Stephen Chow's masterpiece "Jiupin Sesame Official" has become a classic of Chinese comedy movies because of its spicy satire and funny nonsensical style. In fact, this film is not completely fictional, the core of the so-called comedy is tragedy, and one of the prototypes of this work is the famous Yang Naiwu and the little cabbage case in the late Qing Dynasty.
In the late Qing Dynasty, there was constant domestic turmoil and corruption among local officials. The reason why this unjust case has such a big reputation is that there are certain factors related to its special background.
Yang Naiwu was born in Yuhang Town, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang, and his family has been planting mulberry and raising silkworms for generations. Yang Naiwu himself has worked very hard since he was a child, he was admitted to Xiucai at the age of 22, and he was admitted to Juren at the age of 33, and their family lived a prosperous and comfortable life in the local area.
Coincidentally, Ge Pinlian, a helper at a local tofu shop, rented his house to live in, and Ge Pinlian's wife, named Bi Xiugu, was fair-skinned and beautiful, and loved to wear white tops and green skirts, so she was called "little cabbage" by the locals.
The two families lived together, and the widowed Yang Naiwu soon had an affair with Bi Xiugu, which made Ge Pinlian very dissatisfied, and Yang Naiwu also wanted to get rid of his suspicion, and after negotiation between the two parties, Ge Pinlian moved elsewhere with his wife.
What Yang Naiwu didn't expect was that after Ge Pinlian moved away, he died of a sudden illness not long after.
Ge Pinlian's mother suspected that her daughter-in-law Xiao Cabbage had harmed her husband, so she reported to the official to sue Xiao Cabbage, because there have been many scandals between Xiao Cabbage and Yang Naiwu, and many rumors said for a while that Yang Naiwu instructed Xiao Cabbage to murder her husband.
The local magistrate of Yuhang and Yang Naiwu have long had a grudge, and took this opportunity to put Yang Naiwu in prison, and the two resolutely refused to admit this matter at first, and the magistrate asked the two to be tortured.
After a period of torture, the two couldn't hold it anymore and could only admit it......
The magistrate immediately confirmed the case and reported the conclusion that Ling Chi was sentenced for the murder of her husband by Xiao Cabbage, and that Yang Naiwu was sentenced to behead for adultery and murder. The local authorities in Zhejiang did not care about the case, and after seeing the report, neither the prefect of Hangzhou nor the governor of Zhejiang upheld the original verdict and reported it to the criminal department without verifying it.
After Yang Naiwu was beaten into a trick, he knew that he might not be able to get out, but he still decided to fight to the death, so he wrote his defense. Yang Naiwu's sister ran all the way to the capital to complain with the pleadings, but no one paid attention to them at first.
But at that time, "Declaration" and other "media" had already had a certain influence in China, and some people noticed Yang Naiwu's case. After the "Declaration" reported that the case attracted the attention of the Qing government, and Cixi herself personally intervened in the case, which was retried.
After a series of investigations such as the opening of the coffin and the autopsy, the truth was revealed.
Ge Pinlian's body was examined and no signs of poisoning were found, and when Yang Naiwu himself was falsely accused of buying arsenic, his family took out Yang Naiwu's alibi.
All signs show that Ge Pinlian died of illness, and Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage were finally rehabilitated.
For Cixi's Qing government, the Yang Naiwu case was undoubtedly a tool to play on the topic, and the Qing government's domination of the country has become more and more unstable since the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
As the main force in pacifying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Hunan army of Zeng Guofan was richly rewarded after the war, and almost all the officials from top to bottom in rich provinces such as Zhejiang were from the Hunan army.
Cixi has always wanted to weaken the power of the Hunan army, but the southeast area is the basic territory of the Hunan army, and it is difficult for the imperial court to move them. At this time, Yang Naiwu's case was sent to Cixi.
She had her own plan, that is, to use this case to start a purge of Hunan military officials in Zhejiang.
In addition to more than 30 officials related to Yuhang Zhixian County, the Qing court also removed more than 100 officials from Zhejiang Governor Yang Changjun, Zhejiang Xuezheng Hu Ruilan, and Hangzhou Governor Chen Lu.
Obviously, Cixi's handling of this case was not originally for the sake of so-called justice, and the case had obvious political overtones from the beginning. Therefore, after the case became big, almost not many people cared about whether Yang Naiwu and Little Cabbage were wronged.
For both parties, from the day they were framed and sent to prison, they had already lost. When the case was being handled, a French reporter took a photo of the two of them, and the two in the photo looked haggard and could not see any expressions.
After being imprisoned, the two men spent more than three years in prison, during which time they were tortured and tortured. If it weren't for Yang Naiwu's special status and a certain amount of property in his family, they might not have been executed before they could wait for the result of the defense complaint.
The long-term torture has made the two of them numb, which may also be a microcosm of that dark era. The difference is that their case happened to be noticed by the media, and because of the political factors in it, they were taken seriously by the imperial court, so the two could get back to life.
After the case ended, Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage also started their lives again, their lives have already been completely changed by this case, how easy is it to come out?
Yang Naiwu was tortured in prison, and his leg was disabled, and it was impossible for him to embark on a career after being released from prison. After studying hard for decades, being able to pass the exam is already a dragon and phoenix among people, but unfortunately because of this case, his future was completely ruined.
Fortunately, Yang Naiwu's family is well-off, and after returning to his hometown, he inherited the family's industry, and in his later years, he has been living a simple life of planting mulberry and raising silkworms. In September 1914, Yang Naiwu died of sores at the age of 73.
In contrast, the experience of the little cabbage is even worse, her family is poor, she has been the child daughter-in-law of the Ge family since she was a child, and she was first rumored to have an affair with Yang Naiwu, and then she was involved in this big case.
In that era of strict etiquette and inferiority of men and women, it was difficult for a person like Yang Naiwu to protect himself, let alone the little cabbage? After returning to her hometown, the dirty water splashed on her body was not washed, even if the government had rehabilitated her, but the gossip still did not stop.
After years of torture in prison, Xiao Cabbage's body and mind were greatly traumatized, which also made her disheartened, and finally chose to become a nun. In his later years, the little cabbage was called "Huiding", and he had been living a poor life in the nunnery, and in 1930, the little cabbage died at the age of 76.
It was difficult for a helpless woman like Little Cabbage to have any good results in that dark era, and she could not return to society, so she could only devote herself to Buddhism for the rest of her life.
It can be said that although this case was finally rehabilitated, for everyone, maybe they are not the winners.