The Ministry of Justice.
Wei Shu took a small sip of tea, then looked at the visitor before him.
More and more people had been coming to see him lately.
They were not here to demand anyone's release.
No one dared come here to demand the release of someone the emperor wanted punished, not even Wang Chang.
Almost no one dared try bribing Wei Shu, either.
Those were all things people did when they thought they had lived too long.
After so many years of Cao Mao's efforts to set things straight, these people had finally begun to behave normally.
A few years ago, they might indeed have come to the Ministry of Justice to demand someone's release, or tried to win Wei Shu over through threats or bribes.
But they no longer dared. They came here mainly to sound out the situation.
The great clans were far too closely connected, all related to one another by marriage. Take Xun Yi, for instance: if he were punished, it would not just be Xun Xu, Xun Yu, Xun Biao, and the others who suffered. Guanqiu Jian would be dragged down too.
That was because Guanqiu Jian's daughter-in-law, Lady Xun, was Xun Yi's younger clanswoman.
There was always some way to trace a family connection between these great clans. One might even be able to find some kinship between Cao Mao and Sun Hao.
And this time, more than ten great clans had been implicated. Among their clansmen alone, eighteen officials ranking above Two Thousand Shi had been implicated...
That was not even counting the small fry below the fifth rank.
And this was before any sentences had been passed. No one knew how severe their sentences would be.
If they involved something like clan extermination, how terribly the relatives of those