Do You Know?: I, the Little Cabinet Elder, Regent of the World.

Chapter 285 The A-Yun Case, the Right to Interpret Scriptures!
Bianjing, Wende Hall.

Civil and military officials stood in orderly rows.

There was no one on the steps of the imperial palace.

Below it is the imperial altar.

A vermilion-lacquered wooden chair stands here.

"Your Highness, the civil and military officials are still in a meeting!" A person approached and gently rocked his chair.

Judging from his purple robe and the whisk in his hand, he was none other than Li Xian, the Grand Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonies.

"Hmm~!"

The young prince Zhao Shen closed his eyes slightly, held them gently with his little hands, and shook his head back and forth.

After about three to five breaths, Zhao Shen opened his eyes groggily, looking drowsy and bewildered.

"call!"

Li Xian breathed a sigh of relief, quickly picked up the teacup from the wooden table, and fed the teacup two sips.

The little prince has always been well-behaved.

In the past, whenever it came to political discussions, he was never urged to hurry up, nor did he ever show any signs of being fast asleep.

However, today is a little different.

The main reason is that the deliberation period is too long.

Generally speaking, the duration of political discussions is about one hour.

For about an hour, Zhao Shen, being the kind of person he was, would occasionally sip some honey water or milk tea, and take a bite of rice cake, candied fruit, or melons and fruits, which he considered quite content.

Today, however, the deliberation time was unusually extended, from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., lasting for about two hours.

Zhao Shen sat obediently, unable to move or play, and naturally felt sleepy.

The key point is that, as the rightful regent, Zhao Shen cannot truly fall into a deep sleep.

A regent who is drowsy and lethargic is a classic example of "misconduct" and is very likely to be impeached by censors and remonstrance officials.

Therefore, if Zhao Shen showed any signs of drowsiness, Li Xian would have to rush over and cough a couple of times, or find an excuse to feed him a couple of sips of tea, or even reach out and rock his chair, in order to wake him up and get him to focus on listening to the government's policies.

As a result, Zhao Shen was inevitably shaken from time to time.

It was utter torture!

"Is it ready yet?" Zhao Shen sipped his tea, his small eyes darting around.

Right in the center of the main hall, Grand Chancellor Jiang Zhao stood with his hands at his sides, holding several documents. Dressed in a purple robe and gold belt, with a gold talisman and fish-shaped pouch, and a sable-clothed scarf, he exuded the calm and dignified air of someone ruling the world.

Below him were several civil officials who stepped forward, some in red and some in purple, holding tablets and arguing heatedly, their faces flushed and spittle flying.

"I reckon it'll be soon, right?" Li Xian said uncertainly.

There are reasons for extending the deliberation period.

The fact that even high-ranking officials were arguing so fiercely that their faces turned red shows just how intense the debate was.

The public says that the public is reasonable, and the mother says that the woman is reasonable.

If a real debate were to take place, it could probably last for three days and three nights.

Conversely, if the Grand Chancellor makes a resolute decision and overwhelms all officials, the political discussions can be suspended immediately.

"If His Highness is too sleepy, perhaps we could ask the Grand Chancellor?" Li Xian bowed and whispered his suggestion.

To be honest, Li Xian was also panicked!

Judging from Zhao Shen's swaying and drowsy state, it's highly likely he's asleep.

The problem is that the young prince has his master protecting him, so even if he falls asleep, it won't cause any harm.

But as the Grand Eunuch in charge of the Imperial Secretariat, if Zhao Shen falls asleep, he will definitely have to accept the lawsuit!

Ask Taibao?
Zhao Shen's small eyes lit up slightly.

Right!

Taibao dotes on me!
"Taibao, Shen'er wants to sleep," Zhao Shen called out, half-asleep.

In an instant, the entire hall fell silent.

Jiang Zhao turned around and looked over.

Many of the civil officials who had been arguing also lowered their voices and kept their eyes on the matter.

About two breaths later, Jiang Zhao approached in a few steps.

"Are you sleepy?" Jiang Zhao asked softly.

"Mmm." Zhao Shen blinked his small eyes twice and nodded pitifully.

Jiang Zhao pondered for a moment, then nodded: "Okay."

For Zhao Shen, the discussions among civil and military officials were like reading a book from heaven—utterly tedious and boring.

It's perfectly normal for children to be overwhelmed by this level of political discourse.

"His Highness Prince Jing is still young, and he is inevitably a little tired after attending to state affairs for several days."

Jiang Zhao picked up a few documents and glanced at them indifferently, focusing his attention on the censors and remonstrance officials. He slowly said, "Their fatigue is not due to subjective negligence, and is understandable."

Li Xian secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

With this statement, the path to impeachment proceedings was completely cut off.

Of course, if someone is determined to go against the Grand Master, unafraid of him, and disrespectful to him, then there's nothing that can be done!

"Coincidentally, political discussions are also fraught with disputes, making it difficult to reach a conclusion."

"To avoid delaying other matters, let's discuss it another day."

"If any civil or military official has any objection, he may enter the Grand Secretariat or the Zhaowen Hall and explain the reasons for his objection."

"The rest may disperse on their own," Jiang Zhao said calmly, waving his sleeve.

"The court session is over—"

With a sharp cry, the civil and military officials dispersed in an orderly fashion.

Zhaowen Hall.

The table, about ten feet long, had dozens of documents on it.

Jiang Zhao picked up one of the dishes and looked thoughtful.

The Ayun case!
This is the source of the constant disputes between civil and military officials.

Now, in Dengzhou, there lived a woman named Ayun. She lost her father at a young age and lived in poverty, relying on her mother for survival.

When A-Yun turned thirteen, her mother passed away. In order to save money, her uncle betrothed A-Yun, who was still in mourning, to a poor farmer named Wei A-Da.

Wei Ada was ugly and uncouth, so Ayun naturally refused to marry him. However, her uncle had already accepted Wei Ada's betrothal gifts, making it extremely difficult to break off the engagement.

Therefore, Ayun conceived the idea of ​​killing Wei Ada and attempted to assassinate him with an axe.

As a result, the assassination attempt failed, and Wei Ada was only injured. He had no choice but to flee.

Wei A was a poor peasant's son with simple social connections, so the county government easily traced the problem back to A Yun.

When Ayun was arrested, she took the initiative to confess and provided the full details.

From the case facts alone, Ayun's case is not complicated. It is nothing more than a story of a shameless uncle, a young girl who was dissatisfied with her fiancé, and thus attempted to assassinate him.

However, politics often gives different meanings to minor events.

Ayun killed her husband, and the case has been tried twice, with no conclusion reached yet:

The first judgment was made by the county magistrate, who believed that A-Yun had committed the crime of murdering her husband, which constituted one of the ten unpardonable crimes and should be sentenced to beheading.

The second judgment was made by Xu Zun, a scholar of the Jixian Hall and prefect of Dengzhou, who believed that A-Yun was still in mourning and it was not appropriate for her to get married, so the betrothal should not be counted.

Therefore, it means that Wei Ada was neither Ayun's husband nor her fiancé, and should not be charged with murder as a wife killing her husband, but rather with simple murder.

Compared to heinous crimes, murder is a much lighter offense, punishable by a reduced sentence of hanging.

Furthermore, since A-Yun confessed voluntarily, which meets the requirement in the "Jiayou Compilation and Edict" that "if a crime has not been committed but is confessed upon questioning, the sentence may be reduced by one degree," the sentence should be further reduced accordingly, that is, the sentence should be reduced by two degrees, and the punishment should be eighteen strokes of the cane, one year of forced labor, and exile for two thousand five hundred li.

Dengzhou was an important town, and Xu Zun was a fourth-rank official who served as the prefect of Dengzhou. He also had experience working in the Court of Judicial Review. The officials of the prefecture did not dare to question him and accepted the verdict of "reducing the crime by two degrees".

The prefect's judgment was without objection, and the case file was then submitted to the Ministry of Justice for review.

The Ministry of Justice reviewed the case and agreed with the finding that the marriage arrangement was invalid, but opposed the finding that the sentence should be reduced due to the defendant's surrender.

Its main basis is two provisions of the "Great Zhou Criminal Code":

1. If a person surrenders himself/herself after committing a crime of intentional homicide, he/she may be exempted from the crime of non-homicide, but may not be exempted from the crime of intentional homicide, and shall still be punished according to the law on intentional homicide.

In other words, even if someone surrenders themselves to the police, the charge of causing the murder can only be reduced, not the charge of murder itself.

Just like theft leading to murder, if the theft results in murder, and there is a mitigating circumstance of surrendering oneself to the police, the theft charge may be reduced or exempted at the discretion of the court. However, the murder charge cannot be reduced or exempted at the discretion of the court. The lower limit for conviction is murder; there is no possibility of further reduction in sentence!
Second, causing injury to others is not considered grounds for surrendering oneself to the police.

This makes it even more obvious.

According to the "Criminal Code of the Great Zhou Dynasty", although A-Yun confessed voluntarily, it does not count as surrendering herself and she cannot be exempted from punishment at the discretion of the court.

In terms of sentencing, the minimum penalty would definitely be hanging, which is the minimum penalty for intentional homicide.

As expected, the case file was returned to Dengzhou, recommending a hanging rather than imprisonment, caning, or exile.

Originally, if Xu Zun had followed the Ministry of Justice's advice, the matter would have ended there.

Unfortunately, Xu Zun, as the prefect of an important town and a fourth-rank official, was planning to take up a post in the Ministry of Justice or the Court of Judicial Review in the seventh year of the Xifeng reign!
The case file was sent back for retrial, which aroused a lot of discussion among people in the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review. There were even some political enemies who wanted to take the opportunity to impeach him, trying to show that he was unprofessional in judging cases and should not be promoted.

then
Xu Zun quit!
Lao Tzu made this judgment based on the imperial edict of the late emperor!
The Ministry of Justice's actions, based on the "Criminal Code of the Great Zhou Dynasty," were therefore reasonable and well-founded.

But is Xu Zun someone who arbitrarily convicts people without any basis?
The Imperial Edicts of the Jiayou Era – these are the edicts of the late emperor!

Xu was sentenced according to the late emperor's edict. On what grounds do you say that the judgment is problematic?

Enraged, Xu Zun submitted a memorial to the emperor, which was delivered to Grand Chancellor Jiang Zhao.

And so, this seemingly minor case caught the attention of the officials in the imperial court.

Normally, this would be fine.

It would simply require the Central Secretariat to issue an imperial edict granting a special pardon.

The key point is, it was a bit of a coincidence!
Recently, many former opponents of the reform movement who had retired from official positions and lived in seclusion have shown signs of a resurgence, stirring up a "struggle for the orthodoxy."

These people attempted to refute the reform policies from a theoretical perspective by interpreting and disseminating the six classic texts: the Book of Poetry, the Book of Documents, the Book of Rites, the Book of Changes, the Spring and Autumn Annals, and the Book of Music.

In short, it can be summed up in one sentence: the laws of our ancestors must not be changed!

Even the word "light," which should not be easily changed, is gone.

The opponents were not honest, and the supporters were not weak either. Led by Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Su Zhe, and Zeng Bu, they debated the Dao almost every day without flinching.

The fact is that any one of Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Su Zhe, and Zeng Bu could establish their own school of thought, and when they worked together, they were undoubtedly invincible.

The opponents were unable to win the debate and suffered repeated defeats.

Coincidentally, the contradiction between the "Da Zhou Xing Tong" and the "Jia You Bian Chi" gave the opponents an opportunity.

Thus, the disputes over the orthodox tradition and the imperial edicts were combined into one.

The so-called laws and regulations are the basic legal code of the state—the "Great Zhou Criminal Code".

Imperial edicts, also known as decrees issued by the monarch or the Secretariat, encompass both judicial and administrative matters.

This is essentially a manifestation of the emperor and central authority.

From the Qin and Han dynasties to the early Tang dynasty, when laws and imperial edicts conflicted, laws took precedence and were superior to imperial edicts.

From the early Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, central authority became increasingly centralized, and laws and imperial edicts were implicitly on par with each other, or even implicitly superior to laws and edicts.

However, during the Zhou Dynasty, there was never any related debate, and the question of who was superior had not yet been formally decided.

Furthermore, in governing the country, 99% of the decrees are actually imperial edicts.

This is mainly because laws and decrees cannot be changed, so reformers can only use imperial edicts as the main vehicle for their reform policies.

Opponents focus on the debate over the imperial edicts, mainly because the laws and regulations would hardly be changed, making them a typical example of "ancestral laws".

Laws and decrees are temporary measures set by the monarch or the central government based on the needs of governance, and tend to be "temporary".

Only a few edicts that were intended to be implemented for a hundred years or more could be compiled into a collection of edicts, similar to the "Jiayou Compilation of Edicts".

But no matter what, laws are laws, and imperial edicts are imperial edicts.

The Ayun case thus evolved into a debate over the imperial edict, a theoretical struggle between opponents and supporters.

Thus, three major debates arose in the imperial court regarding the A-Yun case:

Firstly, is etiquette more important than law?

The essence of this debate is whether Ayun was a "wife who killed her husband".

The people in the Ministry of Justice agreed with Xu Zun's point of view and reached a consensus, but some people in the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and the Ministry of Rites did not agree.

Mainly from the perspective of "rites", A-Yun's uncle had already received the betrothal gifts, and A-Yun and Wei A-Da had reached the point of engagement, thus establishing a marriage alliance.

Even though Ayun is still in mourning, it does not affect the fact that this is recognized in terms of etiquette.

However, this debate didn't generate much buzz.

The main problem was internal strife between the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and the Ministry of Rites. Many people still believed that the marriage arranged by imperial decree during the mourning period was not in accordance with the established rites, and that the betrothal ceremony should take place afterward. They argued that the betrothal was not in accordance with the rites and was therefore illegal.

Secondly, does A-Yun's actions constitute surrendering herself to the authorities?

According to the "Da Zhou Xing Tong" and the "Jia You Bian Chi", this debate is divided, with each side holding its own opinion and it is difficult to reach a conclusion.

Thirdly, which is more powerful, laws or imperial edicts?
This was the core of the debate between supporters and opponents of the reform, the core of the debate among the Dali Temple, the Ministry of Justice, and other government departments, and the decisive point in the struggle for the orthodox lineage.

Of all government decrees, eight or nine out of ten are imperial edicts.

For opponents, if they could take this opportunity to establish laws as superior to imperial edicts, it would mean that future reform policies would have to take into account the existence of laws.

This gives opponents a powerful tool to obstruct policies they don't entirely agree with.

For those in the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice, the laws and regulations were naturally more important.

Otherwise, if a major case occurs, an imperial edict will be issued from above, leaving the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice, which are supposed to act in accordance with the law, in a difficult position.

Unbeknownst to them, the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice were in cahoots with the opponents and joined forces.

In terms of the struggle over the orthodox tradition, its outcome has become completely intertwined with the struggle over laws and edicts.

Essentially, this is a struggle for the right to interpret scriptures.

If the Confucian scholars who opposed the reforms won, they could use the law as a powerful tool to solidify the position that "the ancestral laws cannot be changed."

If a great Confucian scholar who supports the reform wins, he can be granted the imperial sword, or even ordered to re-edit and interpret the Four Books and Five Classics, thus establishing his own school of thought.

The saying "the Six Classics interpret me, and I interpret the Six Classics" is exactly like this.

The three main arguments have been debated for more than ten days.

"Tsk~!"

Jiang Zhao picked up the document and shook his head.

Lately, regarding the power struggles in the imperial court, he has been observing everything from the perspective of a referee, showing no intention of getting involved.

After all, the temporary administrator of state affairs is primarily a referee, not a participant.

But that's it.
If the argument becomes untenable, or if it drags on for too long, Jiang Zhao has no choice but to resort to forceful suppression.

From the moment the newspapers were published, it was destined that public opinion would be in the hands of the reformers.

A mere scholar of letters is not worth mentioning!
"what?"

Picking up the document, a flash of inspiration struck Jiang Zhao, and he couldn't help but squint his eyes.

The right to interpret scriptures is very important and must be firmly held in our hands.

However, deciding who should interpret the scriptures is a major problem, and there is likely to be controversy surrounding it.

There was only one exception, whose voices of doubt were much quieter—the Duke Yansheng!

Professional matters should be left to professionals.

Jiang Zhao looked at the clerk standing in the corner: "The lectures on the classics in March, the 47th generation descendant of Confucius is going to the capital, right?"

"Yes."

The clerk affirmed, "Your Excellency has a truly excellent memory. The 47th generation descendant of Confucius is named Kong Ruomeng, and he is also the Duke Yansheng of this generation."

"That's it!"

Jiang Zhao nodded knowingly, smiled, and said in a joking manner, "I've actually never met him before."

"In the first year of the Xifeng reign, Kong Ruomeng entered the capital and inherited the title of Duke Yansheng. It was a great pity that I, Jiang, happened to be inspecting the two capitals and fourteen circuits!"

"I wonder what Kong Ruomeng's temperament is like, and whether he has a teacher?"

The clerk was startled, then realized something and quickly said:
"The Duke Yansheng is only twenty-seven years old, so he should not have taken a master yet."

Hedong Road, Yunzhou.

Chinese army camp.

Upon receiving the document, Zhao Ceying shook his head.

"Ah!"

"Laws and imperial edicts shall naturally be governed by imperial edicts!"

"If Jiang Qing is difficult to deal with, I will personally enter the capital after a great victory and stand up for him!"

(End of this chapter)