lu Zhaoji who didn't expect this.

Even the Minister of Justice Xu Hao did not expect this, and had to say: "Since Emperor Taizu, there has been no incident of people punishing officials. Officials have always been in charge of the people, so how could people force officials? But now the number of mobs in the world has increased dramatically, and the people are forcing the court to use the law to punish the treacherous officials. Officials can no longer protect each other. I don't know whether this is a blessing or a disaster for the Ming Dynasty!"

Xu Hao didn't know how to view the phenomenon that public opinion forced the Emperor and officials like him to punish corrupt officials, even those who had already resigned.

But he knew that if he wanted to be a good Minister of Justice in the future, he must not only avoid making mistakes in front of the Emperor, but also avoid being caught by the common people.

Xu Hao did not dare to act rashly or carelessly. After arresting Lu Zhaoji, he immediately began to interrogate and investigate and collect evidence. After confirming that Lu Zhaoji was indeed suspected of selling official positions and titles, he immediately wrote to the Censorate, requesting it to file a case against Lu Zhaoji and bring public prosecution.

This is a complete set of judicial procedures that was redefined by Emperor Zhengde.

Only the Censorate has the power to file a case and initiate prosecution.

However, the Ministry of Justice did not dare to shield Lu Zhaoji against public opinion, and now the Censorate does not dare to shield Lu Zhaoji either. Moreover, the fact that Lu Zhaoji sold official positions and titles should have been investigated by the Censorate instead of being brought up by the people many years later. Therefore, it seems that the Censorate was derelict in its duty. If Emperor Zhu Houzhao wanted to, he would have a reason to replace all the censors of the Censorate now.

Therefore, the Censorate did not dare to delay any longer and immediately submitted a memorial to Zhu Houzhao, requesting the Emperor to allow the Ministry of Justice to try and convict Lu Zhaoji.

All of this was orchestrated by Zhu Houzhao behind the scenes. His purpose was to punish Lu Zhaoji, a scholar who had been slandering him and the queen behind their backs. Naturally, he would not refuse, so Zhu Houzhao quickly approved the Ministry of Justice to try and convict Lu Zhaoji.

then.

Less than a year after he resigned from office, Lu Zhaoji was brought to court by the Ministry of Justice for trial and conviction on suspicion of selling official positions and accepting huge bribes.

The Censorate and the Dali Temple will also participate in the trial.

There is also the East Factory Inspectorate, which supervises the trial on behalf of the emperor, but its main purpose is to see whether these civil servants will be loyal and realistic.

In addition, after Zhu Houzhao strictly ordered the Ministry of Justice to have a jury of civilians in public trials, a number of voluntary civilians would also join the jury at the trial site.

However, only officials from the Ministry of Justice are qualified to interrogate, and only the Minister of Justice Xu Hao is qualified to judge what crime is committed.

However, it is obvious that everyone present at the trial had the opportunity to interfere with the sentencing standards of the Minister of Justice Xu Hao.

Lu Zhaoji was brought in. His family was rich, so naturally he would not suffer any loss in the prison of the Ministry of Justice after making some arrangements, and no jailer of the Ministry of Justice would make things difficult for him. Therefore, when he was just brought in, he did not look embarrassed at all, but rather he was graceful and composed.

However, not long after he walked in, the people on the jury became angry and threw rotten vegetable leaves directly at Lu Zhaoji's face: "Corrupt official! Corrupt official!"

Tang Bohu also threw a rotten egg in his hand, which hit Lu Zhaoji's face with a smack, making Lu Zhaoji's face full of yellow and white things. Lu Zhaoji was so stinky that he could only curse: "You are disrespecting the civilized people, disrespecting the civilized people!"

Xu Hao, the Minister of Justice, could not bear to watch this any longer and slammed the gavel. However, the people from the Censorate, the Dali Temple and the East Factory were here, and he was a high-ranking official after all, so he did not show off his authority and only said:
"Silence! Fellow elders, this is the Ministry of Justice, a solemn place, you cannot act recklessly. Lu Zhaoji has not been convicted yet, and he still has the right to be respected. This is what His Majesty has emphasized when carrying out criminal reforms. I hope you will not go against His Majesty's will!"

The people still had an instinctive fear of the gavel in the hands of officials, so they all quieted down soon after Xu Hao spoke. Tang Bohu also signaled that the group of people he had organized did not need to disrupt the trial order.

These common people were naturally organized by Tang Bohu. Although the Ming Emperor Zhu Houzhao intended to establish a more just judicial system and set up a people's jury to ensure mutual supervision among imperial power, official power, and civil rights, the people of the Ming Dynasty obviously had no awareness of participating in the judiciary. Therefore, there were actually not many people who actually applied to join the jury. After all, everyone was busy earning work points and farming the land, and few had the energy to participate in public affairs like the gentry.

Therefore, Tang Bohu and some angry young scholars who were truly disgusted with Lu Zhaoji's behavior of selling official positions and titles simply used their own money to organize a group of people to form a jury, ready to exercise their right to supervise the judiciary.

Lu Zhaoji was very angry and helpless, and could not help but sigh in his heart that the Ming Dynasty had really changed. The number of mobs increased sharply, but the court did not control these mobs, but even had to obey the wishes of these mobs to deal with gentry like himself.

Zuo Du Yushi Hang Huai watched this scene without saying a word. He thought that the literati and officials had always advised the king based on public opinion, but now His Majesty was punishing the literati and officials based on public opinion. He didn't know whether the words of the sage were intended to benefit the literati and officials or the common people. Confucianism never made it clear why this was happening, and no wonder it was criticized by today's heretical scholars as being unfit to govern the country.

At this time, Lu Zhaoji looked at Tang Bohu and other representatives of the people with resentment. This was the first time that he was despised, humiliated and even scolded as a prisoner by the common people whom he had always ignored. Moreover, it was also because of these common people that he was taken to the court for the joint trial of the three judges.

"I need to take a shower and change into clean clothes!"

Xu Hao gave Lu Zhaoji a hint, reminding him of what Emperor Zhu Houzhao had said when he was reforming the criminal interrogation procedure: prisoners cannot be treated as prisoners until their guilt is determined.

Therefore, Lu Zhaoji now had the confidence to make demands on the officials in the court.

Tang Bohu and other common people were very angry when they saw this. But Xu Hao agreed to Lu Zhaoji's request and let Lu Zhaoji take a bath again and change into clean clothes. After all, Xu Hao and other civil officials still had sympathy for Lu Zhaoji, after all, they were all civil officials.

After Lu Zhaoji returned to the court, Xu Hao began to formally interrogate Lu Zhaoji.

The interrogation process was very simple. It was nothing more than listing out Lu Zhaoji's guilt one by one. Lu Zhaoji confessed to everything. After all, all the evidence was there, and he, Lu Zhaoji, was not someone who was afraid to admit it.

But Lu Zhaoji did not think that these civil servants in the Ministry of Justice would sentence him too heavily. After all, there is no civil servant in the world who is not corrupt. If he were severely punished, wouldn't it be equivalent to that these civil servants would also be severely punished in the future?

Just as Lu Zhaoji had expected, when Xu Hao pronounced the verdict, he only sentenced Lu Zhaoji to exile in Guangxi on the grounds that Lu Zhaoji had resigned from office and was not an incumbent official who sold official positions and titles.

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 or two.

But Tang Bohu and other common people were naturally dissatisfied. Tang Bohu had already expected that the civil officials would protect Lu Zhaoji, so he shouted loudly: "This cannot be the verdict! The judge in the Ministry of Justice is unfair. According to the law, corrupt officials, especially corrupt officials like Lu Zhaoji, should be skinned and stuffed with straw!"

"Yes, skin them and stuff them with straw! This is the precedent left by Taizu and it cannot be changed!" The people shouted.

Seeing this, Xu Hao didn't know what to do for a moment. As the Minister of Justice, he naturally couldn't beat these people out like the local officials did. He came in person to try Lu Zhaoji today, which was a statement that his Ministry of Justice attached great importance to public opinion. However, he didn't expect that these people were still not satisfied and insisted on dealing with Lu Zhaoji's selling of official positions and titles according to the law.

"Since when did the common people start to pay attention to the laws of the Ming Dynasty? What should we do?"

Xu Hao thought to himself.

The other civil officials were stunned when they saw the people passionately demanding that Lu Zhaoji be skinned and stuffed with straw, and they didn't know how to respond.

Ma Yongcheng of the East Factory just smiled secretly, thinking that it has always been the civil servants who used public opinion to force the emperor to deal with themselves and other eunuchs, but now he did not expect that the civil servants themselves would be threatened by public opinion.

Xu Hao did not expect that the people were still not satisfied with his sentence on Lu Zhaoji. He thought that he had already done a great job for you mobs by arresting Lu Zhaoji. What else did you mobs want?

Although Xu Hao was disgusted by the people's request for him to re-sentence, he did not dare to express his opinion directly. He only said: "This is only the preliminary judgment. The Dali Temple will review it in the future. The current emperor will make the final judgment. You don't have to worry. This does not represent the final result. Go back first."

After Xu Hao said this, he announced the adjournment of the court.

The people were obviously very dissatisfied. After being driven out by the yamen runners, they continued to shout and demanded that the court deal with Lu Zhaoji according to the law.

Lu Zhaoji remained silent. He was really worried that the court would follow public opinion and skin him alive. He really hoped that the court would convict him according to the judgment of the Minister of Justice Xu Hao.

The civil officials of the Dali Temple did not want to make things difficult for Lu Zhaoji, so they approved the verdict on Xu Hao.

However, when the chief judge of Dali Temple was about to deliver the verdict to the palace, the agitated people had once again blocked the main gate of Dali Temple.

After Zhu Houzhao learned about it, he issued an edict: "The will of the people cannot be violated! Deal with it according to the law!"

"The will of the people cannot be violated. The will of the people cannot be violated. One day, I will actually hate the will of the people so much!"

Wan Jianzao, the Chief Justice of the Dali Temple, could not help but reject the verdict of Xu Hao, the Minister of Justice, and complained.

"What else can we do? The people's will cannot be violated. Your Majesty has issued an edict to re-convict Lu Zhaoji and sentence him to be skinned and stuffed with straw, his property confiscated, and his family exiled to Liaodong!"

The Minister of Justice Xu Hao also responded and immediately ordered the officials of the Ministry of Justice to redraft the verdict. The Dali Temple had to review it, and then the emperor approved it.

When Lu Zhaoji learned from the Minister of Justice Xu Hao that he was going to be skinned and stuffed with straw, he shouted, "Why, why! Why are you going to skin me and stuff me with straw?"

"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 public opinion become more terrifying than the emperor? No, it's not public opinion that is terrifying, it's Your Majesty who is terrifying. It's Your Majesty who is manipulating public opinion and dealing with me. Why is Your Majesty dealing with me like this? What have I done..."

As Lu Zhaoji thought about it, he suddenly realized what was going on and cried out, "Your Majesty, I was wrong, I was wrong! I am guilty, I shouldn't have slandered you and the Queen, wuwu!"

But it was too late for Lu Zhaoji to regret now, and Zhu Houzhao could not hear him. But after he was escorted to the execution ground, all Zhu Houzhao gained was the support of the people and a considerable amount of wealth from the confiscated property.

(End of this chapter)