Bao Zheng is a well-known detective in China's history, but in fact, the deeds we know about the Bao Gong detective case are basically from folk novel stories, and in the official revision of the "Song Shi Bao Zheng Biography", only one detective story called "Cow Tongue Case" related to Bao Gong is recorded.
The "Biography of Bao Zheng of Song Shi" records that in 1037, when Bao Zheng was transferred to Tianchangzhi County, a strange "cattle tongue theft case" occurred in the local area.
One day, when an old local farmer was going to lead his cattle to work in the field, he was surprised to find that the tongue of his own cow was missing!
The cow's tongue is an important organ that helps the cow to eat and drink water, and if the cow loses its tongue, the cow's viability will be greatly reduced. When the old farmer saw that his cow's tongue had been cut off, he was anxious and angry: Whoever lacks morality is going to kill my cattle.
In that environment at that time, this thief's practice of cutting the old farmer's cow's tongue was tantamount to cutting off the road of life, and the old farmer was naturally unwilling to endure this breath.
Therefore, the old farmer came to Tianchang County and filed a complaint with Bao Zheng, who was then ZhiXian County.
After Bao Zheng listened to the old farmer's words, he did not directly send his servants to the village to look for unknown prisoners, after all, in that era when there was no surveillance, it was no less than finding a needle in a haystack.
What to do?
Bao Zheng gave the old farmer an idea: "You just have to go back and slaughter the injured cow, and then sell it at the market, and the person who steals your cow's tongue will appear when the time comes." ”
Sure enough, not long after the old farmer did it according to Bao Zheng's method, one of them ran to the county court to complain that the old farmer had slaughtered his own cattle and sold them for money, hoping that Bao Zheng would be able to punish him again.
To the surprise of the complainant, after Bao Zheng heard his words, he did not punish the old farmer, but instead asked him: "Why did you cut the tongue of other people's cattle and sue him instead?" ”
The person who cut the bull's tongue suddenly heard Bao Zheng say this, and his heart was shocked, thinking that Bao Zheng knew everything clearly, and confessed his guilt on the spot.
The "Biography of Song Shi Bao Zheng" records: Zhitianchang County. There are thieves who cut the tongue of men, and the Lord comes to complain. Zheng Yue: "The first return, kill and kill." "Seeking revenge has come to sue the cattle killer, he said, "What is the cutting of the tongue of the cow and telling it?" "Thieves are shocked.
Friends who have read this historical material for the first time may be very confused, how can Bao Zheng know that the person who cut the tongue of the cow will come to sue after seeing the old farmer slaughtering the cattle and selling it for money?
In fact, this problem is due to the habit of "straight, not vain and beautiful, not hidden good" in the history of the official record, and the historical materials here omit an era background, which leads to the confusion of friends who later read this historical material.
First of all, we must understand that in the era of farming, the ox was an important labor force for the family, and it was needed to pull carts, plow the land, turn the land, and sow seeds.
Especially since the end of the Tang Dynasty, a large number of people in the north have migrated south, and in order to solve the problem of contradiction between man and land, people who have migrated south must reclaim wasteland in the puddle of water to build their new homeland.
At that time, in order to solve the problem of the food crisis, Song Taizong vigorously promoted the transplantation of wheat, beans, millet and millet from the north to the south, and the transplantation of rice from the south to the north. The main crop of Anhui Tianchang is rice, which was influenced by Emperor Taizong of Song and also planted wheat, beans, millet, millet and other miscellaneous grains.
This phenomenon, in history, is also known as the "southward shift of economic center of gravity."
Another major impact of the southward shift of the economic center of gravity is that the population of the north migrated in the past, bringing with it the most advanced production technology and production tools in the north at that time, which made great contributions to the economic development of the south, of which the improvement and promotion of the curved plough is of great significance.
The Curved Plough appeared in the Tang Dynasty, it is composed of eleven parts, after the fusion of north-south technology, the people at that time added a "wilderness removal knife" - a ploughshares that can transform low-lying land and remove water and grass.
The Yuan Dynasty's Book of Wang Zhennong describes: "If you are in the reed field, you will use a secondary knife to lead it, and the plough and the shovel will be ploughed, and the pickaxe will be easy, and the cattle will save effort." ”
The improved version of the curved plough with the ploughing cattle can not only cultivate in the paddy field, but also in the small plots of land in the mountains, so that people's ability to transform nature has been greatly improved, and the problem of food crisis has been solved.
This improved version of the curved plough has made a huge change in the traditional cattle farming mode, and in the following hundreds of years, China's rural areas have basically used this set of collocations for agricultural production.
It is precisely because the role of cultivating cattle on agricultural production at that time cannot be ignored, so the song dynasty law clearly stipulates that slaughtering cultivated cattle is a felony, and the Song Jian Solemn detailed sentencing system clearly stipulates: "Those who kill officials and private horses and cattle for various reasons are punished for one year." ”
That is to say, in the legal system of the Song Dynasty, as long as the cattle were not old enough to move or died of illness, the cattle and horses that killed the officials and their own families had to force them to serve in labor for one year.
It can be seen from this that this thief is so vicious in his heart that he not only wants to kill the old farmer's cattle, but also wants the other party to take a lawsuit to serve a year of hard labor.
Extrapolating from common sense, unless a person's character is so bad that there are enemies everywhere, only the person who cuts the tongue of the cattle who hates the old farmer the most has the motivation to run to the county court to file a complaint after seeing the illegal act of the old farmer slaughtering cattle and selling it for money. It was just that he didn't know that the old farmer was doing this with Bao Zheng's permission to fish for his bait.
The reason why Bao Zheng used such a trap to lure the thief into the bait was because he believed that the thief was a cautious person who should understand a little bit of the Criminal Law of the Great Song Dynasty, otherwise he would not have chosen to kill the old farmer's cattle by cutting off the cow's tongue, after all, according to the Song Dynasty's criminal law, if the thief directly killed the old farmer's cattle, after being caught, he would be forced to serve for two years on the charge of stealing and killing cattle, and cutting off the cow's tongue would not be punished too severely even after being caught.
Bao Zheng prejudged the thief's prejudgment, and in turn he took advantage of the thief's desire to use the loopholes in the law to bully the old farmers, deliberately letting the old farmers use the way of selling beef to let the thief grasp the handle, and further set a trap to lure the thief from the dark to the light.
The thief was indeed successful, and ran to the county court to sue the old farmer, and at this point, Bao Zheng's plan was a great success, and the thief hiding in the shadows was successfully arrested and arrested.
1, the ancient country was founded by agriculture, the Song Dynasty attached great importance to agricultural production, in order to reduce the damage to agriculture, the Song Dynasty strictly required, such as non-bribery, rebellion, murder, theft and other major cases that endanger social stability, complaints and judgments should be based on the maintenance of agricultural production as the primary premise;
Agriculture is the foundation of social development.
Through this "cow tongue case", we will find that the society at that time paid great attention to the protection of agriculture, and even some of the requirements have reached the level that we see as very strict today, such as the punishment of one year of forced labor for slaughtering one's own cattle for no reason.
Looking at the essence through the phenomenon, this just reflects the fragility of agricultural civilization, and in the view of the imperial court at that time, if the whole society wants to run smoothly, from maintaining the number of cultivated cattle to not affecting agricultural production when the farmer is busy, all aspects must be paid attention to.
Now, it is difficult for us to imagine that in the Song Dynasty, such as "small cases" that have nothing to do with agricultural affairs such as marriage and the sale of houses, usually the Yamen will not accept them, and only from the first day of October to the first ten days of March of the following year, during this period of agricultural leisure time, the officials will uniformly handle such small cases, in order to worry about the impact of agricultural production because of trivial matters.
2. The Song Dynasty encouraged the public to report illegal acts by officials and citizens, but also severely punished false accusations.
In this case of cutting the cow's tongue, it is also very noteworthy that the reason why the person who cut the cow's tongue is keen to recoil the old farmer is because he has a crush on the old farmer's property.
There is a tradition in ancient times that has lasted for thousands of years: if a citizen reports another citizen for a criminal act, once it is verified, part of the property of the informant will be rewarded to the informant. If the person being reported commits a crime that is relatively harmful to the stability of the country, such as treason, the imperial court even has cases where all the property of the informant is rewarded to the informant.
Therefore, if it were not for the old peasants meeting Bao Gong, perhaps, after the thief who cut the cattle's tongue pits the old peasants, he will still "legally" occupy part of the old peasants' property, and the old peasants will really be bitter and cannot say it.
Of course, the Song Dynasty also had countermeasures against those who made false accusations, and those who made false accusations or pure false accusations, once verified, the false accusers would be punished according to the charges they had accused.
From this point of view, this thief who quietly cut off the tongue of other people's cattle, the lightest end is also to serve two years of hard labor, which can also be regarded as self-inflicted.
Text/Brain Hole Fun History
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Resources:
[1] The Biography of Song Shi Bao Zheng
【2】"Song Jian's Solemn and Detailed Sentencing System"
[3] "Complaints and Judgments in Ancient China"