Wen | Jin Man Lou
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the seriousness, rigor and rigor of the science field were rare in the world, and the punishment for fraud was extremely severe.
In the Xianfeng Eighth Year (1858) ShunTianxiang Examination Field Case, the chief examiner, Shi Baibao of Wenyuange University, was beheaded for his involvement, which was also the first and only Yipin master in the history of Chinese imperial examinations to be killed.
In July of the nineteenth year of Guangxu (1893), Zhou Fuqing (that is, Lu Xun's grandfather), who was still a resident of Ding You, sent his servant Tao Ashun to send a letter to the Zhejiang township examination examiner, Yin Ruzhang, who was entrusted in the same year, and was detained on the spot.
After the incident, Zhou Fuqing fled to Shanghai to hide, and Tao Ashun was detained by the Suzhou government. On the sixth day of the first month of August, Tao Ashun and the letter were sent to Zhejiang, where the people involved in the case were located.
Because the township examination was about to be held, Zhejiang Governor Songjun immediately removed Zhou Fuqing's son Zhou Yongji and the examinee Ma Jiatan from the case, and ordered Shaoxing Prefecture to quickly investigate Zhou Fuqing.
On August 22, Song Jun reported the case to the Qing court, stating:
Zhejiang's main examiner passed through Suzhou on July 27, and Zhou Fuqing sent someone to submit a letter of request, and now it is found that there are two pieces of paper in the letter:
A book with a ticket issued foreign silver 10,000 yuan and other words;
There are five candidates for a book, Ma Guanxuan, Gu, Chen, Sun, Zhang, and Xiao'er Eighth, all of whom use the words 'Chen zhen Maoyu' and so on.
And Zhou Fuqing business card outside a paper, Nian Yu brother name post a and so on.
According to Song Jun's opinion, Ma Jiatan and Zhou Yongji have been identified and dealt with, and as for Gu, Chen, Sun, and Zhang, the four people with surnames and no names, because Zhou Fuqing did not come to the case, "it is difficult to decide."
Immediately after the fold was folded, the Guangxu Emperor issued a strict decree:
Fraud in the case should be thoroughly investigated. Zhou Fuqing, the secretary of Ding You's cabinet, immediately dismissed him from his post, investigated the case, and strictly tried and handled it.
In this way, the case committed by Zhou Fuqing became a serious and important case hand-picked by the emperor, "It was said everywhere in Suzhou and Zhejiang, and the righteous people were indignant."
At this time, Zhou Fuqing's eldest son Zhou Boyi (zhou yongji, that is, Lu Xun's father) was still detained, and Zhou Fuqing, who knew that it would be difficult to escape, had to go to Huiji County on his own to surrender himself, and was immediately escorted to the provincial capital of Hangzhou for trial.
During the trial, Zhou Fuqing confessed to the bribery process, and his motives for committing the crime were as follows:
(Zhou Fuqing) Exploring the Friendship between Yin Ruzhang and Yi Younian, the zhejiang examiner, was confused for a while, and wanted to ask for joints for his son, and wanted to ask for the test takers with the surnames of Zhongma, Gu, Chen, Sun, and Zhang for his relatives and friends, and hit the Chinese style,...... According to the interrogation, the people who did not premeditate to buy Chinese style did not move their mouths, and the case was not hidden. ”
Judging from the confession, except for Zhou Boyi (i.e., Zhou Yongji) and the candidates surnamed Ma (i.e., Ma Jiatan), who had been exposed and had no way to escape, Zhou Fuqing deliberately left out the interference of the Gu, Chen, Sun, and Zhang families and took the whole thing into his own hands.
I have to say that this practice is still very clever.
After all, Zhou Fuqing is a jinshi, as long as he insists on "buying a Chinese-style person without premeditation" and carries all the responsibilities, the Zhejiang side is unlikely to do anything to him (torture). Otherwise, the broken family is probably not just the Zhou family.
According to the analysis of Taiwanese historian Gao Yang, Zhou Fuqing was doing a business of "bribing people through joints," which was two thousand silver for each of the five families, and Zhou Fuqing incidentally took his son inside and picked up a bargain.
However, without any contact (tacit understanding) with the chief examiner, Zhou Fuqing hastily secretly fixed the joints in advance and put the "ChenZhongmaoyu" four-character shape on the paper, so it was too strange to leave iron-like written evidence.
In this regard, shen Baozhen, the governor of Liangjiang, dismissed Zhou Fuqing from his post with the comment that he was "doing things in a big way", which seems to be generally not bad. It can also be seen from this that although Zhou Fuqing's learning is acceptable, he is really sloppy and sloppy in doing things, and his ability is very general.
Just imagine how difficult the Qing Dynasty township examination was, and how low the admission rate was! Zhejiang township examination each admission quota is only a hundred people up and down, and each time the reference of thousands or even more than 10,000, the admission rate is not even one percent, the resulting public anger needless to say, is the joint market, not so low.
It is said that Hu Hanmin, a strong revolutionary party general at the end of the Qing Dynasty and a man of great origin, once took the township examination on behalf of others, and the fee charged was 6,000 silver yuan, which was already cheap. And Zhou Fuqing wants to buy six lifters for a mere ten thousand yuan, which is not a fantasy!
It is worth noting that Zhou Fuqing sent Yin Ruzhang only a "blank ticket" with the words "foreign silver ten thousand yuan" written by himself, which saved his own life to some extent. If the money bank silver ticket that can be cashed is sent, then according to the "Regulations on the King Ding Kechang", Zhou Fuqing will be a head insecurity no matter what.
In other words, Zhou Fuqing was only offering a bribe at that time, and the five families each paid two thousand silver dollars only for the cost of the joint, and this made logical sense with his confession that "he knew that his relatives and friends were honest and honest, that no one was responsible, and that there would be a reward afterwards" logically.
Afterwards, Song Jun reported the trial opinion to the imperial court, in which he held:
Zhou Fuqing secretly passed the joints and should be beheaded according to the law, but because of his attempted cheating, the so-called ten thousand yuan of stolen money was only a verbal check, and there were circumstances of surrendering voluntarily, so it was suggested that it be appropriate to deal with it leniently; as for the birth of Ma Jiatan and the student Zhou Yongji, who had been reprimanded separately, the surnames of Gu, Chen, Sun, and Zhang should be exempted from investigation to save themselves from the burden.
After the Guangxu Emperor received the recital, he gave instructions: "The Punishment Department plays the discussion." At the end of the year, the sentence drawn up by the Ministry of Punishment was: "Please reduce the amount of the beheading by one class, and the rod is one hundred, and the flow is three thousand miles." ”
Usually, the punishment department generally intends to commit a slightly heavier crime, and then submits it to the emperor to change from the imperial pen to a lighter one, in order to show that "grace comes from above". However, Zhou Fuqing's case was somewhat unexpected, and the Guangxu Emperor not only did not alleviate it but changed it to aggravation, and his decree was cloudy:
The criminal field fraud, the prohibition of strictness, the revolutionary officer dared to send a letter, asking for joints, although there was a gap with the traffic bribery of those who had already been established, and did not reduce it, Zhou Fuqing changed to beheading and waiting, and executed after the autumn, with strict law and discipline, and the example was particularly exemplary. Admire this!
In a sense, the Qing court's severe handling of Zhou Fuqing's case also reflected that the Qing court was still in progress at that time. After suffering heavy blows such as the Rebellion and the Battle of England and France, the Qing court could maintain it for fifty years, perhaps due to institutional inertia.
Excerpt from Jin Manlou: "Perusing the Seventy Years of the Late Qing Dynasty", Chinese Publishing House, 2021.