Returning to the castle hall, Roland sat back in his seat of honor and looked down at his subjects.
As far as he could remember, Prince Roland had only exercised his right to a trial once when he had just arrived in Border Town. Later, he had a falling out with the nobles, and his days were not going well, so he had left everything in his hands to Barov and never asked about it again.
Seeing that everyone had arrived, Roland announced the start of the trial.
First, all parties stated their reasons, and then he asked the questions himself. With Nightingale's secret assistance, he didn't need to judge who was deliberately lying and who was insincere, nor did he need to have a heart as meticulous as that of a Grim Reaper student. Determining who was responsible became easy and simple.
The truth of the matter was soon revealed.
Khoya Harvey was unwilling to accept being stripped of his Knight status, and at the same time tired of the cumbersome paperwork in City hall, so he vented his resentment on the fugitives. He took advantage of the oatmeal distribution to deliberately collect fees from the fugitives and sow discord between the two sides. He claimed that it was precisely because the serfs did not hand over all their grain that the stock of wheat was insufficient and could not be distributed free of charge.
In fact, Khoya had been collecting fees for oatmeal for several days. Because he wore a striking City hall uniform, most of the fugitives were afraid of retaliation from the officials and kept silent, which made him even worse. Today, a fugitive named Vader came forward to protest against the other party's actions, which caused a commotion, and all of this came to light.
After understanding the situation, Roland was a little relieved.
An organization should be full of vitality and vigor during its ascension period. Although corruption and rigidity were inevitable after it stabilized, that should only happen after Graycastle was unified. If such a problem appeared in the early stages, the organization was doomed to not go far.
Now it seemed that it was only Khoya Harvey's personal behavior, and that it did not involve the other officials of City hall. Moreover, the matter was limited to extortion, and not the collusion with the serfs to resell grain and sell it privately.
Of course, he was also responsible for this. At that time, City hall was in urgent need of manpower. Without any screening or training, he had only given a warning to the surrendered Knight to Barov. In the end, reality proved that not everyone could accept this job without any complaints and endure the huge psychological difference from being a Knight to a commoner.
Roland called Barov to his side and asked in a low voice, "How does the Lord usually handle this situation?"
"Your Royal Highness, there are two kinds of cases," the latter replied respectfully. "If the offender is a noble, after handing over a few Golden Dragon coins, he can be exempted from any punishment. But if a commoner attacks a noble, the crime can be big or small, ranging from cutting off his hand to whipping."
"But Coya was no longer a nobleman," said the Prince, shrugging his shoulders. "I stripped him of his title."
"Yes, Your Highness. In this way, the punishment will be based on the mood of the Lord. "
"No fixed number?"
Barov shook his head.
He frowned. Everything depended on his mood. The implication was that it didn't matter how the commoners were manipulated. In the eyes of the nobles, they weren't people that needed to be treated seriously.
"Other than chopping off their hands, breaking their legs, whipping them, and pulling out their nails, are there any more ordinary punishments? For example, imprisonment. "
"Imprison?" Barov was taken aback. "You mean simply locked up? What kind of punishment is that? The prison is only a place to temporarily detain prisoners, and sooner or later they will be dragged out for trial. If you keep them locked up, you will also have to provide them with food. I'm afraid that in the eyes of some people, this is already a reward. "
Well, it seems that the imprisonment that was commonly used in later generations wouldn't be useful here. After thinking for a moment, Roland decided to follow the rules of Graycastle. He stood up and swept his eyes across the hall. "I will now pronounce the sentence."
"Coya Jarvis, for dereliction of duty and extortion of fugitives, will be stripped of all his duties in the City Hall and sent to work in the mines for ten years. In addition, he will be fined three times the amount of the extorted income."
"Vader, for taking the initiative to attack the City Hall personnel, will be sentenced to ten lashes."
"The rest of the fugitives and serfs who participated in the fight will be fined two silver royals or five lashes."
"The oatmeal will continue to be distributed free of charge, and all the money that was previously extorted will be returned." He looked at the City Hall Director. "The above sentence will be implemented by you, and the results will be announced to the people of the temporary residential area."
"As you command, Your Highness." Barov bowed.
Returning to his office, Roland leaned back in his chair and stretched. Then he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders, gently massaging them.
He closed his eyes and enjoyed this moment of leisure.
This incident made Roland realize that with the increasing number of subjects and the rapid expansion of the City Hall's authority, the issue of internal supervision might have reached a point where he had to face it.
But he didn't want to set up an organization similar to the prosecutor's office, and he was even more unwilling to have the public security, procuratorial, and judicial independence in this era. The former not only required a large number of literate people, but it was also easy for it to become a political body that attacked each other and shirked responsibility, hindering the implementation and development of policies. The latter would also weaken the power of the Lord. It was better to have the power to enact, interpret, and judge laws in his own hands.
He needed a simple and effective system that didn't need too many people to play the role of a supervisory organization.
Roland grasped the hand on his shoulder.
Nightingale dispelled the fog, took the Prince's hand and sat back on the table, tilted her head and asked: "What's wrong?"
Her slender legs dangled over the edge of the table, the high moccasins and close-fitting leather pants on her feet formed a perfect curve.
Roland coughed twice, "I intend to set up a new department to supervise the City Hall, as well as to arrest other individuals or groups that may endanger the stability of the Western Territory. This department only needs to report to me, completely independent of the City Hall and the First Army, "he said word by word," I will temporarily name it the Security Bureau of the Western Territory, and I want you to be the person in charge. "
"Me?" She blinked her eyes.
"That's right, only you can easily distinguish between truth and falsehood, any deceptive tricks are meaningless in front of you," Roland nodded, "How about it? If you want, I can provide you with afternoon tea with ice cream in winter, and … "
Nightingale gently pinched his hand, "Even if you don't say these things, I will promise you, as long as it's something you want to do."
"…" Roland suddenly felt a little embarrassed.
She smiled and did not let the silence continue, "But what should I do?"
"Well, the supervision part is very simple," the Prince adjusted his mood, "I will set up an inspection box at the gate of the Castle District, you only need to check the report letters in it."
In order to solve this problem in the least costly way, it was undoubtedly to mobilize the masses to supervise, and let the City Hall itself supervise itself, just like the last year during the Months of Demons to catch the spies in Border Town.
In the future, this method was not easy to use, whether it was the target of the report or the reporter themselves, they needed to spend a lot of energy to verify, and at the same time there were false reports, false reports, not to mention deliberate framing. But these shortcomings did not exist in the face of Nightingale's ability, verification of information became easy, she only needed to ask face-to-face, accurate reports would be rewarded, false accusations, false reports would be punished. Implementation around these two points, the reporting system would inevitably be extremely efficient.
"As for maintaining the stability of the Western Territory, eliminating threats and hidden dangers, it is more like an internal intelligence system. I will slowly expand the manpower for you, until your vision can expand to the entire Western Territory."
(To be continued.)
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