Chapter 857: The Lion is Hard to Compete
After noon, in the flower hall of the back government office.
When Sun Shaozong arrived, Wei Yi was sitting opposite Li Wenshan. Most of the sandalwood on the small round table had burned out, and it was obvious that the two had been alone for a long time.
Considering that Sun Shaozong rushed here immediately after receiving the message, it can be basically inferred that Li Wenshan was invited here by Wei Yi at least a quarter of an hour ago.
Is this a demonstration to myself?
Or do you intend to sow discord?
It doesn't matter. Even if the two are really connected, as long as Li Wenshan is not a person who just eats and waits for death, the "legal education in the countryside" policy he has concocted will definitely make him change his mind.
"Sun Shaoqing."
Seeing Sun Shaozong coming in from outside, Li Wenshan hurriedly stood up to greet him.
Wei Yi sat in his chair without moving, and just raised his chin slightly towards the empty chair on the left: "Sit down."
After the initial exchange, the old man was too lazy to pretend to be intimate when interacting with others in private.
Sun Shaozong smiled and returned the greeting to Li Wenshan. He sat down on the chair and placed the two memorials on the table, pushing them in front of the two of them. "Here are the specific regulations. Please correct them, gentlemen."
It is a court custom to prepare two copies of memorials - otherwise, a few months after submitting the memorial, the court suddenly asks about it again, but you have already forgotten most of the content . Wouldn't that be very embarrassing?
Li Wenshan subconsciously took it, placed it in front of him, and was about to flip it open to take a closer look.
Wei Yi, however, stretched out his hand and placed the memorial on the table, with a gesture of first courtesy and then force: "This is the first proposal submitted by Sun Shaoqing after he was transferred to the Dali Temple. We will take it seriously. However, the case of the Tianshi Mansion has nothing to do with this. I hope Lord Sun will not confuse them."
Sun Shaozong smiled slightly, without saying a word in reply, but just made a gesture of "please have a look".
Wei Yi was quite dissatisfied, but Li Wenshan had already unfolded the thick memorial and was reading it attentively.
He was unable to do it alone, and was unwilling to destroy the illusion of cooperation with Li Wenshan, so he could only curse inwardly, pulled the memorial on the table towards him, and solemnly opened it to read it carefully.
Precisely because of his feud with Sun Shaozong, he actually treated this memorial more seriously than Li Wenshan.
However, he focuses more on finding loopholes.
I originally thought that although Sun Shaozong was a talented person, he was a military man after all, so there would inevitably be omissions in his writing.
Who would have thought that when I was halfway through reviewing it word by line, I would find that the memorial was not only well-organized, but also had brilliant wording and sentence structure.
Ghostwriter!
This rough draft must have been written by a ghostwriter!
but……
The specific policies proposed in this memorial are indeed meaningful. If they can be truly implemented, they seem to be able to solve the predicament of the Dali Temple.
After having this thought, Wei Yi simply read it again from the beginning. This time, he did not have the intention of criticizing or praising. Instead, he calmed down and carefully grasped the key points in it.
Apart from the usual eulogies, this memorial begins with detailed data, listing the increasingly serious trend of private fighting across the country, especially in the northwest and southwest rural areas.
Then, it was inferred that local governments had not invested enough energy in education, especially in the rule of law.
As a result, the common people in the countryside were unaware of the laws of the court and did not fear them. The victims were even ashamed to appeal to the government and instead believed in the power of their clans.
Faced with this phenomenon, some local officials do not feel ashamed but proud of it, and even feel relaxed and happy.
Local officials will only act hastily when the situation continues to escalate with their connivance and eventually leads to serious mass incidents.
Doing so will not only be too late, but will also be more likely to arouse public resentment and even provoke civil unrest.
If this continues, the authority of the imperial court will inevitably be replaced by local powerful forces or even certain religions.
Now that the Great Zhou is strong [obviously flattery], it may not be a big deal.
But once the country is in trouble, or suffers a series of disasters, it will inevitably lead to chaos.
[Although it is not explicitly stated here, the old story of the White Lotus Rebellion in Shaanxi and Gansu can be fit in. ]
In view of this, Sun Shaozong proposed in his memorial that the court should establish another education system to strive to bring the court's laws into the fields and let every citizen know and fear the law, understand the consequences of violating the court's laws, and how to use the court's laws to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests.
In addition, this system can also be used to conduct a certain degree of supervision on the educational responsibilities of local officials and whether they are fair and just in enforcing criminal laws.
In fact, when Wei Yi saw this at first, he was quite dismissive, thinking that Sun Shaozong was just daydreaming.
After all, the imperial court is already troubled by the problem of redundant officials and staff. How could it possibly set up another bureaucratic system to promote the law outside the current system?
However, Sun Shaozong's next idea was not to establish a new bureaucratic system, but to use the existing imperial examination system to lay eggs.
According to the court regulations, a group of scholars with relatively outstanding academic performance would enter the prefecture, state, and county schools as stipend students and receive a certain amount of subsidies.
The most outstanding ones among them will be selected as tribute students and study in the Imperial Academy.
Sun Shaozong's idea was to randomly select a certain number of scholars from the county school's students in spring, summer and winter every year, and carry out a month-long legal publicity campaign within the county.
In order to pass the imperial examination, one must be familiar with criminal law, and the students on government stipends are the best among the scholars, so their basic are beyond doubt.
The reason for skipping autumn was, firstly, to avoid the busy farming season, and secondly, to avoid delaying the scholars from taking part in the autumn examination.
During the process of popularizing the law in rural areas, the food, clothing, housing, transportation, and personal safety of the students on government stipends were all taken care of by the local post stations.
During this period, the students can only answer questions and resolve doubts, and are not allowed to intervene in or arbitrate civil litigation without authorization, but they can record what they see and hear.
At the end of each quarter's legal education program in rural areas, all students on scholarship must make a summary and try to put forward suggestions for improvement.
Then a memorial was submitted to the provincial judicial commissioner's office, which in turn forwarded it to the Dali Temple for review.
Every autumn, the Dali Temple would evaluate the legal education summaries submitted by the students in the previous year and distribute them to various prefectures and counties as an important reference for the county school year-end evaluation.
Those who perform outstandingly can be recommended by the Dali Temple and directly admitted to the provincial school or enter the Imperial Academy.
If the students on government stipend do not participate in the legal education programs in rural areas without a reasonable reason within a year, they will face penalties such as disciplinary action and expulsion.
This conception, on the one hand, avoids adding more officials and increasing the burden on the court; on the other hand, it allows scholars to put their knowledge into practice and understand the people's sentiments, so that once they become officials in the future, they will not be easily deceived by villains.
Another thing is that the imperial court also had additional channels to learn about major and minor events in the local area, reducing the possibility of local officials deceiving their superiors and concealing the truth.
Of course, the one who benefited the most was the Dali Temple.
If this proposal can be implemented, it would be equivalent to directly extending its ears, eyes and tentacles into the local governments at the county level and even lower levels.
What is even more exciting is that the Dali Temple can use this opportunity to expand its influence among the vast number of scholars and even influence their future.
what does that mean?
This means that the Dali Temple can control public opinion to a considerable extent, and it is public opinion across the country!
Wei Yi couldn't help but feel excited when he thought that he, a usually insignificant Minister of the Dali Temple, actually had the opportunity to become the leader of the literati.
However, he was, after all, a veteran in officialdom who had worked there for decades. No matter how excited he was, he still tried his best to suppress his emotions and carefully considered whether all this would be beneficial or detrimental to him.
Then the hot blood in his heart quickly cooled down.
Indeed, if this proposal can be passed and then implemented smoothly, it will be a revolutionary change for the Dali Temple. The person in charge will naturally gain both fame and fortune, and even go down in history.
but……
How can such a major policy involving the entire country be implemented in a hurry?
Three years!
It will take at least three years to implement it and see initial results.
However, Lord Wei has been in charge of the Dali Temple for seven years. Can the court allow him to stay in office for another three years?
Especially in the previous seven years, he had almost no political achievements to show for it - and such a national policy certainly requires a strong executor.
In contrast, Sun Shaozong had served as a fourth-rank inspector general for one and a half years when he was in Wuxi Prefecture.
As the proposer of this national policy, even if he followed the routine of promotion every three years, it could be said to be a natural progression for him to take over the position of Chief Justice of the Dali Temple two years later.
By then, the one who will gain both fame and fortune and leave his name in history will be him, Sun Shaozong!
Even if Sun Shaozong fails to take over due to his age, I will most likely be replaced by someone else...
All in all, no matter how good this proposal is, it doesn't seem to benefit me much.
Although Wei Yi has been content to be a nobody these years, the opportunity to go down in history is right in front of him, but it just doesn't belong to him. How can an ordinary person understand the loss and unwillingness in his heart?
He was so distracted by his fantasies that even his facial features were distorted.
“Great, great, great!”
At this moment, an excited voice suddenly filled the entire hall. Li Wenshan was holding the memorial, his eyes red with excitement, and he praised repeatedly: "Sun Shaoqing's proposal is really eye-opening! Good, very good!"
It is no wonder that he was so excited. Although Sun Shaozong's proposal to "spread the law to the countryside" ultimately benefited the entire Dali Temple, the power to promote the rule of law and interpret laws and decrees has always been the responsibility of the Right Shaoqing.
In other words, no matter who between Sun Shaozong and Wei Yi will gain control of the "popularization of law in rural areas" in the end, Li Wenshan will definitely get a share of it.
As one of the few legal scholars in the court, and having only assumed the office a year and a half ago, his position as Right Shaoqing was as solid as a rock, and he did not have the worries that Wei Yi had.
The big thing is over!
Seeing that Li Wenshan was so excited that he almost wanted to urge Sun Shaozong to write a letter to the court immediately, all the plans in Wei Yi's mind disappeared in an instant.
Originally, because of Sun Shaozong's military identity and his recent aggressive attitude, Li Wenshan had actually agreed to form an alliance with Wei Yi.
However, Sun Shaozong's proposal to "popularize the law in rural areas" instantly changed everything.
Li Wenshan actually didn't care much about promotion or wealth, but the temptation of leaving a name in history was something he absolutely could not refuse.
If Wei Yi dared to obstruct, there would be no need for Sun Shaozong to step in, Li Wenshan would fight him to the death first!
These two Shaoqings are of the same blood. Even if Wei Yi wants to suppress Sun Shaozong and this proposal, how can he do it?
Stop it.
It is difficult to compete with a lion. I am getting older now and will not be far from retirement. Why should I make enemies with others and bring harm to my children and grandchildren?
Thinking of this, Wei Yi put down the memorial dejectedly and echoed: "What Li Shaoqing said is very true. Such a good policy must be supported by the Dali Temple with all our hearts and souls!"
