Tang riddles

On the twenty-seventh day of the first lunar month, Shen Sui went to Dali Temple to report.After estimating the time for the pilgrimage, she rode on a horse and set off with Kuta.

The destination is the imperial city to the south of Tai Chi Palace.

Before the Daming Palace was completed, most of the central government offices of the Tang Dynasty were located in the imperial city south of the Taiji Palace, except for Menxia and Zhongshu.These two provinces are the central institutions, located just to the south of the Taiji Hall.On the east side, there are Menxia Neiping, Hongwen Museum, and History Museum, and on the west side are Zhongshu Ineixing and Sherenyuan.These two places are the offices of the prime minister and the emperor's close ministers, so that the emperor can consult at any time and write documents and edicts according to the emperor's will.

After the completion of the Daming Palace, the government offices of Menxia and Zhongshu Provinces were moved to the Daming Palace.Only the Six Departments of Shangshu, the Nine Temples, and the Fourth Supervisory Office still remained in the imperial city and had not been moved.

Today, the Xingqing Palace has just started to listen to the government for one year, and the sad disciples, the Second Province of Zhongshu moved into the Xingqing Palace again, and the Six Departments of Shangshu also moved into the Daming Palace.Only the Nine Temples and the Four Prisons are as safe as mountains, sitting firmly in the imperial city.However, this brought about a problem. Every time the central government issued an edict, the eunuchs had to travel a long distance to be sent to various government offices.It is really inconvenient for the clerks to travel a long way to send the documents of each government office to the central office.

When Shen Sui went to the Yamen that day, he met such a small official who had just returned from delivering the documents.

At first Shen Sui didn't know who this person was, she saw him at the intersection of Zhuque East Street near Chongrenfang.He was wearing a gray-bottomed official robe with a black round collar, a soft cape, and a short moustache. He appeared to be in his thirties.Riding a donkey, there are two big book bags hanging behind the saddle of the donkey.These petty officials were so low in status that they couldn't even ride a horse, and most of them rode donkeys.So as soon as you see a person riding a donkey to deliver books, you know that he is a knife and pen official in the government.

Just as he entered the Suzaku gate, the knife and pen official took the token and came out for inspection by the gate guards.Shen Sui saw from afar that what he was holding was the token of Yushitai.Shen Sui followed him into the Vermilion Bird Gate, and after entering the imperial city, he saw a fourth-rank official standing with his hands behind his back not far from the city gate, and behind him stood two sixth-rank officials.

Seeing these three people, the knife and pen official quickly rolled off his donkey and bowed to salute them.The fourth-rank official actually knew the knife and pen official, and greeted him with a smile:

"Yang Si, you just came back from Xingqing Palace."

"That's right." Yang Si cupped his hands and said.

"It's hard work, running around like this every day."

"Thank you Ming Shaoqing for your care. It's my job for a villain to serve the court, so I don't feel hard work." Yang Si said politely, his tone always showing a bit of coldness. .

After exchanging simple greetings, Yang Si bid farewell to the three officials, and when he came back to lead his donkey, he saw Shen Sui not far behind him leading a tall horse and accompanied by servants. Actually follow people.But when he saw Shen Sui's sixth-rank official robe, he quickly saluted again, and then led the donkey away.

After he left, Shen Sui stepped forward to greet the three officials.

"My subordinate, Shen Sui, met Ming Shaoqing. Wang Sizhi and Zhao Sizhi are polite."

The three officials returned the salute to her, and Ming Shaoqing, the leader, smiled and said:

"Brother Bozhao is here, I really look forward to it."

Wang and Zhao, the two Sizhi, echoed each other again and again.Look, it doesn't look like the superficial attitude of the officialdom, it's quite sincere.Probably in their hearts, Shen Sui's arrival could be called "the arrival of a savior".

These three officials are all serving officials of Dali Temple.Ming Yu is the Shaoqing of Dali, the fourth rank, equivalent to the deputy chief of the department, and Qin Zhen's deputy; Wang Jian and Zhao Ziyang are the same as Shen Sui, the sixth rank direct officials, and belong to similar jurisdictions.

What is the concept of jurisdiction?This involves the functions of the official class of Si Zhi.The director of Dali Temple is straight, and he is in charge of envoys to accept suspicious cases in various states.Dali Temple is a central judicial institution. Every year, difficult cases reported from various places are gathered for trial. If it is really difficult to decide, the Dali Temple will be sent directly to the local area to collect evidence and prosecute.The official system of the Tang Dynasty stipulated that there should be six directors in Dali Temple. Not long ago, an old director resigned due to illness and returned to his hometown for retirement. The official position was vacant, and Shen Sui was put in this position.

There are 320 roads in the whole Tang Dynasty, governing [-] eight prefectures and prefectures.Except for some highly autonomous Jumi prefectures and Dadu Protectorate, the judicial affairs of nearly [-] prefectures are under the jurisdiction of Dali Temple.That is to say, each of the six directors of the Dali Temple has to take charge of the judicial affairs of three or fifty states on average, and deal with difficult cases reported by local officials.Every director of Dali Temple spends more than half of the year on business trips and on the way back.

When Shen Sui received the appointment edict, he also received an official letter from Dali Temple, which detailed the functions and jurisdiction of the official position to be appointed.Therefore, Shen Sui was very clear about what the chief officer he was about to assume was in charge of.The areas under her jurisdiction include the eighteen prefectures of Shannan East Road, the fourteen prefectures of Huainan East Road, and the nineteen prefectures of Jiangnan East Road.

The jurisdictions of Wang and Zhao are just adjacent to Shen Sui's jurisdiction, and they should often cooperate with each other to handle official affairs, and they are the closest colleagues.Especially when Shen Sui was serving as the judge of Henan Province and joined the army, he knew Wang Jian, who was in charge of Henan Province, and met several times.Zhao Ziyang is in charge of Shannan West Road, Qianzhong Road, Jiannan Road and other areas bordering Shannan East Road, Huainan Road, and Jiangnan East Road.And as early as the Great Court Meeting, these two were singled out by Qin Zhen, and they met Shen Sui first.

Ming Gui is the deputy chief in charge of judiciary in each state, and it is logical that he led Wang and Zhao to welcome Shen Sui.Moreover, everyone inside Dali Temple knew that the relationship between Shen Sui and Qin Zhen was unusual, so they were very polite to Shen Sui.Ming Gui probably wanted to make friends with Shen Sui, and came to greet Shen Sui in person as a fourth-rank official, and this was the first time in the history of Dali Temple officials.

"Brother Bo Zhao, this way please." Ming Gui led the way, leading Shen Sui to the Dali Temple government office.Kutuo was a slave and could not enter. He only rested and waited in the stable next to the city gate.

"Dare to ask Ming Shaoqing, who is that Yang Si just now?" Shen Sui asked on the way together.

Ming Gui smiled contemptuously, and said, "It's just the clerk of Yushitai's library, so it's not worth mentioning."

Shen Sui frowned indistinctly, and continued:

"A certain Shaoqing seems to be familiar with him, and I have some doubts in my heart."

"Brother Bozhao just came here, and some things are still unclear. This Yang Si is not a good person to get along with. Dali Temple and Yushitai often have official documents, and it is inevitable to deal with this Yang Si. Folk sayings , The King of Hades is easy to see, but the little devil is hard to deal with. This Yang Si is a difficult little devil. Every time I want to pick up documents from the document library in Dali Temple, he will obstruct it, so that I have to find the worthy censor every time. Only by taking me to the document library can he open the door to borrow. This person is unsophisticated, like a toilet stone, smelly and hard." Minggui derogated Yang Siduo in his words.

Wang Jian added: "I don't know if this Yang Si has anything to do with Yu Wenrong. When Yu Wenrong was the censor Zhongcheng, he came in, and he has been occupying the position of secretary of the document library since then. Now the censor Zhongcheng Li Linfu doesn't care, I can't wait."

Shen Sui suddenly nodded, and said with a smile: "It seems that a certain will have to make offerings to Secretary Yang in the future."

"Hey, brother Bo Zhao, if you stand in front of him, maybe you won't be hindered." Zhao Ziyang laughed.

"How do you say that?" Shen Sui asked doubtfully.

"This Yang Si has a habit of breaking sleeves." Zhao Ziyang said winkingly.

Neither Ming Gui nor Wang Jian could hold back their laughter.With a speechless expression on Shen Sui's face, he just felt that he had been struck by thunder.I didn't expect that she would meet such a strange person on the first day of her appointment, it was really dumbfounding.

On the way to Dali Temple, while chatting with the three officials, Shen Sui recalled a protracted political struggle two years ago.This case is related to several people. On the one hand, Zhongshu Lingzhang, who was the first assistant prime minister at the time; on the other hand, Yu Wenrong and Li Linfu, who were then Yushi Zhongcheng;

In the 14th year of Kaiyuan, the sage favored Yu Wenrong, but Zhong Shuling Zhang Shuo always hated him as a human being, so he often suppressed him.Annoyed, Yu Wenrong, together with Cui Yinfu and Li Linfu, wrote a letter of impeachment against Zhang, saying: "Invite the sorcerer Wang Qingze to pray at the night temple, and his relatives have bribed and other crimes."The saint was furious after hearing this, and ordered the three departments to jointly investigate the matter.The representative of Dali Temple who investigated the case at that time was Shaoqing Minggui.

However, the investigation was fruitless, and Zhang said he was released.In February of the following year, Yu Wenrong, Cui Yinfu and Zhang Shuo continued to attack each other, and the court was uneasy.The saint was so dizzy that he demoted all three of them from the court.

Zhang said that he was demoted, which implicated Zhang Jiuling, so Zhang Jiuling had to be the governor of Hongzhou and went to Lingnan.

Although this was a crony dispute in the imperial court, Shen Sui saw some things that were not noticed by others.One is Li Linfu himself. After this incident, Li Linfu was the only beneficiary and became the actual controller of Yushitai.Shen Sui thought that this person had a deep plan and had to guard against it.Second, Shen Sui saw the shadow of Concubine Wu Hui from this case.Zhang Shuo is the representative of the party who is most opposed to changing the crown prince. As an old prime minister, Zhang Shuo's prestige and status in the court is difficult to match, which has brought huge obstacles to Concubine Wu Hui's ambition to abolish the crown prince and change to Lishou Wang.Once this incident is over, Zhang Shuo's influence will be hit hard, which will undoubtedly be extremely beneficial to Concubine Wu Hui.

It is unknown whether Li Linfu and Concubine Wu Hui colluded.

Shen Sui also had a slight interest in Dali Shaoqing Minggui who was walking in front of him.This person is quite intelligent, and perhaps he saw the shady plot of factionalism behind the case at that time, so when the case was tried, he adopted a non-action approach and stayed out of it all the time.In fact, if he really wanted to have a trial, he would definitely be able to find out that Zhang said that he connived at selling officials and nobles and amassing money wantonly, because this was something that almost everyone in the court knew.But the result is that there is no such thing, which is quite intriguing.

While thinking about it, Shen Sui followed the three officials into the gate of the official office of Dali Temple.First, he entered the Zhengqing official room to pay homage to Qin Zhen and receive the official seal.Qin Zhen was buried in a large number of official documents at that time, and did not have too much communication with Shen Sui, with a business-like attitude, but there was always a meaningful expression on his face, Shen Sui understood, not much Word.

Then Shen Sui was brought into the official room in the West Wing, the third room from the left, with the name C, was Shen Sui's office.Three clerks were temporarily assigned to Shen Sui's subordinates to assist Shen Sui in his work.At this moment, they were sitting in rows at the banquet, bowing their heads to Shen Suina.

When we parted at the door, Ming Yu said with a smile: "Brother Bozhao, the official documents accumulated in the recent period are all on your desk. You can read them first today and get familiar with them. If you don't understand anything, you can ask the three clerks. , or ask Wang Sizhi, he is in Room B next to you. There is also Zhao Sizhi in Room A, you are colleagues in the true sense.”

"Yes, thank you Ming Shaoqing." Shen Sui cupped his hands.

After explaining, Ming Gui left.Shen Sui bid farewell to Wang Jian and Zhao Ziyang, made an appointment to drink together in the evening, and entered his official room.

Shen Sui first met with three clerks. They were all old officials who followed the previous Sizhi. They were all in their [-]s or [-]s, with grizzled hair and rich experience.One of them was surnamed Xue, the oldest, and was called "Old Xue". The other two were surnamed Du, and they were called "Old Du" and "Shao Du" according to their age.

As a young woman, Shen Sui mixed with a group of old men, it was a very strange scene.But she has been an official for many years, and she has long been used to dealing with all kinds of small officials, and these three senior officials are no exception, and they soon became friends with laughter and laughter.These petty officials are nothing more than people of civilian background who have studied but have no chance of official career. They have no dream of being an official and serving the court, but they can only become officials and do some mechanical and repetitive tasks.In the imperial court, in fact, the normal operation of most institutions depends on these small officials. They do the most basic work, like parts of wooden cows and horses, but their role is often the most easily overlooked.

Shen Sui's kindness made the three little officials feel like a spring breeze, and they couldn't help but feel very grateful.With such a superior, their life will be easier in the future.Maybe when it's time to rest, you can still find a good land property and supplies to prevent old age, and hard work for most of your life is enough.

After saying hello, Shen Sui sat behind the desk and started his new job.As she opened the documents piled up on the case one by one, the difficult cases reported by countless counties and counties jumped into her eyes.Shen Sui raised the corners of his lips, his interest greatly increased.

Wherever you are happy, you will have endless fun.