Wei Yi had been expected to stall for a while and only formally deal with the two Jurchens once he could no longer hold out.
Yet just after Wu Hour, Sun Shaozong, who was investigating the case at Lin Mansion, received word from Qin Kejian: the verdicts for the two Jurchens had already been decided.
A Lin Qitu, who had fought someone over jealousy, received a lighter sentence due to his good attitude in confessing and the unanimous forgiveness of several plaintiffs. He was sentenced to forty strokes of the rod and fined one hundred taels of silver.
There was no mention whatsoever of how A Lin Qitu had resisted arrest and injured the constables.
As for Sa Buhua, who had drawn his blade in anger before Dali Temple and intended to threaten a high-ranking court official, his offense was deemed serious and his influence vile. He was sentenced to one hundred strokes of the rod and exile to the Yun-Gui front, where he would serve as a slave, as a warning to others.
It had to be said that although Wei Yi had always coasted along in his post at Dali Temple, he did possess some real ability beneath the surface.
With this move of avoiding the insubstantial and focusing on the facts, of seizing the major issue while letting the minor one go, he had first deliberately downplayed the crimes of A Lin Qitu, the Jurchen Deputy Envoy, then harshly sentenced the lowly guard from the delegation.
At least on the surface, there had been no favoritism or perversion of the law, much less any leniency toward the Jurchens.
The Jurchens also knew that the court intended to adopt a conciliatory policy. At such a critical moment, they naturally would not fall out with Great Zhou over a