Fox Road Travel Notes

When Chen Zican returned to the back house, Chen Zifu was already lying on the desk.

He was frowning, chewing on the mountain of spectacular case files.

In addition to tea, there are also fruit snacks on the table. It seems that today is the rhythm of a protracted battle.

Chen Zican circled around the huge book desk and took a deep breath.

I patted these dusty documents and exclaimed: "My God, there are so many!"

"Brother, don't bring all those trivial cases. At least, they have to be the kind that make Magistrate Ye a disciple or a prostitute, right?"

Chen Zifu raised his head and showed a wry smile.

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Look, these are all cases in which Magistrate Ye sentenced people to imprisonment or above when he was the magistrate of Xiuwu County."

"Seven years, eight hundred and sixty-two sects!"

"There are countless other disciples and staffs..."

Chen Zican opened his mouth wide and was so shocked that he couldn't speak.

After a long while, he said: "How can you see this in three days?"

"I see that what you deal with on weekdays are all trivial matters. How can a small Xiuwu County have so many major cases?"

Chen Zifu sighed: "Otherwise, how could he be promoted?"

"Solving the case is related to the official evaluation and Beijing inspection."

"So, how many major cases have you judged in the past two years?" Chen Zican was a little curious.

Chen Zifu didn't even think about it: "Eleven cases, three exiles, eight prison sentences."

"Tsk tsk!"

Chen Zican sneered and said, "You have worked so hard for two years, but your political achievements are not as good as those of Mr. Ye in one month!"

"We still need to work hard! Otherwise, how can we pursue progress?"

Chen Zifu was speechless: "Are you here to see the case file, or are you here specifically to laugh at me?"

"Look!"

Chen Zican shook his head and felt like his head was getting big: "But you can't look at it like this."

"Let's classify them first, separate them from death penalty to exile."

"Then, arrange them in chronological order from near to far. It seems that the efficiency will be much higher."

Chen Zifu nodded, this is indeed a solution.

For those old cases, the possibility of finding evidence to overturn the case is extremely slim.

Whether you look at it or not, it actually doesn’t make much sense.

Major cases that have occurred in recent years are the focus of breakthroughs.

As soon as they said it was done, the two of them started working immediately and were busy for more than half an hour.

Seeing one hill turn into two hills, the two gray-headed people still smiled bitterly at each other.

"Isn't this death penalty a little too much?"

"Are we mistaken?" Chen Zican scratched his head.

"It looks like there are almost five or six hundred sects!" Chen Zifu shook his head.

"It's all human life!"

Chen Zican nodded silently. It can be seen from this that Magistrate Ye is trying to get his way with the people and will do whatever it takes to get promoted and make a fortune.

He thought for a while: "What is the usual reason for this?"

Chen Zifu said: "Before the second year of Shunzhi, the number of cases of hair shaving was the largest, accounting for 70 to 80% of the death penalty."

"Three years after Shunzhi, those who committed the fugitive law accounted for the majority of the death penalty, about 60%."

Chen Zican is familiar with the order of shaving his head.

It is widely circulated in later generations that the Ten Days of Jiangyin and the Three Massacres of Jiading were all Han Chinese. In order to maintain their own national cultural traditions, they were unwilling to cut off their hair and surrender to the world, and they rose up to fight.

But this "escape method" was a bit unfamiliar to him.

But at this moment, it sounds as if the number of killings and the length of time are not under the order of shaving hair.

Chen Zifu saw his brother's face full of doubts and thought that since he regained consciousness, he knew too little about the outside world.

Zhengse warned: "Zi Can, you must not know the law of escaping."

"Otherwise, if it is accidentally touched, the consequences will be disastrous!"

"Well——, you must have heard of this horse racing enclosure, right?"

Chen Zifu asked, seeing that his brother was still confused.

Chen Zican nodded. Kuo'er's parents both died in that chaos.

After Jian Nu came to Beijing, in the winter of that year, an order to enclose the land was issued.

It was said that the "unclaimed wasteland" in the states and counties near Beijing would be distributed to the Manchus moving south.

But in fact, these gangsters who fight openly do not care who has an owner or not, and they trap them wherever they go.

The original landowner was immediately evicted from his home with a single order.

Even needles, thread, and brains are not allowed to be taken out.

The property, house, and furnishings all became the property of the Manchu people.

His wife and daughter are too old and too ugly, so let him take them away. The young and beautiful ones, of course, needless to say...

In Tongzhou, Gyeonggi Province, someone once reported to the court: In December of the first year of Shunzhi, under the land enclosure order, more than 3,000 acres of the people's farmland were enclosed.

Although it is claimed that there will be separate compensation, in fact, there is no land left, but the taxes will continue to be borne.

why?

Because the so-called compensation had not yet been paid, in April of the following year, Manchu nobles came again and turned all the remaining 2,400 hectares of farmland in Tongzhou into horse farms.

The total farmland in Tongzhou only amounts to more than 5,000 hectares.

The landless people in Tongzhou had no way to make ends meet, so they had to drag their children with them to become serfs in Manchurian farms.

The local magistrate of Xiongzhou also said that after the land was enclosed, the roads were full of hungry people and the city was empty.

Xiongzhou now has no household registration records, and there are no people left to herd.

This kind of tragic situation is not isolated, but happens everywhere where the slaves go.

It wasn't until more than 40 years later, when Kangxi ordered that "there will never be a circle in the future" that it was stopped.

The Manchus occupied a large amount of fertile land, but they themselves were pampered and ate without cultivating.

So he robbed the young people in the surrounding area and made them their serfs.

He also recruited fierce scoundrels as village leaders and instigated them to rob people and property for themselves, claiming to "lead land to surrender".

This was still the case until the Qianlong period.

Fang Wenyou, a poet in the early Qing Dynasty, wrote: "Without filling and encirclement, the Han people will not have much land left!"

The Han people as serfs were the private property of the Manchus.

They can only live as two-legged beasts for the rest of their lives, and even their descendants will be called "family sons" and cannot escape the fate of being cows or horses.

Many people could not bear the slavery and humiliation and committed suicide out of hatred.

Thousands of villagers report their suicides every year, and countless more die without reporting their deaths.

There were many more serfs who yearned for freedom and chose to flee.

In the third year of Shunzhi, Dorgon ordered the Ministry of War to arrest the fugitives.

It is said that within a few months, the number of people fleeing Manchuria had reached tens of thousands, seriously affecting the "livelihood" of the nobles.

Therefore, the cruel Ninth Prince ordered the establishment of a "supervisory minister" in the Ministry of War.

It was clearly stated: "Capturing fugitives is the first priority of the Qing Dynasty."

Local officials also regard arresting fugitives as an important assessment criterion.

If it weren't for Magistrate Ye's fault, he would have been promoted long ago based on his hard work in catching the fugitives.

The characteristics of the "fugitive law" are to punish the fugitive lightly and punish the owner of the nest severely.

Because these fugitives were the property of the slaves, if they were caught, they would be returned to their original owners and continue to be enslaved.

Anyone who takes in a fugitive will be killed immediately, and even his neighbors, the "Ten Heads of Family", the "Hundred Heads of Family", and even the local magistrate will all be imprisoned if they are not discovered in time.

During the Shunzhi period, the Ministry of Punishment wrote: "We have committed repeated offenses in the Autumn Judgment over the past years, and half of them have escaped..."

Those implicated by the fugitive law are not just the relatives and friends who took them in.

Anyone who gave them a meal, even a steamed bun, or stayed overnight in any place they passed by would be punished.

As a result, the implicated people looked at each other on the road, and often dozens of families were arrested to capture a fugitive.

Giving evil laws to officials who harm the people is like giving steel knives to ruthless people. All the people in the world will become fish and meat!

It is precisely because of this that Mr. Ren, the Gourd King of Taihang Mountain, is known as the boss of the seventy-two cottages. He has been roaming the capital and harassing them wantonly for so many years.

The Qing court used troops many times, but could not remove this nail under its nose.

The main source of thieves in Taihang are the refugees who have been robbed of their land and their wives and daughters.

There are also fugitive bankers who don't want to implicate others and only want revenge.