Chapter 1207: Wencheng

Qi Wensu also wrote about what happened yesterday, but the content of his article was completely different from Tiger Head’s. This kid raised a few questions after writing about the incident, with the first one being: ‘How could someone come up with such a scam and have the guts to carry it out?’

He had checked the laws of Great Qi. The most severe punishment for ordinary civilians who deceived nobles was to be exiled 1,000 miles away. Once convicted, just the fine could make the culprit go bankrupt.

Why were they willing to take such a huge risk to cheat?

Were they aware of the consequences should they be exposed?

If even ordinary civilians were like this, what about the slaves, whose fate laid in the hands of their master? How bold must they be to dare to lie to their master?

More importantly, someone actually fell for such a simple scam.

Of course, Dong Mao wasn’t entirely responsible because Steward Ji had ulterior motives and wanted to scheme against Rong Xuan.

However, it was undeniable that Dong Mao was indeed deceived.

Qi Wensu didn’t think that Dong Mao was too stupid. Based on the results of a vote, though everyone could agree that his IQ wasn’t high, they deemed it to be above average.

Therefore, Qi Wensu’s last question was whether there was a way to effectively prevent such a scam from happening again.

The essay was passable. What annoyed Fan Zijin was that half of the second half of the essay was filled with questions. Furthermore, the kid didn’t propose any solutions to those questions. Did he think that he was in class? That he could just keep asking questions and wait for the teacher to give him an answer?

Since Qi Wensu was a much quieter child than Tiger Head and Little Lion, Fan Zijin really didn’t expect him to have so many questions.

Fan Zijin set aside Qi Wensu’s article and picked up Little Lion’s. Seeing that it was also about yesterday’s incident, he couldn’t help but hold his forehead, but he still read it seriously.

But this time, what Fan Zijin read piqued his interest, causing him to raise his eyebrows slightly.

Little Lion had always remembered that land was the lifeblood of farmers. Moreover, his mother used to be very worried about land annexation, and his royal uncle had always been working to suppress land annexation. Dong Mao’s large-scale purchase of farmland was actually an act of land annexation.

He felt that the country should put an end to land transactions. Alternatively, they could raise the threshold for land transactions. This way, not only could the country effectively suppress land annexation, but the government office could also monitor the land transaction deals and effectively reduce the occurrence of such things.

Fan Zijin really didn’t expect Little Lion to be so meticulous and to actually come up with solutions. Although this solution was too crude and had too many issues, it was still better than what Tiger Head and Qi Wensu had written, right?

Because of the comparison, although Fan Zijin was still not satisfied with Little Lion’s article, he was not angry.

Fan Zijin put down Little Lion’s manuscript and picked up his son’s article expectantly. Alas, when he started reading, the smile on his face cracked slightly.

Had these four brats agreed they would all write about yesterday’s incident?

Little An’s article was also about yesterday’s incident.

If Tiger Head had thought of the issue of education from that incident, Wensu had seen the problem of crime, Little Lion had seen the problem of land, and Little An had seen the most primitive cause of this matter.

In his article, he wrote that his father said that the most fundamental reason for this was that someone wanted to plot against Uncle Rong, which triggered the subsequent events.

There was a saying that snakes and ropes hiding from the bush indicate a foreshadowing of their distant existence. No one knew if the previous scam was a foreshadow of yesterday’s operation.

If his father hadn’t coincidentally brought them out of the city yesterday and they hadn’t gone over to watch out of curiosity, or if Tiger Head and Little Lion didn’t have such high combat strength, they wouldn’t have been able to stop both sides. As long as someone died, the matter would have blown up.

At that time, Uncle Rong would definitely be implicated.

Just to pull Uncle Rong down from his position as the Left Prime Minister, someone did not hesitate to set up a trap at the expense of others’ lives. With that in mind, just how many innocent lives had been lost in this world for the sake of power?

Even though Little An was mature, he couldn’t help but shudder at the thought.

Therefore, he proposed to change the law, when it came to breaking the law, to reduce the distance between the influential people (including nobles, officials, the other upper echelons) and the commoners.

The idea of a prince being meted the same punishment as an ordinary person when committing a crime only existed in operas. This was because it was simply impossible. Even jinshis were treated differently than the commoners when they broke the law.

When a civilian sued an official, the former was first punished with 30 strokes of the paddle first. From this, it could be seen how different the treatment was.

Therefore, Little An thought that the reason why the upper echelons were so unscrupulous in using the people as chess pieces to attack each other was because they had this privilege.

He knew that this privilege had always existed and so it was impossible to eliminate it all at once. However, they could slowly reduce this distance.

For example, when it came to breaking the law, lowering the intensity of the punishment for commoners while increasing the punishment for nobles, thus narrowing the distance between the two. The descendants could slowly work to narrow the gap until they could equalize the cost of crime for both sides. At that time, even the upper-class people would not dare to casually use commoners as pawns.

If Mu Yangling saw this article, she would look at Little An in surprise. This was because Little An was proposing that everyone be equal in the eyes of the law. If everyone was equal in the eyes of the law, it would be no different from the modern world.

However, it was Fan Zijin who was reading this article.

He felt that his heart had reached its maximum tolerance today. It turned out that the boldest person was not Tiger Head, Little Lion, or Wensu, who was a prince, but his son!

To subject a prince to the same punishment as a commoner?

Putting aside whether others agreed or not, it was impossible for him and the Emperor to agree!

If the prince was subjected to the same punishment as the commoners in breaking the law, then why would he work so hard to establish his career? What then was the use of granting titles to his wife and children for his meritorious service?

Why would everyone work so hard to become an official?

Yes, everyone wanted to help govern the country and help the commoners, but that was a grand ideal. Most people aspire to become officials to bring glory to their ancestors, confer his wife and children, and receive special privileges.

Fan Zijin felt that his son was quite realistic in the past. Why did he suddenly become so bold in his thinking, even more so than Tiger Head?

No longer in the mood to deal with official matters, Fan Zijin placed his son’s article on the desk and paced around the room anxiously.

He really wanted to rush back now and shout at his son like most fathers did. He wanted to urge him to put aside these thoughts that he shouldn’t have and obediently study with the aim of becoming an official.

However, this could only exist in his imagination. He knew his son well. That kid usually looked tactful, but he was very stubborn. If he had truly made up his mind on something, Fan Zijin would probably not be able to hold him back even if he had eight horses.

Fan Zijin scratched his head in distress. He felt that he could not simply deny this matter. Otherwise, it would be terrible if that kid got rebellious and insisted on pushing for this matter.

At that time, the entire Fan family would be destroyed.

Most importantly, Tiger Head and Little Lion listened to him. The two of them weren’t the types who thought deeply before they acted. When the time came, the commoners might celebrate, but just those jurens, jinshis, civil servants, generals, and various nobles could destroy them and Great Qi.

By pushing for this, Little An would offend every member of the privileged classes.

After feeling vexed for a long time, Fan Zijin finally brought the article to Qi Haoran to discuss a solution.

He and Fan Zijin had taught the four children, so he had to take responsibility!

The Minister of Revenue, who was about to look for Fan Zijin to discuss something, saw him rushing out. Just as he was about to call out to him, the latter disappeared.

Geez, he skipped work for an entire day yesterday and left early today. This was simply ridiculous. Don’t think that just because he was a relative of the royal family, he wouldn’t dare to do anything to him.

The Minister of Revenue planned to enter the palace later to lodge a complaint against him before the Emperor.

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