Hai Rui's "retire half of the land" certainly has no legal basis.
If Gao Rui, who studied law in his previous life, evaluates it, Hai Rui's simple and crude handling method not only has no legal basis, but even defies the law. This is because China has always implemented statutory laws, not like the British and American ones in later generations.
unwritten law.
The so-called "unwritten law", to put it crudely, is to decide cases based on certain legal principles and past precedents. Written law requires that the circumstances of the case correspond to the existing legal provisions bit by bit.
For example, the "Da Ming Law" is a typical statutory legal provision.
The operation of "returning half of the land" has no basis in any legal provisions of the Ming Dynasty, so Hai Rui's penalty itself is certainly against the spirit of the law.
However, if Gao Pragmatic is also asked to evaluate, he has another conclusion: "retiring half of the land" does not violate the axiom in a broader sense.
In other words, this operation itself is illegal, but it does not violate the axioms in the broadest sense.
Fairness and justice are actually never the same thing.
Let’s take an example that may not be appropriate: the state distributes welfare to all people across the country, and each person is given 100 yuan. This is very fair.
But in fact, many rich people may not be interested in taking this mere 100 yuan, but many poor people feel that even if they take this 100 yuan, they are still desperately poor, so they ask the country to give the money that should be given to the rich
The money is also taken and distributed. If the country really does this, it is called justice.
No matter how rich the rich are, they can only have one ID card; no matter how poor the poor are, they must have one ID card. This is fair.
The rich have to pay personal income tax because their income is high; the poor do not pay personal income tax because their income is low. This is just.
Treat everyone equally, without exception, it is fair.
It is just to make up for the excess of losses but to make up for the deficiencies.
Hai Rui's rough operation is obviously unfair, because as a representative of judicial power, he should be impartial and consider the facts, but he directly sided with the disadvantaged groups. The rich and poor under his rule litigated, even if he himself
Even if the rich are right, they will probably not win the lawsuit.
But Hai Rui had his own reasons. He said: Rather than submit to the poor, it is better to submit to the rich; rather than submit to the stupid and straightforward, it is better to submit to the stubborn. The matter is to fight for property; rather than to submit to the small people, it is better to submit to the local officials to save disadvantages. The matter is to argue for opinions.
In terms of appearance, rather than surrendering to the local officials, I would rather surrender to the common people in order to preserve my body.
To put it simply, Hai Rui's thinking in deciding cases where the rich and the poor are fighting is this: when it comes to property, the poor will basically win, because the rich can afford to lose that little money, and if the poor lose, he may not win.
You will starve to death, or take desperate risks; when it comes to face, the rich will basically win, because you are so poor that you don’t even know how many meals you can eat. Why do you think about such a thing as face?
This is Hai Rui's principle. In theory, it not only ignores the law, but even ignores the normal sense of right and wrong. But the purpose of this principle is obvious: to maintain social harmony and stability.
It is precisely because Hai Rui has always adhered to such a principle that the people in the south of the Yangtze River call him "Nanhai Qingtian", and countless people have painted pictures of him and hung them in their homes for worship. It is also because Hai Rui has adhered to such a principle that people all over the world have
The officials and gentry hated Hai Rui to the core. Regardless of their relationship with Xu Jie or not, they did not want to see Hai Rui continue to be "arrogant".
But just now Feng Bao said that Zhang Juzheng would be the first person to come to Mr. Xu if something like this happened. Zhang Juzheng knew this was wrong. In fact, the first person Mr. Xu came to was his chief assistant Li Chunfang.
Li Chunfang knew that Xu Jie had saved Hai Rui's life, so when she learned that Hai Rui had operated on Xu Jie, she was really dumbfounded and quickly sent someone to send a message to Hai Rui, asking him to be spared and spared.
He is his own great benefactor.
Hai Rui was actually prepared for Xu Jie's move. He has always been a serious person, so he responded to Li Chunfang seriously, saying in the letter: Mr. Xu Ge has been in a lot of troubles recently. Where did this trouble come from?
What? I don’t blame others, I just blame his family’s horrifying amount of property. And most of his family property comes from robbing ordinary people, so the people are extremely angry. This is the trouble caused by being rich and unkind. The people of Songjiang are dangerous, if the Xu family
No one can predict the consequences of surrendering less than half of the land in the future. Therefore, I let the Xu family surrender the land. I am actually protecting them and protecting Mr. Xu Ge from enjoying his old age. Their family already has so much property.
Disaster, what's wrong with it?
That's fine, Hai Rui didn't listen, and Li Chunfang had no choice but to stare at Hai Rui's statement. In fact, it wasn't that Li Chunfang, the chief assistant, didn't have power in his hands, but his personality made him dare not
Using such power at will - if you want him to dismiss Hai Rui from office, you can, but he really doesn't dare, for fear of being scolded to death.
But Xu Jie was Xu Jie after all, and Li Chunfang couldn't cure Hai Rui, so Xu Jie simply used his old trick of "hiding a knife in cotton", remained silent in person, and let others cure Hai Rui in private.
Who can govern Hai Rui? There is only one kind of person, and that is the official who is born to find trouble.
On the 14th day of the first lunar month of the fourth year of Longqing's reign, less than a month after Gao Gong came to power, the criminal department was all concerned about the matter. They first affirmed that Hai Rui was famous for his integrity and was worthy of being a direct minister. But the conversation immediately changed.
, said that Hai Rui was too pedantic and unsophisticated. Therefore, Hai Rui could be used as a moral role model, but he was not suitable for holding important administrative positions. Therefore, he suggested that the court should change Hai Rui's position. This position could be higher, but he could not be given a higher position.
Carrying too heavy a burden.
Then, the officials reported to Dai Fengxiang about the matter, accusing Hai Rui of fishing for fame and ignoring the laws of the country. All the wealthy people and families with basic food and clothing were tortured. They also allowed the unruly people to complain and the "rich gentry" forced the wealthy families to withdraw from their land.
Section Chief Shu also heard (Wu Feng’s note: Section Chief is a common name given to a certain department, it is true, and of course it is completely different from the modern Section Chief.), there has been a phenomenon in Jiangnan that “it is better to lose weight than to grow fertilized fields.”
"The folk songs made people's hearts wander and people fled. In the long run, the foundation of the country will be shaken.
The firepower of this memorial is quite strong, and it involves a major issue, that is, the wealth of Jiangnan. If Hai Rui continues like this, the rich will be liquidated, and the poor will still be unable to pay rent, then how can the country's land tax be guaranteed?
Moreover, Hai Rui’s brutal behavior puts the dignity of the country at risk?
When Emperor Longqing dealt with matters, he first had to look at the cabinet vote, and Li Chunfang no longer dared to speak on this matter, so the matter was placed in front of Gao Gong. Zhang Juzheng knew Gao Gong well, and he knew Gao Gong
The biggest feature of employing people is that they have extremely high requirements for ability but average requirements for virtue. Therefore, when Zhang Juzheng saw so many memorials to impeach Hai Rui being presented this morning, he immediately guessed two things.