Chapter 193: He’s Always Been an Obedient Child, So Don’t Let Him Off! (2 / 2)
Prime Minister Dou’s face darkened. “Minister Zheng, speak your mind plainly.”
The Minister lowered his gaze slightly and spoke slowly, “Your intentions are good, but you’ve overlooked human nature. If this were made an additional merit, might some local officials, in pursuit of achievement, forcibly bind women’s feet, let them fester, and then ‘unbind’ them for the sake of claiming credit?”
Prime Minister Dou’s face grew even more severe, and he remained silent.
He, of course, understood that any policy, no matter how well-intentioned, might be distorted or exploited after implementation. But this was an issue meant to be addressed during the smaller court meetings through discussion among ministers.
To put it bluntly, this was just a draft, a preliminary version. Every decree undergoes extensive deliberation before being finalized.
The Minister of the Imperial Ancestral Temple, however, belonged to a different faction. It had become routine for members of that faction to find faults in Prime Minister Dou’s proposals, openly and covertly criticizing him. This time, it was simply the Minister’s turn.
Still, the Minister dared to raise the issue because the concern was valid.
Implementing decrees wasn’t as simple as the court issuing an edict and local officials executing it with robotic precision.
Prime Minister Dou had no way to refute the criticism—he couldn’t exactly say, I planned to address this in the smaller court meetings.