In Zhang Fujian and Quanfu, there are many fierce champions. The rich kill people, give more money to the poor and replace them with the dead. Although there are honest officials, they suffer from their disadvantages. The so-called' killing white ducks' is also called it. "The famous white duck massacre in history. As the name implies, rich and powerful people have committed human life lawsuits and don't want to die. So they spent a lot of money to buy children from poor families and let them confess their sins to the government instead of him, thus being punished for themselves. However, most top killers are willing to die for money. This behavior is like a white duck, which is arbitrarily played and slaughtered because of its greed for profit. Therefore, it is often called "killing white ducks".
"Slaughtering a white duck" means spending money to buy a life in simple English. This phenomenon actually exists in every dynasty. After all, in feudal times, rich and powerful families were the privileged class at that time. Although the law is useful to them, it is not necessarily useful. Sometimes, with some money and power, their families can escape the punishment of the law.
The bad habit of "killing white ducks" first appeared in Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in Fujian and Chaozhou and Huizhou in Guangdong, especially in Zhangzhou and Quanzhou. According to historical records, in these two governments, "killing white ducks" leads to "about 100 deaths" every year. The number of "white ducks slaughtered" in these two places is mainly due to the following two reasons:
The folk customs of these two places are very hard. Conflicts often occur between tribes, even between tribes. Yong Zhengdi once said, "I heard that Zhang Quan, Fujian Province is a place with strong folk customs and is good at hard work. Ding Fan's family often relies on powerful manpower to suppress the cold feeling of being single. Occasionally, due to secondary reasons, party struggles are often corrected, leading to major cases. The bad habits of these two counties are the same. " Therefore, with the increase of fighting, the lawsuits of human life will naturally increase at the same time, so the incidents of "killing white geese" will also increase. 2) The officialdom in the two places is extremely corrupt, and most of them are corrupt. In order to close the case as soon as possible, in order to make political achievements and make big money, they turned a blind eye to this matter and even condoned it. Therefore, the company is empty, and "white ducks kill customers" has naturally become a commonplace.
Of course, at this time, because the upper ruling class of the Qing Dynasty was still wise, the "White Duck Massacre" did not occur on a large scale in the whole country, but spread in several areas far away from the emperor. But from Daoguang, with the corruption of the government, the "White Duck Massacre" began to appear on a large scale in the whole country. Although Daoguang personally sent a letter asking the local government to resolutely stop the spread and development of this illegal act, it is still inevitable.
Since Daoguang, there have been criminal cases of "killing white ducks" in Guangxi, Jiangxi, Hunan, Zhejiang and other provinces, and even in Zhili at the foot of the emperor.
For example, during the reign of Empress Dowager Cixi, a case of "killing a white duck" occurred in Nanyang, Henan Province, which shocked the government and the countryside. That is to say, there is a bully named Hu Tiean in zhenping county. He used his rapidly developing position to control the market in zhenping county and did all kinds of bad things. What's more, he got entangled with a gang of gangsters, robbed and committed crimes in other places, killing people. But because there are too many others, local officials dare not say anything. But as the saying goes, wet shoes are hard to walk by the river, so I robbed a background cloth shop named Zhao.
This cloth dealer is called Zhao, and he has some connections in the provincial capital. After he was kidnapped, with their help, he submitted a complaint against Hu Dian to Tu Zongying, governor of Henan Province. After learning about this incident, Tu Zongying quickly asked local officials to arrest Hu Dian. However, Hu Tiean did not panic at this time. He unhurriedly used the method of "killing white people" and spent some money pretending to be himself to send his king of the children to prison.
In fact, everyone knows that he is not Hu Tiean, but Ma Lei, the magistrate of Zhenping County, who accepted Hu Tiean's bribe, so he hastily closed the case, saying that Hu Tiean had been arrested and reported the case to Wan County Magistrate. Ren Kai didn't want to cause himself unnecessary trouble. Without careful examination, he reported to Lin Chun, the judge in charge of litigation affairs in southern Henan prison. Lin Chun handed it over to the criminal department without careful examination.
Things have passed, but I don't think Hu Tiean and Yi An need to be sentenced to death for the robbery reported by Zhao Bushang. However, after careful examination, the punishments think that he is guilty of the most heinous crimes and should be beheaded publicly. The autumn review is also decided in this way. In this way, after the official document of the beheading of the punishments was issued, Wang, who was imprisoned by Hu Tiean, withdrew from the punishments. He thought he was just imprisoned, but now he's dead. How could he do that? So when he was executed, he shouted loudly that he was not Hu Dian, but a liar.
At this time, the supervisor Lu Xing saw something strange and ordered to stop execution. Then report to the governor of Henan, Tu Zongying. When Tu Zongying was informed, he reported to the Ministry of Punishment and ordered a retrial. At the same time, with Wang publicly clamoring that he was not Hu Tiean during the execution, the story of impersonation began to spread widely among the people and shocked the ruling and opposition parties, including Cixi.
After many twists and turns, Wang was released and Zhenping county magistrate Ma Lei was exiled. Of course, Hu Tiean, the culprit of this case, escaped early because he knew the news in advance.
In fact, from the above story, we can probably see why the bad habit of "killing white ducks" appeared on a large scale in various places in the later period. The reasons cannot be as follows:
First of all, the political situation in the late Qing Dynasty became increasingly corrupt, and the problem of corruption and bribery of officials became increasingly serious. Hu Tiean's case is very simple, because the county magistrate Ma Lei can't know his captors. Therefore, as long as Hu Tiean can be more just at this time, he is doomed to failure. However, it was because of his greed for money that the case became complicated and tortuous, and even An Run of Hu Die left him.
Some officials are afraid of taking responsibility, so they know that they are here to take criminal responsibility. However, they also ignore the principle that more is better than less. For example, the Notes of Yongxianzhai once recorded such a thing: "There is a brother who is in charge of the public warehouse. Laws should be made. This prison is well equipped. Xu said, "Give me a daughter and my life will be ruined. He knocked on his skills and said, "There is no difficulty. This chapter has nothing to do with it. This sentence is not easy. Those who are single and have no relatives at the end of the case will be renamed. It is easy only when they are sealed. His colleague said: "Those who can fool the dead but can't fool God's prophecy, if invited again, we will have no physiology." Xu smiled and said, "If we ask again, there will be no physiology. The person in charge of prophecy should leave. ".He can't take two people's lives for their officers, then we can't die. "
When the two brothers committed the felony of beheading, a scribe told them that "as long as they are willing to pay 1200 silver, they can find someone to take the blame", and the two brothers agreed. Another scribe who helped him in this matter was worried. He said, "What if the presiding judge finds out?" Scholars are not afraid to say, "The presiding judge can only make a judgment if he asks for instructions. We people are no longer alive, but the presiding judges will be punished one by one because they have caused injustice and made major mistakes. For the officials who preside over the meeting, keeping their official positions is more important than anything else, so even if they know it, they will definitely ignore it. " Then things developed as the secretary said, and the two brothers escaped the death penalty.
Third, money makes the mare go. With the frequent wars in the late Qing Dynasty, such as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War and the invasion of China by foreign powers, all parts of the Qing Dynasty suffered losses to varying degrees, and people's lives became increasingly difficult. Later, as the Qing government stepped up its plunder of the local people in order to raise reparations from foreign powers, more and more people began to go bankrupt, unable to support themselves, and countless people starved to death. Therefore, in such an environment, more and more poor people are willing to be the target of "killing white ducks". Therefore, if they commit crimes voluntarily, they can get a lot of money, which can help other people in the family survive. As Chen Qiyuan, the minister of the Qing Dynasty, said, "The rich kill people, the poor make more money, and the dead take their place." . In this way, they often die voluntarily.
Based on the above three reasons, this is probably the reason why "killing white ducks" became popular in the late Qing Dynasty!