At noon on July 13 in the eighteenth year of Shunzhi (1661), at the Jiangning Execution Ground in Nanjing, a group of scholars were escorted to the execution ground and were about to fall to the ground.
Many people were saddened by the departure of these prisoners, but one prisoner in his fifties did not change his face and was calm, as if the person who was about to be killed was not him, but someone else.
On the execution ground, an unbelievable scene also took place. The soon-to-be-beheaded man smiled and said to the expressionless executioner, "Come here, have a word with you." ”
The executioner walked up to the prisoner, bowed his head, and according to the rules, he could say his last words. I only heard the prisoner whisper: "I have 200 taels of silver tickets in my pocket, I will count it for you." ”
The executioner couldn't help but snicker, showed an expression of disbelief, and asked, "Really, brother, this is too generous, isn't it a joke?" "Under normal circumstances, some wealthy prisoners will give the executioner a little favor before they die, so that the execution process will be more enjoyable and avoid the suffering.
"Of course, when is it, how can you have that thought? The silver ticket is in my ear hole, you can take it later. ”
"Are there any conditions?" the executioner still couldn't believe it.
"Yes, you can start slashing me for a while, and when you cut it, move a little faster. ”
When the executioner heard the music, don't worry, we are eating this bowl of rice.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the executioner raised the butcher's knife high and fell so hard that the head fell to the ground and the bones rolled to the executioner's feet. The executioner was impatient to pull out two paper balls from Jin Shengsi's ears, opened them, and couldn't laugh or cry.
In 1608, Jin Shengxian was born in an inconspicuous poor family in Wu County, Suzhou, and his father was an honest farmer who was so poor that he was very poor.
Because of this, the father pinned his hopes on his son, cut down on food and clothing for his son to go to school, and hoped to learn Xi knowledge and change his fate. Jin Shengxian is also very sensible, Xi hard and diligent in his studies, and does not want to live up to his father's expectations. In the private school, he learned a lot of knowledge, and he wrote poetry and became a well-known talent.
The father saw it in his eyes and was happy in his heart, and felt that his son was getting closer and closer to success, and if he participated in the scientific examination, he would definitely be able to win the gold list. It's a pity that ten years of hard work in the cold window did not bring fruitful results, and after becoming a showman, his son stopped moving. Later, he participated in several scientific expeditions, but he was named Sun Shan and failed.
Since he has real talent and real learning, why can't Jin Shengsi get fame?
As we all know, the scientific examination is an eight-strand text, which requires rote memorization, and candidates are not allowed to play freely. The more talented you are, the higher the chance of being eliminated. For example, Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty had many exams, but they were all brushed down. Hong Xiuquan in the middle of the Qing Dynasty was also not admitted to many exams before choosing the road of rebellion.
After failing the exam several times, Jin Shengsian also died of this heart and simply gave up. Disheartened, he began to believe in the gods, sought comfort from scriptures, and made friends with monks and Taoist priests.
In order to make ends meet, Jin Shengxi claimed to be the reincarnation of the disciple of the Buddhist Tiantai Patriarch Zhiyi, and began to help the people to earn tips.
How can you let everyone worship him? Jin Shengsian began to package himself, saying that he had accepted more than 30 dead women as disciples of the underworld. This time, his name is even more famous, and there is an endless stream of people looking for him to burn incense and worship the Buddha, and to eliminate disasters and diseases.
After solving the problems of life, Jin Shengxi still devoted his energy to writing, and wrote a gorgeous chapter while helping the soul to descend. In addition, Jin Shengxi was obsessed with commenting on famous books and commented on the works of many predecessors. Among them, the most impressive thing is his comment on Shi Nai'an's novel "Water Margin".
After a long time, even Emperor Shunzhi knew about it, saying that he was a "master of ancient literature" and could not be underestimated.
If the emperor admired him so much, why did he behead him?
It turned out that although Jin Shengsian was debauched and pretending to be a ghost, his conscience was still unclear and he was worried about the country and the people.
In 1660 (the seventeenth year of Shunzhi), there was a catastrophe and famine in Wu County, Jin Shengsi's hometown, and the people's harvest was sharply reduced, and they had to leave their hometowns and go out to ask for food. As a parent official, he should reflect the people's suffering to the imperial court, let the imperial court allocate funds for disaster relief, and at least reduce or exempt the people's taxes.
Ren Weichu, the magistrate, is a guy with no humanity, he doesn't pretend to be the people in his heart, only his own future. Not only did they not report the disaster to the above, but they did not care about the lives of the people and collected taxes as usual. Anyone who could not hand it in, no matter who it was, was arbitrarily arrested and locked up at the county office, and then used all the punishment to beat him to death.
That's not all, Ren Weichu, the black-hearted county magistrate, still took the chestnuts in the fire, stole from the guards, filled his own pockets, and took 3,000 stone of public grain for himself. Stone is a unit of capacity, different dynasties have different capacities, in the Qing Dynasty, a stone is equivalent to 100 catties of rice, 3,000 stones are 300,000 catties, but it is not a small amount, can save thousands of lives.
After hearing the news, the people of Wu County were so angry that they scolded their mother. Many scholars wrote a complaint and sued him to Zhu Guozhi, the governor of Jiangsu, demanding that this corrupt official be severely punished. Zhu Guozhi not only did not investigate Ren Weichu, but beat up the accusers, saying that they were false accusations.
"I understand Ren Weichu, he is a good official, an honest man, you are a bunch of troublemakers, making trouble unreasonably. Zhu Guozhi said viciously, "If you sue again, I will send you all to the execution ground!"
Why did Zhu Guozhi speak for corrupt officials? The reason is very simple: Since ancient times, officialdom has been a big boat, and corrupt officials are people in the same boat.
Ren Weichu is a petty greed, and a considerable part of the money he embezzles is used to bribe his boss, in case something happens, the boss will cover himself to ensure that he can get through the danger. It can be summed up in one sentence - "officials protect each other".
Therefore, instead of being overthrown, the common people were severely beaten. Just when the victims were already disheartened, a "good news" came from Beijing on the first day of February of that year, and Emperor Shunzhi died suddenly.
Why is it a happy event? Because the old man left his last words, saying that he would "straighten out the rule of officials." Jin Shengxian and other scholars were overjoyed when they learned about it, so they gathered more than 100 people in the Confucian Temple, under the banner of mourning Emperor Shunzhi, and denounced the corrupt officials. After that, they again submitted a petition to Zhu Guozhi, the governor of Jiangsu, demanding a thorough investigation of Ren Weichu.
The common people hated this corrupt official, and as soon as they heard that they were going to sue, everyone spontaneously followed. When the pleadings were submitted, there were more than 1,000 people.
As mentioned earlier, Zhu Guozhi and Ren Weichu are in the same group, and they will definitely not agree to investigate, in which case they will also suffer. At this time, Zhu Guozhi beat a rake, and the court said: Jin Shengxian and others gathered in Suzhou to advocate chaos and resist taxes, which is a great disrespect to the spirit of the first emperor!
At this time, a major event happened to happen: Zheng Chenggong launched an attack on the Qing army, Liankeguazhou, Zhenjiang and other places, a stone's throw away from Suzhou, and the Qing court was terrified when he heard the news.
The Qing Dynasty was established by the Manchus, and the ruling lacked legitimacy and self-confidence, so they were in a hurry, believing that the "troublemakers" must be severely punished, otherwise it would cause a chain reaction and the consequences would be terrible.
The Qing court quickly characterized the incident as a "riot", ordered the arrest of the leader, Jin Shengxian and others were arrested, in order to achieve the effect of killing a hundred people, Jin Shengxian and other eighteen talents, a total of more than 120 people, were convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to beheading and hanging. Their property was confiscated, and their wives were confiscated.
On July 13, Jin Shengxian and others were escorted to the execution ground and beheaded, which is known as the "Wailing Temple Case" in history.
On the day of the execution, his two sons, Li'er and Lianzi, went to the execution ground to say goodbye to their father and cried tears. Jin Sheng sighed like a knife, but on the surface, he looked calm, and looked up to the sky and said a couplet: "The lotus (pity) is bitter in the heart, and the pear (li) is sour in the abdomen." ”
After hearing this, the second son was even more sad, crying and fainting, and the onlookers couldn't help but shed tears of sympathy.
Before the execution, Jin Shengxian told the executioner that he had a silver ticket on him and wanted to give it to them.
In the end, the executioner found two notes in Lao Jin's ear, and when he opened them, he couldn't laugh or cry, where were the silver tickets, but two words were written respectively: "good" and "pain".
When the executioner looked at it, he realized that he had been teased by Lao Jin.
Jin Shengsian didn't do this on a whim, he was originally cynical, liked to be funny, was a joker of that era, and was good at laughing and scolding.
At the beginning of the exam, the examiner asked a question - "Is it tempting to be safe in this way".
Jin Shengxi wrote: "In the empty mountains and poor valleys, there are ten thousand taels of gold; Let me ask: Is the master tempted? He said, "Move!" "Move!" and "......Move" wrote 39 words of "move" in a row.
The examiner asked what the reason was, and he replied, "Is it possible for Mencius to say that if he is forty years old, he will not be tempted to see gold and beautiful women in the wilderness before he is thirty-nine?"
In another exam, the examiner asked candidates to comment on Xi Shi's envoy Wu Guo with the title of "Xizi Comes to Carry On".
Jin Sheng sighed and wrote: "Out of its east gate, Xizi will not come, out of its south gate, Xizi will not come, out of its north gate, Xizi will not come, out of its west gate, Xizi will come?"
After the examiner read the papers, he sneered, and wrote a comment on Jin Shengsi's examination paper: Beauty is here, it's a pity, your fame is gone!
The fact that such a talented intellectual was killed because the people asked for his life was not only a tragedy for a talented scholar, but also a tragedy for the vast number of intellectuals of that era.
Reference source: Volume 14 of the Twenty-Seven Songtang Collections Author: Liao Yan, author of "A Sigh of a Thousand Autumns - The Biography of Jin Shengsi", Chen Fei