In the third year of Yuan Mei, Yuan Mei won the title of "Zhongju", and the following year, Jishi Shu was elected as a scholar. Three years later, he failed the Manchu exam and was sent to Jiangnan by the Qing court as a magistrate, and successively served as a county magistrate in Lishui, Jiangpu, Shuyang and Jiangning. Six years later, because there was no hope of promotion and he didn't want to "be a slave to a big official", he asked to resign and settle in Jiangning.
Although Yuan Mei has not been a county magistrate for a long time, he can be honest, enforce the law impartially and serve the people wholeheartedly. Grandpa Yuan Mei's research on the name of fine punishment was once valued. Affected by this, Yuan Mei was particularly good at solving crimes when he was in charge of four counties. "Sitting in the court all day, let the officers and people do nothing. There are small courts that set judgments, and there are no cases left, so there is good governance everywhere. "
According to Jiang Dunfu, a famous poet in Qing Dynasty, when Yuan Mei was transferred from Shuyang to Jiangning County, the villagers in Shuyang sent him all the way to the river. Some people dressed him in a "10,000-person costume" with the villagers' names printed on it, while others "squatted on the road and climbed the iron railing" and refused to let him go. This made Yuan Mei very moved. He asked the villagers, "What should I do to make my father reluctant?" The villagers said, "Don't mention anything else. It's just a matter of the scale of the lawsuit. You didn't postpone the verdict until ten days later; You have been in Shuyang for two years, and few people are affected by the lawsuit. We will leave you here. "
Yuan Mei is studious and good at judging cases. He was called "Sherlock Holmes" in the Qing Dynasty. His cases are scattered in some works in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. In addition to the anecdotes with the garden, there are records in Jiao Xuan Continued Record, Pale Ink Record and Yuzhu Continued Record. The case of "trying to escape" is taken from Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio in Prison Break.
Strange murder case
This is the first major case that Yuan Mei took over after he was appointed as the county magistrate of Jiangning County.
There is a tailor in Jiangning, surnamed Zhang, who is very skilled and is often invited by customers to work. The tailor's wife died very early, and there was only one woman named Yu Lian. Yu Lian is as beautiful as a flower. She is not only beautiful, but also keeps her promise to her good friends. Whenever the tailor goes out to work, she closes the door, embroiders upstairs and never goes out.
On this day, the tailor came back late and made clothes at the customer's house. Seeing that his door was wide open, he called his daughter many times, but no one answered. The tailor felt uneasy and hurried upstairs. She saw her daughter's hands tied to the stool by foot cloth, her pants faded to her feet, her lower body was bare, and there were deep pinch marks on her neck. She's not breathing. She was obviously raped and killed. Look at the ground, half a tongue, blood-stained, there is no doubt that it was spit out after being bitten. The tailor was very sad and reported it to the county government in tears.
At that time, the county magistrate surveyed the scene, examined the body and brought back the broken tongue. After returning to my office, he decided that the murderer was an inarticulate person and immediately ordered his captors to search the city. Soon, the captors caught the man with his tongue broken under the incense table of a temple. The man's mouth was bleeding and he could not speak. When the judge saw the witness's physical evidence, he declared the man dead and put him in prison. However, a few days later, the county magistrate was transferred.
[/s2/
The county magistrate's successor is Yuan Mei. He read the case file carefully and found that the case was very suspicious: since the criminal's tongue was bitten by the tailor's daughter, he must have escaped painfully. How could he tie the victim to a bench, rape him and strangle him first? There must be something here. The murderer is not necessarily a speechless person.
A few days later, the Jiangning county government posted a notice saying that the new county magistrate would openly hear rape and murder cases. Why reopen a closed case? This is a public hearing that arouses people's curiosity. On the day of the public retrial, the county government hall was crowded with people inside and outside. People want to see how the new county magistrate enforces the law.
Yuan Mei sat in a chair in the hall and saw that the hall was full of people. He ordered, "Take the prisoner to the hall!" I saw several officials "bet" on a bench in the center of the hall and tied the leggings of two women to a post. The chief first clamped the bench with a clamp, and then beat the foot cloth with a board for a dozen times; Just as people were wondering, suddenly a gunshot closed the door of the county government.
At this time, Yuan Mei stood up and said to people: "A fairy dreamed of me last night, saying that this case must be solved today and asked me to interrogate the material evidence in public;" He also said that the murderer will definitely appear in court, and Zhang's murder case will definitely be killed in court. Now the foot-binding cloth has been hung on the pillars of the church. Touch the foot cloth before going out. If it is a murderer, Bu will bite his hand. " Say that finish, let the leaders call people to touch the cloth in turn, and then let them go out one by one. After a while, I saw two young people walk to the foot of the cloth. Their hands trembled and their faces turned white. Yuan Mei saw it and ordered them to be taken down. After the trial, both of them admitted their crimes.
This case has been completely clarified.
It turned out that that day, a vendor with a needle and thread passed by the tailor's door. Yu Lian, who is embroidering upstairs, heard shouts and went out to buy a needle and thread. After negotiating the price, she went upstairs to get the money; When the vendor saw that Yu Lian was very beautiful, he felt very sad, so he followed him upstairs and forced him to hug and kiss. Yu Lian felt ashamed and angry. He bit his tongue, and the peddler was in terrible pain. He hurried out to mix the goods and then ran away.
Coincidentally, at this moment, two black sheep named Shi passed by. When they saw the door half open, they turned and went upstairs and saw a beautiful young woman crying alone. The two of them hugged each other and harassed each other. Yu Lian got a fright and shouted. An idle man was busy gagging the girl, while another man took off her foot wrap and tied Yu Lian to the bench. After gang rape, she was brutally strangled for fear that she would report to the government.
The two criminals were secretly pleased to see that the former magistrate had committed a crime. Suddenly, I heard that the new county magistrate was going to hear the case publicly, and I was uneasy and went to the hall to watch it with everyone. After all, guilty, show your face in front of the foot cloth. When solving the case, Yuan Mei's attempted murder was described as a beautiful story, and people called him "Oracle".