In April 1973, the Bao family tombs in Hefei, Anhui Province, needed to be relocated because a nearby construction project was approved.
The ancestor of this Bao family is the most famous minister in the history of Hefei, and the well-known Bao Zheng "Bao Qingtian" is known to women and children.
In a small, rudimentary tombstone, a broken tombstone was excavated, and the words on the tombstone were clearly legible: "TombStone of Shangshu Xiaosu Bao of the Ministry of Gifts to the Deputy Envoy of the Song Dynasty".
This thousand-year-old stone tablet answers the first legendary question for us: Bao Zheng is indeed a clean and honest qing official with no money left.
So can it prove for us that the second unknown depicted in many history books, dramas, and interpretations, Bao Zheng is a big "blue sky" who judges cases like gods and sees things clearly?
The answer is yes.
In the fourth year (1037) of Emperor Jingyou of Song, the year 38-year-old Bao Zheng finally walked out of grief after serving his deceased parents for half a year, and re-embarked on his career without worry.
The imperial court arranged this great filial piety in a place not far from his hometown: Zhi County, Tianchang County, Yangzhou, which is today's Tianchang County, Chuzhou, Anhui.
At this time, Bao Zheng was just an ordinary official, far from the reputation that shook the world later.
Shortly after taking office, a strange thing happened at the yamen of Bao County's order.
A farmer came to the lobby and said that he had lost something, but it sounded like a laughing thing: it was not gold or silver, nor was it a family heirloom, but a tongue.
But it is indeed a very valuable tongue, because it belongs to the cattle of the farmer's family.
In agricultural societies, the status and value of cattle has remained high. Since the beginning of the pre-Qin Dynasty, successive dynasties have formulated strict legal protections for cultivated cattle, and it is strictly forbidden to slaughter cultivated cattle without reporting to the government.
Of course, the Northern Song Dynasty can not be an exception, the law clearly stipulates: "Anyone who kills cattle without incident is sentenced", not to mention that other people's cattle cannot be killed, killed by mistake, and killed by theft, even if they are their own cattle, they will be sentenced to one year in prison if they are killed casually.
Not to mention that the medical conditions at that time were basically helpless for wound infection, and the cattle that lost their tongues could not eat, could not move, and in fact, there was only one dead end.
In order to minimize the losses, the farmer had to hurry to the government office to report and ask for permission to kill the cattle and eat meat.
But the other question is, who did this thing with such sinister intentions?
At that time, there was no advanced case-solving technology such as DNA, and as long as the other party secretly boiled the cut beef tongue, it could not only improve the food, but also eliminate the stolen goods from then on, and it was impossible to find proof.
Even if he could ask all over the eight villages to find out the most suspected criminals, he couldn't get everyone's booty, and there was nothing he could do.
Who the hell is this person? What is his purpose in doing this?
Bao Zheng paced back and forth in the public hall, pondering bitterly.
The farmer in the hall could only wait for the verdict at a loss —at least as long as the cattle slaughter could be approved, and as to whether the criminal could be caught, I am afraid that he did not have this unrealistic hope.
"Just go back and kill the cow." In the end, the farmer waited for Bao Zheng's answer.
However, Bao Zheng immediately added another sentence: "You must sell the meat." ”
Of course, this is in the hands of the farmer, no matter what, it is better to make up for one more loss.
Although the farmer went back, Bao Zheng's work was not finished.
In ancient times, because cow skin could make armor, cow tendons could make bow strings, and horns could make bows, according to the regulations, farmers killed cattle on the front foot, and the back foot of the bag had to send people to the farmer's home to collect the armaments such as cow skin and cow tendon horn.
Who knew that Bao Zheng had forgotten about it as if he had forgotten about it, and had not sent a servant for a long time.
Sure enough, not long after, at the market in Tianchang County, there were farmers selling beef.
Under normal circumstances, people can only eat beef that is about to die of illness, and the quality of the meat can certainly not be compared with this strong cow that has been hit by the disaster.
The farmer's stalls are bustling with people, and many people praise such fresh and high-quality beef.
Bao Zheng still did not send someone to the farmer's house to collect the stripped cowhide horns.
Who knew that before the farmer's beef over there was sold out, another person came to bao zheng's mansion to report the crime.
The case reported by this person is not related to himself, he is here to report it. The content of the report is that the farmer who sold beef did not report it, but committed suicide by himself.
Some people may wonder, whether the farmer has committed suicide to his own cattle, what is the matter with him as an outsider?
This is because, in order to thoroughly implement the law that cattle are not allowed to be killed without incident, there were also supplementary regulations in ancient times: those who reported suicide cattle could be rewarded.
In the Song Dynasty, reporting a cattle that was slaughtered privately could be rewarded with 50 copper coins, up to 100 yuan.
50 yuan is equivalent to 5,000 yuan today, which is enough for a farmer who relies on farming for a living to buy a family as a small business.
The informant happily knelt on the ground and waited for the reward. He was confident that the government had not sent anyone to collect the cow skin, and the cow must have been slaughtered privately.
Who knew that he did not wait for the reward, but waited for Bao Zheng in the hall to ask a sharp question: "Why did you steal and cut the tongue of other people's cattle?" ”
The reason here is simple: if the visitor does not know the farmer, and sees him selling beef openly, it is natural to think that this is a legal sale approved by the government.
However, the people who came to believe that the farmer was a private cattle, which showed that he was not only very familiar with the farmer's family, but also expected that the farmer's cattle in their prime would undoubtedly die.
How could such a person, apart from the thief who cut the tongue of the cattle, have a second man?
Sure enough, the thief realized that he had stepped into the serial trap of Bao Zheng, and his face was suddenly pale, sweating like rain, and he was frightened to kneel on the ground.
Later, after interrogation, the criminal confessed the motive and the passage of 1510:
It turned out that this man had a vendetta against the farmer, so he would take the risk of secretly cutting off the tongue of his cattle, so that he would suffer heavy losses, and when he saw the farmer peddling beef in the market, he knew that the plot had succeeded.
But what made him even more overjoyed was that the government had not sent anyone to the farmer's house for a long time, and now he not only had the opportunity to push the farmer further into the prison, but also to make a windfall with his bare hands, which naturally could not be missed.
It is ridiculous that all his psychological activities were clearly figured out by Bao Zheng long ago when the farmer came to report the case, and it was precisely because "the organs were too clever to calculate and missed Qingqing's life."
The theft of cattle tongues led to farmers having to slaughter the cattle, which could be punished by death, followed by exile for thousands of miles, and the thieves were mostly fierce after a bumpy road.
The case of stealing the cow's tongue was only the first case of Bao Zheng's small test of the cattle knife, and since then, his reputation for being proficient in case management and selflessness with an iron face has gradually spread.
Kaifeng was the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, and in December of the first year of Jiayou (1056), Bao Zheng "Quan Zhi Kaifeng Fu", the familiar phrase "Kaifeng has a Bao Qingtian" began here.
During his tenure as mayor of the capital, Bao Zheng once again used his psychology to solve a difficult case, that is, another "gold hiding case" that was engraved on his tombstone.
There are two fox friends who get together, one of them is particularly fond of drinking, not drunk, and the other is not very fond of drinking, let alone drunk.
The one who prefers to drink carries a lot of precious gold in his sleeve, and once he is drunk and starts to go crazy, he doesn't know when he loses it.
In order to solve this problem, he proposed that he ask his friends who did not like to drink to keep some gold for him, and the two could have fun on their own.
The next episode is also not uncommon today: when the owner of the gold wakes up from his drunkenness and asks his friend for gold, the answer he gets makes his lungs explode: "I have never taken any gold." ”
The lost owner did not believe it, and after touching the other party's whole body, he could not find gold, so he had to go to court and ask Bao Zheng to solve it.
Without physical evidence, naturally the other party can deny it, no matter how Bao Zheng interrogates and how reasonable the testimony of the owner is, the person who hid the gold is determined not to let go, and has always said that he has not seen gold.
The case seems to have reached an impasse, and finding the whereabouts of the gold has become the key to the two of them.
Bao Zheng paced up the court again, pacing, perhaps because he felt too much headache, he actually bypassed the court, came to the backyard, and hung the two lawsuits on the hall.
The person who hid the gold was secretly proud, so he waited for Bao Zheng to return to the lobby and obediently confessed.
Who knew that when he arrived at the backyard, Bao Zheng changed his demeanor and immediately secretly called a small official, ordering him to rush to the home of the suspect who hid the gold with the official documents of Kaifeng Province, and asked him to directly ask the families for gold.
Indeed, if the suspect did hide his friend's gold, he certainly could not repeat the mistake of giving it to another friend. The only person he could trust to collect gold on his behalf was his family.
If the suspect did not hide the gold, then the family must also be righteous and argue with reason.
Regardless of the consideration, sending someone to the suspect's home is a necessary procedure.
The result was again unexpected by Bao Zheng, when the suspect's family saw the official holding the official document, they immediately thought that the theft of gold had been leaked, and quickly had to hand over the gold to alleviate the guilt.
When the suspect waiting in the court saw the official holding the gold, he was surprised that the ground was like dead ash, and knelt down to worship Bao Gong's wonderful psychological tactics.
In May of the seventh year of Jiayou (1062), Bao Zheng, who was already a deputy envoy of the Privy Council, suddenly fell seriously ill at work, and only two months later, a generation of Qingtian died at the age of 64.
The bad news spread out of the capital city, the entire streets and alleys of Kaifeng, regardless of professional status can hear the weeping and sighing.
Even Emperor Renzong personally came to the Bao family mansion to offer condolences when he heard the news, and posthumously presented the Libu Shangshu with the title of "Filial Piety" for the day he had quit the dynasty.
Throughout the Northern Song Dynasty, there were a total of one hundred and eighty-three Kaifeng prefects, but on the "Kaifeng Fu Inscription" stele, there were too many admirers with unique Bao Zheng, and people touched their names with their hands when viewing the inscriptions.
Bao Zheng served as the commander of Tianchang County for only four years, and Tianchang County is still glorious and proud of this old leader after a thousand years.