General Qin

"Father, Zhao Tuo has gone too far to bully people. Not only did he abolish the emigration of people, but he also wanted to change our Qin laws. Now he proposes to reduce corporal punishment and replace it with pinchers and flogging. This is to dig into the foundation of our Qin laws! "

At the residence of Marquis Wentong, Li Yu kept complaining to his old father.

He is the supervisor of Tingwei, the deputy of Tingwei, and belongs to the top of Qin's legal system.

The second emperor ordered the left and right prime ministers and ministers to carry out reforms. As the highest judicial institution, the Tingwei Mansion was naturally the first to bear the brunt and suffered the greatest impact.

Li Yu found it difficult to accept many of the reform directions proposed by Right Prime Minister Zhao Tuo.

Especially today's argument about "reducing corporal punishment" has hit the lungs of these Legalist disciples.

The core of Qin's law is to "stop punishment with punishment."

In the words of the Legalists, it means, "To kill is to kill, even if killing is permissible; to punish is to punish, although severe punishment is permissible."

As long as the head of Guizhou commits a crime, he must be severely punished.

For example, if you steal a mulberry leaf worth less than a penny, according to Qin law, you will be punished with thirty days of corvee service.

The five of them committed a robbery together and stole more than one dollar. Their left foot was amputated and tattooed with the name Chengdan.

If there are less than five people and the amount of theft exceeds 660 yuan, they will have their faces tattooed, their noses cut off and then they will be fined as Cheng Dan.

In addition to heavy penalties for misdemeanors, there are also various joint punishment systems. Anyone who knows and fails to report will be punished with the same crime as the criminal.

According to Legalists, punishment is not the purpose, the purpose is to deter.

Assassination, cutting off people's feet, and tattooing people's faces are not intended to harm the people, but to prohibit rape and stop transgressions. It is forbidden to commit adultery and to stop transgressions, and there is no such thing as severe punishment. If the punishment is severe, you will definitely get it. If the punishment is severe and the crime is punished, the people will not dare to try it. The people dare not try it, so there is no punishment.

Various severe punishments were used to frighten Guizhou leaders so that they would not dare to commit crimes, so as to maintain social stability and finally achieve the ideal state of no punishment.

In this process, the corporal punishments of tattooing the face, cutting off the nose, castrating, and chopping off the left and right legs were very important. If, as Zhao Tuo said, the proportion of corporal punishment is reduced, will Qin Fa still have a deterrent effect? Without deterrence, who else in the world would take the law seriously?

And this is just the beginning. Judging from Zhao Tuo's appearance, he may further propose the abolition of corporal punishment in the future.

Is it necessary for them, Legalist disciples, to exist?

Li Yu was very dissatisfied with this and couldn't help but murmured: "If my father had raised objections in the court before, even if the Qin State still wanted to change the law in the end, Zhao Tuo would not be so arrogant and would use physical punishment if he was concerned about his father's attitude."

Li Si lowered his head and slowly chewed the soft noodles in his mouth.

He is old and must eat slowly and not talk, otherwise he will choke easily.

After swallowing the food in his mouth, he looked at Li Yu slowly: "What, how about you go talk to the Marquis of Zhen Guo and ask him not to change his ways?"

Li Yu's face froze. It was okay to speak ill of Zhao Tuo behind his back, but he didn't have the guts to confront Zhao Tuo head-on.

Li Si sneered and said, "You're stupid. Do you know why the emperor named me Lunhou?"

"Of course, I use my position as Marquis Lun to appease my father in exchange for my support for the reform. This is the exchange of interests that you often say, father."

"Yes, an exchange of interests. Let me ask you, the emperor is willing to use the position of Marquis Lun as a benefit to appease me, Li Si. Does this mean that the emperor supports the reform? If you and I oppose the reform, are we going against the emperor? Do you want to? How about asking me, Mrs. Li, to stand on the opposite side of the emperor?"

Li Yu was taken aback and said hurriedly: "Father, I didn't mean that."

Li Si sighed: "You don't mean this, but if you object, in the eyes of the emperor, that's what you are."

"Yu'er, you have to remember that Qin's law is just a tool. The reason why Shang Yang was able to reform the Qin State back then was because Qin Jun liked Qin's law itself? No, it was just that the king liked this method to make Qin As the country became stronger, we fully supported the reform. Therefore, Shang Yang died and Qin Fa survived. So now the emperor does not like this method. He thinks that the old Qin Fa is out of date and needs to be reformed to adapt to the new Qin state. All we have to do is support Two words, rather than going against the emperor for some Qin law."

"The emperor's support is everything. If his words can change, the law will change! You must remember that we, the Li family, are the emperor's in-laws, and we are the emperor's natural supporters. All we have to do is to always support the emperor. No matter what the emperor wants to do, we will follow him. Only with this kind of wealth can we last forever!"

Li Si spoke earnestly and revealed the nature of the problem to his son.

Their Li family's purpose in entering Qin was to seek high status and wealth, not to defend Qin's laws.

Those things are just tools to achieve their goals.

Li Yu's expression changed several times, and finally he handed over his hand and said, "That's what father said."

Li Si then smiled and said: "This time the Marquis of Zhen Guo wants to change the law, but it is actually the emperor's intention behind it. So what you have to do is not to oppose it, but to help the emperor with his reform. This will not only avoid conflicts with the Marquis of Zhen Guo, but also It can make the emperor feel that I, Mrs. Li, are his helpers, and he will trust us more in the future. You must not bet with the Marquis of Zhenguo and spoil the big thing."

Although Li Yu still felt a little unwilling, he understood the reason, nodded in agreement, and left thoughtfully.

Li Si looked at his son's back and sighed deeply.

If it weren't for the fact that he was old and his son was useless, how could he, Li Si, bow to Zhao Tuo so easily?

"How long do I have left in my life?"

Li Si felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

Time has diminished all his vigor.

…

"I didn't expect that Li Si was really on the right track. Thanks to the support of his father and son, this reform was able to go smoothly."

Zhao Tuo wanted to reform Qin's laws and reduce penalties many years ago, so that Qin would be more secure in the world.

It was just that he had always been worried about Li Si, the head of the Legalist family, and worried that the reform would be blocked by him, so he kept tolerant and avoided conflicts with Li Si, and survived the period of the First Emperor.

When the second emperor succeeded to the throne, Zhao Tuo gradually tested the opponent by stopping the Western Expedition and stopping the emigration of the people. In the end, he saw that Li Si did not object much, and this was the beginning of the reform.

Originally, he had guessed that he might have a fierce confrontation with Li Si in the court hall, with a verbal exchange of words.

Unexpectedly, it would end with Li Si taking the initiative to agree.

This made Zhao Tuo feel very comfortable.

"It's good to deal with smart people."

Li Si knows the rules so well, and Zhao Tuo respects him very much.

There was no struggle in the court, and Zhao Tuo put all his energy into reform.

With the support of the second emperor and Zuo Prime Minister Li Si, and Zhao Tuo himself had great prestige in the Qin State.

His reform went smoothly. In the second year of Emperor II's reign, the new law was officially promulgated to the world after the ministers discussed it and the emperor agreed.

The new Qin law greatly reduced the use of corporal punishments such as beheading and toe-cutting, and mostly replaced them with pincers and flogging. At the same time, some punishments that punished the head of Guizhou as a Chengdan and made ministers a concubine were also changed to economic sanctions, and revised and Some unreasonable crimes have been reduced, such as the continuous sitting system.

At Zhao Tuo's request, the requirements for Lian Zuo were raised a lot, and ordinary minor crimes no longer implicate family members.

Zhao Tuo did not cancel the harsh torture laws in one step, because that was unrealistic and would not only encounter great resistance in the court, but also easily cause social unrest. He chose to reduce the intensity and gradually reduce the burden on the head of Guizhou.

The effect of the new law is also excellent.

The Guizhou leaders, who had lived under the harsh Qin laws with trepidation, fearing that their noses would be cut off and their legs chopped off if they accidentally broke the law, were overjoyed and praised the emperor's kindness one after another.

At the same time, because the new law was presided over by the Marquis of Zhenguo, the Guizhou leaders secretly called it the "Marquis Zhao Law".

"I heard that the new law was blocked by Prime Minister Zuo and others. It was the Marquis of Zhen Guo who cared about us, the common people, and even fought with Prime Minister Zuo for three hundred rounds in the court. Only then did he overpower the other party and obtain such a relaxed law for us. "

"That's right, Prime Minister Zuo is a disciple of Legalism. His favorite thing is to use harsh methods to punish us. Zhen Guohou's reform will definitely be stopped by him. This Prime Minister Zuo will never let us The common people are having an easy time. Fortunately, the Marquis of Zhenguo won in the end! What a blessing!"

"Prime Minister Zuo is over seventy years old. He shouldn't have a few more years to live, right?"

There are too many people in the world, coupled with the underdeveloped transportation and information at this time, naturally many people will come up with various conjectures and discuss this secretly.

But no matter what people in the world speculated and argued, Zhao Tuo did not take a break after the initial success of the reform, but continued to focus his energy on other aspects.

The behemoth Qin State has many problems.

For example, the establishment and restructuring of various schools will solve the problem of replacing the military merit system.

These things took Zhao Tuo a lot of time.

Four years passed in a flash.