In the twenty-first year of the Qin Dynasty, in late April, the Beginning of Summer had just passed, and the weather in Anlu County was getting hotter and hotter every day. Molecular crickets were chirping in the lush grass, earthworms emerged from the soil, and king melons were growing in the vegetable gardens of every household.
, bitter herbs are blooming, creating a prosperous summer scene.
In Guansi District, located in the county seat, there is also restlessness in the air.
In the county jail, the wardens and jailers stood guard outside the jail nervously, and they had to send someone in every half an hour to inspect the jail, because it was full of prisoners who had not yet been sentenced.
The weather is hot, the cell space is small, and there is an unpleasant smell. These one hundred and eighty criminals, or seemingly ordinary people, are sitting on the rice straw with a sad face at this moment, regretting what they have done.
.
The jailers were talking a lot. It was not easy to keep an eye on them with just over ten people. How did the chief of the small pavilion capture all the people in the prison with five people?
In the lobby separated by a wall, the county magistrate was also worriedly watching the officials arguing with the laws, and secretly cursed in his heart: "It's all the fault of the Huyang Pavilion Chief, I just asked him to find a woman who was robbed and sold.
But I captured everyone here, what will happen to me now!"
At this time, more than a month had passed since the blind mountain incident that shocked the entire county.
This case involved many people, so from the county magistrate to the magistrates, the judges of Anlu County spent more than half a month and many all-nighters before they finally revealed the origin of the woman who was robbed and sold, and the crimes of everyone in Blind Mountain.
, all mistakes were clarified one by one.
But the most difficult thing is yet to come. Under the leadership of local officials, people in Blind Mountain have repeatedly bribed and sold women of unknown origin, and have protected each other. During the investigation by Pavilion Chief Heifu, they maliciously surrounded them, and some even killed officials and fled.
Intention, these crimes cannot be washed away.
But in this case, the question arises, what should be the sentence? A light sentence or a heavy sentence?
"Now that the crime is clear, just follow the law."
Yu Fengxi has a clear attitude and acts according to the rules!
But the county magistrate still hesitated.
"Xijun, this matter is different from ordinary cases. It involves the lives of one hundred and eighty people. You cannot be careless."
Xi Zhengse said: "Xian Cheng, Qin Lvli, there has never been a precedent of lenient treatment because of the large number of criminals! At the beginning of the Shang Dynasty's political reform, some members of the public family did not follow the law and started fighting privately. Those who were punished
Hundreds of them were killed, and the heads of the Wei River turned red. In the ninth year of the present king's reign, Lao Ai conspired to rebel, and he himself was cut off from the Yi tribe. Thousands of his family members were also confiscated, and their property was confiscated, and they were moved to a remote place in Shu County.
…”
"Thousands of people are punished, let alone hundreds of people?"
"How can Anlu, a small county, be compared with Shang Jun and the king?"
The county magistrate said in a somewhat consultative tone: "Except for a few principal criminals, can the rest of the prison guards be counted as surrendering to reduce their culpability?"
"Xian Cheng, the people in Blind Mountain didn't even think about surrendering and pleading guilty. They only incited them to kill officials and flee after the prison gate was shot dead, and then they were arrested under the intimidation of Pavilion Chief Heifu."
Xi still refuses to give in. Since the evidence and confessions show that everyone did not surrender, they cannot be lenient!
In his view, in the collision between law enforcement and illegality, there is only win or lose, no mercy!
The county magistrate couldn't convince this stubborn subordinate, so he stamped his feet angrily. He knew very well that if he strictly followed the law, he didn't know how many people would die and how many people would be punished.
By then, this case will shock Nan County and even Ting Wei, becoming the most typical major case in the country this year. Not only will the county magistrate not be praised, but his lax governance and poor law enforcement will lead to such a big incident.
If you are impeached, even if you are not punished, it will leave an embarrassing mark on your resume.
Because of this, the judgment was delayed again and again. The county magistrate asked the county magistrate for instructions, but there was no reply for a long time. It was really annoying.
Fortunately, towards the end of April, Nanjun's order finally came belatedly.
The county magistrate did not expect that the county magistrate's reply had exactly the same opinion as Xishi, just four words:
He must be punished without mercy!
It turns out that Nanjun has not been idle these days. Based on the confessions of the robbed women in Anlu County, the county magistrate sent several capable officials from Jiangling City to follow the clues and finally brought down a group specializing in abducting young men and women in Jingling County.
Everyone was caught in one swoop, and the "old woman" who had abducted Yuanyuan was also among them.
After the surprise interrogation, the county magistrate was shocked to discover that this gang was committed by a family, and its tentacles were spread all over Nanjun. It was related to hundreds of missing persons cases in various counties of Nanjun in the past few years. Most of the missing people were teenagers and girls, and the woman was
Sold to remote areas, some men were even sold to Wei and Chu as slaves!
It actually involved population exodus! Is this a good thing? So while the county magistrate sentenced all the traffickers to death, he also decided to send a document to Anlu County, requesting that the case be treated as a death case! It should be made a model to warn the whole world.
County people!
Since the county magistrate also said so, the county magistrate, who was a little soft-hearted, had no choice but to look up to the sky and sigh, and asked the jailer Xi and others to hurry up and convict the prisoners.
…
"In a blind mountain, there is an upright person. As a local official, he knows the law and breaks the law, protects his people, secretly communicates with looters and traffickers, takes the lead in bribing women, and rapes women Yuan many times. What's the matter?"
In the hall, Ling Lile was responsible for recording. Because there were too many people involved in the case, they had to determine the charges of each person before sending them to the county magistrate to read out.
The jailer Xi was responsible for determining the punishment of criminals. Although he knew the Qin laws by heart, in order to be accurate and avoid making mistakes, he still had to find the "Robbery Laws" and "Miscellaneous Laws" among the piles of laws, and sentenced them according to the corresponding laws.
"Li Zhengfeng in the Blind Mountain is a heinous crime. According to Article 9 of the "Law of Robbery", robbing and selling people is a crime; knowing someone and betraying a person is the same crime as Jia. The crime deserves death. In addition, rape, rape and other crimes should be punished.
The sentence is to be broken! His family members knew clearly that he was breaking the law but did not report it. They also helped to detain the woman Yuan who was sold. They should also be punished and their property should be confiscated. The man had his toes chopped off and was made a Chengdan; the woman had her face tattooed and was made a concubine!"
Le quickly wrote it down and asked the next name: "What about Tian Dian?"
"Tian Dian was not involved in the human trafficking, so his crime is slightly lighter, but the crime of dereliction of duty and cover-up is unavoidable. He will be stripped of his title, his family property will be confiscated, his toes will be chopped off, and his family will be beaten by Cheng Dan!"
As for the prison gate who called on the residents to kill officials and flee, although he is already dead, since he dared to shout this slogan, he must be prepared to be crushed and ashes. His putrid bones must be dug out and replaced with a new one.
As a result of the punishment of being broken into pieces, his family members were all reduced to being beaten to death.
In Xi's subsequent sentence, the families who knew the kidnapped girl was still paying for it were also sentenced to death. The three brothers who brutally tortured the kidnapped girl and locked her in a pig pen included three brothers.
One of them died of a crossbow injury, and the remaining two were charged with rape, rape, and wounding. The three crimes were punished at the same time, and they were treated like a car being broken.
All in all, three people in Blind Mountain were beaten to death and ten were beaten to death.
Following Xi's decision, Le used a red pen to check off 13 names in the list of slips at once. His hands were shaking a little. After all, just one tick could mean a life.
He secretly thought: "The law will not tolerate mercy. This sentence is really appropriate to put on the prison guards. I must be careful not to break the law in this life, so as not to fall into the hands of the prison guards..."
However, Xi does have a place to be open-minded.
In addition to the four women who took the initiative to leave, those families who also purchased the women many years ago were spared death because the women who were robbed refused to admit that they were being robbed and sold.
It turns out that in the Qin State, cases also have applicable statutes of limitations. Cases older than ten years will no longer be accepted by the government. Moreover, if a criminal case wants to enter the litigation process, it must be reported. If the parties do not report, it will not be accepted, which is equivalent to
"Don't complain and ignore" in later generations.
Therefore, as long as those women who have been kidnapped and sold for many years and have given birth to children do not reveal their identities and do not take the initiative to accuse their current family members, there will be no legal proceedings.
Xi knows that if he gets to the bottom of it, and even uses torture, he will definitely be able to dig out all the old stories and sentence those people to death.
But after hesitating, he still did not extend the rope of the law.
He is an official, but he is not a cruel official.
He handles cases faithfully and in accordance with the law, but he also has his own bottom line as a human being.
What's more, this does not mean that those people are innocent. This case involves a common crime in the entire Blind Mountain. According to the Qin Law's Shiwu Lianzuo system, as long as they are adult men and women, they will all be held accountable.
What's more serious is that they were also suspected of attacking officials and even shouted slogans to surrender to the Chu Kingdom... This is the most fatal point. After thinking about it, if they could follow Heifu's suggestion and surrender with him, it would not be a big deal.
ended up like this.
The last day of April happened to coincide with the day of sentencing. Because there were too many criminals, each family could only send one principal criminal to attend. In this way, the entire county jail lobby was packed with people.
Seeing so many criminals, even the Prime Minister of Anlu County couldn't help but feel numb, and his voice became hoarse when he read "jū".
In the end, except for the 13 principal criminals who were sentenced to death, almost all the others became prisoners!
In severe cases, dozens of people were tortured and tortured, and in mild cases, hundreds of people were also tortured as ghosts. Bai Can will not be able to regain his freedom within three to five years. Only three families are hunters who live far away inside and outside.
, it was proven that he was not involved in the incident and escaped.
The parents were sent to the labor camp, and the children who were underage were taken into custody by the hermit officials. When they reached adulthood, they were sent to various places as soldiers or servants.
There are no eggs left when the nest is overturned. With this sentence, the whole nest in Blind Mountain is equivalent to being wiped out. Everyone has become a prisoner, and the organization here can be directly cancelled.
This also means that this year, the officials in Anlu County, except for the county engineer who can applaud and laugh because there are more than a hundred convicts and concubines, the rest of the county magistrates, household officials, and rural misfits will all have sad faces.
As the most important content of the official assessment for high-ranking officials: household registration, this year may not increase but decrease!
Anlu County's household registration growth is not fast. It can barely maintain a living. How can it withstand such a heavy blow.
Therefore, although the officials in the county, who handled the case, and the officials in the county, supported and praised the man who handled the case, they had already criticized him secretly...
"The chief of the pavilion who ruins the family, the warden who destroys the family!"