Chapter 172: Numerous Crimes
Sun Rulan fell to the ground.
He felt as if all his internal organs had shifted, and the pain made his whole body twisted.
His face turned purple.
He squinted his eyes and glared at Meng Chifei fiercely.
But in the end he still didn't dare to reveal Meng Chifei's identity.
Because he knew that if he exposed the truth at this moment, the Meng family would lose face.
The Meng family may not even care about the last bit of affection and settle all the new and old grudges together.
Two yamen runners dragged Sun Rulan back to the government office.
The old man and his family also walked into the government office trembling with fear and handed in the petition.
The old man wants to sue more than just Sun Rulan.
The old man and his family were originally from Ping County.
Thanks to the daughter-in-law's embroidery skills, the family's life is getting better and better.
He bought dozens of acres of land here and there and became a small landlord in the local area.
Later, an official retired and returned to his hometown to hoard land and buy a farm.
It happened to be next to several plots of land belonging to his family.
The official originally wanted to buy his family's land and connect all the land into one.
The price was originally agreed upon.
But the other party suddenly changed his mind.
Not long after, the government sent people to remeasure the land.
His family's twenty acres of land became twenty-eight acres.
Several farmers in the surrounding area had the same experience.
After some inquiries, they found out that it was the returning official who stole their land.
It is equivalent to,
These small landlords had increased the area of the same piece of land, and their grain tax also increased accordingly.
The land of the returning official became smaller and the taxes he paid also became less.
It is equivalent to you, an ordinary farmer, paying taxes for the powerful officials who have returned to their hometowns.
Naturally, they were unwilling to do so, so they united and went to the government office to file a complaint.
Sun Rulan, who was the county magistrate at the time, not only failed to handle the case impartially, but colluded with the returning official.
Not only did they not receive justice, but the case was hastily closed on the grounds that they had made false accusations.
After the case was closed, they knew they were no match for the powerful and wanted to swallow their loss.
The returning official took the opportunity to accuse them of slandering court officials.
Several people who filed a complaint with his eldest son were all sentenced to fifty strokes of the cane.
His eldest son's spine was broken alive. After returning home, he could not bear the physical torture and the consequence of becoming a disabled person, so he committed suicide by cutting his wrists.
As for the others, after being tortured, they either did not receive timely medical treatment and died of serious illness, or chose to commit suicide.
Other families either accepted the loss or sold their land to the returning official at a low price and moved away.
The old man had an embroidery skill, so he sold the land to the official at a low price of two taels of silver.
However, the official saw that his family's children were pretty.
He raped his daughter-in-law at his home and then left.
The daughter-in-law could not bear the humiliation and committed suicide by jumping into a well.
His youngest son was furious and went to seek revenge, but was sent back by the official's servants with only one breath left.
His youngest son passed away without even saying a final word.
After this incident, although they resented the injustice of the world, they did not dare to seek revenge again.
So he took his family and moved to another place.
Even so,
Their every move was also under the surveillance of this official.
More than three years passed before the other party relaxed their vigilance.
They then found an opportunity and brought their families to file a complaint with the emperor.
The old man told the story in tears.
The old man's family members were already crying and hugging each other.
The people outside the yamen also sighed when they heard it.
Some sensitive people were already crying uncontrollably.
Sun Rulan turned pale with fright.
But he also knew that he couldn't admit it.
This incident happened several years ago, and apart from these people, other evidence is probably gone.
As long as you deny it, they will have no evidence.
Thinking of this, Sun Rulan also cried out for justice.
And he refuted the old man's arguments one by one.
In his rebuttal, the old man became a unscrupulous scoundrel.
Relying on the fact that his paddy fields were located between the fields of the returning officials, he asked for an exorbitant amount of money and tried to blackmail the officials.
The officials were naturally unwilling to do so. When one plan failed, they would come up with another.
He took the initiative to send his youngest daughter-in-law to the official's bed, and then caught him in public, in order to control the official who returned home.
Fortunately, Sun Rulan was very perceptive and cleared the official's name.
The old man was anxious and angry. He pointed at Sun Rulan and was so angry that he couldn't speak for a long time.
The onlookers, seeing that the old man could not utter a word in rebuttal, thought that he was guilty.
"Old man, why don't you speak?"
"Are you going to refute it?"
"You don't say anything, are you feeling guilty?"
At this moment, the sound of drums was heard outside the government office again.
Following the sound, I saw an old woman beating a drum to express her grievances.
The bailiff immediately stepped forward and asked what injustice she had suffered.
The old woman knelt on the ground with a plop, kowtowed three times to the bailiff, and tremblingly took out a complaint.
"The old woman wants to sue Sun Rulan, the tea company owner of Zhuzhou, for seizing her tea garden..."
"Wow! Why is it Sun Rulan again!" someone said exaggeratedly.
"If only one person sued him, it could be said that he was wronged. But now there are two people? Is it someone else's fault?"
The people's discussion has not yet ended,
Another man dressed as a scholar burst out of the crowd and knelt at the gate of the government office. "I'm suing Sun Rulan, a student from Chong County, Huzhou, for excluding dissidents from the imperial examinations and drugging a classmate, causing him to fail the exam and eventually die from the poison!"
This person claimed to be the younger brother of that classmate.
Later he mentioned that the Sun family was a prominent family in Chong County and also had some connections in Huzhou.
His elder brother was among the top students in the academy, and even the academic officials in Huzhou said that his elder brother would definitely be the top scorer in that session.
Just one day before the exam, Sun Rulan gave this man's brother a sachet to wake him up.
The spices in the sachets were made from a variety of pollen, and his elder brother had pollenosis.
Because the sachet was hung in the examination room, his elder brother smelled it for a long time and soon developed ringworm.
His elder brother insisted on taking the exam, which caused his ringworm to become more and more serious. By the time the invigilator discovered it, it was too late and he eventually died in the examination room.
They naturally reported the incident to the authorities afterwards.
Sun Rulan insisted that he was not aware of the deceased's ringworm.
He sent the sachet simply to wish his deceased classmate and friend good luck in the exams...
In short, this case ended in a confusing way.
But the feud between the two families was established.
Because the two families are equally powerful, they have not sued each other for so many years.
This person was also accidentally identified because of the name Sun Rulan, but unexpectedly it was the same person.
He stood up without hesitation.
He knew that after nearly ten years, the possibility of overturning his elder brother's verdict was very slim.
However, as long as he could make Sun Rulan upset, he would be happy and willing to add fuel to the fire.
When Sun Rulan saw the person coming, his pupils shrank sharply.
In addition, two more people came to sue Sun Rulan.
There are charges of wrongful convictions and collusion between officials and businessmen.
If one or two people report him, it might be a frame-up.
But with so many people accusing him and claiming he was innocent, Sun Rulan himself didn't believe it.
This case involves human lives and officials.
It was no longer within the jurisdiction of the Jingzhao Prefecture government, so he immediately transferred the case to the Dali Temple.
Note: Hay fever = pollen allergy
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