There are many prison breakers in history, such as Di Renjie of the Tang Dynasty, Song Ci of the Song Dynasty, etc., who are known for judging cases like gods. However, not everyone can be as discerning as Di Renjie and Song Ci, so in ancient times, there were often some absurd things such as confusing officials and confused cases. In the "History of the Old Five Dynasties, Jin Shu, Gao Zu Benji", there is a record of a confused case of the later Jin founding emperor Shi Jingyao.
When Shi Jingyao was governing Hedong, he liked to do everything himself to show that he was diligent and loved the people. One day, a peasant woman came to report that the millet valley dried in front of her house had been eaten a lot by passing military horses and asked the government for compensation. This was originally only a small dispute, but Shi Jingyao showed great importance to this matter and insisted on personal interrogation.
Shi Jingyao first ordered the sergeant who raised the horses to call him and asked him if he had neglected to take care of them, causing the soldiers and horses to eat the millet of the peasant women's family. However, the sergeant cried out for injustice, saying that he was conscientiously raising horses for the imperial court every day, and he never dared to slack off in the slightest, let alone condone the military horses trampling on the peasant millet valley.
The peasant woman insisted that the sergeant's horse had eaten her own millet, but she could not provide evidence, and no witnesses could help her. As for the sergeant who raised horses, he naturally resolutely refused to admit it, and always claimed that he had been wronged. The two argued and almost fought in court.
According to the ancient rules of judging cases, if the peasant woman could not provide evidence that the military horse had eaten her family's millet, then the case would end here, and the horse-keeping sergeant would not have to compensate the peasant woman for the loss of the millet. Or there is another way to pay a symbolic compensation to the peasant women with a little silver and two money by the imperial court, so as to win a good reputation for Shi Jingyao in the folk who loves the people like a son.
He saw that the peasant woman and the sergeant could not argue, and the peasant woman could not produce evidence, so he proposed a "stupid method": kill the military horses who stole the millet valley, and see if there was any millet in the stomach.
Military horses were an important military resource in ancient times, and if you had to kill military horses to collect evidence because of a small loss of millet, this was a bit of a big deal. Everyone present was talking about it, and the peasant women were also frightened, and hurriedly said that they would not tell the truth, and the loss of the millet valley was gone.
The sergeant who raised horses listened to Shi Jingyao's words and was even more frightened, saying that he could take the initiative to compensate the peasant women for their losses. Because these military horses belonged to the imperial court, if one of them died in his hand, no matter what the reason, his whole family, old and young, might be severely punished by the imperial court.
Because military horses were too valuable in ancient times, Shi Jingyao's attempt to kill horses to collect evidence frightened both peasant women and horse-raising sergeants, and both of them chose to take a step back. If the case ends here, it is also a relatively good ending. After all, military horses are too precious, if you kill precious military horses because of a little millet, but also to tire the sergeants who raise horses, it is really not worth the loss.
Since both the peasant woman and the horse-rearing sergeant had chosen to give in, Shi Jingyao could also make a beautiful speech by letting nature take its course. However, he did not do this, and was determined to kill the military horses, and also said that if the horse had millet in its belly, he would kill the horse-raising sergeant, and if there was no millet, he would cut off the head of the peasant woman.
The peasant woman and the sergeant who had come to complain heard this, and they were both directly frightened and fainted, because according to Shi Jingyao's approach, whether there was corn in the horse's belly or not, these two people would be implicated. Moreover, the sergeant raised many horses, and I don't know which horse ate the millet valley, unless all the horses were killed to find out, but this is obviously impossible.
After Shi Jingyao gave the order to kill the horse for evidence, an entourage soon went to do this, and as a result, no millet was found in the belly of the horse that was killed. At this time, the peasant woman had already been frightened, and Shi Jingyao looked at the peasant woman who had fainted and laughed, and ordered her entourage to pull her down and behead her. The sergeant who raised horses was also severely punished by the imperial court because of the loss of military horses.
Shi Jingyao's judgment in this case was extremely confused, and in the end he did not find out whether it was the military horses that ate the peasant women's millet, because he could not kill all the military horses. However, after this case, an unexpected result was that no one in Hedong dared to go to the government office to file a complaint, because no one wanted to become the next peasant woman and horse breeding sergeant. Maybe this result is what Shi Jingyao wants to see, so that he doesn't have to spend too much time dealing with such incidents, but it is too cruel to use this way.