In the tenth year of Ming Jiajing (1531 AD), in the bustling Beijing Drum Tower, a group of people were gathered in front of the bulletin board, they looked at the news released on the bulletin board, while looking at the two corpses under the white cloth, in the faint, they could also see the white and swollen hands in the white cloth...
The East Factory arrested people and the hawkers were arrested
Near the Drum Tower, there is a small merchant surnamed Zhang who sells "four ice fruits" for a living. The owner of the small shop, named Zhang Zhu, has not yet married his wife at the age of 30, and he is dependent on his old mother who has passed the age of flower armor, relying on the ancestral "four ice fruits" craft to barely maintain food and clothing.
At dawn, a cacophony of horses' hooves burst out of the street. People on horseback, wearing pointed hats and plain samurai uniforms, were the servants of dongchang, the most prominent detective agency of the Ming Dynasty. Fan Gong rushed into the Zhang family and arrested Zhang Zhu, who was drinking porridge, and Zhang Zhu's mother was also arrested before she could say a word.
Why was Zhang Zhu's mother and son arrested? It turned out that this morning, when several Dongchang fan servants were patrolling the streets as usual, they inadvertently turned into the small alley where Zhang Zhu's family was located. On the ground of the alley, there was a female corpse lying on it. The deceased was in his forties, his hair was disheveled, he was stabbed three times, and when he found that the blood had coagulated, it was estimated that he had been dead for some time. Looking around, he found that there was nothing but a sharp scythe and a basket. And the basket clearly wrote the words "four ice fruits".
Zhang Zhu listened to the pain in his heart, and it turned out that it was for this matter. Zhang Zhu then said all the things he had encountered this morning, without any reservations:
This morning, in order to catch up with the morning market, Zhang Zhusi went out to collect raw materials for making "four ice fruits". Zhang Zhu had just passed yin time when he went out. Suddenly, he felt something trip under his feet, and when he looked back, it was a female corpse. The deceased was wearing a coarse cloth dress, and the strong bloody qi made Zhang Zhu sick to his stomach. At this time, he only felt a shiver, and he didn't care about people's lives to report the crime, so he ran home without a life.
After Fan Gong listened to Zhang Zhu's explanation, the chief judge did not believe Zhang Zhu's statement, and with the killing scythe and a basket, it was enough to convict Zhang Zhu. So the presiding judge ordered Zhang Zhu to be tortured, and the torture of clamping sticks, soldering irons, irrigating noses, nailing fingers and other torture greeted Zhang Zhu, and when the executioner pulled the bamboo needle out of his hand, Zhang Zhu was already dying. The presiding judge then submitted the file of Zhang Zhu's case to the Punishment Department, which did not dare to offend the East Factory, so he forced Zhang Zhu to draw a picture and detain him without a confession, and sentenced Zhang Zhu to death.
The woman came to the door and told the truth about the killing
Zhang Zhu's mother was suddenly hit by this senseless disaster, the white-haired people sent the black-haired people, and their hearts wanted to cry without tears, so they had to lament the unfairness of fate one after another, and God was blind. Just when she was in despair and ready to die with her son, a young woman knocked on the door of the Zhang family. Dressed in filial piety, this woman knelt in front of Mother Zhang and cried as soon as she entered the door: "Aunt Zhang, we are sorry for you!" ”
Mother Zhang helped the woman to ask questions, and the woman revealed her identity. It turned out that this girl's name was Xiulian, and the female corpse's name was Sun Shi, and she was her mother. In addition to her and her mother, there is also an older brother, Ah Fu, who does not learn any techniques, eats, drinks and gambles all day, and often loses so much that he even loses his pants.
A few nights ago, my brother asked his mother for heirloom treasure jade and was ready to take it to the copy. The mother knows the temperament of her brother, naturally dead or alive, who knows that After ah Fu took advantage of her mother's sleep, she secretly opened her mother's small wooden box to take away the jade pendant, and after the mother woke up, when she saw that the jade pendant was gone, she quickly chased him up and dragged him back desperately. Ah Fu was on his head; he couldn't break free of his mother, so evil was born from his guts, and he took out a bull's ear tip knife and stabbed it into Sun's chest.
Xiulian did not sleep until three o'clock that night, and after faintly hearing the quarrel outside, she quickly ran out, but the scene in front of her made her tear her heart and lungs apart: her brother ran away, and her mother lay on the ground and had no breath. Xiulian was devastated and rushed to chase her brother, and finally blocked her brother at the entrance of the casino. The brother knelt in front of Xiulian and begged with a handful of snot and tears to let him have a way to live. Xiulian was soft-hearted, so she didn't come out with this matter. But the more she thought about it these days, the more guilty she felt, so she came to tell the truth.
After Xiulian finished speaking, she rushed to the Punishment Department overnight and had the courage to beat the drum. After the ascension, the Punishment Department decided to send Lang Zhongwei to retry the case. Wei Yingzhao was a jinshi in the early years of Jiaqing, and during his more than 20 years as an official, although it was sometimes inevitable to go with the flow, he was generally a somewhat loyal official.
From years of experience in judging cases, he suddenly saw a fatal flaw in this case: the scythe used as a murder weapon had no blood, and when killing people, the blood would stain the surface of the boot, and Zhang Zhu's boot surface did not have a single blood stain, but the bottom of the boot was full of blood. Most likely, Zhang Zhu walked through the scene with blood.
The minister tried the case justly, and the eunuch slandered Liang as a traitor
After some overt inspection and secret visits, Wei Yingzhao had a general understanding of the case. So according to Xiulian's description of the location where Ah Fu handled the murder weapon, he found a bull-eared sharp knife. The bull's ear sharp knife is very consistent with Xiulian's description, so it can be concluded that it is the murder weapon of the crime. Wei Yingzhao went to check all the pawnshops again, and finally found the pawn stub of Jasper Pei in the "Hengsheng" pawnshop inside the Desheng Gate, and the owner was indeed Ah Fu, and the date was on the day sun was killed.
The evidence was overwhelming, and Wei Yingzhao immediately arrested Ah Fu. In the face of ironclad evidence, Ah Fu had to confess to the painting. Wei Yingzhao immediately pronounced a verdict: Zhang Zhu was acquitted, Xiulian Dayi killed his relatives, and Zhang Bang was specially ordered to praise him. Ah Fu killed his mother and sentenced him to death. Before the verdict, Wei Yingzhao greeted dongchang first, and received the support of dongchang for the verdict before making the judgment.
On the eve of the execution of Afu, a holy decree came from the palace. Only to hear the eunuch read out: "When the Punishment Department commits a crime in vain, when it is severely responsible, Wei should be summoned to take people's lives, and the crime cannot be condemned, so he will immediately be sent to prison to await trial." The original case was moved to the inspector, and the right capital, Goshi Kuma, was ordered to report it after review. "As soon as this edict came out, it was really unexpected. At that time, there was an unwritten rule in the East Factory that the servants could pay for some hooligans in society to inquire about the news for them. Once these scoundrels are found in the East Factory, they become the so-called "two dogs", looking for people everywhere, informing and harming people, and the East Factory calls them "piling" in black words.
Ah Fu was the "piling" of Li Qing of the East Factory in the first instance. As early as when Wei Yingzhao was trying this case, someone had reminded him that Ah Fu was a piledriver in the East Factory and must be carefully tried. Wei Yingzhao then went to visit Li Qing before the verdict was pronounced and gave him a big gift. Li Qing accepted the big gift, but his heart was still dissatisfied with Wei Yingzhao's reversal of the case. So he urgently wrote a letter to the Jiajing Emperor. In the submission, Li Qing said that Zhang Zhu had an affair with Xiulian, killed someone after being discovered by his mother, and framed his brother Ah Fu.
The struggle for imperial power and the power of the three deadly people
The Jiajing Emperor received Li Qing's secret copy on the same day, and the Jiajing Emperor's trust in Dongchang exceeded that of his ministers, and he was intoxicated with the cultivation of Dan Dao, and immediately issued a holy decree reprimanding Wei Yingzhao for taking people's lives. This is where the Divine Will comes from. When the Metropolitan Court received the Holy Will, Yu Shi Kuma was very surprised in his heart, and did not understand why such a civilian case was so concerned today. In fact, the criminal case file is clearly organized, the evidence is conclusive, and irrefutable. In contrast, Qing's accusations are full of loopholes and cannot be scrutinized at all.
The truth of the matter could not be more obvious, but the emperor and Dongchang were on one side, and on the other side were Wei Yingzhao and the powerless commoners, and it was really difficult to decide where to go. The Jiajing Emperor was addicted to elixirs, and since he had indulged in alchemy, he rarely saw foreign ministers again. Ke Jiajing was an emperor with a strong desire for power, he did not trust any ministers at all, and Dongchang and Jinyiwei were the ones he trusted the most. Even so, Inspector Yushi Xionghuan insisted on justice and gave the Jiajing Emperor a bow.
The Jiajing Emperor opened the fold and took a look at it, and found that it was full of Xiong Huan's words accusing Dongchang of all kinds of despicable behavior, so he immediately sent Xiong Huan to prison. Next, Yang Xijian and others, the chief judge of the third trial, were also sent to prison because they did not pander to the Jiajing Emperor and insisted on the original proposal. The fourth trial was presided over by Xu Zan, a waiter in the Punishment Department, who learned the lessons of the second and third trials and immediately announced that Zhang Zhu, a dealer of "Four Ice Fruits," was the murderer and sentenced to be executed. Ah Fu's sister had an ambiguous relationship with the murderer, framed her brother, sentenced her to 100 sticks, and drove out of jinshi. Ah Fu was innocently implicated, rewarded with 5 taels of silver, and acquitted in the court. Wei Yingzhao and others convicted themselves of their own crimes and were punished by the emperor.
As soon as the verdict came out, the whole city was in an uproar. But people's words are certainly fearful, and power is even more oppressive. On the day Zhang Zhu was beheaded, Zhang Mu and Xiulian both committed suicide by jumping into the river. This wide-ranging lawsuit ended in the victory of the East Factory, where innocent hawkers Zhang Zhu, Zhang Mu, and XiuLian died implicated in the case, and Wei Yingzhao, Yang Xijian, and other upright presiding judges were implicated, or deposed or exiled.
The Jiajing Chaodongchang female corpse case was originally a very simple case of killing a mother, but because of the intervention of the East Factory, it led to the reversal of black and white, and finally rose to the struggle between imperial power and subject power. The Jiajing Emperor naturally knew the truth of the case, but he had been practicing Dan cultivation for 20 years, and if he wanted to firmly grasp the ruling authority, he would inevitably condone Dongchang in order to kill Li Wei and suppress the people. Poor innocent peddlers Zhang Zhu, Zhang Mu, and Xiu Lian died as a result, and the two presiding ministers were implicated.
Some people say: The ming dynasty began with Jiajing. During the reign of the Jiajing Emperor, although the national strength did not decline rapidly, the rampage of the East Factory and the arbitrariness of the imperial power imprisoned the righteous and strict ministers, and the social atmosphere declined, laying the foundation for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, which is why in the Chongzhen Dynasty period, the country was about to perish and no one was willing to stand up.
The jiajing chaodong factory female corpse case has since been closed.