In 1870 (the ninth year of Tongzhi), the governor of Liangjiang and the feudal governor Ma Xinyi completed the military parade, and on the way back to the governor's office, he was killed by the assassin Zhang Wenxiang. The assassin did not run away, shouting, "The assassin is me Zhang Wenxiang!" "Tie your hands and grab it."
Empress Dowager Cixi personally handled the case and transferred Zeng Guofan to try it. The whole case dragged on for half a year before he convicted him of "slipping through the net and rebelling" and "futong pirates" and executing Zhang Wenxiang.
A large number of wild histories, notes, novels, and operas have many explanations about the origin of the case. Many refer to Ma Xinyi who falsely reported military merits and married powerful people, and in the "suppression of bandits" he married Jinlan with the "bandit leader", deceived the imperial court, and climbed to the throne of the feudal officials. Zhang Wenxiang escaped and stabbed the horse to take revenge.
Later generations referred to the "Thorn Horse Case" and the "Yang Naiwu and The Little Cabbage Case", the "Famous Yang Yuelou Case" and the "Taiyuan Case" as the "Four Strange Cases of the Late Qing Dynasty".
"Thorn Horse" has undergone many years of multi-person interpretation and adaptation, and various versions have emerged in an endless stream, and the literary significance has long exceeded the historical value.
Pingjiang BuXiaosheng once mentioned this case in the martial arts masterpiece "The Legend of jianghu qixia", and Hong Kong director Zhang Che made a film version and a tv version of "Thorn Horse" respectively.
In 2007, the film "Submission Of Names", directed by Chen Kexinyi's "Thorn Horse Case", was of even better quality, starring Jet Li (playing Pang Qingyun, that is, the prototype is Ma Xinyi), Jin Chengwu (playing Jiang Wuyang, that is, the prototype is Zhang Wenxiang), Andy Lau, Xu Jinglei, etc.
The film won the Best Film award at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards and the Best Film at the 45th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards, for which Jet Li won the Best Actor Award at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards.