On January 15, 1994, Zhong Kailong, a death row prisoner in the Nanjing Detention Center, was extremely anxious and waiting for his final fate.
After a while, the detention center discipline handed the verdict to his hand, and Zhong Kailong looked at the document, which was printed with the bright red characters "Nanjing People's Court."
At this time, everything was unknown to Zhong Kailong, and he did not dare to open the verdict, but he was trembling with nervousness, and his head was also cold sweat.
It took a full five minutes for him to calm down a little.
Only to see him slowly open the verdict, which read:
Zhong Kailong's embezzlement is particularly huge, the crime is particularly serious, and should have been severely punished, but in view of the "Holographic Chinese Code" written by him during his detention, it was found to have inventive value in the coding method, and he was able to take the initiative to confess all the facts of the crime after being arrested, and showed remorse. Therefore, it is not an immediate execution of the death penalty, and the death penalty is sentenced to a two-year suspension of execution in accordance with law.
Zhong Kailong was relieved that his two-year efforts had finally succeeded.
So, why was Zhong Kailong sentenced to death? And why can the sentence be changed?
It all starts with his experience...
Greed is like a fire, it can burn the plains
Zhong Kailong was born into poverty, his hometown is Huangshi Township, Rugao County, Jiangsu Province, and his family made a living from farming. However, Zhong Kailong's parents are very far-sighted, and although the family conditions are not good, they still send him to study.
In school, Zhong Kailong studied hard and achieved good grades. He was admitted to the Jiangsu Provincial Foreign Trade School in 1984 and became the pride of the family.
At that time, the school was still an employment distribution system, so after graduation, Zhong Kailong was assigned to the Jiangsu branch of the China National Chemical Import and Export Corporation in Nanjing, where he worked as a sample publicity department teller.
This is already a very favorable condition for Zhongkailong, who not only got the opportunity to settle in a big city, but also had a stable job, which is a carp jumping dragon gate.
But unfortunately, Zhong Kailong did not cherish it well, because he could not curb his desires, and gradually embarked on an evil road...
Zhong Kailong's position is not very prominent, but it has a lot of power.
In the specific work, Zhong Kailong is responsible for more things, and the three links of material import, warehousing and allocation must be handled by his hands; in addition, the last link of the business, invoicing, also needs Zhong Kailong to be responsible.
According to the needs of the work, two important seals are in his hands - in the management of materials and financial settlement.
And this has facilitated his illegal and criminal activities...
On this day, a classmate of Zhong Kailong came to the door, and the other party said that his brother was doing business in Shanghai and needed a batch of materials, but this batch of materials was not produced in China, and could only be imported. Now that he knew that Zhong Kailong's unit had a batch of deposits, he wanted zhong kailong to make it easier for him to sell the materials privately.
At first, Zhong Kailong disagreed, and he was worried that the matter would be revealed. But he could not resist the repeated inducements of his classmate, and the classmate said that as long as Zhong Kailong agreed, he would immediately pay a benefit fee of 100,000 yuan.
At that time, it was the early nineties, the economy was not developed enough, the average monthly salary of employees was only more than 100 yuan, and 100,000 yuan was simply a huge amount.
In this way, in the face of huge interests, Zhong Kailong still failed to keep the bottom line.
You know, there is no difference between one time and many times in economic crime, as it is called: once Pandora's box is opened, it is difficult to close it again.
As long as you take it once, people's greed will lose control like a fire that is gradually showing a tendency to burn. Driven by greed, Zhong Kailong reselled state goods again and again, and became a "millionaire" in his twenties.
However, often walking by the river, where are the shoes that are not wet? Although Zhong Kailong was very secretive in the matter of reselling state materials, he thought that it was difficult to be discovered, but he was secretive and neglected in other places.
Because Zhong Kailong was born of hardship, after having money, he suddenly lost himself and indulged in enjoyment.
At that time, domestic home appliances had just started, and the most popular domestic home appliances were imported home appliances, especially products imported from Japan, but the price was considerable.
Zhong Kailong is very interested in these things, and he bought a lot of fresh things at a high price, such as a full set of "Sony Home Theater", which cost nearly 10,000 yuan.
Later, he was fascinated by the photography of the "poor three generations", in order to cultivate hobbies, Zhong Kailong also specially bought a high-end camera of up to 7,000 yuan.
In addition, there are not a few women who take the initiative to give hugs, and Zhong Kailong also changes his girlfriend one after another.
In this way, a once excellent student completely fell into the abyss...
This abnormal phenomenon has attracted the attention of the unit, Zhong Kailong is just an ordinary employee, and the family situation is very ordinary, how can he have so much money for high consumption?
As a result, the unit secretly examined the accounts related to him, and this investigation found the seriousness of the problem.
After Zhong Kailong's criminal act was exposed, his work unit immediately reported the case to the public security organs. In October 1990, Zhong Kailong fell into the net of justice, and what awaited him would be severe punishment by the law.
Because the amount of money involved in Zhong Kailong's case was very large, causing extremely serious losses to the state, according to the relevant laws and regulations, the court sentenced him to death immediately in the first instance.
Zhong Kailong tried to change his destiny
Although he knew that his behavior would be severely punished once exposed, he did not expect that it was capital punishment, and for a time Zhong Kailong fell into deep despair.
He felt sorry for his parents who had worked hard to raise him, the two old men had made so much effort for their own success, but in the end they were executed for crimes, so that their parents could bear the pain of white-haired people sending black-haired people, and he was simply too filial piety.
And her sister is also very difficult, in order to prepare for her own tuition, she went out to work at a young age. After her own accident, her sister also took out the hard-earned five thousand yuan to repay the stolen money for herself, although it was only a cup of water, but it was also a piece of heart.
Although he deserved it, if he died like this, the blow to his family was immeasurable.
When his elderly parents came to the detention center to visit Zhong Kailong with tears, in the face of two white-haired old men, Zhong Kailong could not bear it any longer, he felt that he could not sit still, he should take the initiative to do something, even for the sake of his family.
Since Zhong Kailong appealed after the first-instance judgment, it was in the stage before the second-instance judgment, that is, the fate of Zhongkailong had not yet been finalized. So he decided to use this window to make one last effort for himself.
The first thing Zhong Kailong has to do is to collect information to see if he still has any hope of finding a way to live.
Although Zhong Kailong is a prisoner on death row, according to the state regulations, he can still enjoy certain rights, such as reading some newspapers and magazines is allowed, which has become a source of information for him.
One day in August 1992, Zhong Kailong saw an article on Chinese character input in a magazine, which introduced a new Chinese character input method.
Zhong Kailong became interested in this article, although the computer was still a very new thing at the time, but as a young man, Zhong Kailong was very receptive to new things, and soon, he had some insights about this matter.
The traditional computer input method is pinyin input, but the old-fashioned pinyin input method has a drawback, that is, the vocabulary is relatively small, and there is no function of association and memory, so the input efficiency is not high. The input method introduced in the article is also not very mature.
Based on this shortcoming of the Pinyin input method, Zhong Kailong thought: "Why can't we develop a new Chinese character input method?" ”
On the other hand, I also learned during this time that if the prisoner can carry out some valuable inventions while in custody, there is a chance to change the sentence.
Isn't that a good opportunity? Grab it yourself anyway!
Zhong Kailong said just do it, and from then on he left all distractions behind and devoted himself to the encoding of chinese character input methods.
For him, time is life.
After a while, the arraignment phase of the second instance began. During this time, the court asked him if there were any other requirements.
Zhong Kailong said: "I am a dying person, but there is no requirement, but I have recently been studying computer coding, and I have some experiences and want to record them so as not to leave regrets." ”
This demand is not excessive, because the state has originally advocated lawbreakers and criminals to do more things for the benefit of the country and the people while in custody, so the court agreed to his request.
At the same time, the detention center also provided a lot of convenience for Zhong Kailong, setting up a small place for him in the cell, putting a small table and a stool for him to conduct research.
This greatly touched Zhong Kailong, who was also worried that as a detainee, it would be difficult to get support, but he did not expect that the state did not give up on him, which made him more remorseful about his previous illegal and criminal acts.
Zhong Kailong usually seized every time to engage in research, and the inmates who were in the same cell with him did not have time to talk to him, and the inmates laughed at him and said that he was doing useless work.
However, Zhong Kailong replied: "The detention center is kind to me, without their support I would not have had this opportunity, so I can't waste my time." ”
The road to invention is difficult
Although Zhong Kailong had ambitions, it was not so easy to invent a Chinese character encoding.
Zhong Kailong is a major in economics, has not been in contact with computers before, all by interest, therefore, he encountered a lot of difficulties in the initial stage of entry.
At that time, Zhong Kailong had not much information, and the reference tool was only a Modern Chinese Dictionary.
However, Zhong Kailong was still very clever, his wisdom had been used on the evil road before, and this time he wanted to return to the right path.
Zhong Kailong found that the partial capital of Chinese characters has a certain pattern, which can correspond to 26 English letters. He took apart thousands of commonly used Chinese characters, studied them repeatedly, and classified them one by one, and finally found the mysteries of them.
In October 1992, under the study of Zhong Kailong's waste of sleep and forgetting to eat, he completed the first draft of the use of "Holographic Chinese Code" in only two months.
But at this moment, a blow fell on his head, making his self-help operation almost halfway abandoned.
In December of that year, Zhong Kailong was working hard to revise and improve his own works, and at this time the second-instance judgment was issued, and the Jiangsu Provincial Court, after careful investigation and evidence collection, found that there was no problem with the first-instance judgment and made a ruling upholding the original judgment of the first instance.
This news caused Zhong Kailong to suffer a huge blow, he fell into an extremely pessimistic mood and fell into a state of collapse, and the research work at hand was difficult to continue.
In those days, Zhong Kailong was listless, did not eat or drink, and his eyes became sluggish, like a walking corpse.
During this time, Zhong Kailong's serious attitude impressed the cadres of the detention center, who knew that Zhong Kailong was truly repentant, so they also hoped that he could fulfill his wish. Therefore, I really can't bear to watch him go down so halfway.
They specifically brought Zhong Kailong to talk to him, persuaded him not to give up easily, and gave some examples to prove that there is a precedent for the Supreme Court to change its judgment at the time of the final review.
Although there has never been a change in the death penalty, this is not a violation, so this situation is not impossible.
After repeated persuasion by the cadres of the detention center, Zhong Kailong finally regained his self-confidence, he walked out of the blow, continued to study desperately, and was determined to win this opportunity to make meritorious contributions.
In addition, the detention center also gave Zhong Kailong a lot of green lights, for example, allowing his family to send him some books related to computer technology for his reference. All these have provided great help to Zhong Kailong.
Zhong Kailong regained confidence and continued to work hard
Zhong Kailong began to review his first draft, repeatedly studying the fallacies in it.
Due to reading some new books, in the process of the second review, Zhong Kailong found that the works he had written before were indeed many problems, and it was inevitable that they would cause trouble in the process of actual use.
So he laid down a heart, discarded all distractions, and must come up with the most reasonable and simple input code.
Since the spring of 1993, Zhong Kailong has been constantly making new attempts, setting the partial initials of thousands of Chinese characters as fixed characters and repeatedly copying them more than a dozen times.
Time is extremely precious to Zhong Kailong, and in addition to eating and sleeping, he devotes the rest of his time to invention research.
Zhong Kailong just lay on his small table, hunched over and worked without eating, not only refusing any leisure and entertainment activities, but also making him almost unable to eat.
Seeing him work so hard, the management of the detention center was very pleased, and sometimes they would take advantage of the holidays to go to bookstores and libraries to help Zhong Kailong collect the materials he needed.
However, after all, a person's wisdom is limited, and Zhong Kailong decided to brainstorm.
Therefore, there are inmates in the detention center who know something about computers, and Zhong Kailong will pestering them to ask questions.
Some of the heavier sentenced inmates believe that Zhong Kailong is simply a waste of effort, and the hard work will eventually be in vain.
Some prisoners asked him: "What is your picture, and you don't know much about computers, can you really study any tricks?" If you want to change the judgment, I think it is impossible, just cherish the last time to relax. ”
However, Zhong Kailong did not think so, and he still worked tirelessly according to his plan.
In the end, the inmates were impressed by his seriousness and were willing to communicate with him.
In the process of technical exchange, in fact, most people have not been able to provide any valuable advice, but Zhong Kailong is not discouraged, he feels that as long as he keeps trying, he will have a chance.
In March 1993, Zhong Kailong's efforts finally paid off.
At that time, there was a new prisoner who was outside the sound equipment and computer software, and he knew more about computer technology.
This person has some experience in Chinese character input technology, and he told Zhong Kailong that in order to improve input efficiency, the core element is to reduce the reload rate, because this can avoid secondary selection.
For example, the current pinyin input method, because of the existence of a large number of homophones and homophones, leads to multiple options after one input, and it is necessary to make secondary selections, which is the main reason why the current pinyin input method is backward.
So, if you want to invent the best input method, you must put this problem first.
This was the most constructive opinion that Zhong Kailong had received so far, and after he listened to it, he suddenly opened up, and he had confirmed the direction of his efforts.
In this new phase, Zhong Kailong gradually focused his attention on reducing the recode rate, so he decided to separate Chinese characters according to the frequency of use.
Among the thousands of commonly used Chinese characters, more than 160 of them are used as much as 48%, nearly half, so Zhong Kailong set simple codes for these Chinese characters.
As for other Chinese characters, Zhong Kailong did not intend to use the old method, because the common codes at that time were as many as nine bits, which was very inconvenient to use. However, Zhong Kailong used the method of permutation and combination, and then assisted in the input with the partial partial head, reducing the number of digits to three digits.
Under such changes, the holographic Chinese code invented by Zhong Kailong only needs 2.1 keys per chinese character input, while other methods such as the wubi input method require 3.6 keystrokes, so that the efficiency is greatly improved.
However, the theory alone is not useful, it must be supplemented by events, and Zhong Kailong intends to let people try his input method himself.
For the idea of Zhong Kailong, the detention center also supported it, and specially arranged for two juvenile delinquents to come and learn this input method.
These two people are both beginners Chinese level, and they don't know much about computers, which can be said to be a blank, and it is very appropriate to test them.
After a simple study, they quickly mastered Zhongkailong's holographic Chinese input method, and in less than half an hour, they marked all the Chinese characters on a page of the newspaper with code, which proved that the holographic input method was very easy to learn.
Seeing the initial success of the test, Zhong Kailong also had confidence in his future.
Zhong Kailong successfully changed his destiny
In June 1993, a fellow inmate living in the same cell was executed for an economic crime involving $270,000.
Although this incident made Zhong Kailong feel a certain touch, but at this time his mentality had been indifferent, he knew that he had no time to be afraid, the final judgment could be issued at any time, and then it would be his end.
Therefore, all the goals must be completed before that time.
After thinking about this, ZhongKailong is even more critical to every second, and the perfection of the holographic input method has reached the final stage.
In the end, Zhong Kailong completed two major manuscripts in August.
The detention center attached great importance to this and immediately handed over its results to the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court. He also asked them to postpone the verdict as much as possible and wait for the results of the appraisal.
In fact, at this time, the death penalty review procedure has reached the final stage, and it can even be said that it can be declared over at any time, and there is no reason to change the sentence.
However, after the court received the manuscript, it still attached great importance to the principle of being responsible to everyone, so it asked a professional body to review it.
What can confirm the value of the manuscript is that the Chinese Character Coding Professional Committee of the Chinese Information Society, after careful identification by several experts of the committee, they unanimously believe that Zhongkailong's holographic Chinese input method does have certain practical value, and can be significantly simplified in the process of Chinese character input.
Since it has been recognized by professional institutions, it means that Zhong Kailong's invention is indeed valuable, so it has become an important factor in whether the death penalty review has passed.
Now, the last step is to investigate whether the holographic Chinese input method is indeed from Zhong Kailong's hand, because this policy is likely to make some criminals take advantage of loopholes, so it must be strictly examined.
In order to investigate the matter, the court sent two investigators to the detention center to visit the cadres in the detention center and the detainees in the same cell, and they unanimously said that the manuscript was indeed written by Zhong Kailong.
In addition, the investigators also consulted the reference books that Zhong Kailong usually used, as well as the previous first drafts, etc., and also sent them for handwriting identification, and the final results showed that the manuscript was indeed written by Zhong Kailong.
While the investigators were investigating, Zhong Kailong was still concentrating on revising and optimizing the original manuscript.
At that time, another prisoner came in the same cell, he also knew computer technology, and with his help, Zhong Kailong made a keyboard model out of cardboard and tested it while operating it.
In this way, Zhong Kailong seems to have forgotten his identity, and he is immersed in the world of scientific research like a real researcher.
It is said that those who work hard will surely be favored by the goddess of destiny.
In January 1994, the final verdict came down, which led to the scene at the beginning of the article. Zhong Kailong became the first person on the mainland to change his sentence after being sentenced to death.
epilogue
The story of Zhong Kailong tells us two truths:
The law is just, it is fair to everyone.
On the other hand, the goddess of destiny treats everyone equally fairly and justly!
As human beings, we cannot give up on ourselves and give up the hope of life, as long as we are willing to work hard, we must have the opportunity to change our destiny.