Autumn.
It was the season of harvest, and also the season of beheadings.
Many of those sentenced in the Gao Rou Case were to be executed at this time.
Ever since the two Han dynasties, local officials had been required to report to the imperial court when convicting someone of a capital crime. Death sentences could only be carried out after the court reviewed them.
Of course, during the Wei-Jin period, it depended on the circumstances. Indiscriminate killing by local officials was simply too common.
Their defining trait was carefree disregard for restraint: they killed whomever they pleased, playing the game of "I don't eat beef."
After batch upon batch of prisoners were executed, all of Luoyang grew considerably more solemn.
Yet at that moment, Cao Mao was drinking with a gathering of renowned scholars in the East Hall.
The weather was very pleasant, with a gentle, cool breeze blowing.
The renowned scholars sat before Cao Mao with their heads lowered, no longer displaying their initial abandon.
This was not because Cao Mao's attitude had changed, but because the power in his hands was no longer what it had been. They all felt somewhat constrained before him, no longer as brazen as before.
Cao Mao took a small sip of tea.
Then he looked at the gathering, chiefly at the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove.
These seven men were the idols of the vast majority of scholars throughout Great Wei, the objects of their adulation.
To change the thinking of Great Wei's scholars, he first had to change these seven men, make them adjust the ideas in their heads and stop spreading those passive, world-shunning values of giving up and letting everything rot.
Although Cao Mao had already begun working to loosen the shackles on scholars, allowing them to