Enter the corner gate and walk along the scattered stones under the high wall.
The palace is not big. It takes more than a hundred steps from the corner gate to the side courtyard, and there are two turns. There are rockery and stone walls along the way, which are sparkling and exquisitely built. But in fact, it is not far from the square outside. Compare The size of the emperor's palace was too cramped.
The rockery was surrounded by warriors holding halberds. Guo Ning paced back and forth under the rockery, walked twice and stood still, showing a thoughtful expression.
The attendant sang loudly: "Li Yunxuan is here!"
Li Yun quickened his steps and moved forward, bowing as a formality.
Guo Ning nodded to him.
He listened to the sounds from the outside world and said slowly:
"When the palace was just built last year, I stood here and could hear the noise of the civil and military officials waiting in front. The civil servants were better. Even if they talked, they mostly talked in low voices. The military officials were different. They liked to talk loudly. Yelling loudly. Many of the soldiers who came to see me had just experienced the war and were very excited. They wanted to show off their military exploits and publicize the hardships. Some soldiers met their old colleagues here and talked and laughed with each other. Sometimes I stand here, Listening to their words, it felt like they were warming themselves by a fire on the march. Everyone was eating their newly caught prey while talking nonsense. But at this moment, they are so quiet."
Li Yun smiled bitterly and said: "They have all made mistakes, and they all know that His Majesty runs the army very strictly. Not to mention these mere petty officials, even ministers and generals will be killed when they should be killed, and demoted when they should be demoted. Now everyone When you are in danger, you are not in the mood for small talk."
"You know how strict I am in running the army, but you still have such courage!"
Guo Ning shook his head and took two steps back and forth: "You were busy all day yesterday. Did you find out any crimes?"
Li Yun took out the document from his sleeve and presented it respectfully.
Guo Ning held the document in his hand and asked: "How many cases are there in total? How many officials are involved?"
"What I was looking at yesterday was the case at Sanchakou Wharf. There were eleven officials involved."
"The report from the Recorder's Department only mentioned six people about the delay in transshipment at Sanchakou Terminal. Presumably those you mentioned in the document have been included. In addition, he also reported a few people This case involves the transfer of ordnance from Tongzhou and the manufacturing of arrows at two factories in Baodi County. I haven’t looked at the books carefully about the specific details, but in total there are more than forty officials involved.”
Having said this, Guo Ning patted another book in his hand and asked Li Yun to take a look at it too.
Li Yun flipped through the pages, and immediately knew that he had been tricked by the old fox Xu Yan. This guy had persuaded the ministers to come forward and ran amok everywhere, but he secretly closed the net and gathered far more clues than he did.
What's funny is that there were only more than forty people in Xu Jin's book. After the emperor gave him a day, the whole Tianjin mansion was in a state of uproar. At this time, he felt guilty and guilty, so he knelt outside the door early. Yes, there are sixty or seventy of them.
The more than forty people who dared to interfere with water transportation and military supplies were certainly bold, but what did the other dozens of people do? They frightened themselves, risked being severely punished by the emperor, jumped out to beg for mercy, and influenced the Secretary and the Recorder. Si actually knew nothing about their actions. Wasn't it an oversight?
Li Yun felt a slight shiver in his heart: "The Left and Right Division pays more attention to the movements of the Southern Dynasties on a daily basis. After I arrived at Tianjin Mansion, I was in a hurry to conduct inquiries, and there must be many omissions. If Your Majesty..."
"No need, no need."
Guo Ning sighed: "The Confucian ministers in the court have always advocated benevolence and righteousness, and asked us to be virtuous and careful in punishment in order to inherit the destiny. Those words are not unreasonable. However, most of the people in charge of public security and supervision in this dynasty came from the military and regard killing as a crime.
Ordinary. If you guys are really ruthless and investigate carefully, I'm afraid that the people below are eager to perform meritorious deeds, and will torture and extort confessions. Not only will the impact be too great, but new unjust cases may arise."
Li Yun bowed and said: "In this case, we can only let them surrender themselves to the Tianjin government and deal with them in accordance with national laws."
This idea coincides with what Guo Ning had previously thought.
When Guo Ning was dealing with military and political affairs, he often listened to modern stories being explained. He often lamented why the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties valued culture over military affairs, which led to the decline of the country. Later, going back to the Five Dynasties, he realized that after the warriors took over the country, they could act wantonly and be arrogant.
Domineering to that point, and the reason why the Song Dynasty desperately suppressed the warriors, its motivation did not come from a certain emperor or a certain civil servant. It was actually the common wish of the people of the world after experiencing the terrible world, which cannot be shaken.
After all, warriors are not saints. Each of them has desires and attitudes. However, their desires and attitudes are not naturally consistent with the commander-in-chief. In many cases, they are truly wild and untamable. Hundreds of thousands of warriors are like dozens of warriors.
Thousands of wolves, tigers and leopards.
As the commander-in-chief of the army, Guo Ning had to drive them but also restrict them; he had to ensure their loyalty but also had to tolerate their stupidity and nonsense from time to time. This was really helpless.
Therefore, Guo Ning has long thought clearly that this time, he must raise the military stick in his hand high and put it down gently. The best way is as Li Yun said, don't worry about military needs, but regard them as
A large number of government affairs and even daily security-related cases were thrown to the Tianjin government for handling.
The Tianjin government will definitely not be able to find any major problems here. After all, this group of people has been busy all night. If they want to leave something for the local officials to use, they are really stupid to a certain extent and deserve to be unlucky.
Guo Ning wanted to gain a favor from Li Yun, so he ignored him for now and asked the guards to call in all the dozens of people kneeling outside.
Almost all of those dozens of people were retired soldiers. They were not young anymore, and they had more or less old injuries and illnesses, which were much better than when they were young. They knelt down in front of the palace gate before dawn to apologize.
At this time, everyone's knees were sore from the cold. They reluctantly followed the guards in, but they were afraid of walking unsteadily and losing their manners in front of you, so they tried their best to support their waist and legs.
When they arrived in front of the emperor, they saw Li Yun still bowing down to beg for mercy. Many people concluded that Li Yun had completely different positions from their own, and they were afraid that they would take the opportunity to frame him. Everyone was frightened and knelt down on the ground again.
Kowtow.
Unexpectedly, Guo Ning glanced at them lightly, turned to Li Yun and stretched out his hand to support him: "I wanted to scold them, but when I saw them, I had nothing to say. I will follow your idea and take them to see Tianjin Mansion."
Yin!"
Didn't the emperor transfer everyone to Tianjin Mansion without further investigation? This, is this to forgive everyone? Tianjin Mansion is never responsible for military affairs, and the governor Zhang Lin has always known how to advance and retreat, and he never interacts with the new dynasty on weekdays.
The honorable ministers competed with the senior officials.
Deport everyone to Tianjin Prefecture, and wait until you show your superiority!
After all, the Emperor is considerate of our difficulties! After all, the Emperor is truly one of our own! When not at war, the Emperor is still very amiable and understanding!
Everyone was overjoyed and thanked him profusely. Hu Zhonggui was very excited and kowtowed loudly. Some people swore on the spot and beat their chests, saying they would never do it again or be deceived by others.
Guo Ning did not speak to them, but stood up and turned to the inner courtyard behind the rockery.
After taking two steps, he stood still and patted his forehead: "By the way, what's the crime of killing good people without permission?"
The people who were chattering attentively suddenly shut up and fell into silence.
Hu Zhonggui suddenly thought of how he had flaunted his official power at the beginning of the year, used various reasons to kill troublemakers, and then dumped their bodies. There were some things that he could use his advantage to settle, but the people he killed were all real people.
In fact, it is impossible to survive.
He was suddenly sweating profusely. After a while, someone next to him trembled and said, "Death penalty."
Hu Zhonggui was stunned for a moment, then gritted his teeth and said: "Killing good people without permission is a capital crime."
"It turns out you all know it."
Guo Ning sighed regretfully and added: "I can tolerate your mistakes. If you make some small mistakes, I won't give you a chance to correct them. But once the power is in hand, I will treat the people as trivial.
The wanton killing of fish and meat is destroying the foundation of my new dynasty and cannot be tolerated."
After speaking, he pointed at a few people in the crowd, and soldiers immediately dragged them out of the queue.
Several people, including Hu Zhonggui, were so devastated that they did not resist. The soldiers easily held down their arms and forced them to kneel down.
"What you guys have done is too outrageous. I hope you and others, who have been on the battlefield for a long time, will not trouble the governor of Tianjin and end up with serious crimes and bring shame to your family... Just behead them here."
At the emperor's order, the soldier brandished his sword. The head fell to the ground, blood spurted out, and a strong stench spread, making everyone watching feel frightened.
Guo Ning squinted at a few familiar faces rolling around, waved to others, "You can go, what are you waiting for?"
