Guo Shi, the son of Wuding Marquis Guo Xun, was sentenced to hang by Shuntian Mansion for killing a thug.

Wuding Hou Guo Xun wrote a memorial to Emperor Zhengde Zhu Houzhao for this reason, hoping to make a new judgment, on the grounds that the meritorious service should not be punished so severely after the merits.

Zhu Houzhao directly asked the cabinet to issue a memorial to the Minister of Wuding Guo Xun to the Dali Temple Zhang Zilin, who was decided by Zhang Zilin.

The reason is that the Constitution stipulates that Dali Temple has the highest judicial power of the Ming Empire.

Because Zhu Houzhao did not support Guo Xun in the judicial process, Guo Xun had to come to Dali Temple Minister Zhang Zilin himself.

"The Ming Dynasty law stipulates that rapers should be slandered! There is nothing wrong with the case ruled by the Marquis of Wuding and Shuntian Mansion!"

The Minister of Dali Temple Zhang Zilin has always been upright and has not given any mercy to Wuding Marquis Guo Xun.

"Then you can't judge this way! My son is a noble descendant, but he is just a noble girl to be humiliated to death. Why do you have to execute him? Your Dali Temple is a random judgment!"

Guo Xun slapped the table on the spot and scolded him angrily.

Zhang Zilin also responded without hesitation: "Dali Temple has the power to final trial, which is stipulated in the constitutional outline! If the Marquis of Wuding feels that the trial of Dali Temple is unfair, he can submit it to Your Majesty directly and ask Your Majesty to dismiss me! But as long as the official is still the Minister of Dali Temple, the case will be so judged!"

constitution?

Guo Xun did not expect that the Dali Temple Minister Zhang Zilin would refute him with the "Constitution". He thought that he would force Dali Temple to make concessions and punish his son lightly, but now he suddenly brought out a constitution and he didn't know how to fight back.

This is also a change in imperial politics after Zhu Houzhao promulgated the outline of the Imperial Constitution. The officials of the empire began to inadvertently use the constitution as the basis for their power, rather than breaking the rules at will, just like before, completely based on the environment they were in at that time.

For example, now, without a constitution, Dali Temple Minister Zhang Zilin could not stop Wuding Marquis Guo Xun from interfering in criminal cases, because although the authority of Dali Temple Minister is to finalize all cases, the final judgment power is only owned by the emperor.

The emperor's laziness can give Dali Temple the highest judicial power, and the emperor's diligence can make Dali Temple have no power. To put it bluntly, Dali Temple was just an agent of the emperor in criminal trials before.

However, now, the Constitution clearly stipulates the power of Dali Temple. Therefore, Dali Temple Minister Zhang Zilin can legitimately prevent Guo Xun from interfering in the judicial process, and is not even afraid of offending the emperor because the emperor is not satisfied with him, but he cannot deny his rights and responsibilities during his tenure.

Wuding Hou Guo Xun was disappointed and could only watch his son be executed for breaking the law.

Many court officials, like Zhang Zilin, the minister of Dali Temple, began to clarify their power and responsibilities because of the emergence of the Constitution, and used this as a weapon to prevent some powerful people from interfering in government affairs.

Of course, while civil servants discovered this wonderfulness of the Constitution, they also felt the constraints brought to them by the Constitution, because the Constitution also involves the power of ordinary people, which makes them unable to over-pollide the people and ignore the demands of the people. For example, now there is no way to prohibit the people's right to discuss political affairs.

But they can't let Zhu Houzhao ban the Constitution now.

Because the Constitution was negotiated by the court officials above the fourth rank and the foreign courts above the third rank.

There were even the participation of nobles, relatives, royal relatives, and the participation of several gentry, elders and rural people from the north and south of Zhili.

It took more than a year of quarrel to formulate it.

This constitution is a relatively acceptable product of all classes of the empire. Although it is generally beneficial to the court and the people, no one dares to deny him except for Emperor Zhu Houzhao who has the ability to deny him.

After all, most of the people who signed the signatures were big bosses in the court. If you want to abolish the Constitution, it would be equivalent to opposing the entire civil servants, nobles, military generals, and even the emperor.

Even if it is revised, two-thirds of the representatives at the time of the first constitutional outline were persuaded to jointly submit the report to the emperor, and the emperor must agree to the amendment.

After the revision, the emperor still has a veto.

Therefore, it is difficult for civil servants and other powerful people to ban the constitution and even modify the constitutional outline.

What's more, Zhu Houzhao still abides by the constitutional outline now.

Others, whether civil servants or other powerful people, can only obey the rules set out in the constitutional outline.

Confucian Neo-Confucianism made the Ming Dynasty an empire with strict hierarchical order and ethical order. From emperors to officials to the people, from country to family, there are all levels of principles and regulations.

All people follow the rules of the son following the father and the minister following the king.

Because of this, in the Confucian Neo-Confucian society, whether it is a dynasty or a family, they can only hope that the monarch is wise and the head of the family can prosper the country. This society has high requirements for the monarch is very high.

Moreover, the monarch or head of the family therefore has the power to make rules, but they have to ask them to abide by the rules themselves. Once they do not abide by the rules themselves, the rules are equivalent to not being there.

Now, Zhu Houzhao has allowed the rulers of the Ming Dynasty to learn to set social rules by themselves, and no one dares to obey this social rules, including the emperor himself.

Although this social rule still has the shadow of Confucian Neo-Confucianism, it is more in line with the interests of the emperor and officials.

But at least let the strong men of the empire know that they can establish a social rule that everyone follows through a negotiation method, rather than blindly following the words of the saints.

Zhu Houzhao hopes that if there is no invasion of alien races, the newly emerging political forces can distribute interests with the old forces by re-setting rules to avoid war through war, or avoid the division of the country because the war makes each other unforgivable and intolerable enemies.

The invasion of alien races was the biggest external cause of the Chinese civilization being repeatedly defeated back to its origin. As the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Houzhao had to let the empire avoid such external factors again.

The little prince was sentenced to death, in order to warn foreign enemies who committed sins against the Ming Dynasty.

Hetao is now back in the hands of the Ming Dynasty. The military depth of the Ming Dynasty has been extended and its military defense capabilities have been enhanced. If handled properly, the Gengxu change that occurred during the Jiajing period will not happen again.

What's more, Mongolia is not as unified by the little prince as it used to be in history, and it is still a split situation. If Zhu Houzhao transforms and assimilates it a little, he will not worry about not being able to permanently eliminate the dangers of Mongolia.

In fact, Mongolia has begun to decline in this era, and Zhu Houzhao is not worried that Mongolian forces will rise again. After all, after this nation was baptized by Confucian culture and the changes in its combat methods, they can no longer win the world by riding and shooting.

But Zhu Houzhao still wants to transform them to prevent them from becoming accomplices of other alien races in history in the future.

What Zhu Houzhao is really worried about is the Jurchens, especially the Jianzhou Jurchens.

Of course, the current Jianzhou Jurchens are still living by fishing and hunting. They will not settle in Hetura until Nurhaci's great-grandfather Fuman inherited the governor of Jianzhou Wei ten years later and began to transform from fishing and hunting civilization to farming civilization.

Of course, it was also from that time that this inconspicuous Jurchen tribe would continue to grow its power because it turned into a farming civilization. Finally, under the indulgence of Li Chengliang, it unified the Jurchens during the Wanli period, and eventually became a military force that threatened the Ming Dynasty.

It can be said that if Zhu Houzhao is willing, he can easily wipe out this Jurchen tribe if he is willing.

However, Zhu Houzhao had to admit that it was easy to destroy this Jurchen tribe, but he could not guarantee that under the influence of the Ming Empire, other surrounding alien races would grow stronger due to the progress of civilization and eventually rise to become a foreign power that the Ming Dynasty cannot ignore.

Nurhaci can be eliminated in advance, but there is no guarantee that people like Nurhaci will appear.

The root cause of the destruction of the Ming Dynasty by the alien race lies in itself. If it weren't for the decline of the Ming Dynasty itself, the alien race wouldn't have easily replaced the country.

Therefore, Zhu Houzhao is still trying his best to transform his Ming Empire. As for the Jianzhou Jurchens, he does not intend to touch them. He allows the Jianzhou Jurchens to continue to develop according to the original history. At least the alien races that Zhu Houzhao is familiar with can be more confident in destroying them even if they rise.

But Zhu Houzhao was sure that if one day he was about to die, he would have to stipulate in his will that the kings of future generations would first eliminate the Jianzhou Jurchens, or he would eliminate the Jianzhou Jurchens in the last few years.

The Ming Dynasty's current foreign military strategic center is still in Outer Mongolia. This force left by the former Yuan Dynasty is still the alien race that the Ming Dynasty needs to be most prepared for now.

However, because they entered the Central Plains, although they owe many sins during the process of taking over, they were also influenced by varying degrees of sinicization. Therefore, Zhu Houzhao felt that it was not difficult to transform Mongolia. He had the confidence to let them continue to be sinicized, and eventually became a historical term like the Huns and Turks.

However, the real pressure still comes from the inside of the Ming Empire.

After the Hetao was recovered, Ma Wensheng reported to the court that he needed to formulate a strategy to defend Hetao, and also provided opinions, saying that what he needed most now was not soldiers, horses, but food and grass.

After all, after the Ming Dynasty recovered Hetao, the border troops could not be allowed to go to other border towns like Mongolian cavalry to plunder the people of their own country to supplement their supplies.

There is not a big problem with enough food. The territory of the Han Dynasty and the Tang Empire was so vast that the grain output of the mainland farming society could still be supported, and it also created a brilliant prosperous era.

The Ming Dynasty can do it naturally.

But the big problem is that the cost of transportation of food will drag down the finances of the central court.

In the past, dynasties mostly adopted the method of military farming, and the Ming Dynasty also used this method.

However, one disadvantage of military farming is that it is easy to turn professional soldiers into professional farmers. In this way, although the financial pressure of the empire has decreased, its national defense power will be sharply reduced, and its ability to expand externally will also be reduced.

Ma Wensheng didn't understand why His Majesty had not issued an order to grant him farming in Hetao. Because he would not farm again, he could only take the border troops back and voluntarily give up the Hetao land. He no longer had more silver to mobilize more grain to Hetao.
Chapter completed!