During the Xianfeng period in the late Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement swept across most of China. At the most critical moment, the Qing court even occupied Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces with heavy taxes. In order to suppress the Taiping Rebellion, under the condition that the Eight Banners green camp could not be reused, the Qing court could only be forced to use Han Chinese officials and give them many rights such as human rights, military power and financial security, so that they could put down the rebellion for themselves. In this environment, the Xiang-Huai system, headed by Zuo and Li Hongzhang, sprang up suddenly, and gradually became the most powerful force in the late Qing Dynasty by the east wind of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement.
By the time the case of "Yang Naiwu and Chinese Cabbage" was committed in 1873, the Xiang-Huai school had occupied half of the imperial court in the late Qing Dynasty. Governor Li Hongzhang of Zhili, Governor Zuo of Liangjiang, Governor Li Zongxi of Huguang, Governor Liu Yuezhao of Yungui, Governor Liu Kunyi of Guangxi, Governor Sun of Fujian, Governor Liu of Jiangsu and Governor Liu of Jiangxi at that time.
Think about it. Of the eight governors in the Qing Dynasty (not including the governors of the three northeastern provinces established in Guangxu's thirty years), the Hunan-Huaihe department occupied five seats, and the two rivers and Zhili occupied were the most important places in the Qing Dynasty. The two rivers are the tax areas of the Qing court, and Zhili is the political center of the Qing court. What a great power! Especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, nearly two-thirds of them were occupied by the Hunan-Huaihe system, which can be said to be the days in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
The "Yang Naiwu Cabbage Case" happened in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and was controlled by officials of Hunan and Huaihe departments.
In the early morning of October 12th, the 12th year of Tongzhi (1873), Liu Xitong, the magistrate of Yuhang County, suddenly received a statement from his attendants, asking for an autopsy on Ge Pinlian's biological mother Shen, who worked as a helper in a tofu shop, so he immediately went to court to ask. After some questioning, Liu Xitong got a general understanding of the whole incident from Ge Pinlian's relatives. It turned out that Ge Pinlian, a helper in a tofu shop, suddenly felt unwell on the way to work and vomited several times in a row, so she asked for leave to go home. After returning home, his wife Cai Xiao (named Bi Xiugu, because she likes to wear green clothes and white trousers, she is called Cai Xiao) helped her to bed to rest. Not long after the rest, Ge Pinlian's condition deteriorated, not only vomiting repeatedly, but also shouting chills.
Chinese cabbage saw this and asked him how to drop it. Ge Pinlian said that filariasis (wind-heat cold) may recur, and tonic can cure it, and asked Chinese cabbage to get some longan and Japanese ginseng for decoction. Chinese cabbage did as he said, went to the drugstore to buy these tonics and fried them for him. However, Gepin's condition did not improve after taking it, but worsened, foaming at the mouth. Since then, his father has invited a doctor to treat him, but it has not achieved any effect. In this way, in the afternoon of October 10th, GePin even died.
Originally, his relatives had no other thoughts about Ge Pinlian's death, and all thought that he died of illness. But on the night after his death, his nose and mouth suddenly shed blood (it is normal to have a nosebleed when he is angry, it is normal for his mouth to communicate with his nasal cavity, and it is normal for a nosebleed to flow back to his mouth). After seeing it, his mother Shen suspected that Ge Pinlian died of poisoning, so she discussed with all her relatives and friends and asked the government to come to an autopsy to find out whether Ge Pinlian died of poisoning. If you are not poisoned, you will go to the funeral. If you are poisoned, you will ask the government to pursue it to the end and return Ge Pinlian's innocence.
Therefore, this is the early morning of 10 12, when Ge Pinlian's mother Shen asked Liu Xitong, the county magistrate of Yuhang County, to conduct an autopsy.
After receiving the submission, Liu Xitong, the magistrate of Yuhang County, was concerned with his life and dared not neglect it. So I quickly prepared to take the village chief and Shen Xiang to the scene for inspection. Just as he was about to leave, the local squire Chen Zhushan happened to visit and treat Liu Xitong. Chen Zhushan heard that Liu Xitong was going to visit Gepinlian's house. Because he has been at odds with Yang Naiwu, he immediately spread rumors about the love affair between Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage among his neighbors, and told Liu Xitong that Ge Pinlian didn't die of illness. Neighbors said that Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage conspired to poison him.
Later, in the process of getting along, he and his wife Zhan gradually fell in love with smart Chinese cabbage. Because Ge Pinlian often rests in the tofu mill and doesn't live at home, Zhan often asks Chinese cabbage to sit at the same table with his wife. Because Chinese cabbage is very interested in reading, Yang Naiwu often teaches her to read and recite poems like a teacher. At first, when Zhan was still alive, the relationship between Chinese cabbage and Chinese cabbage was not criticized. However, with the death of Zhan's family due to dystocia, while Chinese cabbage is still eating at the same table in doubt, their relationship is gradually criticized. Since then, the rumor that "the sheep (Yang Naiwu) ate the cabbage (Bi Xiugu)" has spread among the neighbors.
Upon hearing this, Liu Xitong immediately sent someone to inquire, and it was rumored that Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage were plotting to poison Ge Pinlian because of adultery. Liu Xitong has a personal grudge against Yang Naiwu, while Yang Naiwu is honest and frank. On weekdays, when he sees local officials bullying the people, he is always the first to stand up for the people. With the former scholar status and the present juren status, they often have disputes with the county government, or make the official's illegal things into songs and make them public. Because of his fame, Liu Xitong used to hate him, but he was helpless. At this point, seeing that Yang Naiwu may be involved in the poisoning of Ge Pinlian, can Liu Xitong miss this opportunity to justify personal vendetta?
After that, Liu Xitong led courtiers, Shen Xiang and Shen Caiquan to Ge Jia mortuary for investigation. After Shen Xiang arrived at the scene, he began an autopsy. He found that Ge Pinlian's body was light blue, with faint blood flowing from his nose and mouth, and there were more than a dozen big bubbles on his body. This kind of situation is recorded in Revenge for Revenge (an autopsy monograph compiled by Song Ci, a forensic scientist in the Southern Song Dynasty). Taking arsenic is characterized by black and blue roots, bleeding from seven orifices and blood all over. However, when Shen Xiang pricked the throat of the corpse with a silver needle, the silver needle was bluish black and could not be wiped off. It was suspected that this phenomenon was arsenic poisoning (afterwards, it was learned that the silver needle used by Shen Xiang for drug testing was not scrubbed with saponin water for many times, which led to the detection error).
At the time of autopsy, Shen Xiang made a mistake in operation, which led to inaccurate test data. If he is in charge of the autopsy, he should have a rigorous test to prevent the wrong person again. However, Shen Xiang was not a responsible autopsy. He still irresponsibly filled in the conclusion of "taking poison" in the autopsy report, knowing that the test was wrong.
Therefore, Ge Pinlian's death is a historical truth. However, under the deliberate actions of Liu Xitong, the Yuhang county magistrate who had an old enemy with Yang Naiwu, and the inaction of the coroner, the case of "Yang Naiwu conspiring with Chinese cabbage to poison Ge Pinlian for adultery" was born, which caused a sensation throughout the country.
After that, Liu Xitong first brought Chinese cabbage back to the county government for interrogation and forced her to confess by torture. According to Shanghai Shen Bao, Chinese cabbage was not only slapped, but also tortured by "burning red wire to stab the chest and throwing water on the back of Xilong". Even men can't stand such torture, not to mention being as fragile as Chinese cabbage. However, soon, Chinese cabbage endured punishment and was forced to admit that she and Yang Naiwu had been falsely accused of poisoning her husband, Ge Pinlian, for adultery.
Liu Xitong summoned Yang Naiwu immediately after getting the confession of Chinese cabbage. Because Yang Naiwu was a new juren, he could not be punished according to the Qing system, so Liu Xitong reported his identity to the Hangzhou magistrate with the confession of Chinese cabbage. After receiving Liu Xitong's report, Chen Lu, the Hangzhou magistrate, forwarded it to Yang Changzuo, the governor of Zhejiang Province, who played in the court. After receiving the report, Tongzhi did not doubt him, so he gave a royal approval to Yang Changzhuo's topic. "The Ministry knows all about it", so Yang Naiwu gained fame and fortune.
Originally, Liu Xitong should wait until the approval of the superior, before he can punish Yang Naiwu. However, Liu Xitong seemed convinced that Yang Naiwu's reputation as a juror would be deprived, so he tortured Yang Naiwu in the second trial, but under torture, Yang Naiwu insisted that he had no affair with Chinese cabbage.
Of course, because Chinese cabbage has admitted that it is related to this matter, without Yang Naiwu's admission, Liu Xitong still put the charge of plotting to kill Ge Pinlian on Yang Naiwu's head and reported the case to his boss, the Hangzhou magistrate, for review. Hangzhou magistrate was born in Xiang army. He has always disliked scholars. After receiving Liu Xitong's report, he decided that Yang Naiwu was a hypocritical person who didn't keep his duty because of prejudice.
Just as Chen Lu was preparing for a retrial, the court's reply to deprive Yang Naiwu of his jury status arrived at the same time, so Chen Lu immediately tortured Yang Naiwu: kneeling on the nail board, kneeling on the firebrick, holding a stick and hanging the balance frame ... After several inhuman tortures, Yang Naiwu couldn't bear it any longer and could only be forced to admit the false accusation that he and Chinese cabbage conspired to poison Ge Pinlian because of adultery.
Chen Lu, the Hangzhou magistrate, got this confession and thought that the case had come to the bottom. So in the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873), on the sixth day of November, Chen Lu was sentenced to death for raping and killing her husband, and Yang Naiwu was sentenced to death for abetting murder, and reported it to Zhejiang provincial judges Kuai and Sun.
After receiving the case, the company secretary Kuai and Sun felt suspicious at the beginning. As a juren, he realized that Yang Naiwu, with a bright future, could not ruin her future for a peasant woman. So Kuai and Sun questioned Yang Naiwu and Cai Xiao twice again, but at this time, after many times of torture, they were already disheartened. They were afraid that if they didn't admit it, Kuai and Sun would be tortured again, so they all admitted Liu Xitong's false accusation against them.
But even so, Kuai and Sun were not at ease. They called Liu Xitong in the first trial and Chen Lu in the second trial to ask if there was any abnormality after the trial. Imagine, will these two people admit that they are wrong? They all vowed that the case was irrefutable and there was no injustice. When Kuai and Sun saw this, they had no doubt about the case, but lamented that Yang Naiwu really shouldn't dress up, so they reported the case to Yang Changzuo, the governor of Zhejiang.
Yang Changzhuo, governor of Zhejiang Province, was cautious after receiving the case. In order to avoid mistakes, after all, life is a matter of life. If he reports it again, it is basically difficult to reverse the case. Only when the official document of punishments comes, Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage have a chance to survive. So, Yang Changzuo appointed Zheng Xiyuan, the alternate magistrate of a county, to go to Yuhang County anonymously to investigate and see if the case is as irrefutable as Liu Xitong said. It's just a pity that the cautious Yang Changzhuo used the wrong person. As soon as Zheng Xiyuan arrived in Yuhang, he went straight to Liu Xitong, explained the purpose of his visit, and accepted Liu Xitong's heavy bribe.
In this way, Zheng Xiyuan did nothing in Yuhang. After drinking for a few days, I returned to Hangzhou to reply to Governor Yang Changzhuo, saying that the case was indeed an "innocent killing". Yang Mengchang believed it after learning that the case was correct, so he completed the closing report and thought that the evidence of Yang Bi's case was conclusive, maintaining the original judgment of the county, government and company and reporting it to the court. At this point, the case seems to have been settled. As long as the palindrome of punishments arrives, Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage will die.
However, it will never end with Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage. Just as the case was waiting for the penalty approval, Yang Naiwu, who was once disheartened, revived the hope of life under the hard persuasion of Yang Naiwu's sister Yang Juzhen. He wrote all the truth about his confession by torture, and then asked Yang Juzhen to give it to his wife Zhan Caifeng, who complained in various yamen in Hangzhou, but the case was reported to the punishments by Yang Changzhuo, the governor of Zhejiang Province. If the conviction is reversed, it is tantamount to saying Yang Changzhuo.
Seeing that no official in Hangzhou dared to answer the complaint, Yang Juzheng was determined to go to Beijing to sue the imperial edict. However, because there is no one in Beijing, after all, no one will offend a provincial government official for a convicted Yang Naiwu for no reason. Therefore, it is conceivable that the end of the first complaint against the imperial edict naturally ended in failure.
Just after the first time he sued the imperial court for failure, Wu Yitong, who was promoted by Yang Naiwu, heard about it and decided to help him clean up his grievances. Wu Yitong is just a juren, but his identity is unusual. He was a close friend of Hu Xueyan, a merchant of Red Top at that time. Needless to say, Hu Xueyan is an artist who is resigned to his fate and has close ties with senior officials such as Zuo and Li Hongzhang. As a result, with the help of Hu Xueyan, Yang Juzhen went to Beijing on 1874 and got in touch with Xia Tongshan, assistant minister of punishments in Beijing. Under his guidance, Yang Ju is visiting more than 30 current officials in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in Beijing, and appealing to the government, the Ministry of Punishment, the Duchayuan and other departments in charge of Bujun.
Among more than 30 officials in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, Weng Tonghe, who is the right assistant minister of the Ministry of History and Justice, holds the highest position. It was under the operation of Weng Tonghe that this case finally got the attention of the two supreme rulers of the Qing Dynasty, the Empress Dowager.
At that time, after receiving the report about this case, Cixi also realized that this might be a good opportunity to crack down on the Hunan-Huaihe system, whose power was vaguely uncontrollable. She hoped to use this case to enhance the status of officials of the lower Jiangsu-Zhejiang system and let them suppress the arrogance of the lower Hunan-Huaihe system, so as to maintain the balance of various forces in the ruling and opposition parties.
In this way, Empress Dowager Cixi issued an edict, demanding that the punishments order Yang Changzhuo, the governor of Zhejiang Province, to reiterate the case to the relevant yamen in order to get the truth. After receiving the imperial edict, Yang Changzhuo assigned the case to Siguang, the Huzhou magistrate, and tried it together with Gong Jiajun, the Shaoxing magistrate, Xu Jiade, the Fuyang magistrate and Chen Baoshan, the Huangyan magistrate. Therefore, the case has attracted the attention of the government and the public. Neither of them dared to use torture in this case, so Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage overturned the original guilty confession.
However, just when his conviction was reversed, Tongzhi died suddenly. At this time, the Qing court was too busy with the funeral of the first emperor and the accession of the new emperor to take care of the case, so the case could not be closed after repeated delays.
After Guangxu acceded to the throne, the Ministry of Punishments played on Wang Shurui that Yang Changzuo and others "retrial the serious case, which means partial case", and the case was once again brought back to the eyes of the world. Subsequently, Cixi granted Wang Shurui the throne, and ordered Hu Ruilan, assistant minister of Zhejiang Xuezheng Ritual Department, to review the Yang Naiwu case nearby. Hu Ruilan, who has never been a local official, knows nothing about criminal law. In addition, his left and right officials were all bought by Liu Xitong. Encouraged by them, Hu Ruilan tortured Chinese cabbage from the beginning.
Chinese cabbage because can't stand such torture, once again admitted the false accusation of conspiring with Yang Naiwu to kill her husband. Later, Yang Naiwu couldn't stand the torture and admitted the false accusation. Later, Hu Ruilan thought that "after repeated investigations, the confession was consistent, and there was no abuse of torture to extract confessions", so he closed the case on the third day of October in the first year of Guangxu (1875) and said to the emperors of the two palaces and the empress dowager that "this case is innocent and it is planned to be convicted according to the original trial".
However, when Hu Ruilan upheld the original judgment and handed it in, the ruling and opposition parties were in an uproar. In Zhejiang, some local juren, students and friends, such as Wu Yitong, Wu Yukun, and more than 30 people first jointly filed a complaint with Duchayuan and the Ministry of Punishment, revealing that the trial and judgment of the county, government, department, governor and Qin Xian were all extorted by torture, which is not the truth, and implored the court to thoroughly investigate and publicize the case to the world, so as to dispel doubts.
Subsequently, 18 Zhejiang Beijing officials also signed a letter to Douchayuan, emphasizing many doubts in the investigation of this case and unanimously demanding that the case be directly tried by the Ministry of Punishment. Emperors Weng Tonghe, Xia Tongshan and Zhang Jiaxiang of Jiangsu and Zhejiang schools have talked about this case many times in front of the Empress Dowager, stressing that "this case is not rehabilitated, and no one in Zhejiang is willing to make progress". Only a thorough trial in Beijing can clarify the truth.
So, with the efforts of scholars and officials of Jiangsu and Zhejiang factions, Empress Dowager Cixi issued the order of "severely punishing the Yang Naiwu case". In the process of repeated deliberation, officials of the Ministry of Punishment found that Liu Xitong, the magistrate of Yuhang County, had doubts about the inquest conclusion of Ge Pinlian's poisoned body, so he requested and obtained permission, and then transported Ge Pinlian's coffin back to Beijing to re-examine Ge Pinlian's death. In the second year of Guangxu (1876), on December 9th, Sang Chunrong, the minister of punishments, led six court officials, six department officials, more than 40 coroners and all prisoners to witness the public opening of coffins at Haihui Temple in Beijing. The result of this autopsy is, alas, "Ge Pinlian is really nontoxic and died of illness".
Since then, the case of "Yang Naiwu and Chinese Cabbage" has been exposed.
In the third year of Guangxu (1877), on February 16, Empress Dowager Cixi issued a letter of rehabilitation in the name of Emperor Guangxu: "Yang Naiwu and Ge Bi, the principal offenders in this case, were acquitted. However, because Gebi and Yang Naiwu * * * sit at the same table to eat, chant Buddhist scripture and read poems, they don't behave like women and invite them to discuss the matter, and their staff is eighty; Although they didn't commit adultery with Ge, they ate the scriptures together, but they didn't know how to avoid suspicion. One hundred employees, their leather status has not recovered. " Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage almost died.
In addition, officials responsible for this unjust case include Liu Xitong, Hangzhou magistrate Chen Lu, Ningbo magistrate Bian Baocheng, Jiaxing magistrate Luo Zisen, alternate magistrate Gu Deheng, Gong Shitong, Zheng Xiyuan, Zhejiang Governor Yang Changzhuo and assistant minister Hu Ruilan. The Qing court also made a judgment: the culprit was Liu Xitong, the magistrate of Yuhang, and the imperial edict believed that he was "due to mistakes". According to the plan, he was sent to Heilongjiang for atonement and was not allowed to be redeemed. He was exiled to Heilongjiang. Chen Lu, the magistrate of Hangzhou, Bian Baocheng, the magistrate of Ningbo, Luo Zisen, Gu Deheng, Gong Shitong, Zheng Xiyuan, the governor of Zhejiang, and Hu Ruilan, assistant minister of does, were all dismissed for investigation. In this case, most of the officials who were dismissed for investigation were from the Hunan-Huai department, which can be said to have dealt a considerable blow to the Hunan-Huai department.
The "Yang Naiwu Cabbage Case" was able to disturb Cixi and won the support of Cixi, entirely because of the struggle between the Jiangsu and Zhejiang factions and the Hunan and Huai factions. In addition, Cixi had the idea of cracking down on the Hunan-Huai clique and balancing the forces of all parties in the imperial court, so Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage had the opportunity to reverse their conviction. To put it bluntly, Yang Naiwu and Chinese cabbage were the beneficiaries of the secret game of various forces in the late Qing Dynasty.
Yang Naiwu almost died after he got out of prison. However, when he was released, he was still accused of "eating at the same table as Xiugu, not avoiding suspicion, which is the shame of literati. So he was beaten with a hundred sticks and never recovered, so it is difficult for him to enter the official career in this life. Fortunately, the Yang family managed sericulture from generation to generation, and with the help of Hu Xueyan, he simply concentrated on sericulture in his hometown after breaking his official career. After several years of research, Yang Naiwu has cultivated a silkworm egg with high hatching rate, strong disease resistance, thick cocoon layer, bright color and other advantages (Yang Naiwu named this silkworm egg "Fengshen Peony Yang Naiwu"), which has been widely welcomed by silkworm farmers and has been well-fed since then.
After he was released from prison, Chinese cabbage narrowly escaped death, but he was also found guilty of "eating at the same table with Yang Naiwu, reciting and writing, and not keeping women's morals" and was beaten 80 times with a stick. After returning to Yuhang County, because of helplessness, she vowed not to marry, so she joined Zhunti Temple and became an apprentice with an old nun who presided over Ciyun. Her legal name was "Bao Hui". She spent more than 50 years alone in Zhunti Temple and died in the Republic of China 19 (1930) at the age of 76. She left her last words: "Yang Er suffered great injustice, was hit hard, and was disabled for life. At this time, this matter will never be forgotten. It's all my fault. It's all my fault. Sir Zhong's kindness cannot be repaid in this life, only in the afterlife. There is no affair between Sir Zhong and me. This is pure innocence. If future generations have doubts, they can use this article to testify. "