The complex and strict criminal judicial procedures in the Song Dynasty were the most complex and strict, and even today, they would feel that it was too "cumbersome". If Bao Zheng had made a case like the "Bao Gong Opera" performed, it would undoubtedly be a serious violation of judicial procedures and would have been impeached and removed from office by the censor. If the defendant expressed his obedience to the law after hearing the sentence, then the entire case came to an end and submitted it to the Criminal Division of the Central Circuit Court stationed in various places for review.

If the circuit court finds suspicious points, the case will be reviewed. If the suspicious points are not found, the judgment can be executed. However, if it is a death sentence and the case is suspected, it must be submitted to the Central Court for review. Bao Zheng ordered the execution of the criminal without review. This is completely abusing power and a crime. Not to mention that the emperor cannot tolerate such ministers, even his colleagues will impeach him and step down, and he has no chance to kill Chen Shimei.

Bao Gong, who was known as "Qingtian" because of his righteous destruction and beheading his nephew for justice, was also mixed with water, because as he knew that this situation was too small under the judicial system of the Song Dynasty. Of course, this was still the case when Bao Gong really had such a nephew. In fact, Bao Gong left a family motto during his lifetime:

"If later generations and descendants commit crimes of corruption, they will not be released from their families. After their death, they will not be buried in a large cemetery. If they do not follow my ambition, they will not be my descendants." His descendants did not insult their ancestors. The sons Bao Shou and grandson Bao Yongnian both lived in a clean and upright official position, leaving a reputation for integrity. Obviously, Bao Zheng did not become a nephew of a corrupt criminal, so why should he destroy his relatives for justice?

The judicial system of the Song Dynasty particularly emphasized avoidance of personal dislikes, and set up a very strict and thorough avoidance system in all aspects of judicial trials. Even if Bao Zheng did have a nephew committing a crime, it was not Bao Zheng's turn to destroy his relatives for justice. If the Song court accepted a lawsuit, the first thing he had to do before the trial was to approve the judge. All those who had relatives, teachers and students, superiors and subordinates, hatred relationships, or had ever had a recommendation relationship must declare them for avoidance by themselves.

Not only are judges who have personal suspicion related to the litigant need to be avoided, but during the trial of the case, the three judges responsible for prosecuting, questioning, and prosecutors cannot have personal suspicion, otherwise they must also be avoided. Moreover, the law strictly prohibits prosecutors. The reporters and prosecutors meet with the prosecutors before the case is closed to discuss the case, otherwise they will be "eighty-stopped each".

If it is a case of re-examination, if the judge who has a personal relationship with the original judge, he or she needs to avoid it. The punishment for judges who conceal the obligation to avoid refusal is very severe. Even judges with superiors and subordinates should avoid it, that is, judges with personal relationships cannot become superiors and subordinates. What if the judge who has a personal relationship does not declare? Let the person report and sue.

Needless to say, this is naturally to prevent the judge's judgment from being affected by personal relationships and personal emotions, and to falsely help the private and revenge. In fact, it can also avoid human tragedies such as the beheading of nephews. If Bao Zheng's nephew is sued for court because of corruption and abuse of power, then Bao Zheng must first propose a recusation and will never be able to interrogate the case in person. Such a judicial avoidance system can be said to be so strict that it is too strict.

Those who criticize the lack of procedural justice in the traditional judicial system obviously mistakenly regard the joke as history. The old literati who fabricated the story of "Bao Gong beheaded nephew" and today's scholars who regard "Bao Gong beheaded nephew" as targets actually mistakenly believe that the traditional judicial system does not pay attention to avoiding personal dislikes, so that judicial judges who kill relatives for justice will appear. However, the former praises "breaking relatives for justice" as a virtue, while the latter regards "breaking relatives for justice" as a lack of judicial avoidance procedures.

Unfortunately, the facts are just as later generations pointed out: "After the Yuan people entered the Central Plains, the excellent judicial system of the Song Dynasty was greatly destroyed. They abolished the Dali Temple, abolished the legal studies, abolished the criminal law examination, and abolished the system of Jujuan Division and the different investigation." Little literati who lived in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties had no idea about the extensive judicial program design of the Song Dynasty, and could only fabricate the process of Baogong trial based on their self-righteous imagination.

Therefore, the "Bao Gong Opera" that appeared in large quantities after the fall of the Song Dynasty actually had nothing to do with the judicial system of the Song Dynasty. At most, it could only reflect some of the judicial concepts and practices of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. It is a big and unreasonable to use the "Bao Gong Opera" to criticize the traditional judicial model, because "Bao Gong Opera" actually obscured the developed judicial civilization of the Song Dynasty.

However, in the view of Zhao, a modern person, although the Song Dynasty established an internal judicial supervision mechanism based on the principle of decentralization and from the two aspects of function and organization, which was established in the judicial system with self-supervision and error correction, as well as an external judicial supervision and restraint mechanism to prevent disadvantages or to initiate trial errors after trial errors are discovered. However, the criminal trial supervision mechanism of the Song Dynasty also had obvious limitations, and its positive role should not be exaggerated.

First, the purpose of the Song Dynasty to implement the criminal trial supervision mechanism was to pursue the correctness of the judgment results, but extrajudicial law enforcement often occurred in the practice process, which provided opportunities for administrative power to interfere in the judiciary at the institutional level, which instead led to judicial instability. Secondly, in the case of judicial non-independence, judicial justice cannot be fully guaranteed.

Judges are both members of the judicial system and the administrative power system. The administrative management power is confused with judicial jurisdiction, and they are also permeated with each other, making the judiciary prone to deviating from the law and are mixed with the rule of law. Therefore, although the supervision and restraining mechanism of criminal trials in the Song Dynasty promoted judicial justice, its role was also limited.

As the supreme ruler under this system of unity of politics and law, Zhao naturally had the right to decide the judiciary, that is, he had the best right to approve the death penalty. Of course, there were exceptions to the right to approve the death penalty. In the early Song Dynasty, based on the special social background at that time, it was stipulated that the state-level judicial organs had the right to judge death penalty cases and did not have to report to the central government for approval. The Central Ministry of Justice only conducted a review after the execution of the death penalty.

However, since the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, death penalty cases must be carefully reviewed by the Criminal Division before they can be implemented. The state-level organs no longer enjoy the final trial power and gradually formed into a system. This practice has been used until the Southern Song Dynasty. Unless there is an emergency, the prefect is temporarily granted the final trial power of the death penalty, and the Criminal Division will be exempted from the Criminal Division's review and final verification of the emperor.

When Zhao counterattacked Jiangnan, in order to quickly stabilize the situation, he also delegated this power to the prefectures and prefectures. The criminals who committed treason and evil deeds could be executed without reporting. However, after the situation was stable and the governments and institutions at all levels were sound, the final approval rights for the death penalty were recovered in time, which also brought him a considerable amount of work and made him feel bad. After all, the crimes committed by vicious people before the case were all crimes committed by vicious people, which still had a very impact on his pure psychology...

…………

After the Empress Dowager returned to the palace, she would recover from her greetings every morning. Moreover, she would have to attend a court meeting on Friday today, so it would be impossible for Zhao to sleep in even if she wanted to sleep in. He didn't sleep until midnight last night, and he couldn't help feeling a little depressed after getting up. After a simple wash, he would go to the Empress Dowager's bedroom with a group of concubines to pay her respects. Everyone knows that His Majesty was in a bad mood recently because Master Yuanmiao left, so he dared not say too much, which made the atmosphere a little depressed.

"Official family..."

"Queen, is there anything wrong?" Zhao Zheng thought about what to do today's court meeting, but was suddenly interrupted by the queen who was walking side by side. He turned his face and frowned, and his tone couldn't help but feel a little stiff.

"Officials, you should also pay attention to your health and rest early. Don't ruin your body!" Wu Xi keenly captured the displeasure in it, swallowed the words to say, and turned to care about it.

"Oh, I'll pay attention to it in the past two days!" Zhao didn't think much, waved his hand and signaled that he was fine.

"Official family..." Chen Shu followed up and followed.

"I'm fine, I'll be busy in these few days!" Zhao thought he was also giving him care without any pain and said impatiently.

"..." Chen Shu's 'bad temper' was not like the queen. She wrinkled her nose and wanted to say it, but was interrupted by Wu Xi. "After paying respects, the official family will still preside over the court meeting today. Everyone should hurry up!"

"Oh!" The queen was blocking her words, and Chen Shu couldn't say anything else. She sighed unwillingly and stomped her feet hard.

"Empress Concubine, be careful, not like this!" But her actions shocked the maid who was accompanying him, and hurriedly held Chen Shu and said uneasyly.

"It's so troublesome, I'm fine, I'm fussing." Chen Shu glanced at the emperor in front of her. She didn't stop. She felt sad. She shook off the maid's hand and whispered to scold. Lei Yan, who was following her, stuck out her tongue at the people, while Li Sanniang shook her head gently, asking everyone not to be troublesome.

Zhao, who was walking in front, did not notice the strange scene behind him. After leading everyone to pay tribute to the empress dowager, he hurried back. However, what made him wonder was that the empress dowager did not leave him to share breakfast today, but left the empress and others. But seeing the empress dowager smiling, it seemed that there was no point in blame. Listening to the sound of the morning bells coming, the morning court time was about to come, and he couldn't figure it out, so he stopped thinking about it. After drinking a glass of milk, eating two roujiamo, he was ready to go to court.

In Zhao's opinion, the court meeting is more ritualistic, and its biggest function is to let the ministers see that the emperor is still alive and in good health. In addition, it means that the emperor is still diligent in political affairs, not a foolish monarch who is in disguise and government affairs. In addition, it is a stage for officials to "compete for favor" and show their status and talents. In particular, new officials are often more eager to express themselves, hoping to leave an "indelible" impression in front of the emperor.

You can imagine what the court would look like in this atmosphere without thinking about it. It is like a modern debate. Every issue often causes controversy, and you want to overwhelm the opponent in front of your colleagues and let the emperor accept his opinions. However, Zhao knew very well that in such occasions, most of the issues were discussed but not decided, and they had to go to court and discuss them again. At that time, several people often had a mind together, but they made a decision in just a few words.

So Zhao thought that the court meeting was a waste of time and had to attend. He even thought about what the emperors who attended court every day thought and did it. However, what he admired was the tenacity of these diligent emperors and how their nerves were so that they could persevere in the court meeting over the years without breaking down.

Today's court meeting is like a copy of the past. After announcing several long-determined edicts, it entered the deliberation stage. Faced with the opinions expressed by all parties, Zhao had to do it to pretend to be unfathomable and hum, and then let the other party continue to say that it would make all parties unable to figure out what they were thinking. When everyone was silent, he only needed to say "Discuss the court again after the court was dispersed." And the prefects who were also old gods bowed and said yes, and then entered the next cycle.

Therefore, most of Zhao was spending time sitting on it, but he knew that the court meeting could only come to an end when the ministers were quarreling, or because they were unable to bear it because they were anxious and unable to bear it. You should know that no matter whether the king or minister was in a court meeting, it was a luxury to want to drink water. So whether you were thirsty, hungry, or shit or pee, they had to endure it. But people would have the limits. After four or five hours, someone would not be able to hold on.

"Change clothes and serve tea!" After the scattering court, Zhao returned to Zhiyuan Hall in the harem, and hurriedly took off the yellow robe that represented infinite authority and drank a cup of warm and cool tea.

"Official family!"

"Hey, isn't Concubine De on duty today? Why is Sister here?" Zhao asked in surprise. According to the concubines' schedule, Zhang Ping should be serving in bed and living in Zhiyuan Hall these days. After Su Lan took over as the Sigong Ling, she had to take care of the entire harem affairs and manage the various harems of the harem. On the contrary, fewer people came to Zhiyuan Hall.

"The official family, Concubine De was pretending, so she served me again." Su Lan smiled and helped the little emperor change his clothes.

"Oh, I saw that he was still fine in the morning, why did I get sick? Has the imperial physician seen it?" Zhao raised his hands and Ren Sulan took off his crown and hat, untied his jade belt, and took off his very burdensome court robes. He asked in confusion.

"I have already seen the imperial physician, it's not a big deal!" Su Lan asked the palace maids to clean up the court clothes she took off. She served the emperor and changed into light conventional clothes.

"It's fine!" Zhao nodded, took the teacup and drank it all, wiped his mouth and said.

"Officials, don't you really know?" Su Lan saw that the little emperor still had no appearance as an emperor, took the teacup and chuckled.

"What's the matter?" Zhao looked at Su Lan and asked in confusion.

"The three empresses, the empress, the imperial concubine and the concubine De are pregnant!" Su Lan knew that she really didn't know when she saw the little emperor's appearance, and told him Xiaoxiao.

"They are all pregnant. When did it happen?" Zhao was stunned when he heard this, but couldn't say whether it was joy or sorrow. He just felt his heart beating very fast, and he asked again after a while.

"When the official family left the palace, the queen felt uncomfortable. She asked the imperial physician to take the pulse and found out that it had been two months. The imperial concubine and Concubine De also discovered it one after another, and the time was about the same!" Su Lan saw the little emperor being stunned when she heard the smile and said, and replied with some amusement...
Chapter completed!