In the autumn of the seventh year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty (1827), Chen Wen, a scholar in Jiaxing, hired a boat to go to Hangzhou in response to the examination. Chen Wen's wife, Zhang Shi, had not given birth for many years, and had heard that there were holy relics of Guanyin at the Tianzhu Temple on the West Lake, and it was very spiritual to ask for a son. Zhang Shi was quite impressed, that is, took the convenience of her husband's test and took the Yahuan to the same boat. Chen Wen's family arrived in Hangzhou in late August. The three of them entered the inn, and after washing and changing clothes, Chen Wen first visited relatives and friends, and then arranged for the entrance examination, so busy that he did not have a little time.
The day before he entered the temple, Chen Wen told Zhang that it would take him two days to return after the entrance examination, and that it would be useless for Zhang to sit at the inn, so it was better to take Yahuan to the Tianzhu Temple to ask for a son; after the third test, they would hire a boat to go back together and not stay here. Zhang Shi listened to her husband's words, and her heart was very happy, and going to The Heavenly Zhu Temple to ask for a son was the purpose of her trip, so she nodded her head in agreement.
The next day, after Zhang sent Chen Wen to the examination room, he immediately summoned two palanquins, one lord and one wife, to go to the Tianzhu Temple. Chen Wen's family was wealthy, and his wife was also the daughter of a famous family. On the day of going to the Tianzhu Temple, Zhang Shihua was full of makeup and pearls, and people along the way all ignored Zhang Shi and praised her as a beautiful immortal. The palanquin carried Zhang Shi up the mountain, and halfway to Zhang's palanquin, there was a sudden "bang", and the two palanquin poles broke one.
The car pole suddenly broke, and the two carmen blamed each other. At first, the two argued verbally, which later turned into punches and kicks, and they fought endlessly. Zhang Shi saw the sedan fighting, and was busy persuading the two people that the personnel had reached this point, and the fight would not help, so they could only go to another palanquin. The palanquin of Yahuan originally walked in front, but at this moment it had been far away for a long time, and Zhang Shi's call was too late, so he had to stand next to the palanquin and wait for the palanquins to return.
Zhang Shi waited for a long time, and the palanquins arrived late, and brought a new palanquin. When Zhang Shi saw that the caravans had obtained new palanquins, he did not complain that they had delayed the time. The sedans opened the curtains, and Zhang Shi lowered his head into the palanquin, and the sedan lifted the palanquin and continued to walk towards the mountain.
Along the way, the mountains overlap, the wild trails twist and turn, and the caravans turn and blur in the chaotic mountains, speeding like a fly. Zhang Shi sat in the car, only to feel that the car driver was walking like a fly, and seemed to be speeding in a certain direction. Zhang Shi didn't know where the Shangtianzhu Temple was, and asked the caravans why they were in such a hurry? The palanquins replied that the broken pole of the palanquin had delayed the time, and had to take a small path in order to catch up with the palanquin in front of the ring. Walking the trail will reduce the distance by half, and you will be able to get to the temple on time to meet the Yahuan.
About tens of miles, the more remote the path, the fewer pedestrians. The sedan shouted "Arrived" at this time, and Zhang Shi opened the curtain of the palanquin and found that the palanquin had turned a corner and stopped in front of a drum. Zhang Shi was busy asking the car driver, is this the Shangtianzhu Temple? The two caravans replied that this place was the Shangtianzhu Temple. As they spoke, the caravans slammed the temple gate and shouted loudly to the opposite, "The incense has arrived."
With the cry of the caravan, a small monk opened the mountain gate and poked out a bare head. The little monk was full of smiles, and seemed to know the two caravans, and after the three of them asked questions and answers in a hidden language, the little monk invited Zhang Shi to burn incense. Zhang Shi was busy asking YaHuan if he had arrived, and the little monk said that he had not yet seen anyone coming, perhaps Zhang Shi had taken a shortcut, Yahuan and the servant were still behind, first entered the room and waited for a while, they would arrive soon.
Unbeknownst to him, Zhang followed the little monk into the temple, and after passing through the winding corridor, the little monk led Zhang into a secret room. The little monk pointed to the slump in the secret room and said to Zhang, "Please let the wife rest here, the little monk will go to the main hall first to arrange it, and then come later to invite the wife to enter the incense." The little monk said, turned around and left the chamber, and closed the door of the chamber with his hand.
After the little monk left, Zhang Shi looked around the room, and the brocade in the secret room was embroidered with pillows, and the furnishings were gorgeous, not like the simple and elegant residence where the monks lived, but like the clubhouse of some rich man. Zhang Shi was suspicious in his heart, but when he thought about it, he thought that this place was specially for the accommodation of rich pilgrims, so he did not bother to ask any more questions.
Zhang Shi waited for a long time, and it was almost evening, his stomach was already hungry, but the little monk was gone, and Zhang Shi was afraid. Zhang Shi went straight to the gate in fear, but the door of the secret room had been locked from the outside, and Zhang Shi shouted loudly outside the door, but only heard the sound of wind and grass, and did not see anyone responding. Zhang Shi was in tears, and his voice was hoarse to no avail, so he had to sit in silence.
Zhang Shi was flustered, and when he sat down until one day later, a young monk with a roe deer head opened the door. The little monk brought the dishes into the room and invited Zhang Shi to eat. Zhang Shi asked the young monk, what kind of monastery is this place? She came to incense, why did she lock her in her room, and what did they want? When the little monk saw Zhang Shi questioning, he did not pay any attention to Zhang Shi, but just grinned and said, "Since the lady has come, please calm down and don't be impatient." ”
Zhang Shi's heart was full of doubts, and an inexplicable sense of fear rose into his heart, zhang begged the little monk to let her go, and the little monk put the dish on the table and left. When he went out, the little monk pushed Zhang Shi back into the room and locked the door from the outside again. Zhang Shi understood at this time that he had been fooled by thieves, and it was not known which temple it was, and Yahuan and the servants were definitely not here.
Zhang Shikui sat in the room, his tears had dried up, and his throat had been hoarse. The hunger was so unbearable that he had to eat the dishes sent by the little monk. Now that it had fallen into the hands of thieves, Zhang Shi regretted it in his heart, knowing that he should not have come here to incense in the first place, and now it was too late to regret it. But please save your life, and then make calculations after you get out.
In the middle of the night, Zhang Shi was wandering indoors, when he suddenly heard the sound of opening the door, and on a closer look, a tall monk stepped in. The monk looked red and black, fat head, big ears and fierce sunshine, and when the monk entered the door, he saw the panicked Zhang Shi and was busy comforting her not to be afraid. The great monk said that he was the head of the temple, and his wife came to the temple to incense, and he went out today to have something wrong, and the etiquette was not in place, and he also asked Zhang Shiduo to forgive and forgive. The great monk said, and his cunning eyes looked down and down Zhang Shizhou's body, and his malicious smile made Zhang Shi tremble with fear.
Knowing that this person was not a kind person, Zhang Shi tried his best to shout for help, and the great monk smiled and said, "Since the wife has arrived here, she is already a caged bird, and it is difficult to fly out with her wings." It is better to entertain with the little monk tonight, and he will definitely let you go back one day. The great monk said, and with a sly smile, he pounced on Zhang Shi. Although Zhang Shi resisted desperately, she was not the monk's opponent, and she could not resist, so she was killed.
For more than ten days, every night there are always several monks who come to take turns to "entertain". A weak woman of the Zhang clan was frequently ravaged by evil monks, who also burned zhang s body with incense, and dozens of small holes were burned out of Zhang's fair skin. Zhang Shi called the heavens and the earth ungodly, and was already dying. On the twelfth night, the monks saw that Zhang Shi was so angry that she seemed to be unable to survive, so they carried her outside the temple with a door panel and abandoned her in the chaotic mountains.
Moreover, after Yahuan and the servants arrived at the Shangtianzhu Temple, they did not see the figure of the master mother. YaHuan and the servants were shocked in their hearts, and searched all over the Tianzhu Temple, inside and outside, but they did not find Zhang's figure. YaHuan and the servants cried loudly and hurried down the mountain to return to Chen Xiucai. At this time, Chen Xiucai had already finished the examination, listened to the words of Yahuan and the servants, and expected that his wife was hit by the evil monk's poisonous plan, and after being angry, he rushed to the Hangzhou government to report to the officials.
The prefect of Hangzhou, Cheng Shixuan, received the complaint, and was well aware that the case was related to the evil monks in the mountains, so he sent officials to arrest the monks of the Shangtianzhu Temple to inquire, and then sent officials to the monasteries in the mountains to search for them. Cheng Shixuan interrogated the monks of Shangtianzhu Temple one by one, and the abbot of the temple claimed that he had not seen Zhang Shi, but only saw Yahuan and his servants entering the temple to incense. Cheng Shixuan interrogated them many times and concluded that the monks of The Heavenly Zhu Temple were indeed unaware of them and had no choice but to release them.
Soon after, the officials sent out to search for him returned to their lives, and they searched for many days in the mountains without finding any suspicious persons, nor did they find Zhang's figure. The case has no clues and becomes an open case. Chen Wen saw that the case was not solved, and went to Zhejiang Xuezheng and Inspector Yamen, who asked Cheng Shixuan to continue to investigate by more manpower and be sure to retrieve Zhang Shi.
A few days later, an old man came from hangzhou, followed by a young woman with a haggard face. The young woman knelt in the lobby and cried, and the words shocked Cheng Shixuan, the woman they had been looking for for many days. The old man next to her is the savior Yu Laohan.
It turned out that that night, the monks saw that Zhang Shi was dying and carried her to the ravine and discarded her. In the early hours of the morning, the cold and hunger woke Zhang Shi up, and Zhang Shi opened his eyes to see the sky full of stars and thought he was dead. But the pain of her whole body made her immediately understand that she was still alive, Zhang Shi was injured and could not move, the wolf howling in the distance was incessant, she was frightened and her liver and gallbladder were broken, and she expected this disaster to escape. Just when she was desperate, an old man passed through the ravine and heard her faint cry for help, and the old man found Zhang Shi and carried her down the mountain. Lao Weng carried Zhang Shi to a thatched hut, boiled herbs for her to drink, and treated her dozens of small holes that had been burned out.
After many days of conditioning, Zhang Shi was able to speak, and she cried to the old man about her experience. Lao Weng said that his surname was Yu and was an ordinary medicine picker under the mountain. A few days ago, his son was beaten to death while doing business outside, and he returned late when he went to take care of the aftermath for his son, just passing through the ravine to save the Zhang family. Zhang's suffering made lao Weng both sympathetic and angry, so after Zhang's recovery, he took her to Hangzhou Fuya to report the case.
The appearance of Zhang Shi and Yu Laohan has turned the case around. Chen Wen saw that his wife was not dead, and the couple hugged their headaches and cried. Cheng Shixuan asked Zhang Shixuan what the monk who had harmed her looked like. What is the location of the location? Zhang said that there were six or seven monks who had harmed her, led by a tall monk with a red face and fat heads and big ears, and the rest were some young monks.
She sat in the car all the way and didn't pay much attention to observe, so she didn't know where the chamber was. But the two caravans were obviously their accomplices, and the caravans were working in the long bridge area of the city, and she was killed in their palanquins. If you can catch these two caravans, you may be able to find the murderer hiding in many monasteries, otherwise there are more than one Tianzhu Temple, and you don't know that the murderer is hiding in that temple. Cheng Shixuan thought that what Zhang Shi said was extremely true, so he decided to lure the snake out of the hole.
Cheng Shixuan made Zhang's Yahuan dress up in a fancy way, pretending to be a noble lady who was going to Shangxiang to ask for children to hire a car in the Long Bridge area. There are many palanquins in the long bridge area, and there were two palanquins sitting on the palanquins a few days ago. The palanquins carried her to the Shangtianzhu Temple, and the two palanquins were obviously not murderers. A few days later, Cheng Shixuan asked Yahuan to go to Changqiao to hire a car, and deliberately released a message saying that she was going to Go to Tianzhu Temple every five days to incense.
When it came time for the fourth ride, two squirrel-eyed sedans carried the ring up the hill. The two caravans repeated the trick, carried the yahuan to the door of an ancient temple, and tricked her into the secret room. YaHuan had just entered the chamber of secrets, and the officials who were trailing behind rushed in to take down the caravan and the little monk. Based on the confessions of the caravan and the young monk, the officials arrested the great monk in the market town.
Cheng Shixuan immediately interrogated the great monk, the young monk, and the palanquin, but the great monk refused to confess at first, and Cheng Shixuan asked Zhang Shixuan to confront him. When the great monk saw Zhang Shi, he thought he had seen a ghost. The factual evidence was conclusive, and the great monk did not dare to deny it, but had to admit the crime:
Originally, the great monk's name was Juekong, and his common name was Liu Shanhai. This person himself was a scoundrel, and Liu Shanhai could not mix on the street, so he turned to the monk Jueming, who was in charge of purchasing the Shangtianzhu Temple, and became Jueming's hand. Liu Shanhai has been mixed on the street, the means are cruel, the heart is fierce, he is responsible for collecting the rent of the temple, purchasing materials and so on. Liu Shanhai often used violent means to collect rents, and the tenants were miserable. Later, the monk Jueming died violently, and the temple saw that he was urging for rent and gave him the power of procurement.
When the monk Juekong went out to procure, he took the opportunity to withhold silver money and go to the brothel of the Qinglou to dash. Later, after he developed, he successively pulled several former brothers to the temple to become monks, so as to strengthen his own power. The Monk of Juekong later felt that the Qinglou woman was too tacky, so he started the idea of a beautiful female pilgrim. He colluded with the caravans of the Long Bridge to carry people to the temple on the back hill, and the young monk tricked the female pilgrims into the chamber.
After the event, the caravans were given silver and the monks were given "pastimes." The Monk of Juekong covered the sky with one hand and specially selected beautiful and strange female pilgrims. Monk Juekong also admitted that his cousin Monk Jueming also died at his hands. Monk Jueming was an upright monk, he was not accustomed to his cousin's fierceness and domineering, and repeatedly asked the abbot to send Kyaw Kong home, and the Monk Kyaw Kwang sought an opportunity to poison him.
Cheng Shixuan asked the monk, how many people had he harmed? The monk said that he couldn't remember how many, there were about thirteen people in the past three years. Cheng Shixuan sent officials to search for bones in the valley, and found a total of three mutilated bones, all of which were broken and incomplete. Later, from the vegetable field and woods in the backyard of the temple, ten corpses were excavated and buried in layers, and the bones were all young women, including the head card of the Qinglou, widows, and good family women from other places.
A group of evil monks actually killed more than a dozen people in just three years, resulting in the tragic deaths of at least thirteen people. If it weren't for the old man who saved Zhang Shi, Zhang Shi would not have been able to escape death. It was Zhang's lucky survival that revealed the true face of these evil monks, otherwise I don't know how many people would have suffered. Based on the confession of the Monk Juekong, Cheng Shixuan arrested and committed evil against the five monks and four caravans.
The monks' sins are heinous, and the crimes are heinous. The murder of thirteen women and the murder of the monk Kyaw Ming in three years, a total of fourteen lives, is a frightening sin. Cheng Shixuan sentenced Juekong and the other five monks to Ling Chi and four sedans to be beheaded according to the law. After the approval of the Ministry of Punishment was issued, the monks were slashed one after another, and the heads of the caravans who were playing for the tiger fell to the ground. Chen Wen thanked Yu Laohan for saving his wife's life, and brought the lone Yu Laohan back to Jiaxing to give him a pension and send him to the end.
The case was a sensation and was recorded in notes and archives by the people at the time. The monks should have been empty of the four greats, and they should have remembered the rules and precepts, but these drunken monks poisoned the lives of living beings and killed many people, and the crime was really heinous. Since then, I have to write a poem lamenting:
Tianzhu Temple flowers monks, under the robes of the monks hide evil.
Trick and spoil good family daughters, false benevolence and false righteousness.
Thirteen women were buried in the deserted countryside, and they tried to escape from the evil deeds.
A thousand knives and a thousand knives were exhausted, and yama's palace sold his life.
Future generations of clothed people are admonished to be good monks in their practice.