According to the Chronicle of the Maxiang Hall, a local chronicle of Quanzhou that was repaired during the Qianlong period, there was a local civilian named Xu Wenheng, and his daughter Xu Chuniang was beautiful and had a calm personality, and returned to her mother's house because her husband had traveled far from the army.
Later, when there were frequent wars, a group of powerful people came here with their families and occupied the people's houses. Xu Wenheng's home is divided into front and back yards, and the front yard is inhabited by the house slaves of the general Zheng Tai. Xu Chuniang was afraid of provoking them, and never went to the front yard, detouring through the back door every time. However, it was a disaster that could not be avoided, Zheng Tai's son Zheng Miaoxu heard the family slave say that Xu Chuniang was beautiful, so he came to peep, and when he saw the consequences, his heart was swaying, and the next day he sent gold and silver jewelry, pouring out his admiration, and was sternly rejected by Xu Chuniang.
Zheng Miaoxu saw that the profit could not be seduced, and simply climbed the wall in the middle of the night and sneaked into Xu Chuniang's room. Xu Chuniang shouted that she could not wake up her father next door, so she shouted "catch the thief", and the neighbors came with torches, and Zheng Yixu was so frightened that she hugged her head and ran. The more he thought about it, the more angry he became, and he was afraid that the neighbors would be suspicious, so the next morning he ordered the house slaves to destroy the partition wall in the front and back yards, and then split open his own cabinet and threatened that the property was stolen, which not only explained the reason for "catching the thief", but also married Xu Wenheng by the way.
Xu Wenheng was arrested and tortured by the government, but refused to confess guilt. The government accepted Zheng Miaoxu's bribe, and then arrested the Xu family's young son, who was only six years old, and under the whipping, the youngest son falsely accused his father according to their words. Xu Wenheng is known for his loyalty, and the townspeople do not believe that he will steal, but they are afraid of Zheng Tai's power, and no one dares to stand up for him.
Zheng Miaoxu triumphantly said to Xu Chuniang: "If you follow me, I will spare your father, and the money will not have to be lost, otherwise your family will have two empty money!" Xu Chuniang scolded: "If this is the case, not only will my innocence be destroyed, but my father's crime will also be confirmed, but it is better to die clean!" Zheng Yixu's mother heard that a rural servant was so tough that she ran to support her son and asked Xu Chuniang for "stolen goods", and Xu Chuniang pointed at her nose and scolded her.
The news reached Zheng Tai's ears, and he felt that it was a shame that his son could not clean up a woman, so he led someone to break into the Xu family, beat Xu Chuniang to death, and threw her into the ditch, falsely claiming that she threw herself into the water because of her fear of sin. But the absurd thing is that the ditch has been dry for many years. Even so, the government hastily closed the case, and Xu Wenheng and his young son were released.
Xu Chuniang's husband returned from the army, and his anger was hard to dispel, and he reported to the officials again, but because no one dared to testify for them, he fell into the name of "false accusation" and was instead tortured.
This Zheng Tai was Zheng Chenggong's cousin, who had accompanied Zheng Chenggong to successfully fight against the Qing army. Unlike Zheng Chenggong's strict military discipline of not taking any grass at the front line and not alarming women and children, most of the "Zheng family" represented by Zheng Tai who stayed in the rear were corrupt and perverted the law. In such a way as to trample on the people's hearts during the war, the banner of "anti-Qing and restoration" was held high in vain.
Later, Xu Chuniang was included in the "Biography of the Spirited Woman", and Lu Ruoteng, a scholar of the late Ming Dynasty who lived here, wrote a long poem of nearly 300 words for her, but mainly praised her fierceness and chastity, and there was not a single "Zheng" character in the whole text - in the "Zheng territory", or admired Zheng Chenggong, or jealous of the "Zheng family", and he no longer sympathized with Xu Chuniang and did not dare to speak out about the murderer.
It is worth noting that Zheng Tai and Zheng Yixu are not uncultured "upstarts", on the contrary, they are the children of the family, well-educated, and even have literature and ink passed down from generation to generation, but their means of oppressing the people are still so dirty. This kind of "cultured hooligan" is the most terrible, and once it masters financial resources, it is bound to bring calamity to the country and the people. After the defeat of Zheng Chenggong's Northern Expedition, Zheng Tai planned to escape and deposited more than 300,000 taels of private silver in the Bank of Japan, but was still captured by Zheng Chenggong's eldest son. At this time, his younger brother took Zheng Yixu to Qing, and Zheng Tai hanged himself in fear of sin. A year later, Zheng Died of Illness in Quanzhou, with a fistula and a rotten sore in his throat.