During the Yongzheng period, a couple in Macheng had a quarrel, the wife went into hiding, and the mother's family sued her husband to the county magistrate.
The small husband and wife quarrel finally escalated into a big case that shook Huguang's officialdom! The innocent husband was wronged and tortured; Impartiality knows that the county is in danger of being asked; righteous officials died a brutal lynching; The old mother tearfully cut her hair; The wife of the scribe pierced her arm and stained a bloody robe...
1. The mysterious disappearance of the Yang family
During the Yongzheng period, there was a rich family named Tu Rusong in Macheng, Hubei, and the Tu family had been in business for generations, accumulating money that several generations could not spend, so when Tu Rusong's generation arrived, he began to abandon business and study.
When Tu Rusong was sixteen years old, he married Yang Shi, the daughter of a merchant in the same county.
Yang is one year older than Tu Rusong, handsome, lively, and informal, and every time Tu Rusong's schoolmates come to the house, Yang will laugh and play with them.
Tu Rusong repeatedly warned Yang to be dignified, but Yang didn't pay attention to it.
Tu Rusong saw that the warning didn't work, so he simply started to move, Yang Shi is pampered, how can he stand this anger? Every time Tu Rusong hit her, she ran to her mother's house.
Tu Rusong's mother looked forward to the family reunion, so she prepared a generous gift, personally went to her in-laws' house to apologize, and then brought Yang back.
The family lived like a joke for several years, and this winter, Tu's mother became seriously ill and bedridden, and Yang not only did not serve his mother-in-law, but sometimes reprimanded him.
Tu Rusong saw that his temper came up again, punching and kicking Yang, and Yang left again in anger.
Tu Rusong thought that Yang Shi ran back to her mother's house again, so she ignored it and cooked the soup and medicine herself, and after more than a month, Tu's mother's illness finally improved.
After Tu's mother recovered, the first thing she did was to prepare a generous gift to pick up her daughter-in-law, but when she arrived at her in-laws' house, she learned that her daughter-in-law had not returned to her mother's house at all.
Everyone panicked together and hurriedly posted a newspaper post to look for it, but after looking for more than a month, Yang did not have any news.
Yang had a younger brother, Yang Wurong, a prodigal disciple, who suspected that his sister had been poisoned by Tu Rusong, so he instigated his parents to file a complaint in the county.
Tang Yingqiu of Macheng Zhixian carefully analyzed the case and felt that the possibility of Tu Rusong killing his wife was very small, so he suppressed the case.
As soon as Yang Wurong saw that Zhixian ignored him, he asked around alone about his sister's whereabouts.
On this day, he came to a small village called Jiukoutang in the northwest of Macheng, where Tu Rusong had a courtyard, and he wanted to find some clues.
Yang Wurong met a scoundrel named Zhao Dang'er in the village, and Zhao Dang'er heard that Yang Wurong came to find Yang, so he said that he knew about Yang's.
In fact, Zhao Dang'er wanted to make up fake news to cheat some money to spend, but Yang Wurong believed it to be true and really gave Zhao Dang'er three taels of silver.
Zhao Dang'er got the money and said that he saw Tu Rusong kill the Yang family.
Yang Wurong was very excited when he heard this, and immediately said that he was Yang's own brother, and asked Zhao Dang'er to go to the county to testify to redress the wrongs of the Yang family, and promised to give Zhao Dang'er 60 taels of silver after the matter was completed.
2. Yang Tongfan's conspiracy
Zhao Dang'er was difficult to ride the tiger, and with 60 taels of silver as a temptation, he simply followed Yang Wurong to the county.
Tang Yingqiu sent Tu Rusong and the servants of the Tu family, of course Tu Rusong did not admit it, and the servants of the Tu family also testified to the master, saying that Tu Rusong did not go out during that time, and Tang Yingqiu thought that Tu Rusong was wronged.
But Yang Wurong held on to it, and insisted that the servants of the Tu family had joined forces to commit perjury, and Tang Yingqiao had to temporarily put Tu Rusong in prison.
Yang Wurong is very proud, in fact, the real purpose of his complaint is not to redress his sister, but to knock out a sum of money for his brother-in-law, he knows that his brother-in-law's family has money, and he will definitely take the money to reconcile with him.
Yang Wurong was dreaming, an old woman found him, saying that the Yang family was in her house, her son Feng Da and the Yang family left early to collude, in the past two days, Tang County Ling sent people to search for the Yang family, the old woman was afraid of finding her home, so she asked Yang Wurong to discuss countermeasures.
Yang Wurong was instantly blinded when he heard this, if Yang was searched, not only could he not succeed, but he also fell into a false accusation.
He sent the old woman back first, and then went to find his good friend Yang Tongfan.
Yang Tongfan is a showman, his family is very wealthy, there is a small estate in the southwest of the county, and he is also a figure with a head and a face in Macheng, but this person has always been unprofessional and cunning.
Yang Wurong told Yang Tongfan about the matter, and Yang Tongfan said: This is easy to do, let your sister come to my house to hide for a while, and then you continue to sue Tu Rusong for killing his wife.
Yang Wurong said with some worry: Tang Ying begged to come to your house to search, what can I do?
Yang Tongfan said nonchalantly: I am a student, no one dares to come to my house to search indiscriminately, and besides, my house has a wall where people can be hidden.
When Yang Wurong heard this, he was overjoyed, and immediately went to the old woman's house to take his sister to Yang Tongfan's house.
In fact, Yang Tongfan also has his own purpose, he has long coveted Yang's family, this time as soon as Yang entered the door, he deliberately frightened her and said: Tu Rusong has already sued you in the official office, saying that you seduced an adulterer, kidnapped his family's money and fled, and now the Yamen is arresting you everywhere, and will put you in prison at that time, and you will not be able to get out for the rest of your life.
When Yang heard this, she was angry and afraid, thinking of what her husband usually did to herself, she believed Yang Tongfan's words.
Yang Tongfan saw that he had deceived the Yang family, so he pretended to take care of the Yang family in every way, and the Yang family was already a watery Yanghua, and the two of them became a good thing.
As soon as Yang Wurong saw that his sister had arranged it, he ran to the county office to make trouble.
3. Nameless corpse on the river beach, mysterious visitor
Tang Yingqiu has not been idle, he urges the servants to check the whereabouts of the Yang family every day, but a year has passed, the Yang family is still like a mud cow into the sea, this case has caused a sensation in the province, making Tang Zhi County so anxious that his head is three times bigger.
In the blink of an eye, it was summer again, and there were several torrential rains in Macheng.
One day, Tang Yingqiu was reading a book, and Li Xianzong, the secretary office of the torture room, walked in with some excitement, saying that a rotten corpse had been found on the weightlifting water beach west of the county, which had been washed out by rainwater.
Tang Yingqiu suddenly thought of the Yang family, and quickly took Li Rong and a dozen other people to conduct an autopsy, but he didn't expect that halfway there, it rained heavily, and the road was so muddy that it was impossible to walk, and the group had to go home.
Li Rong also returned home, he is in his 50s this year, childless, and after the death of his wife, his only hobby is to drink a few sips of wine.
Today is no exception, Li Rong was drinking wine, suddenly there was a knock on the door outside, Li Rong asked: Who? A very light voice replied: "Ask the squad leader to open the door and speak."
As soon as Li Rong opened the door, a richly dressed young man squeezed in.
The young man did not speak, took out a letter of silver directly from his arms, put it on the table, and said: This letter of silver is a deposit, please always help to say a word, and there will be a letter of silver to send after the fact.
Li Rong asked: Say what? The young man said: Tomorrow, you will accompany Tang County Ling to the river beach for an autopsy, and you will say that the body is a twenty-three-four-year-old woman who was strangled with a rope, and with your title of "Holy Hand Li", no one will suspect it.
Li Rong immediately understood the young man's intentions, but he was frank and frank for half his life, not vain, and the Zhentai Yamen in the provincial capital transferred him to the post several times, and he was not moved, and he wanted to bribe him with this little silver?
Li Rong's fire "soared" and came up, and the old servant raised his hand, opened the bow left and right and gave the young man two big mouths, and then swept the silver on the ground, and scolded loudly: "Roll, blind your dog's eyes!" Dare to buy your grandfather with money!
The young man covered his hot face, picked up the silver and fled in embarrassment.
Two days later, the sky cleared, and Li Rong followed Tangzhi County to the river beach.
Li Rong came to the corpse, took out the post-mortem examination tool, and just about to start, Yang Wurong suddenly rushed in, and didn't care whether the corpse smelled or not, lying on it and crying: Sister, my bitter sister.
Li Rong couldn't help frowning and asking: The corpse's face is rotten, how do you know that she is your sister?
Yang Wurong said: Before my sister left home, she wore this fine linen dress, you see, I still have a leftover cloth here!
When Li Rong compared it, it was exactly the same as the clothes of the corpse, so he accepted it into the post-mortem kit.
After examining the body, Li Rong stood up and said to Tang Zhixian: "Lord Chan, the deceased was a boy who died of illness, and the time of death was about two months ago.
When Yang Wurong heard this, he immediately grabbed Li Rong's clothes and cried: This is clearly my sister, on what basis do you judge that she is a man?
Li Rong insisted on his opinion, Yang Wurong did not adhere to it, and Tangzhi County had to order the body to be stored first.
4. Kill a Gao Renjie halfway
The words are divided into two ends, it is said that there is a local tyrant in Sichuan who gave birth to a son named Gao Renjie, this bad boy has been fierce and vicious since he was a child, and he is not doing his job, and he is notorious in the township.
When he was in his 20s, he suddenly wanted to be an official, and the local tyrant father felt sorry for his son, so he donated a name to him, but his reputation in Sichuan was too smelly, and no one dared to use him for how much money he paid.
So, the local tyrant father spent money to get him to Hubei and became the acting county order of Guangji County.
But Gao Renjie was not satisfied with being an agent, so he bought out the staff of Mai Zhu, the governor of Huguang, and sent some gifts to Mai Zhu from time to time, wanting to make up for a formal county order.
One day, Gao Renjie sent another gift to Mai Zhu, and this aide took advantage of Mai Zhu's happiness, so he used the Macheng murder case to talk about it, and in two words, he provoked Mai Zhu to fire and directly asked Gao Renjie to go to Macheng to re-examine the autopsy.
Gao Renjie almost jumped up with joy, and immediately came to Macheng with another servant, Xue Wuji.
As soon as Gao Renjie came, he spoiled Yang Tongfan Le, he bribed Li Rong unsuccessfully, so he let Yang Wurong stage a big drama of recognizing corpses on the river beach, and it took a lot of effort to bluff Tang Yingqiu, Gao Renjie came, and things finally took a turn.
Yang Tongfan repeated the old trick and sent someone to bribe Xue Wuji, who was not a good bird, and immediately collected the money.
The next day, Gao Renjie did not notify Tang Xianling, so he went directly to the autopsy, and Xue Wuji announced in a high profile: The deceased was a woman, 24 years old, fatally wounded in the ribs.
After the autopsy, Gao Renjie came to Macheng County as a special commissioner of the governor, wanting to pass the addiction of the county order in advance, Tang Ying begged for help, and the two Zhixian had a big debate on the male corpse and the female corpse.
Finally, Tang Yingqiu became angry and said: "I have been an official in this county for many years, and I have never heard that people will die if they hurt their ribs!" Then he ordered the servants to coax Gao Renjie out of the lobby directly.
Afterwards, the two people each reasoned with Mai Zhu, who was very protective and directly removed Tang Yingqiu from his post, allowing Gao Renjie to act fully in all matters of Macheng County.
Gao Renjie came to Macheng County in a high spirit, and arrested Tang Yingqiu, Li Xianzong, and Li Rong on the charge of accepting bribes.
Yang Tongfan saw that the opportunity came, personally wrote the case and handed it over, and firmly determined that Tu Rusong beat Yang to death with a wooden stick and buried the body on the river beach.
Gao Renjie interrogated Tu Rusong first, he originally thought that Tu Rusong was from a rich family, had not seen the world and suffered, as long as he was frightened, he could confess.
Unexpectedly, Tu Rusong read poetry books, understood things, and the bones were very hard, Gao Renjie tortured several times, Tu Rusong was clamped by a stick so that the bones were exposed, fainted several times, and refused to confess.
5. The shady master, the upright official
Gao Renjie had to withdraw from the hall and conspire with his henchman Master, who made a bad move and lynched Tu Rusong, the so-called lynching, which was kneeling on iron ropes and wearing iron shoes, which was extremely vicious.
Gao Renjie listened to the great joy, and the next day, Tu Rusong was escorted to the lobby again, at this time Tu Rusong was already covered in scales and could not stand, he was lying on the hall, his breath was weak, but he still refused to give in.
Gao Renjie was furious, and ordered the two servants to take out the red-hot iron cable, and pressed Tu Rusong's legs up without saying anything.
After a few times, Tu Rusong couldn't bear it anymore, he thought, I'm afraid that he will be able to die, it is better to succumb to the trick, so he will suffer less, so Tu Rusong admitted on the spot that he killed Yang.
Gao Renjie was overjoyed, and immediately said to Li Rong and Li Xianzong next to him: The murderer has already confessed, what else do you have to say?
Li Rong and Li Xianzong were already trembling with anger, and the two scolded Gao Renjie for abusing lynching.
Gao Renjie smiled coldly, look who is the boss today? He ordered the two to hit 100 boards each.
Li Rong and Li Xianzong were beaten to pieces, but neither pleaded guilty, and Gao Renjie threw the red-hot iron chain on the lobby again, wanting to order Li Rong to be tortured.
Li Xianzong was afraid that Li Rong would be old and would not be able to bear the punishment, so he quickly said: Adults do not have to use torture, villains are willing to recruit.
Li Rong stopped him and said in a loud voice: Xianzong, don't you avoid punishment and confession, a three-foot man, can't even suffer a little flesh and skin?
Gao Renjie was so angry by Li Rong that he immediately ordered the iron chain to be wrapped around Li Rong's body.
Li Rong was burned all over the hall, and after several times, the old man in his fifties died tragically in court.
After Li Rong's death, Gao Renjie began to deal with Li Xianzong again, Li Xianzong thought that Hengzhi was dead, it was better to suffer less crime, so according to Gao Renjie's guidance, he admitted that Tang Yingqiu received 8,000 taels of silver from Tu Rusong, and he divided 500 taels, and Li Rong divided 300 taels.
After retiring from the hall, Gao Renjie was proud and sent someone to send a generous gift to Governor Maizhu, hoping to close the case quickly.
6. The evil deeds of high graves
At this moment, the master walked in and said: "Don't be too happy too early, my lord, there are still three flaws in this case, if we can't solve it properly, I'm afraid we will fall short."
Gao Renjie hurriedly asked: What are the other three flaws?
The master said: First, although the nameless corpse on the river beach has been cut off as a female corpse, I have noticed that the corpse has no hair; Second, although Tu Rusong has admitted to killing his wife, he does not have a bloody coat, and these two important physical evidences cannot be ignored when the Constitution is reviewed; Third, Li Rong died under a heavy punishment without a confession, and it was difficult for adults to escape the responsibility of abusing torture to extract a confession.
When Gao Renjie heard this, he immediately broke out in a cold sweat and asked: Then how to remedy it?
The master said unhurriedly: This is not a difficult thing, continue to use severe torture to question Tu Rusong, let him hand over his hair and bloody clothes, just do.
The next day, Tu Rusong was escorted to the lobby again, by which time, he had completely cut off the idea of living, and only hoped to suffer less sin.
Gao Renjie seduced, Tu Rusong immediately understood, and immediately admitted that he buried Yang's hair and bloody clothes in the barren grave in the west of the city.
On the third day, Gao Renjie escorted Tu Rusong and led more than a dozen servants to the west of the city, and the cemetery in the west of the city was a mass grave for poor families.
At this moment, Tu Rusong was forced to helpless, and could only randomly identify, the servants dug for three days, dug nearly a hundred ownerless graves, but found nothing, Gao Renjie was furious, and gave Tu Rusong another iron chain, burning Tu Rusong to death.
A servant whose conscience had not been completely extinguished could not stand it, so he secretly came to Tu's house and told Tu Rusong's recent situation to Tu's mother.
The old lady was so distressed that her liver was broken, she quietly cut off her hair, begged Li Xianzong's wife to cut her arms, dyed a set of dresses red with blood, sent her henchmen to bury their hair and bloody clothes in a conspicuous place, and then entered the prison in the name of visiting prison, and told Tu Rusong the location of the burial.
This time, the servants easily found the hair and bloody clothes, and Gao Renjie was satisfied and wrote a closing submission, sentencing Tu Rusong to beheading, and Tang Yingqiu and Li Xianzong to hanging.
7. Justice is late, but it will come
Tu Rusong's case was handed to Jiang Jianian, the prefect of Huangzhou Prefecture, who looked at the autopsy list and immediately found a flaw, he had been handling cases for many years, and he had never seen a rib injury that caused death.
Moreover, Jiang Jianian had worked with Li Rong, and he knew Li Rong very well, saying that Li Rong turned black and white upside down, and he did not believe it.
Jiang Jianian secretly transferred the foremen of 4 counties to work and quietly came to Macheng to re-examine the autopsy, but Gao Renjie was caught off guard, so he had to let the servants dig up the body again.
The four servants found out that the body was a male corpse on the spot, Gao Renjie and Xue Wuji panicked, and Jiang Jianian was overjoyed and prepared to expose Gao Renjie's despicable deeds in one fell swoop.
It just so happened that that night, a heavy rain fell in Macheng, washing the body without a trace, and now Gao Renjie stood up again, determined that the body was a woman, and wrote a submission, crossed the palace and the governor, and sent it directly to the governor Maizhu.
Mai Zhu was bent on promoting Gao Renjie, and instead of blaming him for this overstepping of the ranks, he directly sent the submission to the Criminal Department.
Subsequently, Mai Zhu wrote a letter to Jiang Jianian, asking him to select a Macheng County Commander from among the candidate officials, according to Mai Zhu's meaning, it was to promote Gao Renjie, but what he never expected was that Jiang Zhifu pretended to be stupid and stunned, sent Gao Renjie back to Guangji County, and selected another filial piety named Chen Ding to be the Macheng County Commandery.
Chen Ding was impartial and honest, and dared to act boldly, and he had only been in office for more than ten days, and he received dozens of letters of resentment on behalf of Tu Rusong and Tang Ying.
Chen Ding said in his heart, if you don't come to file a complaint, I also know that they have been wronged, but this is the governor's own decision on the case, and it is difficult to overturn the case, unless the whereabouts of the Yang family are found.
Chen Ding deserved to be a good official, after he took office, he sent people every day to secretly check the whereabouts of the Yang family, and finally, the Yang family had news.
The midwife Guo Shi accidentally saw Yang Shi when she was delivering someone, and Guo Shi came to the county to report the news.
Chen Ding brought people to Yang Tongfan's house and found Yang, Yang Tongfan, and Yang Wurong on the spot.
The people of Macheng were very happy, and Wu Yingdi, the governor of Hubei, saw that there was no omission in the case, so he wrote a recital and sent it directly to Yongzheng, and at the same time recorded an attachment and sent it to the governor Maizhu.
8. The storm is back
This new turmoil was set off from the Governor Yamen Maizhu.
Mai Zhu never dreamed that the case he personally approved would make Chen Ding turn his face up in just two days, and in order to save face, Mai Zhu found his staff to plot to overturn the case.
The staff sent two henchmen and maids, dressed as handmaids of the Tu Rusong family, into the Macheng women's prison, and even coaxed and deceived the Yang family, and the Yang family had never seen the world, so they believed it, and according to the guidance of the maid, they shouted out injustice, saying that she was not Tu Rusong's wife, but a prostitute.
At the same time, Yang retracted his confession with Fan and others and unanimously identified Yang as a prostitute.
In this way, all the cases approved by Chen Ding were overturned.
Besides, Inspector Wu Yingdi sat at home waiting for Maizhu to apologize publicly, but the left could not wait, the right could not wait, but waited for the urgent report from Macheng County, and the prisoners collectively retracted their confessions.
Wu Yingdi was furious, knowing that someone was secretly interfering, and was about to write a letter to Governor Maizhu to request that the governor's office be tried together, but at this time the governor Yamen sent another submission, and Wu Yingdi opened it to see that it was Mai Zhu's copy of the music to Yongzheng, which requested that the case be closed according to Gao Renjie's original judgment.
Wu Yingdi finally understood that the person who originally intervened was the governor himself, a dignified and powerful official of Xinjiang, who turned black and white upside down, and Wu Yingdi was angry, and directly wrote the twist and turn of the impeachment of Mai Zhu.
Yongzheng received two different copies at the same time, and he thought for a long time, and decided to dismiss Maizhu and Wu Yingfen immediately, transfer them to the Jingshi Division, and send Shangshu Shiyi of the Ministry of Households to temporarily supervise Huguang and try the case of Tu Rusong's murder of his wife.
Shi Yizhi rushed to Hubei, locked himself in his room and carefully read the case file for 3 days, and soon discovered the loophole.
First of all, there are several white hairs in the hair as evidence, Yang is a 24-year-old young woman, how can there be white hair?
The second is the blood clothes, the blood clothes are not damaged at all, Macheng is rainy, the blood clothes are buried very shallowly, and it is so new after vomiting for a year?
With these doubts, Shi Yizhi found Tu Rusong's old mother, the old man had a turban wrapped around his head, July was hot, if it wasn't to cover up the defects, who would be like this?
Shi Yizhi asked from this point, and the three words touched Tu's mother's sadness, and the old lady took off her headscarf and said that Li Xianzong's wife cut her arm and stained her bloody clothes.
Shi Yizhi understood on the spot, and then he sent people to the area around the river beach to secretly visit the source of the unknown body.
Three days later, a rich family admitted that he had died a bookboy two years ago, hastily buried on the river beach, and then the body was washed out by heavy rain, he was doing business in other places at the time, and he wanted to come back to identify the body, but when he returned, he heard that the body had been cut off by Gao Renjie as a female corpse, and the rich family did not dare to offend Xinzhi County, so he never dared to speak up.
When Shi Yizhi had enough evidence, he held a joint trial with officials at the two divisions and the provincial, prefectural, and county levels.
A few days later, the trial documents were posted and Tu Rusong was released and returned home; Tang Yingqiu restored the name of the seventh rank and remained in Macheng; Li Xianzong was promoted to the rank of magistrate of Macheng; Li Rong was martyred for the public and buried with the rites of the county order; Chen Ding was promoted to Huangzhou Mansion; Gao Renjiege went to fame and was imprisoned awaiting trial; Yang Tongfan, Yang Wurong, and Xue Wuji were beheaded; Yang was issued with frontier hard labor for life; Zhao Dang'er issued Heilongjiang.
The Yongzheng Dynasty's Macheng murder case reflects the darkness of the Qing Dynasty officialdom, but it also allows ordinary people to see a truth, husband and wife should treat each other sincerely, communicate well in everything, do not listen to the instigation of outsiders, Tu Rusong If Tu Rusong does not commit domestic violence to his wife, if the Yang family does not believe Yang Tongfan, the next thing will not happen.
With history as a mirror, you can see yourself.
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