In the late Qing Dynasty, that is, the period when Cixi was hanging the curtain and listening to the government, there were countless strange and unjust cases, among which the four cases of Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage, the famous Yang Yuelou unjust case, the Taiyuan Strange Case, and the Zhang Wenxiang Horse Assassination Case were the most complicated, which were called the four strange cases of the late Qing Dynasty by later generations. What we want to talk about today is one of the four strange cases of the late Qing Dynasty, the "Unjust Case of the Famous Man Yang Yuelou."
First of all, this Yang Yuelou was born in 1844 in Huai'an, Anhui. His father, Yang Jiwang, was a boxer, and there is also a theory that his father was a Huiban Wudan actor. Yang Yuelou is also a son who inherits his father's business, and has followed his father to sell art in Beijing Tianqiao since he was a child. After breaking out of the famous hall, he was appreciated by Zhang Erkui, the famous character of the Hui opera at that time, "Zhongshu Tang", and learned the art from his teacher, and was accepted by Zhang Erkui as a disciple and learned martial arts.
Yang Yue Lou
After the introduction of the master, the yulou was ranked, and it was in the same door as Lu Yufeng, Shen Yulian and Yu Yusheng. Yang Yuelou and Yu Yusheng were known as Zhang Erkui's right and left arms, and were once known as "Zhongshu Tang Wen Wu Shuang Bi". After the full division. Yang Yuelou set up his own "Zhonghua Hall", received apprentices and taught art, and took classes in Shanghai.
Yang Yuelou belongs to the kind of actor who has both looks and talent, with a large body and a handsome appearance. In terms of skills, martial arts are very skilled, and the voice is also loud. For a time, it became famous in Shanghai. Yang Yuelou entered the Dangui Garden, the oldest and largest Peking Opera Theater in Shanghai Beach at that time. With its outstanding ability, Danguiyuan is also one of the most outstanding.
Later, he was invited by Cheng Changgeng to join the Sanqing class, and was valued by Cheng Changgeng, the "originator of Peking Opera" at that time, and entrusted by him, after Cheng Changgeng's death, he was in charge of the Sanqing class for ten years and enjoyed a high reputation. He once performed for Empress Dowager Cixi, and finally became a generation of Chinese opera masters.
But the master also has a time when he is trapped by emotions, and the occurrence of the tragedy is even more related to this.
When Yang Yuelou performed in Shanghai, it can be said that he was fascinated by all sentient beings, and many little girls were even more admiring of him, secretly promising their hearts. A Guangdong woman surnamed Xu who lived idly in Shanghai fell in love with him, and knowing that she was old, she had the intention of mating her daughter Xu to Yang Yuelou, and the two also had many contacts.
Although the two are innocent, the outside world does not think so. Although the woman was a little older, she still had the charm and received a large inheritance after her husband's death. Perhaps out of jealousy, the Cantonese in Shanghai saw that she and Yang Yuelou were too close, and they suspected that the two had a private affair, feeling that they had lost the face of the Cantonese.
When he heard that Yang Yuelou wanted to marry her daughter, he even concluded that Yang Yuelou was trying to swallow the Xu family's property and occupy the mother and daughter, and as fellow villagers, they had to take care of it, and they were also very angry about it, so they jointly filed a lawsuit and reported it to the government.
At that time, Shanghai County Ling happened to be a Cantonese person, and after hearing the lawsuit of the people, he was also angry, believing that Yang Yuelou was extremely evil, and he arrested Yang Yuelou and imprisoned him on the same day. He even ordered the servants to beat him with a thousand sledgehammers, just imagine, if this thousand sledgehammers go down, who can survive, either dead or injured. However, after Yang Yuelou was beaten, he was fine.
It turned out that a woman in the secret secretly helped him. This woman's name was Shen Yuechun, a famous prostitute in Shanghai at that time, every time Yang Yuelou performed in Shanghai, she had to go to see his play, and when she saw the handsome appearance of the man on the stage, her outstanding talent deeply fell in love with him. But because of his low status, he had to hide his admiration in his heart.
After this accident with his sweetheart, Shen Yuechun rushed to the county to dredge up the relationship and intercede for Yang Yuelou. When he learned from Ya Gong that Yang Yuelou was about to be killed, he burst into tears and knelt down to beg Ya Gong to spare Yang Yue lou. In the end, she spent a thousand taels of silver to buy the executioner, and Yang Yuelou escaped the disaster.
However, the two did not come together because Yang Yuelou did not know her, so when she went to visit her in prison, she had to report to her family and tell Yang Yuelou about her help to him. Yang Yuelou was naturally grateful for it. But the mistake was that her admiration did not relent, and she unconsciously revealed it in her speech, and finally cried and said to Yang Yuelou: "Since Jun was imprisoned, concubines did not dare to be at ease, they ate vegetarian food and prayed To Buddha every day to eliminate disasters for Jun, and sincerely hope that Jun will get out of prison early." ”
After all, Yang Yuelou is not a person with an iron heart, and after listening to her crying, her gratitude in her heart is multiplied, but gratitude is grateful, but there is no love to speak of. Yang Yuelou also knew that he had already made a lifelong agreement with the daughter of a woman surnamed Xu, and the two of them were really in love, and at this moment they could only cut off with it and could not have anything to do with it.
Thinking of this, Yang Yuelou had already made up his mind and asked him, "Who told you to save me?" Who told you to be a vegetarian? What do I have to do with you in the classroom? Shen Yuechun, who was deeply in love, heard this, where would he think that this was the radical law, heartbroken, only hated that in the end it was still wrongly paid, and finally cut his hair into a nun and escaped into the empty door.
But Yang Yuelou's troubles are not over, Yang Yuelou during the performance of Jinguiyuan, a famous theater garden in the Shanghai Concession, and a lawsuit with a merchant woman.
Wei Abao, who was seventeen years old at the time, had a crush on Yang Yuelou. After returning home, he repaired a letter by himself and wanted to make a marriage contract with Yang Yuelou at first sight. However, Yang Yuelou did not meet as promised, and Wei Abao was also bedridden. Her mother invited Yang Yuelou to meet again, and this time Yang Yuelou did not refuse, and after meeting, she made a marriage contract and began to prepare for the marriage.
However, contrary to his wishes, Wei Abao's father did not know that his daughter had been married because he was working outside, and after learning about the incident, he thought that Yang Yuelou's identity was low and did not agree to this marriage. At that time, the law stipulated that good and lowly people should not marry. Wei Abao's mother then conspired with Yang Yuelou to secretly marry, and after being discovered by her uncle, she sued the official for Yang Yuelou's abduction and theft.
Therefore, on the day of their marriage, Ya Gong arrested the two and seized seven boxes of clothes and jewelry, and Ye Tingqia, the zhixian who tried the case, severely beat Yang Yuelou in the hall. Wei Abao shouted, "Marrying a chicken is no different from a chicken", which angered Zhixian even more and was slapped two hundred times.
At that time, the case was a sensation, and people were talking about it, and some conservatives believed that Yang Yuelou's abduction of a young girl violated the law of the Great Qing Dynasty and the law of unmarriedness, and deserved to be punished. However, some people also believe that the two are together through a legitimate form of marriage, which does not constitute a crime of abduction, and they also know that Yang Yuelou is purely wronged. In this way, the case was constantly reviewed, and finally Yang Yuelou was sentenced for the crime of "abduction". Yang Yuelou was therefore also sent to Heilongjiang to charge the army. Wei Abao was abandoned by his father and was given to an old man in his seventies.
It was not until later when Cixi granted amnesty to the world that Yang Yuelou was able to move back to his original hometown and regain his freedom. Later, he went to Beijing to perform for Cixi and was rewarded.
The reason why the famous Yang Yuelou unjust case is called one of the four strange cases is mainly because of a fierce collision between traditional concepts and modern thought.