Ya County was famous for its fierce folk customs, but it didn't have much status in Yanzhou. It was insignificant in the whole of Shenyuan.
Therefore, the destruction of a small family in a remote area didn't attract much attention.
In fact, Gao Mo didn't create any big news when he set up the Crackdown Department in Jingguo. He only started to investigate cases step by step. According to the current classification system in Jingguo, the Crackdown Department was only responsible for criminal cases, and civil cases were still handled by Jingguo officials.
Many well-informed people found that the Crackdown Department was only powerful, but it was still very normal when it came to handling cases.
The Crackdown Department was now mainly responsible for three areas. First, it was dealing with serious cases that hadn't been solved in the past. Second, it was investigating cases that might have been unjust. Third, it was responsible for major cases that had happened recently. It was very organized, and it was very different from what people expected.
As for the occasional major cases where some small families were uprooted, they were all handled by Jingguo officials and had nothing to do with the Crackdown Department.
Many people who paid attention to the Department of Severe Punishments did not connect the new cases with the Department of Severe Punishments. They only thought that under the pressure of the Sacred Academy, the officials of Jing Kingdom had to make a sudden political achievement to deal with the Sacred Academy. This was common.
After a while, some people found out that the Crackdown Department didn't do anything earth-shattering. However, after the Crackdown Department was established, Jingguo had a new department called the Law Department.
The Law Department's duties were more complicated. It was responsible for drafting laws and regulations, managing the prisons in the country, reviewing cases handled by the Law Department, participating in the Supreme Court's trial of major cases, and being responsible for supplementary investigations.
The Law Department's duties also changed quietly. It became a purely law enforcement agency with the power to arrest, investigate, and maintain the law and order of Jingguo. It also started to recruit military scholars, breaking the tradition of the Law Department being monopolized by the Law School.
The Law Department's power was greatly reduced.
The original name of the Supreme Court was just 'Li', but it was later changed to 'Dali'. 'Li' was the name of the agency's residence. In order to unify Jingguo, it was renamed the Law Department. The Law Department's duties were the same as before. It was still the highest organization in Jingguo that judged cases and was responsible for interpreting the law.
The Ministry of Justice had only changed its name, so no one cared at first. However, within a few days, the change in the Ministry of Justice in Jingguo became the focus of discussion. It was much more popular than the changes in the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Justice.
This was because in Jingguo's description of the Supreme Court, there were some additional explanatory words. That was, the Supreme Court was nominally under the jurisdiction of the Notre-Dame.
From then on, Jingguo no longer had the concept of the three departments of justice. All cases that did not involve officials would be led by the Supreme Court. Only when an official was stripped of his official position would the Supreme Court be in charge of the trial. The Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Supervision only assisted the Ministry of Justice. They were no longer part of the Three Law Departments, so they could not conduct a joint trial.
With regards to this change, many scholars smelled the scent of a conspiracy.
The Ministry of Notre-Dame was indeed under the jurisdiction of Jingguo's cabinet, but now it was explicitly stated that it was directly under the jurisdiction of the Notre-Dame. This meant that if one day there was a conflict between Jingguo and the Notre-Dame, the Notre-Dame could bypass the royal family and the cabinet and directly order the Ministry of Dali.
This also meant that the power of both the cabinet and the royal family would be weakened.
Many people even guessed that in order to weaken the royal family's power, Fang Yun handed the Supreme Court over to the Notre-Dame in exchange for the support of the Punishment Hall.
There were also people who thought that the Punishment Hall was using the excuse of Jingguo's poor governance to help Fang Yun carry out legal reforms and suppress all voices of opposition.
This was because a few days ago, there was a Legalist official who objected to some of the reforms. In the end, he was directly called over for tea by the Punishment Hall.
A few days later, that Legalist official hung up his crown and left.
From then on, no Legalist official spoke out against the reforms.
Amidst the chaos, Jingguo's reforms were carried out slowly and powerfully.
Fang Yun did not completely copy Jingguo's legal reforms. Instead, he carried out the reforms step by step. As long as he pointed out the direction for the new laws and regulations, Jingguo would naturally follow the trend of development and gradually improve in a better direction.
Moreover, any reforms that copied other political systems would be disastrous.
No country in history has ever succeeded by completely copying the way other countries operate. Never.
Fang Yun was in charge of the overall reforms. As for the specific details, Fang Yun would not only consult the officials of the Left Minister's Office, but also invite the cabinet and the various ministries to participate. If any of the ministries strongly objected, Fang Yun would repeatedly discuss and even suspend the reforms. He almost never did anything monopolistic.
Fang Yun respected the various ministries, and the various ministries respected Fang Yun. This made the reforms exceptionally smooth. After the return of respect, there had never been any internal strife.
The officials who supported the royal family had always been obstructing the reforms, causing some of Fang Yun's reforms to be shelved. However, they did not have a say in the general direction, especially when the majority of the officials supported the reforms.
The Empress Dowager's workload gradually decreased, and she had more time to rest. Her body slowly recovered, but it would take at least a year or two for her to fully recover.
While the scholars of Saint Origin were paying attention to Jingguo's legal reforms, the crackdown on Jingguo suddenly escalated. The original crackdown on vicious criminals was upgraded to a crackdown on bandits and highway robbers.
The scale of the crackdown on bandits this time was far greater than any of the previous ones.
Every province had a Grand Scholar using the power of the Divine Temple to patrol the world from the sky. All the bandits and robbers who occupied the mountains and claimed to be kings of a large scale were already marked down. After that, the provincial army and the prefecture army collectively mobilized and began an unprecedented encirclement.
However, the merit of this encirclement was not calculated by the number of bandits killed, but by the number of prisoners. The more bandits that were captured, the greater the merit.
After the bandits were captured, the Jingguo army would send them away. As for where they were sent, only the Punishment Hall knew.
As for the Punishment Hall's alliance with Jingguo to encircle the bandits, there was a rare lack of opposition on the rankings. Everyone supported the Punishment Hall and Jingguo.
A few days later, Wu Guo also began to encircle the bandits like Jingguo. However, Wu Guo was still the same as before. He killed the enemy and took the credit. He did not care about the prisoners.
The process of encircling the bandits was not done overnight. After the heated discussion at the beginning, the rankings no longer cared about it.
It was also at this time that many small and medium-sized families in Jingguo were destroyed. This was because the Punishment Hall had obtained concrete evidence that these families were in cahoots with the bandits.
As a result, public trials and verdicts were held one after another in various places, causing heads to roll.
Moreover, the way these cases were handled was shockingly consistent.
All the scholars who were suspected of breaking the law were sent to the Zhenyu Sea.
All the major offenders were paraded through the streets to incite public anger. Then, they were publicly executed.
All the people who were involved in the case were sent away.
All the property was confiscated.
All the fields were put under the name of the Notre-Dame.
All the fields of the Notre-Dame in Jingguo were turned into experimental fields for the Agriculture Hall and the Works Hall to plant high-yield crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn. The people who worked in these experimental fields were all criminals sent from other places.
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