The four strange cases at the end of the Qing Dynasty were the Zhang Wenxiang horse assassination case, the famous Yang Yuelou unjust case, the Taiyuan Zhang family walking corpse case, and the Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage case.
Among these four strange cases, only the truth of the Taiyuan Zhang family walking corpse case was revealed, and it is estimated that even Empress Dowager Cixi may not know exactly who the perpetrator of the assassination of Ma Xinyi is, and the Yang Naiwu Cabbage case that Cixi personally asked about is also confusing, and the rumors are inconsistent. The seventy-sixth series of the "Selected Literary and Historical Materials" published the memoirs of Yang Naiwu's daughter Yang Mao, "Remembering the Unjust Imprisonment of My Father Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage", of course, this article is to prove that Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage are clear and white, but the author looks at it and sees some problems: According to the Qing Dynasty tradition, is the relationship between Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage normal? Xiao Cabbage knew that Ge Pinlian had committed a fire disorder, so why did he give him American ginseng and guiyuan?
What is the fire disorder, why can't you eat guiyuan, this is put to the back, let's first see how the rumors of Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage started.
According to Yang Mao's recollection, the little cabbage Bi Xiugu was neither a local prostitute nor a child daughter-in-law of the Ge family, but came from a poor family surnamed Bi in Yuhang, with no brothers or sisters, and after her father's death, she followed her remarried mother to the home of the peddler Yu Jingtian.
In addition to the cabbage, Bi Xiugu also has two nicknames, which she only got after marrying Ge Pinlian in February 1872, "And because after he married, her husband was like Wu Da in "Water Margin", and she was handsome like Pan Jinlian, and called her 'Bi Jinlian'; and because her husband made tofu, he also called her 'Tofu Xishi'. ”
The bold characters in this article are the original text of Yang Mao's memoirs, because the language habits in the past are somewhat different from the present, so the readers seem to be a little confused.
Strictly speaking, Ge Pinlian married Bi Xiugu, not to marry a wife but to enter the family - the wedding was held in the family of Bi Xiugu's stepfather Yu Jingtian, who was exactly eighteen years old that year.
Soon after marriage, Ge Pinlian and Bi Xiugu rented a house outside because of the narrow house of the Yu family (I don't know if it is an excuse), so they intersected with Yang Naiwu, the following picture is the original text in the "Selected Literary and Historical Materials", in order to facilitate reading, the author will repeat the key part: "It was April 20 of the year, Ge Pinlian and Bi Xiugu moved to my house (monthly rent of one thousand yuan), Pinlian had to get up in the middle of the night every day to make tofu, so he often stayed in the workshop and did not often go home. My parents saw that Xiu Gu was smart and clever, and they both liked her. Xiugu often asked my father to teach her to read, and later my father taught her to read Buddhist scriptures. Because Pinlian was not often at home, she was alone, and my mother used to tell her to eat at my house, and when she ate, she ate at the same table as my parents and aunt. ”
From this account, we can see two problems: first, Ge Pinlian often lived in a tofu workshop rather than at home; second, the eighteen-year-old cabbage Bi Xiugu ate with Yang Naiwu, a decoctionist.
When the readers were in middle school, they all learned the "Fan Jin Zhongju" taken from the "History of Ru Lin", and naturally knew that if they passed the examination, they would have the qualifications to be an official, and they would be called "Laoye", whose identity was much higher than that of Ge Pinlian and his wife, who belonged to the pawns of the traffickers, and the age difference was also relatively large, whether it was status or the elder and young, the wife of the tofu shop boy (Ge Pinlian's own tofu factory was closed, and he worked for other tofu factories) could not sit on an equal footing with the "old man", even if it was the children of "Old Master Yang" He is not eligible to sit at a table with his father, which is the "father-son difference seat" of a large family.
Yang Mao recalled: "Xiugu was often bullied after she became a relative, and after moving into my house, some of the city's scoundrels did not dare to come, because my father saw these people coming to scold. ”
This is very much in line with the characteristics of that era: ordinary street thugs and people who look for flowers and ask willows can't afford to provoke Yang Naiwu, so the street roadside society began to spread the news that "sheep (Yang) eat cabbage", and Ge Pinlian also conducted several surprise inspections: "Rumors spread to Pinlian's ears, Pinlian also had some doubts, and sneaked home a few nights, eavesping under the eaves outside the door, only listening to my father teaching Xiugu to read the scriptures, and did not hear other private feelings." ”
Every time Ge Pinlian sneaked home at night, he saw Yang Naiwu teaching the little cabbage to read the Buddhist scriptures, at this time we couldn't help but ask: Yang Naiwu won the exam, the next step is to participate in the examination to enter the soldier, he is only thirty-three years old, also young and promising, why not read the four books and five sutras to prepare for the exam, but teach female tenants to read the Buddhist scriptures every night, could it be that the examination at that time also took this aspect?
In order to avoid suspicion, but also because of the arrears of Yang Naiwu for several months of rent, Ge Pinlian and Bi Xiugu moved out of Yang Naiwu's house, according to Yang Mao's recollection, Yang Naiwu has never been to Ge Xiaoda's new home since then, and Bi Xiugu has never stepped into Yangmen again.
Originally, this matter should end here, but on the seventh day of October of that year, there was another accident: "Ge Pinlian was cold and hot, and his knees were red and swollen." Xiu Gu knew that he had a flowing fire madness and thought that he was on fire. ”
Consulting relevant information, it is learned that the flow of fire mainly refers to the acute inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous tissues, patients are prone to clear and limited redness, swelling, heat pain, more common in the patient's face and lower limbs, patients are prone to fever, headache, chills, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms.
Ge Pinlian's knees were red and swollen, and it seemed that it was indeed a fire disorder, but on the ninth day of October, it was said that Ge Pinlian took out a thousand yuan to let Bi Xiugu find someone to buy medicine, but there was a big problem: "Tuo Yu Jingtian bought Oriental ginseng and Guiyuan, and after buying it, Xiugu took it for the decoction soup." ”
Ge Pinlian did not understand medical techniques, which was a problem, but he ate the Oriental ginseng guiyuan soup, and then died in the first nine days of October: "Ge died in october Xiaoyang spring, the climate is very warm, Pinlian is fat, and there is light blood flowing out of his mouth and nose in the night of the first ten." ”
Yang Mao added a note when writing this text: "The Record of Washed Injustices says that the flow of fire is forbidden to guiyuan, and the mouth and nosebleeds of the service are enough to cause death. ”
The author consulted the "Record of Washed Injustices", and did not find the saying of "flowing fire and avoiding Guiyuan", but in the article "Taking Poison" in Volume XXVIII, I found such a record: "All those who have taken poison have more mouths and eyes, their faces are purple or blue, their lips are purple and black, their hands and feet and nails are blue, and there is blood between the mouth, eyes, ears, and nose." ”
This is somewhat similar to Ge Pinlian's "blue face" in Yang Mao's recollection, no wonder Ge Pinlian's righteous mother Feng Xu raised questions about Shen Yushi and invited Yang Ren to identify it, and the result was that everyone thought it suspicious, so Yang Ren led Shen Yushi to the county court to report the case.
What happens next is basically the same as what the readers know. When Shangshu Sang Chunrong of the Punishment Department was ordered to open the coffin for autopsy, a senior servant (said to be a famous doctor at that time) came to a conclusion on the matter: "According to the ancient pharmacopoeia, it is recorded that 'flowing fire' is forbidden to 'Guiyuan', Ge Xiaoda (Ge Pinlian Xiaoming) suffers from a wandering fire disease, and his body is even weaker, but he is ignorant of eating guiyuan as a supplement, so xiang ke death should be poisoning, but it will not be the same as taking arsenic poison or tobacco poison. ”
In any case, Ge Pinlian's death from Oriental Ginseng and Guiyuan is an official and folk recognized matter, and even Yang Naiwu's daughter admits that there is indeed a thing, but there is one thing that is more difficult to understand: if there is no record in the "Record of Washing Injustices", how does Yang Naiwu's daughter know that people with fire disorder cannot eat Guiyuan? Since even Yang Mao knew that Guiyuan could not eat at this time, Ge Pinlian and Bi Xiugu, who could not even pay the rent, where were they willing to take a thousand yuan to buy such a high-grade and potentially fatal "supplement"?