Written by | Shassie
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty (1736-1796), a terrible case occurred in Laoting County, Yongping Province. One morning, Zhao Zongsheng, a trader who was doing small business in the market, tied up Liu Siwuhua, a water picker in the village, and then took him to the county court, accusing him of forcing people to die for rape, and hanging all four women in his family.
When Chen Jinjun of Zhixian County received the complaint and saw that four lives were involved at once, he couldn't help but be surprised, and immediately ordered someone to open a court to inquire about the case and interrogate Liu Si, a water picker.
After Liu Si went to the church, he knelt on the ground and trembled with fear, unable to speak for half a day. Chen Zhixian took advantage of this opportunity to take a closer look at him, only to see that he was about thirty years old, five short figures, although his appearance was not good, but his face was kind, not like a fierce and vicious gangster, but like an honest villager, he did not order someone to torture him, but instead of kindly enlightening him, let him tell the truth.
Liu Sijian County's grandfather did not beat a hundred killing sticks as soon as he came up as everyone said, but he was a little kind, and he put his mind at ease for a while, and he told all the strange things he had encountered in the morning.
It turned out that Liu Si was a single stick, one person was full, the whole family was not hungry, relying on brute force, carrying water to each family every day, earning a few small money to make a living.
On this day, he went to Zhao Zongsheng's house as usual to deliver water, shouted a few times outside the door and no one responded, and when he saw that the courtyard door was hidden, he had the courage to push the door in, picked the water into the kitchen, and poured it into the water tank. Then, he came to the door of the main room, ready to say hello, by the way to ask for some wages, who knows but found that the main room also closed the door, so he went to the window to look. Who knew that this look was not tight, but it frightened him to scatter, only to see that the four women of the Zhao family were all hung on the beams of the room.
Liu Si shouted in fright, and quickly ran to shout at his neighbors, and everyone knocked on the door together, saving the four women, but found that their bodies were already stiff and they had returned to heaven and lacked skills. At this time, Zhao Zongsheng just returned home, and after hearing about the incident, he believed that Liu Si wanted to be rude, which caused them to hang themselves, so he involuntarily tied him up and accused him of forcing him to die for rape.
Chen Zhixian listened to Liu Si's confession, and then carefully looked at Zhao Zongsheng's form, saw that the two men had their own opinions and expressed their own opinions, and for a moment they could not determine whether it was true or false, so he took a group of servants and servants to the Zhao family for investigation.
The Zhao family was in chaos at the moment, and the people around them who were watching the liveliness surrounded the three outer three floors. Chen Zhixian asked the servants to disperse the crowd, and then ordered the servants to go to the autopsy, and he looked around, only to see Liu Si's bucket in the courtyard, and the door of the main room was also knocked open from the outside, which coincided with Liu Si's confession, and at that time, in order to save people, there were many people in the house, and the scene was all destroyed, and there was no useful clue.
At this time, Shu Zuo came to report that the four women who died were called Zhao Yangshi, Yang Wangshi, Zhang Wangshi and Yingu, and all of them had no trauma on their bodies, and there was no loss of any property in the family.
Chen Zhixian listened and nodded, and then asked people to bring Zhao Zongsheng to inquire, and learned that Zhao Yangshi was his wife, who had just turned thirty years old, and because he had not given birth to an heir for many years of marriage, he had inherited a daughter from his sister, that is, Yingu, who was also twelve years old this year, and the relationship between mother and daughter had always been very good.
Who knew that not long ago, Zhao Yangshi suddenly fell seriously ill, Zhao Zongsheng was busy with business, often not at home, and could not take time to take care of it, and Yingu was young, so he invited his sixty-year-old mother-in-law Yang Wangshi to serve. After a few days of Yang Wang's care, due to old age and frailty, he invited his twenty-two-year-old niece Zhang Wangshi to help take care of the patients and take care of life together. These four women are all related to each other, living together to help each other, and getting along very harmoniously. Zhao Zongsheng was also very happy to see it, so he was relieved and bold to go out to do business alone, who knew that such a big thing had happened all of a sudden.
Chen Zhixian listened to Zhao Zongsheng's confession, and carefully examined the bodies of the four women, and was surprised to find that these four people had collectively put on new clothes, and Zhang Wangshi and Yingu even deliberately put on heavy makeup.
Seeing this, Chen Zhixian suddenly realized, so he boldly speculated that there were no scars on their bodies, and there were no other suspicious traces left by the men, which showed that this was neither murder nor love killing, and the property in the family was not lost, and it was not a theft. Moreover, before dying, these women deliberately changed into new clothes, and the two young women also put on makeup. So Chen Zhixian decided that they were because of the evil spirits, so they hanged themselves en masse, and then ruled on the spot that liu si, a water picker, was not guilty, released him home, and let Zhao Zongsheng bury the four women in the family by himself.
When Zhao Zongsheng saw that Chen Zhixian had decided the case in this way, he was dissatisfied in his heart, so he wrote a complaint and ran to Yongping Mansion to continue the accusation, who knew that after the Yongping Prefect took over the case, he simply read it again, and then he thought that Chen Zhixian's ruling was reasonable, arbitrarily upheld the original judgment, and beat Zhao Zongsheng and drove him out of the court.
Zhao Zongsheng had nowhere to go to justice, and there was no place to sue for suffering, so he suddenly thought that he could go to the Yamen of the Punishment Department in the capital to appeal, so he came all the way to Beijing. At that time, a small official named Shan Xuan looked at his form and felt that there was a big doubt in it, that is, how did these four women hang themselves on the beams of the house together? You know, among these four women, Yang Wangshi is more than sixty years old, old and frail, Zhao Yangshi is seriously ill and has limited mobility, and Yingu is only a little girl in her teens, and only Zhang Wangshi can barely do it.
Therefore, Shan Xuan explained the doubts he saw to his superiors, however, the superiors were all people who had been in the official field for a long time, knew the stakes of the retrial of the Beijing control case, if once the case was overturned, down to Letingzhi County, up to the governor directly under the direct subordination, they would all be punished, and the officials in charge of the Punishment Department would also be implicated, so they did not want to overturn the case and retry, so they ignored Shan Xuan's words, and unanimously concluded that Zhao Yangshi died of hanging himself because he could not bear the torment of illness, and Yang Wangshi was because he lost his beloved daughter, Yingu lost his loving mother, and Zhang Wangshi lost his aunt. That's why the three women hanged themselves with her.
Zhao Zongsheng received the final verdict of the Punishment Department, and had to return home, returned to his home in Laoting County unhappily, saw the empty house at home, remembered the scene of the family's happiness and harmony in the past, felt that there was no point in living alone in the world, so he also found a rope, hung it on the beam of the house where his wife, daughter and mother-in-law were hanged, and hanged himself. And this case has since been sunk in the sea, and no one has asked about it.
Three years later, a bizarre death occurred in Laoting County, a strong man suddenly died in the middle of the night without warning, and his nephew felt that something was wrong, so he went to the county court to accuse the young and beautiful aunt of murdering her husband.
At this time, Leting Zhixian was still Chen Jinjun, and after he received the complaint, he took him to the autopsy, found that the deceased had no fatal injuries on his body, and could not find out the cause of death, so he determined that the deceased died of a violent illness and released the wife of the deceased.
Who knows, the nephew of the deceased did not forgive, and crossed the county court to directly complain to Yongping Province. At this time, Shan Xuan just happened to be the prefect of Yongping, and when he saw the deceased's nephew's resolute attitude, he took him to the autopsy again, but still did not find any problems, and Hezuo also concluded that the deceased died of a sudden sudden illness.
Shan Xuan was very strange, and sympathetic to the nephew of the deceased, and did not want him to be punished by false accusations, so he personally went forward to examine the body. He carefully examined the deceased and ordered the body to be turned over, ready to look at the back. Just at this moment, he suddenly found a shallow trace of water in the right ear of the deceased, so he ordered him to carefully examine the right ear hole of the deceased, and actually took out a pile of soaked cotton inside, which weighed half a kilogram!
Shan Xuan couldn't help but sigh and said to the people around him: "This kind of crime method is secret and poisonous, presumably not a woman can do it, she must also have an adulterer." So he ordered the wife of the deceased to be arrested and severely tortured, and the woman could not bear the torture, so she had to confess that she and her adulterer Zhang Congyu had carefully designed and murdered her husband.
After hearing the name Zhang Congyu, Shan Xuan's heart suddenly moved, he felt as if he had seen it somewhere, and after thinking about it for half a day, he finally remembered that when he was serving in the Punishment Department, he had seen the file of Zhao Zongsheng's accusation case, and the name of the husband of one of the deceased Zhang Wang's family was zhang Congyu. So he sent someone to get Zhang from Yuji, and on the other hand, he asked people to investigate, and indeed confirmed his judgment.
After Zhang Congyu arrived at the court, he saw the bloodied woman lying on the ground at a glance, and saw that she had confessed, knowing that the matter was completely exposed, he did not dare to hide it anymore and confessed his crime.
At this time, Shan Xuan seemed to inadvertently and suddenly asked: "Zhang Congyu, three years ago, four women in Zhao Zongsheng's family hanged themselves en masse, and you did it, right?" ”
When Zhang Congyu heard this, he was immediately frightened like earth, and his eyes flashed with panic, and he said in a panic: "Lord, they hanged themselves and committed suicide, and the case has been decided, what does it have to do with me?" ”
From Zhang Congyu's look, Shan Xuan had already realized that he was inseparable from the hanging case, so he interrogated him repeatedly, but Zhang Congyu always clenched his teeth and refused to admit it to death.
Shan Xuan saw the situation, smiled and coaxed him: "Zhang Congyu, according to the laws of the Great Qing Dynasty, you conspired with other people's wives and concubines to kill your husbands, and of course the woman will be executed, and you will also behead and show the public, it is already difficult to escape death." If you are willing to tell me and the truth about the case that has already been decided that year, this official may still be able to find a way to spare your life! ”
Zhang Congyu listened to Shan Xuan's words, as if believing it or not, and pondered for half a day. Although he was resourceful, he was a greedy person who was afraid of death, thinking that he was going to die anyway, so it was better to tell the truth, and maybe he could really get back a life. Therefore, he told the truth about the collective hanging of the four women of Zhao Zongsheng's family.
It turned out that as early as three years ago, Zhang Congyu's wife, Zhang Wangshi, had witnessed him having an affair with this woman and threatened to tell the woman's husband. Zhang Congyu was very scared after hearing this, and he was bent on killing his wife to kill him.
At this time, Zhang Wangshi happened to be invited by his aunt Yang Wangshi to serve Zhao Zongsheng's wife Zhao Yangshi, And Zhang Congyu was worried that his wife would tell others about his ugly things, so he followed all the way to the Zhao family, but just heard his wife talking about this matter with several women of the Zhao family.
Zhang Congyu saw it, his brain was hot, suddenly rushed into the house, picked up a rope and strangled his wife to death, the other three women screamed in fright, Yingu got up and was about to escape, Zhang Congyu grabbed her back from behind, and also strangled her to death.
At this time, Yang Wangshi, who was more than sixty years old, and Zhao Yangshi, who was lying on the bed, were terrified and trembling, and could not escape, so they had to be disposed of by Zhang Congyu, and they were also strangled alive by him.
Zhang Congyu killed four women at once, and for a moment he was a little panicked, and then he calmed down, took out new clothes from the cage and changed them one by one, and then put makeup on his wife Zhang Wangshi and Yingu, and then hung them on the beams of the house, creating the illusion of collective suicide, who knew that he really deceived the incompetent Chen Zhixian and The Servants, and finally got away with it. This time, he repeated the trick and killed her husband with the woman.
Shan Xuan listened to Zhang Congyu's confession, was very shocked, and hurriedly escorted him back to the prison for a later retrial, and then hurriedly went to the Governor of Zhili Yamen and told the truth of the case to the Governor of Zhili.
The governor of Zhili was shocked to hear this, and quickly invited Shan Xuan to the secret room, and with good words and persuasion, hoping that he could raise his noble hand and calm things down, otherwise not only would Leting ZhiXian be sentenced to death, but even the former prefects, Daotai, and The Governor would be dismissed.
After Shan Xuan listened, after thinking about it, he also felt that it would not be good for him to check it again, so he agreed. After returning to Yongping Province, Shan Xuan was worried that Zhang Congyu would talk nonsense, so he instructed his henchmen to use the method he used to kill the woman's husband, stuffed his ears with soaked cotton, and executed him secretly, and then reported to Yousi Yamen that he died violently due to illness, and then confiscated all of Zhang Congyu's family property and made a small profit.
After receiving the report, the boss found that it was just a damn criminal who died of a violent illness, and no one took it to heart. As a result, the three years of boiling four women's collective hanging cases and the wet cotton ear murder cases in Laoting County were also over.
@ Dong You Lou Gongji: In this case, Leting Zhixian was confused and incompetent, and in the face of the guantian case with four lives, he only made hasty rulings, conjured up the verdict, did not carefully investigate and study, but let the real murderer go unpunished; and the former Yongping prefect, the officials of various provincial departments, and even the governor and the punishment department, were all officials and officials, Mingzhe protected himself, knew that there were injustices, but no one was willing to come forward. In the end, although Shan Xuan found out the truth, he had to bow to this intricate relationship and join them. These corrupt officials and corrupt officials only care about their own future and do not care about the people's lives or deaths at all.
Special statement: The article contains personal opinions; the pictures come from the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact to delete!