On the day of the trial, women from all over the country came to the main camp of Jiujiang Daxu. Although the trial was not about Huang's divorce case, other cases also greatly satisfied the villagers' mentality of eating melon, which was enough for them to have enough food for one or two years. It’s time to talk. After completing the epidemic investigation, the medical team that went to the countryside with the county magistrate also held a free clinic outside the camp. It was so lively that some people who didn't know it thought a new local market had opened.
Zhang Xiao was greatly excited by this scene. In his opinion, the more people coming, the better. This is not only a "law popularization", but also a great opportunity to subtly introduce new concepts and new thoughts to the masses. Therefore, in addition to inspection and investigation, his "going to the countryside" also had a certain "performance" aspect.
County Magistrate Zhang does not think that his "performance" is nonsense. Many new things and new ideas will be difficult to spread without an event that can have a strong impact on people. Just like the opening of the railway in the past, it greatly shocked the people in remote areas and brought huge cracks in their worldview. This is more direct and effective than a few rural teachers giving lectures with flip charts and textbooks.
So this time there were not only the opening of circuit courts, free clinics by the medical team, but also a puppet show performed by a literary and artistic group. After the liberation of Guangzhou, some artists were transferred from Lingao to Guangzhou, and a group of artists were recruited locally to form Guangzhou Puppet Theater. However, the original Lingao dialect singing Nianbai was changed to the modern Cantonese opera singing Nianbai.
Facts have proved that in an era when literary and artistic activities were extremely scarce, this kind of "localized" transformation was very suitable for the environment. This "Cantonese Opera" puppet show, which was born in advance, quickly became very popular. Performing every day in Guangzhou, tickets are hard to come by. The original troupe quickly expanded and was divided into five or six performance groups, performing various "new plays" everywhere.
In order to prevent literary and artistic groups from being "rigid" after being fed by the emperor for a long time, the cultural and publicity department recently issued a policy that former cast members of the Guangzhou Puppet Troupe can leave their jobs on their own to join a theater company in Shanghai. The one who arrived in Jiujiang today was one of the drama clubs. The repertoire performed is naturally all new plays written by Wen Xuankou. Among them is "Spending Money" which promotes the freedom of marriage - it is actually changed from "Luohan Qian".
Zhang Jiayu feels very fresh about these things. Local folk art dramas have a low status in traditional society. Although there are plots of "loyalty, filial piety, justice" and a certain "educational" significance, to the government, they are still regarded as "teaching lewdness and instructing thieves." There is often suppression of opera performances. Sometimes, just to show their "righteousness", local theater troupe actors and actresses were imprisoned and flogged.
People like the Australians not only put no restrictions but were "government-run" with great fanfare. They also encouraged the organization of new drama clubs and performed everywhere to promote their own ideas. This had a great impact on Zhang Jiayu.
In the view of traditional literati like Zhang Jiayu, educating the people means gathering in a serious manner at county schools, government schools, or even at the yamen gate, where officials or local scholars preach loyalty, filial piety, and justice. Only in this way can "property" be reflected.
It is truly incredible that Australians use such methods to "civilize" people. However, the content of this performance is all about various deviant theories promoted by Australians, which can be regarded as complementing each other.
Zhang Jiayu looked at the busy people around him and found everything novel. Wandering around the camp and Jiujiang, I had to check out and ask about anything new I saw. Zhang Xiao also ordered the relevant personnel not to impose any restrictions on him and to allow him to travel, and to answer his questions truthfully as long as they did not involve the secret level.
Zhang Jiayu only felt that going to the countryside with Chief Zhang was really better than her own life experience in the past ten years! This undercover job really paid off!
He was particularly interested in Liang Xinhu's training of naturalized civilian judicial cadres. Because there is a very large gap in the number of professionals needed by the judicial department, but this kind of training is relatively long, and it cannot be achieved by relying on short-term surprise training. Therefore, relevant training is carried out on a rolling basis. The old naturalized civil judges and prosecutors are divided into study groups, and newly recruited students are assigned to the groups. No more than five people per group. Adopt the old-to-new method, combining classroom learning and practical observation.
After entering the study group, the students did physical exercise in the morning, and then explained laws, regulations and judicial concepts. In the afternoon, they went to various courts to observe trials. In the evening, they wrote down their experiences and were instilled in Lingao's new social concepts by the group leaders.
After three months of study, they worked as a group and followed the circuit courts to "handle cases" in various places. While working, study at the same time.
This time, Liang Xinhu personally led the circuit court team, so there were several more study groups. As soon as we arrived at the camp in Jiujiang, we started teaching and training - seizing every minute is a common feature of the work of the veterans.
Zhang Jiayu also came to "listen". Compared with traditional Chinese justice, Australian justice is completely different. Before Zhang Jiayu came to "undercover", he also went to the Australian court to "hear". Unlike ordinary people who "watch the excitement", he does not simply treat these as "overseas anecdotes". But I want to know the inner spirit.
"... Let's continue the class. Everyone, turn the book to the third page. Now I will explain the philosophy of our legal workers in the Song Dynasty." Liang Xinhu cleared his throat: "We train judges and prosecutors to implement the basic strategy of governing the country according to law. The urgent need. The reform of the Senate must ensure that all work moves towards the track of institutionalization and legalization. We, the people, are the most important part in ensuring the operation of the law. At the same time, you must also take action to spread legal concepts to society. Every corner.”
Zhang Jiayu can still understand this passage - it's nothing more than the idea that an official must be honest and strict. This is the benefit of having read a book, and he can understand it faster.
However, he never understood why the Australians wanted to separate the trial function from the hands of local governors. It is true that the benefits of stripping it out are obvious - most local officials are from a background of being a scholar, and are not familiar with the law of criminal names, so they can easily be deceived by the clerks below.
However, after the divestment, the originally relatively simple local government office has a brand new agency, and according to Australians, this specialized review agency is not under the jurisdiction of the local government office.
Isn’t this just a case of too many politicians? Zhang Jiayu was quite puzzled by this and asked immediately:
"Chief, officials in the Ming Dynasty and the previous dynasties also had judicial functions. How are they different from the judges and prosecutors you mentioned? Why did the Song Dynasty separate their functions? And I heard that the magistrates and prefects did not have jurisdiction over each other, and there were many heads of government. Isn’t it so inconvenient for local administration?”
"Zhang Jiayu, right? You are not a student, but you listened very carefully!" Liang Xinhu knew Zhang Jiayu's situation and nodded appreciatively: "This is a good question. If you talk about it from the root, it can write several big books. But in short, the main differences are as follows. First, the traditional local officials are in charge of both administration and justice. It is easy to abuse judicial power in order to complete superior tasks and cause unfair trials. And The Song Dynasty emphasized the separation of the two to avoid the problem of abuse of power. Secondly, most scholars in the Ming Dynasty only read the Four Books and Five Classics before becoming officials. You have to hire a famous criminal master, which is not only unprofessional and prone to mistakes, but also causes problems such as being ignored by the master. Therefore, the legal education we promote strives to be professional and authoritative."
"The last point is also the most important point." He paused and strengthened his tone: "The purpose of the Ming Dynasty's officials is to rule the Ming Dynasty emperor. As long as they can get along on the stage, they will not care what happens to the people. And The judges and prosecutors of the Senate of the Song Dynasty exist to protect the interests of the Senate and the people, whether they are rich gentry or poor households."
Speaking of this, Liang Xinhu also became interested. Let’s start by talking about some judicial systems of the Song Dynasty that have been annihilated by later generations.
Although these systems are from the Song Dynasty, they are quite advanced in terms of their legal ideological advancement.
"The first is the sealing system," Liang Xinhu said. "As far as I know, this system is unique to the Song Dynasty..."
Sealing refers to the fact that when judges in the Song Dynasty tried some cases of minor crimes (less than a cane), they usually put the judgment into a box and temporarily not executed it based on certain considerations after making a penalty judgment (such as eighty canes) to the criminal. The sentence imposed. In fact, it is a probation system, sometimes also called "send the stick", "kanzhang", "kanxiazhang". If the offender can repent of his past mistakes, the punishment will no longer be executed; if the offender does not want to repent, the sentence will be taken out from the box and the punishment will be executed. This is called "breaking off".
"...It's a pity that after the late emperor threw himself into the sea on Yashan Mountain and the mainland of China sank, this probation system disappeared without a trace." Liang Xinhu said with regret, "Actually, whether a suspended sentence or not is not the main link. It is the balance between emotion, reason and law. Consider.”
Zhang Jiayu seemed to understand something. Although he couldn't explain the reason, he could understand the general joints and secretly experienced the three flavors.
"Going down further is the 'Jiang Branch'."
Ji means prison, which means trial; Ji means dingji, which means prosecution and conviction; Jiji branch means the separation of "factual trial" and "legal trial". Its principle is similar to that of jury in the British and American common law system. The judge is responsible for confirming whether the crime is true, and the judge is responsible for the application of the law. The criminal justice system of the Song Dynasty generally implemented the system of division of justice. The judge responsible for "factual trial" and the judge for "legal trial" could not be the same person.
"This method is wonderful!" Zhang Jiayu, after all, was well-read in poetry and books, and he immediately realized the mystery of it. "The prison officer pushed for punishment, and the law officer judged. Each has its own secretary, so it is to prevent adultery."
Lingao Qiming
