During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a Fangsi Town twenty miles west of yucheng County, Jinan Province, Shandong Province, and there was a Zhang Laohan in Chengping Village in the town, who married his wife Zhao In the early years, and the two had a son after marriage, named Zhang Zhongchen.
This Zhang Zhongchen was stubborn and mischievous since childhood, neither liked to read, nor was he willing to help his parents farm. All day long, I only know how to dance guns and get sticks, and I learn some clumsy fist and foot kung fu with Murakami Idle Han. Zhang Laohan saw that his son was twenty years old, but he was brave and fierce, and he did not do the right thing, so he rushed around to entrust the media to the loyal minister Zhang Luo. Zhang Laohan thought to himself: After his son became a family, he naturally knew that he would adopt his heart and support his family; besides, he was nearly fifty years old, and he had long been anxious to hold his grandson.
A group of mediamen and matchmakers, who have obtained the benefits of Zhang Laohan, naturally work hard to find suitable girls in the eight villages of ten miles. How nai, the Zhang family is very poor, the loyalists are keen to fight, and they already have a bad reputation in Fangsi Town. Therefore, although the matchmaker exaggerates it, no girl will marry him in the end.
However, by coincidence, a mother and daughter who fled the wilderness in Licheng County passed by this place when they went to Jinan to surrender their relatives, and their mother fell ill and died. Seventeen-year-old daughter Hongbo, sad and invincible, but also unaccompanied, not only can not afford to buy the coffin, but also can not even pay for the inn.
Li Zhongbo, who was full of hearts and eyes, saw that there was an opportunity to take advantage of it, so she leaned forward to help Zhang Luo stop the spirit and sacrifice. She did not personally and falsely persuade Hongbo: Now that she is lonely and has no money to bury her mother, it is better to find a mother-in-law in Fangsi Town, first, she will marry sooner or later, which is also a lifelong dependence; second, she can use the dowry to bury her mother, and she will not waste the old man's family to raise children. Hongbo,a girl's family, suffered from this disaster and had long since lost its claim, and naturally took Li Matchmaker's words as the words of Jinshi.
In this way, Li Zhongbo's inn and the Zhang family shuttled between the two ends, asked Zhang Laohan for fifty taels of silver, helped Hongbo bury his mother, and repaid three or two rooms. In the end, Li Matchmaker took the remaining silver into her arms, hastily chose a date, and sent Hongbo to the Zhang family.
Zhang Zhongchen won a beautiful wife out of thin air, and he was naturally ecstatic, considerate and obedient to Hongbo. Hongbo saw her husband Jianshuo and Heroic, and he was pleasant to himself and his low eyebrows, and he felt that he had a lifelong reliance. After the loyal subjects became relatives, they were as good as Zhang Laohan expected, not only was he much more stable, but he was always thinking about how to make money and support his family.
Later, Zhang Zhongchen and Zhao San, a young man in the town, cooperated in the countryside to buy chickens, ducks, vegetables and vegetables, and then sold them in the county town, and each time there was a lot of benefits. Just when the Zhang family's family situation had improved and the loyal couple was tender and sweet, unexpectedly, half a year later, Zhang Zhongchen unfortunately drowned.
It turned out that on this day, when Zhongchen and Zhao San had sold out their agricultural goods and returned to their hometowns on the way to the Tujiao River, Zhongchen suddenly slipped his feet into the water and instantly rolled into the whirlpool. Zhao San did not know the nature of water, and could only jump on the shore and call for help. As a result, the loyalists were soon engulfed by the river.
Zhao San saw that someone was killed, and ran all the way back to Chengping Village to report the funeral to Zhang Laohan. Zhang Laohan and his wife and Hongbo got the fierce retribution that their liver and intestines were cut off and chaotic. Later, the Zhang family went to the lower reaches of the Tujiao River to search for several days, and the loyal subjects were still alive and dead. After more than half a month, fishermen found a drowning body in the mud pond of the downstream tributary.
When Zhang Laohan went to identify the corpse, he saw that although the body was rotten and his face was difficult to distinguish, his tall, fat and thin body was very similar to his son, and he immediately cried to death and came back to life. After some persuasion from the crowd, Zhang Laohan stopped his grief and purchased a coffin into a buried corpse and buried the loyal subjects properly. Hongbo was originally a foreign woman, and now that her husband has died, she has no choice but to observe the festival for her husband and honor her in-laws all day.
It is said that in the thirteenth year of Yongzheng (1735 AD), that is, one night in the summer of the third year after Zhang Zhongchen's death, there was a shocking and bloody case in Chengping Village, which had only more than 40 households. Late that night, thirty or fifty mighty robbers broke into the village, searched for young and strong men door to door, and brutally killed them after they were found. Overnight, nineteen people in Chengping Village were killed, and none of the young and strong men in the village were spared.
After the robbers were successful, they fled, and the family in Chengping Village immediately mourned and cried. There was such a big case in Yucheng's territory, and Li Zheng and others had already reported it to the county court. Yucheng County ordered Li Lingzhi to get the report, and he was stunned and stunned, so he quickly led the servants and servants, and seconded a hundred soldiers to rush to the scene of the incident.
When the crowd came to the outside of Chengping Village, Li Xianling heard a heart-rending cry from afar. After entering the village, Li Xianling was also shocked by the miserable scene in front of him. In the small villages, almost every household was killed. Some left the bodies in the courtyard; others had just bought coffins and were preparing to be buried.
After Li Xianling led Shu Zuo and others to conduct an inspection, although it was determined that the victims were all killed by him, and all the villagers and neighbors also cried that there were bandits in the village, Li Xianling had several suspicious groups, but he was always puzzled: First, when the robbers entered the village, they must have tried to kill the riches, but after these robbers killed people, they did not loot the money at all; Second, why did the robbers only attack the young and strong men, and none of the women, children, and elderly men in the whole village were killed? According to villagers, when the robbers committed murder that night, two old men were in a hurry, grabbed wooden sticks to protect their families, and the robbers did not kill them; third, the robbers seemed to know the situation in the village very well. Because there are a few families without young and strong men, and the robbers have not even entered the courtyard door, is it impossible for some people in the village to pass the bandits?
Li Xianling felt that in this case, the bandits were brutal and there were many victims, but there were still many mysteries and unclear points in the case. Therefore, while sending people to search for the hiding places of the robbers, he led the servants to each household to investigate and understand in detail, hoping to find clues. A few days later, sure enough, the kung fu paid off, and Li Xianling found that although there were no common enemies or enemies among the nineteen victims, there were seven or eight of them, who often went in and out of the Zhang family, and were not clear with Zhang Laohan's daughter-in-law, Hongbo.
And an old man who understands the inside story even told Li Xianling about a secret contract between Zhang Laohan and his daughter-in-law Hongbo. The course of events is as follows: Since zhang Zhongchen drowned, the Zhang family has been even more destitute. Hongbo also had a close relationship with the villager Ma Dongyang, so he made a request to his in-laws to remarry. Zhang Laohan died of his son, everything depends on his daughter-in-law, how can he easily agree to Hongbo to remarry? Hence the flat refusal.
At that time, the widow who remarried was out of control, coupled with the in-laws' strong obstruction, so Hongbo had to give up. It is said that there is a thirty-year-old man named Wang Qikun at the west entrance of Chengping Village. This person has already married and had children, but he is also mercurial, he has long coveted Hongbo's beauty, so after Zhang Zhongchen drowned, he tried every means to please and approach Zhang Laohan.
On this day, Wang Qikun pulled Zhang Laohan to nowhere and fell to his knees and prostrated his head. Zhang Laohan did not know what to do, and quickly let him get up and speak. Wang Qikun said with a bitter face: "The little nephew is now suffering from an incurable disease, and I am afraid that he is already dying." For now, only the old man can save me! ”
When Zhang Laohan heard this, he asked Wang Qikun what kind of illness he had, and said that he was not a doctor, how could he treat the disease? When Wang Qikun heard this, he fell to his knees again, and even said that he had a heart disease, and said that since he saw Hongbo's beauty, he thought about the disease of lovesickness day and night. Now that his life was in danger, he wanted Zhang Laohan to persuade his daughter-in-law Hongbo to stay with him for one night, and when the false fire subsided, he would naturally heal without medicine.
Without saying a word, Wang Qikun took out three or two pieces of silver and stuffed them into Zhang Laohan. Zhang Laohan looked at the silver two in his hand, and after thinking about it repeatedly, he asked Wang Qikun to come to the three changes that night. When Wang Qikun heard this, he was ecstatic and regretful.
That night, Zhang Laohan instructed his wife to fry a few dishes, and the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law drank a lot of wine. After Hongbo got drunk and went into the room to rest, Zhang Laohan got up and secretly opened the door because Wang Qikun entered, so he and his wife hid in the back room and slept with their heads covered. That night, Wang Qikun wasted Hongbo as he wished.
Afterwards, Hongbo scolded his father-in-law for betraying himself, and Zhang Laohan, while wiping his tears, complained to his daughter-in-law: "In order to marry you and bury your mother, I borrowed fifty taels of silver in debt. Now that my son is dead and my family is destitute, I can only earn some silver from you, but who would do such a thing if there is some way to live? ”
After Zhang Laohan finished speaking, he saw that although Hongbo was still crying, he was not as excited as before, so he continued: "I also know your pain. But if you remarry, you are out of control, and now that the matter has come to an end, I will make a secret contract with you, and as long as there are young and strong descendants who take money to find me, you will undertake it. In this way, I will allow you to associate with Ma Dongyang. Extend it for a few years, maybe agree to your remarriage is not known! ”
Hongbo heard that, in addition to lamenting his own fate, he had no choice but to nod his head and admit to this secret agreement. Since then, Hongbo has been able to meet ma Dongyang Qingqing and me, and Zhang Laohan and his wife have indeed turned a blind eye. And Zhang Laohan got the promise of his daughter-in-law, in order to earn more money, he often spread this secret agreement to the young and strong children in the village, and someone paid silver to find Zhang Laohan, and He could really kiss Fangze for Hongbo. In the past few years, there have been many things in the village that have had affairs with Hongbo...
This old man who knew the inside story, after telling the secret appointment of Zhang Jiaweng's daughter-in-law, attracted the great attention of Li ZhiXian. Therefore, he personally came to the Zhang family to find out. Zhang Laohan and his daughter-in-law Hongbo, when they saw the county order come to the door, suddenly changed their looks and became confused. Li Zhixian sensed that there was a difference, so he ordered the two daughters-in-law to be interrogated separately, and the truth of the murder was finally found.
It turned out that the person who killed the young and strong men in the village was Zhang Zhongchen, Hongbo's husband! On that day, Zhang Zhongchen did not die after falling into the water, but was saved by a group of water thieves who were reunited by the Tujiao River. After several water thieves searched the loyalist's body with silver, they wanted to push him into the water and drown him.
Coincidentally, this scene was seen by the sister of the leader of the water thieves, erya, who saw that the loyal servant was strong and good-looking, so she stopped everyone from moving, and turned around and whispered to her brother that she had a crush on this person. In the end, the leader of the water thieves furrowed his brows and asked Zhang Zhongchen if he was willing to marry the second lady, Zhang Zhongchen saw the situation, first, he coveted the beauty of the second lady; second, he also knew that everyone was fierce and black, and if he refused at this time, he would be looking for his own death, so he quickly said "willing".
In this way, Zhang Zhongchen married the second lady and became a water thief, but he did not dare to go home for several years, so as not to bring the disaster of killing his family. It was not until three years later, when the second lady gave birth to a child, and the relationship between the two became more and more stable; Zhang Zhongchen became the "second boss" among the water thieves, so he proposed to the leader of the water thieves that he was ready to go home to see his parents.
With the consent of the leader of the water thieves, Zhang Zhongchen took countless gold and silver jewels and returned home to visit his parents and wife Hongbo. When I arrived home early in the morning, I saw a man sneaking out of the Hongbo house and disappeared without a trace in an instant. Zhang Zhongchen was suspicious and pushed the door into the house to look for Hongbo.
When Hongbo saw zhongchen come back from the dead and appear in front of him, he was immediately frightened and flew out of the sky. After Zhang Zhongchen briefly told a few words about the past, his eyes fixed on his untidy wife, and asked who was the man just now? Why is it in Boom's room? When Hongbo heard this, he burst into tears, and in shame, he told his father-in-law about the persecution of himself.
Just at this moment, Zhang Laohan heard the movement in the room, so he got up and came to inspect it. As soon as he saw his son Zhongchen return, he realized that the drowned man he had seen that day was not a loyalist, and when he heard Hongbo tell about the secret contract he had made with her, he knew that he could not hide anything. I had to cry and beg my son to forgive himself, claiming that it was all the sin of the poor family. Zhang Zhongchen was furious and gritted his teeth to ask who had an adulterous affair with Hongbo? Zhang Laohan replied timidly, "Most of the young and strong descendants in the whole village have come to me." ”
Zhang Zhongchen heard the words and slammed the door and left. Late on the third day, bandits came from Chengping Village and killed nineteen young and strong men in the village. Zhang Laohan and Hongbo knew that it must be the work of loyal subjects, so they were worried and worried all day. I didn't want Li Xianling to come to the door so quickly, so Zhang Laohan and Hongbo all confessed the truth.
Li Xian ordered the trial of the cause of the case, and both Zhang Laohan and Hongbo were sent to prison, and the Wenzhou government borrowed troops to suppress the bandits. A few days later, the state government sent three hundred elite soldiers to cooperate with Li Zhi County's suppression of bandits. After several months of visits and secret agents, the sixty-seven water thieves hiding by the river were finally eliminated. And Zhang Zhongchen and the second brother and sister were also divided by the random blade.
In the end, Li Xianling sent Zhang Zhongchen and other water thieves to the streets, and reported to the state capital and the Punishment Department Yamen in parallel, and asked Zhang Laohan and Hongbo to be beheaded. When the people of Chengping heard the news, they all clapped their hands and applauded, and all praised Li Xianling as the "Great Lord of qingtian" who judged the case like a god. At this point, a strange case of the Qing Dynasty was solved!
This case warns future generations: human ethics and etiquette maintain the most basic ethics and family relationships. Zhang Laohan's betrayal of his daughter-in-law can be said to be a rare thing in ancient and modern times, and it is also the initiator of the Chengping Village Massacre; and Zhang Zhongchen, for his own selfish anger, lured wolves into the room and killed all the young and strong men in the village, which was even more ferocious and had more than enough to die; on the contrary, Hongbo, who was both a victim and a harmful spirit, finally ended up in a name of defeat and death, which is really sad and lamentable!