Chapter 192: Dali Temple Trial (I)
As soon as Zhou Chongwen entered the lobby, he saw Su Luo. There was surprise and astonishment in his eyes. After the surprise, he slightly straightened his chest, making his already solemn sitting posture even more upright, like a child presenting a treasure, showing his most glorious side in front of Su Luo.
Several other adults in the hall also noticed Su Luo. Liu Chengxuan and the others knew her, but Su Luo was still a stranger to them.
Liu Chengxuan stood up and introduced her to everyone, saying that this was the emperor's newly appointed sister of the county lord, and that she had an unclear relationship with the defendant in this case, so she came to listen to the trial.
If it weren't for the public, Su Luo would have kicked him. What did she mean by an unclear relationship? It sounded much more despicable than the fiance she had lied about.
Because Su Luo had an official title, unlike Liu Chengxuan, all the officials present stood up and bowed. Zhou Chongwen was obviously confused by Su Luo's new identity, and he only came back to his senses when the Dali Temple called him twice.
The Dali Temple Chief is a sixth-rank official who directly tries cases in the Dali Temple. He is probably equivalent to a modern judge. Su Luo had a good impression of Liu Sizheng, who had a dark face and looked like Bao Qingtian.
Liu Sizheng said to Zhou Chongwen, "I heard that the defendant in this case is an old acquaintance of Zhou Tanhua. Is this true or not?"
Zhou Chongwen sat in the hall and bowed, "Master Temple Master is right, Qin Huai and I are indeed old acquaintances."
Liu Sizheng nodded and stopped talking. Lin Shaoqing, who was sitting above him, looked up at Zhou Chongwen and said, "Anyone who is related to the case or the plaintiff or defendant should not be in charge of this case, but Zhou Tanhua is personally appointed by the emperor. I believe he will not follow personal feelings and enforce the law impartially."
Zhou Chongwen nodded in agreement. Censor Ning on the other side snorted softly, "Tanhua Zhou is the son of the upright Zhou Haixian. He is naturally a clear-headed person. Why does he need Shaoqing Lin to remind him?"
Dali Temple Shaoqing is the second in command of Dali Temple, and he is a fourth-rank official. Censor Ning is the left censor of the Inspectorate, and he is the most senior official in the room, so when he opened his mouth, Lin Shaoqing immediately fell silent. Besides, the Inspectorate is the emperor's supervisory agency, and it supervises everything from judicial fairness to the appearance of officials. If you get angry, he will write a letter to sue you for spitting and urinating in the street, which is insulting the authority of the official. Do you say you are wronged? Have you spitted? Have you used the toilet? Where did you spit? If you list the past ten years clearly, then you are wronged. So everyone says that the censor is difficult to deal with and dare not provoke .
Facing Censor Ning's protection, Zhou Chongwen showed no joy at all, instead he seemed to be saying "I am innocent, why do I need your protection?" Su Luo was anxious and cursed this guy for being unreasonable, but she didn't expect that Zhou Chongwen's father was so famous that even the chief censor admired him.
But it was thanks to Zhou Chongwen's lack of understanding, otherwise I'm afraid that thanking him would have wasted a lot of time. Liu Sizheng coughed lightly, "Cui Zhuangyuan, it's time to go to court."
Cui Zhuangyuan was admitted to the top of the imperial examination at such an old age, which shows that he has devoted his energy to studying all his life, and he has not paid attention to the outside world. If he is asked to write articles and study, he may be a master, but it is really difficult for him to investigate cases. Even if he has made up for the Ming Dynasty criminal law in the past two days, it is still just theory. Now that he is nervous, he has almost forgotten the procedures.
In fact, which of the newly-passed Jinshi students had experience? They should not have experience. The normal procedure is to assign them to various counties, start from the grassroots level, and gain experience through practice. How can they just start to try cases? Of course, Wanli also understood this truth, so he sent the most experienced officials to supervise the trial.
Cui Zhuangyuan was at a loss as to what to do. Wang Bangyan, who was standing beside him, reached out and dragged the gavel over and slammed it, "Bring the plaintiff!"
Cui Zhuangyuan was startled, but also relieved. He nodded gratefully to Wang Bangyan, and the remedial procedures came back to his mind. He then said, "Bring the plaintiff to the court."
After the "mighty" voice, Wan Yangui was brought to the court by the yamen runners, knelt on the ground and presented the complaint. Everything after that was just a formality, explaining the whole story. In fact, the main people present already knew about these things.
Wan Yangui spoke very simply. He seemed to know that what he was saying now was not very important, so he saved his words and only said that Qin Huai broke into his home late at night one day, beat him severely, and injured several servants.
Su Luo firmly believed that this "serious injury" was the result of Wan Yangui bribing the medical examiner. From what she saw with her own eyes that day, Wan Yangui only had a swollen cheek and a broken mouth, and he didn't even spit out blood.
Wan Yangui obviously received Su Luo's distrustful look and added, "Internal injuries."
This was an obvious provocation, and Su Luo was so depressed that he vomited blood and suffered internal injuries.
After completing the plaintiff's process, Cui Zhuangyuan dragged the gavel back in front of Wang Bangyan and said, "Bring the defendant!" The gavel was slammed heavily and almost flew out. Fortunately, it was caught in time, and Wan Yangui in the hall escaped without shedding blood.
Qin Huai was then brought into the hall, and Mrs. Qin's crying voice was heard outside the hall, "Huai'er..."
Qin Qing supported Madam Qin and started crying, "Second brother..."
Qin Huai looked back at them, nodded slightly, and searched around for a while. When he didn't see Qin Qi, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Qin Huai knelt down beside Wan Yangui and said, "I, Qin Huai, greet you, my Lords."
Cui Zhuangyuan was stunned again. This was different from the procedure. The procedure was that the official had to ask him first, asking him his name, where he came from, and what he had done , and then he could speak. Now that he spoke first, what should he say?
Wang Bang took the gavel back into his own hands, but did not clap it. He just held it and said to Qin Huai in a stern voice, "The prisoner is not allowed to speak without being questioned!"
Cui Zhuangyuan nodded quickly, but didn't know what to say next, so he waited for Wang Bangyan to speak.
Wang Bang saw that Cui Zhuangyuan had given up his power, so he slammed the gavel. Just as he was about to speak, Zhou Chongwen said loudly: "Wang Bangyan is wrong. There is no conclusion in this case. There is only the plaintiff and the defendant. How can there be a criminal? Could it be that Wang Bangyan has already made a conclusion in his mind and convicted the defendant before he even asked about the case?"
Wang Bangyan's face froze, and he showed hostility towards Zhou Chongwen. During the palace examination, he and Zhou Chongwen were equally talented in writing. Although he was selected as the second place in the end, Wanli praised Zhou Chongwen's good handwriting and said that there were two ink spots on Zhou Chongwen's paper, so he only selected him as the third place. The implication was that if the paper was clean, today's third place would be Zhou Bangyan . This matter has always bothered Wang Xinxiang. Later, he learned that Zhou Chongwen was originally the son of an official and was favored by many court officials. In contrast, he was born a commoner, and his future career as an official would be a hundred times more difficult than Zhou Chongwen's. He couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Today's case was a perfect opportunity to show himself to the Emperor. Wang Bangyan was trying his best to have a good performance, so he tried to steal the limelight from Cui Zhuangyuan everywhere. He didn't expect that his retribution would come so quickly. He forgot the difference between "defendant" and "prisoner" when he was nervous. He just called out out of habit. When he was a child, he would go to join in the fun when the master was in court, and the master always said this.
