Tian Tong Xiao Xiao Le (VII)
[Speaking of which, the crime of digging graves is equivalent to intentional homicide in the law. Even when there is a general amnesty, people who intentionally destroy other people's graves will not be pardoned. ]
[Then, what if the grave is dug up by your own family? ]
Xu Lang was confused.
However, many people who were familiar with the law had subconsciously recited: Those who are descendants of people, or because of poverty, or believe in the words of witches and sorcerers, dig up the graves of their ancestors, steal their property, and sell their graves, will be punished according to the severity
of the crime. In other words, even if you dig up your own family's grave, it is a "great evil" crime.
But the good news is that digging up one's own ancestral graves is a commutation of sentence under the amnesty. The sentence can be reduced from beheading to tattooing and then relocated to a distant place to cultivate the land.
The official sitting next to Su Tongzhi sincerely comforted him: "Do you want to eat well? His Majesty should not mind that you eat now as if no one is around."
- After all, it may be the last good meal. The food in the prison is not delicious.
Then Su Tongzhi seemed to be confused: "What to eat well?"
The official looked at him twice, touched his chin, and said firmly: "You have already thought about how to get out after being exposed." He was curious again: "What can you do?"
This matter can be criticized as unfilial - in the officialdom, once the label of unfilial is covered, it will be difficult to turn over.
Our Great Xia has its own national conditions, and we rule the world with filial piety!
"Why didn't my ancestors have such foresight?" The old emperor muttered in a low voice in the main seat.
He would never treat the corpse of his ancestors maliciously. He took the gold first, and then made a package for them when he became rich in the future!
Su Tongzhi smiled at the kind official, and whispered to the Jinyiwei standing next to him to bring paper and pen. When the things arrived, he buried his head on the table to write.
The kind official muttered in his heart: Hmm? Are you planning to surrender? This is indeed a way to deal with it, but it's not very subtle.
Then he looked over: "..."
His expression gradually changed from being stunned to wide-eyed to slightly opening his mouth.
There was a story written on the paper, and the protagonist was of course Su Tongzhi himself.
It describes in detail the war that year. In order to support his elderly mother, Su Tongzhi decided to bury his son to serve his mother. The ancestor was deeply moved by his filial piety and appeared in his dream in the middle of the night, telling this filial son to open his own tomb. Su Tongzhi opened the tomb and found that the ancestor's body had turned into a golden body. As a filial son, Su Tongzhi would of course not touch the ancestor's body. He buried it back immediately. So, that night, the ancestor came again, and expressed his satisfaction with Su Tongzhi in his dream, and at the same time scolded Su Tongzhi, saying that if he did not take the ancestor's golden body, did he want to starve his mother to death and bury his son alive? Su Tongzhi had no choice but to melt the ancestor's body with tears in his eyes - such a touching and moving story of filial piety.
Well-meaning official: "..."
Is it outrageous?
Outrageous.
Is it fake?
It's obviously fake.
But there are many stories of filial piety like this in Daxia. There are even more exaggerated ones than this one - for example, someone is filial to his parents but lacks money, and the gods come on clouds and reward the filial son with gold so that he can serve his parents well. Or for
example, someone's father drowned, and someone cried for three days by the river, feeling so grief-stricken that he jumped into the water and died. Then the Dragon King in the water was moved by his filial piety and sent him back to life.
There are stories about crying at a tomb when hearing thunder, crying to bamboo and bamboo shoots growing, lying on ice to seek carp, strangling a tiger to save his father... Anyway, as long as you dare to make up a story and successfully spread it, you will be famous for your filial piety and the court will also reward you.
——Loyal ministers and filial sons, loyalty and filial piety usually appear in a bundle. The court promotes and encourages filial piety, which is actually to encourage the people's loyalty to the court in order to consolidate its own rule.
In short, as long as Your Majesty does not insist on executing Su Tongzhi, after the story of burying a son to serve his mother comes out, Your Majesty will have a platform to reasonably not pursue the matter of insulting the corpse of his ancestors.
The kind-hearted official was stunned for a while, and sincerely said: "Your Excellency is really a filial son and a wise grandson."
Su Tongzhi continued to write quickly, writing the story of Su Da's filial son vividly, waiting to publicize it to the world after leaving.
——By the way, secretly move the ancestral tomb to prevent other tomb robbers from breaking in.
＊
Brother Jinji didn’t know that he had failed to get close to Su Tongzhi.
He started to get close to the second one: “Besides that, I had so much grain stored up, so I had to find a way to sell it. Su Tongzhi issued a pass for my grain-selling team, which made it very convenient. At that time, all the prefects in Shaanxi Province participated!”
“There was Xuan Xuan, the prefect of Qingzhou!”
[Fake, he didn’t do it.]
Jinyiwei wrote it down and circled the name.
“There was Gao Jujing, the prefect of Pingliang.”
[Fake, he didn’t do it either. ] Jinyiwei wrote
it down and circled the name.
“And there was Song Zhao, the prefect of Fengxiang.”
[This one! This one is real! 】
The Jinyi Guard quickly wrote it down and happily put a red tick behind his own achievement head.
"And there is the Supervisory Clerk Wu Zhenshu."
【Really! This is true too! 】
The Supervisory Clerk was before Brother Jinji retired. Now Wu Zhenshu, who has been appointed as Jingzhao Yin and the Prince's guest, felt like he was struck by lightning.
Facing the strange looks of his colleagues, he turned his brain frantically, trying to excuse himself.
'It's just tacitly allowing the other party to occupy public land. It's not a big problem. If you manage it well, it's at most dereliction of duty...'
【Tsk, what a scumbag. He quarreled with his wife and kicked his eight-month pregnant wife to miscarry. This kind of scumbag deserves to die. 】
【Fortunately, although he is half alive and half dead, he is lucky and is fine. 】
The looks from his colleagues became even more strange.
Wu Zhenshu folded his arms, his expression calm.
——Isn't it just beating his wife? Officials don't care about personal ethics. At most, he will be used as bargaining chips for three to five months.
It's a pity. I heard from the doctor that it seems to be a boy.
【However, the old emperor actually let him be the prince's guest? Let him teach the prince etiquette and correct the prince's mistakes? Teach what? Teach the prince to kick the princess to cause miscarriage? 】
Wu Zhenshu's face suddenly became gloomy.
He subconsciously looked at the old emperor, and indeed saw His Majesty frowning at him, as if he was sizing him up and thinking about something.
In fact, the old emperor was just thinking: How could the prince's thing affect etiquette? Does he have etiquette?
But Wu Zhenshu didn't know, he just felt a little nervous.
Could it be... Don't!
The old emperor glanced at him, too lazy to waste time, and interrupted Brother Jinji: "Wu Zhenshu? Are you telling the truth?"
Brother Jinji's eyes lit up, and he said directly: "Your Majesty! Everything I said is the truth!"
The old emperor snorted, but did not expose him, just took this opportunity to cut the Gordian knot: "Pass the order - remove Wu Zhenshu from the position of Jingzhao Yin and the prince's guest!"
Wu Zhenshu: "Your Majesty!!!" As he shouted reflexively, the three layers of traces of time on his stomach trembled three times.
However, this man who was once a man of great power, after meeting the old emperor's calm gaze, did not dare to say the next words, and knelt down tremblingly, with his knees cracking.
"And then."
The old emperor's dark pupils still reflected the festive red door of the prime minister's residence hall, and the iron lock on the door was shining coldly.
"Because he protected the gentry from embezzling public land during his tenure, he should be executed! Executed at the gate!"
Prime Minister Dou: "?!"
Wait -
that's my door -
[Eh? Gate, did you miss the word Wumen? ]
Xu Yanmiao was at a loss, and Liang Rui next to him was quick to cover his ears.
Xu Lang: "Eh?"
The paralyzed Wu Zhenshu was dragged out by the Jinyiwei, and the two stone lions next to the prime minister's residence opened their mouths to the sky, and the blood spurted from the human neck and splashed into the lions' mouths.
But the Jinyiwei were not professional executioners, so there would always be some mistakes when they cut. So...
"Ah——"
Wu Zhenshu's screams made people's hearts shudder, and goose bumps spread from the neck to the roots of the ears.
Liang Youwen estimated that the man was chopped twice before he died, and looked at his biological father with resentment: Dad! You are really my biological father. You don't care about your own son, but you care about other people's sons!
——He didn't react to this and didn't even have time to cover his ears.
Liang Rui withdrew his hand calmly, glanced at his son's eyes, and frowned, saying: "You are over 30 years old, and you have a lot of experience, but you don't know what screams are. You don't know how to cover people's ears."
Liang Youwen's eyes drifted, and he lowered his head silently.
When Xu Yanmiao was quietly thanking Liang Rui, the gate was reopened, and the Jinyi Guards came in with bright moonlight, illuminating the bloody footprints behind them.
"Your Majesty, the criminal has been executed."
The old emperor nodded, and when he turned to look at Brother Jinji, he found that the other's face had changed and turned a little pale.
I can't help but have a bad taste:
What is this person thinking? Did he think that I didn't move the previous few people, but only this one was pushed out and beheaded, and guessed that I had already found out who the real shelterer was, and just sat there and watched him jump?
Or did he think that I knew nothing, but chose to shelter Su Zhen, who was also a Beijing official, so he killed him to silence him for Su Zhen's sake?
He pinched the blade of the skinning knife with two fingers and flicked it with a "clang". Amid the sound of the knife, he smiled at Brother Jinji: "Anything else?"
Brother Jinji took a breath and didn't speak for a long time.
However, the officials in Beijing didn't feel that they could take a breath. They secretly glanced at Xu Yanmiao out of the corner of their eyes, pitifully and skillfully, fearing that the other party would suddenly say: Yes, yes! I know!
*
In a place where no one was paying attention, Diwu Ang knelt firmly in the same place, but silently reduced his presence.
He didn't ask for a reversal now, but only hoped that the situation would not develop more seriously.
Then he received a test from Xu Jingxing, the retired magistrate of Changshu County, who was also a retired official: "Fifth Scholar, you have been an official for many years, I believe you must have a lot of leverage over people, right?"
Diwu Ang had a deadpan expression: "What do you want to do?"
Xu Jingxing was about to speak, but was interrupted by Diwu Ang: "No matter what you want to do, don't drag me into it."
Xu Jingxing didn't get upset. He straightened his clothes and said very appropriately: "Fifth Scholar, are you willing to die like this? It doesn't matter if you die, and it doesn't matter if your nine clans are buried with you, but your son hasn't enjoyed enough, has he?"
Diwu Ang's face changed visibly.
Xu Jingxing: "I heard that your son eats wild duck rice shipped from Yangzhou, and that he always chooses ribs for meat, stews oxtail for beef, and gets angry if he has any hair on pig's feet. He is so particular about food, I guess he doesn't want to leave this wonderful world?"