During the Northern Song Dynasty, a copper coin was worth about 3 cents today, which seemed to be insignificant, and even then, a copper coin fell on the ground and was not necessarily picked up. But the story that Xiaobian wants to introduce next is a little strange, a small official only stole 1 copper coin from the national treasury, and was beheaded by the county order to show the public, so did he die too unjustly?
To understand the cause of the whole thing, we have to start with a famous official of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Yong. As a jinshi during the reign of Emperor Taizong of Song, Zhang Yong was appointed by the Northern Song court as the Commander of Chongyang County, and did a lot of good things for the local people. At that time, most of the local people made a living by growing tea, but the Northern Song Court forcibly let the local people pull out the tea leaves and plant mulberry trees. At this time, in order to protect the interests of the people, Zhang Yong exchanged the "Dorna Tea Tax" for the right to continue to grow tea in the local area, so the local people were very grateful to Zhang Yong, but because of this, the county also carried a heavy financial burden, so Zhang Yong was very strict about the tax and silver management in the national treasury, even if there was no money to be lost.
According to the Southern Song Dynasty Luo Dajing's "Crane Forest Yulu" record, once, Zhang Yong sent one of his subordinate officials to the national treasury for handover work, and the small official stole a copper coin from the national treasury and hid it under his turban, and as a result, his action was just bumped into by Zhang Yong, who came to inspect the work.
Zhang Yong was very angry when he found out that the small officials had stolen the copper coins from the national treasury, so he immediately ordered the servants to arrest him and prepare to beat him up. Even this little official had no sense of guilt, and shouted, "It's just a piece of money, you can beat me on the board, do you dare to kill me?" It can be seen that during the Northern Song Dynasty, stealing property from the national treasury was a very common behavior, and because the amount of theft by small officials was too low, zhang Yong did not seem to be able to help him according to the law.
However, this small official ignored Zhang Yong's ability to judge cases, so Zhang Yong wrote a 16-word judgment in the public court: "One dollar a day, one thousand days, the rope sawn wood is broken, and the water drops are worn." It can be seen that although the money stolen by the petty official is not much, it is also a staggering amount accumulated over time, so Zhang Yong ordered the servants to immediately take the petty official to the execution ground and behead him for public display, which greatly deterred the corruption of the local officials.