Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve From Prison to Execution Ground

September 25th, 1898, August 10th in the Chinese lunar calendar.The ghost month in Beijing has just passed, but a haze and a ghostly atmosphere shrouded the whole city.When it was still dawn, the gate of the Japanese Legation opened slowly, and eight Japanese men in kimonos and large hats with their brims pulled down filed out and got into the carriage.When they got to the train station, they filed in again.But before entering the platform, more than a dozen officials from the Qing government rushed over, stopped them half-forced and half-politely, and asked them to show their passports according to the procedure.The passports are Hirayama Shu, Yamada Yoshinaga, Komura Shunzaburo, Noguchi Tanai, Momotaro, Miyazaki Toten, Kajicho, and Tsukizhao.Officials of the Qing court were asked by translators to greet them in proficient Japanese, but when asked about Yuezhao, Ping Shanzhou hurriedly said in Chinese:

This Mr. Yuezhao is dumb and cannot speak, please forgive me. The officials of the Qing court stared at Yuezhao and Pingshanzhou with surprised eyes.Hirayama Zhou sternly added a sentence to the translator's ear in Japanese: Please respect the diplomats of our Empire of Japan in your country, and don't cause any misunderstandings!Otherwise, things will get big and everyone will not look good! The interpreter wisely whispered in the official's ear, and everyone whispered to each other for a while, then moved out of the way, stared at Yuezhao tacitly, and let him get on the train.

A week later, eight Japanese arrived in Japan on the Oshima warship.The headlines of Japanese newspapers reported: Prime Minister Shigenobu Okuma officially announced that Mr. Liang Qichao, a reformer of the Qing Dynasty, had arrived in Japan safely with the moral assistance of the Japanese people. ☆☆☆☆☆☆ At the same time as the Japanese Legation opened its gate, the gate of Liuyang Guild Hall also slowly opened.Only one person opened the door.He was wearing upward-facing clothes, and he fixed the door left and right with a happy expression, keeping it wide open.He walked around the courtyard for a while, then raised the curtain, and walked back into the house.He boiled a pot of water and poured it into a tureen.

Getting up early to drink tea is a habit he learned from Beijingers. Beijingers are very particular about tea drinking. There are all kinds of tea from Longya, Butong, Maojian, Yuqian, Zhulan, Xiangpian and so on.Most people drink incense slices, use a brass tea tray, place a fine porcelain teapot, and match with six teacups of the same color and pattern to form a group.However, the teacups used by officials and eunuchs are tureen. Drinking tea with a tureen is more noble, formal and solemn. He sat on the grand master's chair and turned his head to look at the Western clock. It was already half past six in the morning.Suddenly, there was a commotion of people outside, from far to near, the curtain was pulled up suddenly, and armed yamen officials rushed in, five or six as soon as they entered the room.

As soon as they rushed in, they were startled.The master sat upright, quietly watching them flustered.Unhurriedly, he picked up the gaiwan from the table, lifted the lid, and took a leisurely sip of tea. The officials were shocked, and the leading admiral of the Nine Sects bowed and said respectfully: Mr. Tan, according to the order from above, we intend to invite you to walk around the ministry. I see.The master smiled, smiling so calmly and knowingly.I know all of you will be here, and I've opened the door for you. The master put down the gaiwan steadily and stood up. I'm the only one in the hall.The master said with a smile.My old family will come back later, please let the people who stayed behind tell him.

After all, he put on his official hat, straightened it up, and walked out with his chest out.The officials on both sides hurried out of the way and escorted him into the carriage. ☆☆☆☆☆☆ The carriage stopped at the Criminal Department, and the adults rushed into the Criminal Department after being shouted at.The officer on duty of the Criminal Department took out the custody book, asked him his identity, and asked him to sign in. His arrogance was displayed again.Without saying a word, he picked up the brush and wrote three big characters Tan Sitong on it. He was taken to the first prison cell of the South Division of the Ministry of Criminal Justice Prison. The bed, table and chair in the room were dark, dirty and simple, and together with the elegant and gorgeous court clothes he was wearing, constituted a A very incongruous comparison.He was the first to feel the contrast, he smiled, and blurted out Gong Dingyu's verse:

Chaoyi East City is sweet, The jade body must be cherished for the beauty. After singing, he smiled even more happily.He thought of the ministers of the Han Dynasty two thousand years ago, planning the long-term future for the country.However, once the power of the sky is unpredictable, even if you are a minister, you can't help but say that you are not allowed to go home even once, and you will be killed in Dongshi while wearing court clothes.The most talented Gong Dingyu in the Qing Dynasty wrote this poem "Traveling Louis", saying that those who seek the country and die for the country are happy to die.In fact, this is life, you can't choose everything, you can take something and not take it, and if you don't take it, you should face the loss calmly, and if you have the loss, you should cherish it.He thought of his other wife's letter: life after life, live together in lotus, like Bijialingpijia and bird of same life, flying together.Although, he is full of hope for the afterlife, but his life is uncertain, but it is a fact in front of him.I have no regrets in seeking benevolence and benevolence. However, he unilaterally decided life and death for her. As a person of lofty ideals and benevolence, he cannot escape the ridicule of selfishness from an ego standpoint. Bar?He sat on the bed, thinking about it all over the place, and he couldn't help feeling a little confused.Fortunately, the confusion quickly disappeared, and this is life.Although there are all kinds of beings in the world, they can only be one kind of person and can only choose to be one kind of person. At the same time, they have to refuse to be many other kinds of people, although there are some interesting and attractive elements in them.I can't be a martyr and a birthday star, a reformer and a hermit, a fairy and a bull's head and horse face, and I can't dedicate myself to the country and my wife.What I am facing is two aspects, one is to choose what to do, and the other is to refuse to do what not to do, and then I will further look forward to the choice and cut off the retrospective on the rejection.Acknowledging that life must be chosen and that life is so short, you will learn to admit that you don't need to spend your life showing attachment and contradiction to those who are not selected.Life is so short, it’s actually not enough to spend one’s entire life dealing with what one chooses; it’s actually not enough to spend one’s entire life being one kind of person that one can only be.If you divide a part of your life to others, whether it is the past, present, or future, it will be a waste of your life and affect your chosen role.However, today, people are here, so it is different.Seeing that there is no future, there is no way to waste today's life, today is full of emptiness and leisure, today is a holiday, the beginning of an eternal holiday, it's strange, at the beginning of this, he first thought of the lonely life in his hometown in Liuyang. Wuyi's wife, who had been married for fifteen years, only gave birth to a little boy and died. He felt guilty towards her.He thought of how she would face this kind of misery and long night after the news of his death reached his hometown, and after his coffin was transported to his hometown, he couldn't think about it anymore.He also thought of his father. Over the years, due to the abuse of his stepmother, he had a disagreement with his father. It wasn't until the last few years when he grew up that the situation improved.His father was the governor of Hubei and a great official in Xinjiang, but he didn't want to hurt his father, so yesterday morning, he burned some letters from his father sponsoring him, fabricated some letters from his father reprimanding him, and wrote them in lifelike calligraphy. , expressing the father's fierce opposition to his son's reform and reform activities, and declaring that he would sever the father-son relationship with his son.Thinking of this, he showed a shrewd smile.These false letters must have been searched by them when they searched the guild hall, they must have been deceived, and my lord father can get away!

Just like this, thinking and thinking all over the place, it was almost noon.The jailer pushed the lunch under the railing from outside the passageway. There was only one simple steamed bun and a bowl of vegetable soup.The jailer had sharp-mouthed monkey cheeks, looked like a villain, and pretended to be sacred and inviolable, staring at Tan Sitong.Then he looked around, suddenly reached into his coat, and quickly threw a package of things into the cell, right at Tan Sitong's feet, then gestured with his eyes, and whispered: For you.Then, he yelled ferociously: "It's over, throw out the soup bowl!"Just turned around and left.

Tan Sitong picked up the small package vigilantly, retreated to the corner, turned his back to it, and opened it. It turned out to be a package of sauced beef with more than a dozen red peppers that Hunan people like to eat.He immediately understood: There are well-meaning people here who miss me.In solitude, he felt a tinge of warmth. In the afternoon, I was still spent in wild thoughts.Tired of thinking, he decided to take a look and stop thinking about it.He put the chair on the bed, stood on it, barely able to climb the high window, looked out, and saw the inner courtyard of the Ministry of Criminal Justice, the big elm tree in the courtyard suddenly reminded him: this is not Yangjiao Mountain in the Ming Dynasty. Is it the famous big tree that Yang Jisheng planted himself in prison?Wasn't Yang Jisheng imprisoned in Jinyiwei three hundred and fifty years ago?Isn't Jinyiwei Prison the same as today's Ministry of Punishment Prison?And Yang Jisheng lived in the same cell as the No. 1 Prison?He wanted to cry out in surprise.Yang Jisheng was a loyal and good generation, but because he told the truth to Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty, he accused treacherous ministers of wronging the country in the memorial. As a result, he was beaten by the emperor with 140 sticks. he killed.When he died, he was only forty years old. His wife wrote a letter to die on his behalf. She begged the emperor to allow her to die on behalf of her husband, but she was still not allowed.Yang Jisheng is a strong man. After being beaten by the imperial staff, he passed out many times, but finally he came back alive.He was beaten until his butt was rotten. In the prison, he used a broken bowl of porcelain to cut off the rotten meat piece by piece. Even the jailer who was next to him with a lamp to help him light up his hands trembled.Before he was beaten, someone gave him boa snake gallbladder, saying that eating it would reduce pain, but his answer was: Jiaoshan has its own guts, so why bother with boa snake guts!When he was about to be beheaded, he wrote two poems, one of which was:

The arrogance is too empty, Loyalty shines through the ages. Unfinished business before death, Save it for posterity. Really make up.Twenty years after his death, Zuo Guangdou was born.When Zuo Guangdou was fifty-one years old, he became a martyr just like him.And isn't the prison where Zuo Guangdou sits the same as today's prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice?If it was the head prison, wouldn't it be the same cell again?In order to tell the truth, Zuo Guangdou was imprisoned, tortured, and tortured. The main torture was burning, using red-hot iron bars to scald Zuo Guangdou's body.His student Shi Kefa bribed the jailer, dressed in ragged clothes and straw sandals, disguised as a cleaner, and sneaked in to see him. What he saw was Mr. Zuo whose denomination was scorched and unrecognizable.Teacher Zuo was leaning against the wall, his whole body was bloody and bloody. Below his left knee, his muscles and bones were completely dislocated, and he was too disabled to stand up.When Shi Kefa saw it, he knelt forward, hugged Zuo Guangdou and cried loudly. Zuo Guangdou's eyes were scalded and blinded, but he recognized the voice as Shi Kefa, so he scolded him for what are you doing here!The affairs of the country have already been corrupted. If you don’t save them, you’ll be ignorant of righteousness. If you’re a woman, come to see me. Once a treacherous minister finds out, will you survive?Go away quickly, or I will kill you.After speaking, he grabbed the iron chain torture tool on the ground and made a throwing posture, and Shi Kefa had to cry.Shi Kefa later said: My teacher's lungs and liver are all made of iron and stone!Later, Zuo Guangdou was also killed in prison.This is another one after Yang Jisheng!Zuo Guangdou died in the Xizong reign of the Ming Dynasty, and it was another two hundred and seventy years in a blink of an eye.Tan Sitong thought.

From Yang Jisheng three hundred and fifty years ago to Zuo Guangdou two hundred and seventy years ago, I don’t know how many passers-by have been shut down in this prison of the Ministry of Justice and the cell of the head prison. Their bodies and flesh and blood no longer exist. Existence, but, no matter what people are, their shadows still exist.In fact, they are frozen in the air, embedded in the wall, and penetrated into the ground everywhere in the paintings and history, blood and cold sweat, grief and wailing, long sighs and short sighs.Although they have been imprisoned in the same cell in the same prison successively, even in different generations, they are not related to each other;However, after one generation after another turned into dust, they finally accumulated strangely together at different times and in the same space, creating a confluence of time and space.Maybe tossing and turning in the middle of the night, maybe dreaming back in the middle of the night, in the same prison and the same cell, the silhouettes of the pioneers are horrifyingly shadowy, and the suffering is passed on and replaced like this. Bring out new testimonies.Now, Tan Sitong is here. After he saw the elm tree, he suddenly felt that the first prison cell of the Ministry of Criminal Justice was becoming more and more crowded. There were so many vicissitudes, familiarities, life and death, deep feelings and dark hatred, misery and desolation. All appeared in front of his eyes.Especially when the night is getting darker, this feeling is stronger.There was no light in the cell, the light was oil lamps, only in the aisle, and it was almost dark in the cell.In the darkness, my own shadow has left me.I am a shadow myself.Shadow likes darkness, darkness is its home.Once back in the dark it becomes the master.Because he himself is darkness, the same color as darkness.I thought I was a form.It was wrong, at least when the darkness shrouded it, it was wrong.I am not a pure form, but there is a shadow in the form. The light pushes the shadow out of the form, but the shadow chases after it until the light is tired.In the dark, you will slowly feel: the shadow enters the form, overlaps the form, and makes the form melt, not because the shadow disappears, but the form disappears.Shadows are to form what dreams are to sleep, and blades are to knives.The shadow didn't disappear in the darkness, it just took on a darker color.At this time, the soul seems to have nothing to cling to.Man has never known what the soul is, and now it is nothing.If there is such a thing, it is also the first to abandon people in the dark, and the soul is just a shadow of a shadow.In the darkness, Tan Sitong turned into a shadow, and the pioneers in the same cell in the same prison began to depend on each other. So the night passed. ☆☆☆☆☆☆ At around five o'clock in the morning, Tan Sitong vaguely heard someone tapping on the wooden fence, and he concentrated on watching. A jailer was waving to him, holding a burning incense in the other hand.The incense is whole root, common sense tells him: this jailer has just taken over.He got out of bed and walked over. Master Tan?The jailer said softly, I am someone who admires you, the beef and chili at noon yesterday was just my little idea.Your servant brought a letter and asked me to bring some daily necessities, which I will stuff behind the door later.The jailer said, looking around.After dawn, I asked my lord to borrow a pen and paper, and said that I would write a letter to inform the servants at home to bring daily necessities.After receiving the pen and paper, I will write one or two more letters. If it is a secret, I will come to pick it up tomorrow morning, and I will send it secretly for the adults.After finishing speaking, before Tan Sitong could speak, he turned and left. After dawn, Tan Sitong did so.He publicly handed over the first letter to the prison authorities for conveyance.The two additional letters were also written very implicitly, just in case. first letter Hu Lichen Luo Sheng from the Tan family in the Liuyang Guild Hall in the northern half of the alley: a thick quilt, a face towel, a change of laundry pants, a set of socks and foot cloth, a purple cotton mandarin jacket, a pair of cotton trousers, pen and ink stationery and white paper, etc. A pillow, a large woolen hat, a pair of boots, and a buckle belt, all of which are sent by the visitor. Take a copper washbasin, a pair of chopsticks, and a rice bowl. second letter The letter tells me that you are full of loyalty and love, which is most commendable!Thank you for the military plane discount, no need to hand it over. All the pieces were delivered yesterday, and they were all in good order.I don't suffer here, you don't need to meet, you have to pay for the fifth master to come in; only the fifth master can come in.And asked him to accommodate meals and other things as soon as possible. Since Hubei Electricity was sent by Guo, we don't need to send it.Gosh can go back to Hubei. Yesterday, I heard that the admiral took away three books. Will you send them out? third letter Quickly go to the fifth master Wang Zibin of the Yuanshun Police Bureau and tell me that I am the head prisoner at the South Institute, and ask him to find ways to accommodate and help me. The day before yesterday, Admiral Nine Gates took away three of my books: one titled "Autumn Rain Years: Books in the Library" and two "Name Lists".Just write back to me. I am in such a difficult situation, please call Master Guo Zhiquan to Hubei immediately.If you have any other news, please let me know. Master Tan Fusheng When the second and third letters were secretly handed over, it was already the early morning of the third day in prison.The jailer who obtained the letter secretly told him that there were eight people who had been arrested, and they were all held in isolation.Besides Mr. Tan, there were Yang Shenxiu, Yang Rui, Lin Xu, Liu Guangdi, Kang Guangren, Xu Zhijing, and Zhang Yinhuan.Tan Sitong thought to himself: Xu Zhijing is the minister who recommended them to the emperor, so there is a reason to be implicated; Zhang Yinhuan is only Mr. Kang's fellow villager, and is the top diplomat in the dynasty, how could he be implicated? ☆☆☆☆☆☆ At the same time, Zhang Yinhuan was leaning against the wall in Nansuomo Prison, thinking leisurely with a three-pointed cynical face: They said that I colluded with Kang Youwei, but in fact, Kang Youwei and the others were just new recruits. I was a long time ago before them. I became a high official.Said they colluded with me, that's about it.My arrest, in fact, was a grievance when I came back from England to congratulate Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom on the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne, and I made a mistake in giving gifts.When I came back that time, I bought rubies for the emperor and emeralds for the old lady in England, but because I looked down on Li Lianying, the eunuch, when the old lady was admiring the emeralds, Li Lianying provocatively said: "It's rare for him to be so distinguished." I understand, don't we deserve to use red here?This time he was provoking the old lady's pain.Regarding the clothing of wives and concubines, according to the rules, red is used for the eldest wife and green for the younger wife. The Queen Mother is an old lady who was born as a younger wife.At that time I kowtowed and confessed, the old lady didn't settle the score immediately, but today she took the opportunity to settle the score. He thought again: When they came to arrest me four days ago, I hadn't eaten yet, so I asked Admiral Jiumen to wait for me to eat, and he agreed.Before going out, they secretly reminded me: If you have anything to say, please explain it to your wife.I just realized that they were going to kill me.I simply said: No need.Just follow them.However, it is easy to kill me, but it is not easy to explain it to foreigners. Let's see how the old lady explains it!Thinking of this, he smiled slyly. Since Zhang Yinhuan is a well-known high-ranking official with great arrogance, he is more popular than others in the prison of the Ministry of punishment.At this time, he was sixty-two years old. He had been in the officialdom for decades, and he had seen all kinds of darkness. In the darkness, he faced the vicissitudes of the world with a part of cynical calmness, and he was quite able to understand himself. Complacent and free.But this time, he seemed to feel that he couldn't help himself, but he was still optimistic enough to not mind it.Although he was a senior official in the central government of the Qing Dynasty, in fact, he was almost the foreign minister and minister of foreign affairs, but he was not born in the imperial examination.In the officialdom where almost everyone comes from the imperial examination, it looks very dazzling and lonely.People who come from the imperial examinations pay attention to grades. Those who passed the exam in the same year are called Laotongnian, and those who passed the previous exam are called old seniors. In the office and in the public, there are old same year and old seniors everywhere, which embarrass him.But Zhang Yinhuan has a way of laughing at himself and others.He found three famous actors: Qin Zhifen, Wang Yaoqing, and Zhu Xiafen, and asked them to jokingly call him an old man, and he himself jokingly called them Lao Tongnian, thinking it was ironic.Now that he is in prison, his roles have changed. All those who went to prison before him have become seniors; all those who went to prison with him have become old men. When he thought about it, he couldn't help laughing. Although he was not born in the imperial examination, he reads books very well, and he can memorize many ancient Chinese prose by heart.While bored, he recited ancient prose to amuse himself, and when he recited Fang Bao's "Miscellaneous Notes from Prison", he suddenly realized something.Nearly one hundred and ninety years ago, Fang Bao, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, was sentenced to death and locked up in a prison. Isn’t that prison exactly the prison of the Ministry of Justice?Fang Bao was later pardoned and released from prison. Isn't the content of the "Miscellaneous Notes in Prison" written by Fang Bao still spread before our eyes?Fang Bao wrote about the darkness of the prison, and wrote that there are four old cells in this prison.Each cell has five rooms: the jailer lives in the middle one, with a large window in the front for light and a small window for air in the front; the other four rooms have no windows, but there are often more than two hundred prisoners.Every day before it was dark, it was locked, and the room was filled with urine and urine, mixed with the smell of eating and drinking.Coupled with the cold winter months, prisoners without money sleep on the ground, and when the spring comes, there will be no one who will not get sick.Often a dozen or so die in one death.According to the rules of the prison, you must wait until dawn to unlock the locks. Throughout the night, the living and the dead will sleep head to toe, unable to dodge. This is why there are many infectious diseases.What's also strange is that less than one or two tenths of those who are recidivists or murderers, probably because of their strong temperament, are infected; even if they are infected, they recover quickly.Those who died one after another were all minor criminals, suspects, or guarantors, people who should not be brought to justice.Fang Bao asked a person surnamed Du in the prison, and said: In the capital, there is the prison directly under the jurisdiction of the governor of Shuntian Prefecture and Sifang, the censor of the five cities. Why are there so many prisoners in the prison of the Ministry of Punishment?The person surnamed Du said: In recent years, when there are serious lawsuits, the governor of Shuntian Prefecture and the censor of Wucheng dare not make decisions; and those arrested by the nine admirals after investigation are also transferred to the Ministry of Punishment; In the four departments of clean officials, the chief and deputy Manhan Lang officials who like to be troublesome, as well as the judicial officers, prison officials, and jailers, all because the more people are locked up, the better, so as long as they get a little bit of edge, they will be arrested by all means. Come in.Once a person enters the prison, regardless of whether he is guilty or not, he is put in handcuffs and shackles as usual, and put into an old prison cell, which will make you suffer a lot. When you can’t take it anymore, they will teach you how to get bail, and the bail will go out and live outside. ; and look after your family.Property status, extort money, and they will distribute it according to the percentage.Those who are above the middle level will do their best to pay for bail; secondly, if they want to get rid of their handcuffs and shackles and move to live in a wooden house outside the old prison, it will cost dozens of taels of silver.As for those who are poor and helpless, handcuffs and fetters are not polite, as a model to warn other prisoners.Another person was imprisoned together in the same case. Those with serious circumstances were released on bail, while those with minor circumstances and not guilty suffered a lot. This kind of person was full of grievances. If there is no money to treat it, it will often die.Fang Bao also wrote in "Miscellaneous Notes in Prison": Anyone sentenced to death, once the sentence is executed, the executioner will wait outside the door first, and send his accomplices to ask for property, called Si Luo.For a prisoner with money, he needs to talk to his relatives about the condition; for a prisoner without money, he negotiates the condition directly face to face.If the sentence is to be hanged, say: If you agree to my conditions, you will stab the heart first; otherwise, after the limbs are dismembered, the heart is not dead yet.If the sentence is to be hanged, say: If you agree to my conditions, you will die at the first hang; otherwise, you will have to use other instruments of torture after you have been hanged three times before you can die.Only if the sentence is decapitation, there is nothing to bargain, but the head can still be withheld from the family of the deceased to achieve the purpose of extortion.Therefore, those who are rich are naturally willing to bribe tens of hundreds of taels of silver, and those who have no money will sell all their clothes and sundries in return;The same is true for those who are in charge of binding. If you don't meet their conditions, they will break your bones and tendons first when you are tied up.Every year during the Autumn Judgment, although only three or four tenths were ticked off by the emperor's ink pen, and sixty-seven tenths were left, all the prisoners had to be bound to the West Market to wait for orders.Among them, those who were tied up and injured, even if they survived, they would have to be sick for several months to recover, or even become dark wounds that could not be cured for a lifetime.Fang Bao once asked an old guard: "Everyone has no deep hatred for those who are tortured and kidnapped. The purpose is just to get some money. If the prisoner really can't afford the money, why not let him go in the end? Isn't it considered good deeds?"The old guard said: This is because there are rules to warn the next prisoner, and to warn the next prisoner.If not, everyone would be lucky.The same is true of the torturers and torturers.There were three people who were pinched when he was arrested and interrogated at the same time.One of them paid a price of twenty taels of silver, but he suffered a slight injury to his bone, and as a result he was ill for a month; Six times the price, and he could walk as usual that night.Someone asked the officer, "Some prisoners are rich and some are poor. Since everyone has taken the money, why is there a difference in how much they take?"The guard said: There is no difference, who is willing to pay more?Fang Bao also wrote: The old staff in the ministry all have fake seals in their homes, and when the official documents go down to the provincial level, they often secretly manipulate and add or delete important words, and the people who follow them can't see it.Only those who go up to play the emperor and the ministries of the Advisory Bank dare not do this.According to the law: if the gangster has never killed anyone and has many accomplices, only one or two of the masterminds will be executed immediately, and the rest of the criminals will be handed over to the autumn trial in August and sent to the army with reduced grades.After the sentence of the Ministry of Punishment reads to the emperor, some of them were executed immediately, and the executioner waited outside the door first, and tied them up after an order, without delay for a moment.A certain brother was imprisoned for holding the public storehouse. According to the law, he should be executed immediately. The verdict has been drawn up. A member of the ministry said to them: Give me one thousand taels of silver, and I will make you happy.Asked what method to use, a member of the department said: It is not difficult, as long as there is another playbook, the verdict does not need to be changed, just change your names for the two people who are single and have no relatives at the end of the case, and when the seal is played, take out the real play, and replace it. Just play this, and that's it.One of his colleagues said: This way you can deceive the dead, but you can't deceive the chief; if the chief finds out and applies again, we will have no way to survive.A certain member of the department smiled and said: If we apply again, we will certainly have no chance of survival; but the chief will also be found guilty of negligence and dismissed from office.He will not lose his official position just for two lives, so we still have no reason to die in the end.As a result, it was done in this way, and the two people were executed immediately at the end of the case.The chief was dumbfounded and petrified, but finally he dared not pursue responsibility.Fang Bao said that when he was in prison, he met a brother with a certain surname, and all his fellow prisoners pointed at him and said: This is the one who exchanged the life of so-and-so for their heads. Zhang Yinhuan recited Fang Bao's article in the prison, and confirmed it from the scene. He found that he was in the most favored cell in the prison of the Ministry of Punishment. "Prison Miscellaneous Notes" said that an official who commits a crime can live in a special treatment room. Now he lives in a room alone, and he cannot see the darker scenes in other cells, which is also one of the preferential treatment items.Thinking of this, he heard wailing in the distance, intermittent and gloomy, which moved him even more.He is an old bureaucrat, and he has seen a lot. He remembers that someone told him about the darkness of the Ministry of Punishment and prison, and that the head of the jail took bribes under various names.There is a kind of package called all-inclusive, which is to spend money from top to bottom to buy one by one, so as to get the greatest convenience; there is also a kind of double-sided bag, which means to buy the inside but not the outside, and buy the top but not the bottom; It is paid on a piece-by-piece basis, and the money is paid every time you get convenience; there is another kind called Yitou Shen, which pays only when you are sentenced, so as to alleviate the pain of flesh and blood.Zhang Yinhuan thought, thought, and laughed.He said to himself: What I have encountered this time can be regarded as all-inclusive, but I don't need to spend money to buy it off, just my high official title as the servant of the household department is enough to take all these prison bosses.As the saying goes, there are people in the court who are easy to be an official, but today I have an official in prison who is easy to be a man.If it weren't for this high official title, I would have seen all the scenes in "Prisoner Miscellaneous Notes". ☆☆☆☆☆☆ In contrast to the Ministry of Criminal Justice Prison, another prison has also been formed, and that is Yingtai.Yingtai is a small island in Zhongnanhai Lake.Yingtai has been built with palaces and halls since the Ming Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, according to the legends of Penglai and other fairy mountains in China, the famous architect Wang Lei transformed it into a fairyland on earth. However, this fairyland on earth has now become a fairyland. The most luxurious prison in the world.Emperor Guangxu was imprisoned here, here, for hundreds of years, there have been emperors of all dynasties seeking pleasure and lingering, but now, all that is left is the poor young emperor alone beside the rockery and strange rocks, lingering and not being able to return.Although he is no different from a prisoner, but using his name to issue orders to the outside world, it is still false.First, on September 24, the ninth day of the eighth lunar month in the lunar calendar, Emperor Guangxu, who was carrying out reforms and reforms, suddenly issued an order to dismiss Tan Sitong and six others first, hand them over to the yamen of the infantry commander, and punish them with the Ministry of Punishment.Immediately following this order of dismissal and arrest, two days later, on September 26th, August 11th in the lunar calendar, a second order was issued, dispatching the Minister of Military Aircraft, together with the Ministry of Criminal Affairs and the Metropolitan Procuratorate, to torture and interrogate .But formally, they only tortured and interrogated for a whole day. On September 28th, the third order was issued on the 13th day of the eighth lunar month: Instruct the ministers of the army and aircraft: Kang Guangren, Yang Shenxiu, Yang Rui, Lin Xu, Tan Sitong, Liu Guangdi, who are rebellious and outrageous, will be executed immediately, and will be sent to monitor. Early in the morning before the order was announced, the prison supervisors were busy working together and began to set up the car. Carriage is an external action before sending the condemned prisoner to the execution ground. The prison cart is put on the mules and horses and ready to go.In the noisy noise of the head of Nansuo's prison yelling for a cart, Zhang Yinhuan called the guards in the aisle to stop, and said in a relaxed voice: Eight people were arrested, did one or two stay?The jailer said: I heard that Yang Shenxiu and Kang Guangren were left behind.Then I heard the sound of six carts outside.He thought to himself: This time the old lady has really settled the score, so I'll go for a while, anyway, I've lived past my sixtieth year, so I'll die as soon as I die! While Zhang Yinhuan was sitting quietly waiting to die, the prison doors in the distance opened one by one, and the noisy voices were mixed together, but the voices did not approach the South Prison.He actually narrowly escaped death. A total of six prison doors were opened, and Tan Sitong, Yang Shenxiu, Yang Rui, Lin Xu, Liu Guangdi, and Kang Guangren proposed respectively. ☆☆☆☆☆☆ The Prison of the Ministry of Punishment originated from the edict prison of the previous dynasty, commonly known as Tianlao, and it has accumulated a lot of rules for hundreds of years.According to the rules, there are two buildings, the South Office and the North Office, and there are two corner gates in the east and west. Prisoners who are released or interrogated go through the east corner gate; prisoners who execute the death sentence go through the west corner gate.When Liu Guangdi was arrested, he was the senior official of the Ministry of Criminal Justice. He knew the rules. Once he stepped out of this door, he would die. Among the six, he knew the operation of the death penalty the most. Now that he came to try the method himself, he felt a sharp contrast. with the ridiculous. According to the usual name, apart from the main entrance in the middle, the yamen has the Qinglong Gate on the left and the Baihu Gate on the right. The Baihu Gate is usually tightly closed, and this gate is only used before taking prisoners to the execution ground.The usual rule is that before execution, the prisoner may lie to him that he will have a court hearing, or that his family members will come to see you for a meeting. As soon as the prisoner walks out of the second door outside the cell, the jailer suddenly pushes him hard from behind and shouts: !Another group of guys hiding on both sides of the second gate swarmed up, those who grabbed the braids, those who lifted the shackles, those who held the left and right arms, and shouted together: Come on!They swarmed and galloped, carried the prisoner to the steps of the lobby like a pig, and forced him to kneel there. The officer who had originally caught the prisoner held the pick card and reported to the hall fluently.The hall asked you about your name, age, and place of origin. After completing the verification of your identity, you will be informed that you have been sentenced to death and will be executed immediately.Then he ordered the prison to be tied up, and marked the beheaded criminal with a red pen.After one point and one tick, he threw the vermilion pen on the ground in front of him.It is said that using this brush can cure malaria, so everyone rushed to grab it. Tang tie is a great subject. When the master gave an order, his subordinates stood behind the prisoner, held the collar, tore it down, and pulled the torn jacket down from both shoulders. If a strong prisoner resists, the jailer will hit the prisoner's shoulder blade with a small hammer that he carries with him, and his arms will immediately become soft, and he can be tied as he wants.The standard tying method is five-flower tying.Use a rope from the headgear, separate the two ends of the rope from the left and right, and then pull them alternately to tighten them. Then tie the two ends to the prisoner’s crossed wrists on his back, and then go around between the thumb and index finger from the wrist. Knot.This method of binding people is extremely strong.Once the five flowers are tied up, the prisoner will be given a final meal of wine and meat.The so-called wine and meat, the meat is three pieces of raw meat inserted with bamboo sticks, and wiped on the prisoner's lips, indicating that it is for you to eat; the wine is a large bowl, hold it for you to drink, sometimes, put camphor in the wine and drink it You can be in a coma, and the pain will naturally decrease.Of course, camphor is given secretly to gain this kind of preferential treatment.After the wine and meat were finished, the prisoner was put in the basket, and as soon as the two of them lifted it, they left the Baihumen. Liu Guangdi and the six of them except Kang Youwei's younger brother Kang Guangren.They are all high-ranking officials, so the execution method is more polite.They just went out of the west corner gate in a crowd, each bundled into a mule cart.There is a wooden cage on the mule cart, and people put it in, but their heads stick out. From a distance, the head looks like a round handle on the cage cover. Amid the yelling, the mule cart started, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers.There is only one destination for hundreds of people, and that is Caishikou. ☆☆☆☆☆☆ Caishikou is the bustling market in Beijing. People from various southern provinces, from officials and gentry to peddlers and pawns, cross the Marco Polo Bridge, enter Guang'anmen, and enter the inner city of Beijing. Most of them pass through here.Caishikou has been a famous killing place since six hundred years ago, and it was called Chaishikou at that time.Six hundred years ago, Wen Tianxiang, a prime minister of the Song Dynasty who was imprisoned by the ruler of the Yuan Dynasty for four years, was finally killed at Caishikou because he refused to submit.當他從獄中走到刑場時候，態度莊嚴而從容，他對監斬官說：我為宋朝能做的事，現在終於做完了。元朝統治者把這位只有四十七歲的宋朝丞相在鬧市殺死，是一種成全，因為這樣刑人於市．對殉道者而言，倒是一種宣傳和身教。中國人民，包括他的敵人在內，都對這位殉道者致敬。後來，一座文丞相祠就這樣蓋了起來。 菜市口最精華的所在是丁字路口上，從兩行翠綠的槐樹北望，就是巍峨的宣武門，更是皇權的象徵。高高在上講究刑人於市的帝王看中了它，把它當作殺人示眾的好地方。在熱鬧的路口殺人立威，可以達到與眾棄之的效果。在這種作用下，菜市口是刑場中的鬧市，也是鬧市中的刑場，因為在行刑時候，總是就地取材，並沒嚴格的劃分市與場。路北的那家西鶴年堂，就是就地取材的一個。西鶴年堂是幾百年來的老藥鋪，傳說它的匾還是明朝宰相嚴嵩寫的。每到行刑時候，西鶴年堂旁邊就要搭上個棚，棚下放著一張長桌、一把椅子，桌上放著錫筆架，上面插著朱筆，給監斬官使用。 監斬官一般是戎服佩刀、騎著大馬、氣勢洶洶地帶著決囚隊，鳴鑼開道，直奔刑場。衣服上繡著勇字的士兵，追隨著他，劊子手也跟著，其中劊子手最令人側目，他們或穿紅衣、或打赤膊，手提大刀，面目猙獰。這種人有很好的收入，一般說來，殺一個死刑犯，可得白銀三兩六，其中高手，一天可殺好幾個人。另外還有死刑犯家屬給的孝敬，一給就是三五十兩。這種孝敬，是拜託請以快刀減少死刑犯痛苦。按照劊子手的規矩，他們用的是鬼頭刀。鬼頭刀在刀柄上，雕一鬼頭，刀的前端又寬又重，後面又窄又輕，砍頭時，反握刀柄，刀背跟小臂平行，把刀口對準死刑犯頸脊骨軟門地方，以腕肘力量把刀向前一推，就把頭砍下。這種功夫不是無師自通的，也靠祖傳或師傅傳授，做徒弟的，總是先從天一亮就推豆腐反握鬼頭刀的刀柄，以腕肘力量，把豆腐推成一塊塊的薄片；熟練以後，再在豆腐上畫上黑線，一條條照線往前推；熟練以後，再在豆腐上放銅錢，最後要練到快速一刀刀朝黑線切，但銅錢卻紋風不動，才算功夫。這種推豆腐，推得出師以後，還要練習摸猴脖子，摸出猴子第一節和第二節頸椎所在，從而推廣到人體結構，在砍頭時，做到一刀就朝頸椎骨連結處砍下，乾淨俐落，減少死刑犯痛苦。死刑犯家屬給孝敬，其理也就在此。否則由生手或熟手故意裝生手亂砍一氣，死刑犯苦矣。另一方面，由於中國人忌諱身首異處而死。如劊子手砍頭砍得恰到好處推刀推到喉管已斷時就快速收刀，使喉管前面尚能皮肉相連，頭不落地，照中國人解釋，這就仍算全屍而歸。劊子手收放之間，能做到這種功夫，是要得到大孝敬的。一般行刑，都做不到這一點，但是身首異處以後，可以買來專家，把頭縫回去，叫做綴元，也算聊慰生者與死者。總之，家屬對劊子手的孝敬是少不了的，沒有這類打點，花樣就會層出不窮。即使死刑犯死後，花樣也不會中止。例如劊子手怕頸血亂濺，每在刀一落下就用腳朝死刑犯身上一踢，使血向前濺，然後讓人用剝了皮的饅頭就頸腔沾血，沾成所謂人血饅頭，照中國人傳說，這種饅頭可以治肺癆、可以大補。除此以外，死者身上的其他器官也會被零星割下，傳說都能入藥，甚至五花大綁的繩子都有避邪之功，也值得幾文。 不過，這些規矩都是對一般死刑犯用的，碰到死刑犯身分是大臣的時候，就得客氣多了。所有的花樣都得收起，也不能將死刑犯放了籃子裏抬到法場，而要正正式式用騾車護送了。到了法場，甚至有劊子手向犯官下跪請安的例子，口呼請大人歸天以後，方才行刑的。做過大官的，就便是死刑臨頭、刑上大夫，還是有不少尊嚴的。 當然，尊嚴也是相對的，一方面來自對大臣的尊重，一方面也有賴大臣自己的表現。譚嗣同他們六個人從上騾車以後，所表現的氣概，也就有了等級之分。六個人中，有人表現得激越，有人表現得沉痛，有人表現得不服，有人表現得怯懦，但是，譚嗣同表現的，卻是一派從容。 菜市口西鶴年堂旁邊的棚子，已經快速搭蓋起來，棚下的桌椅文具，也布置得一應俱全。這回走出的監斬官可不是泛泛之輩，他是大名鼎鼎的軍機大臣剛毅，是一級的滿洲大員。他下令將犯官們帶到，在形式上，一一驗明正身，用朱筆勾決，然後按照慣例，朝地下丟下朱筆。這時譚嗣同忽然叫住剛毅，要同他說話。剛毅忌諱死囚臨刑前對他說話，他把手一揮，叫左右帶下去，同時用雙手捂住耳朵，表示不要聽。譚嗣同看到這老官僚顢頇尷尬的表情，忍不住好笑，他微笑了一下，也就不再說什麼了。他被擁簇著走到法場正中，滿地泥濘，太陽卻是高照著，放眼望去，四邊人山人海，卻是鴉雀無聲。這就是祖國、這就是群眾。他心裏想著。在光天化日之下、在黑暗時代，他們在看我們流血。我們成功，他們會鼓掌參與；我們失敗，他們會袖手旁觀。我們來救他們，他們不能自救，如今又眼睜睜看著我們亦無以自救。在他們眼中，我們是失敗者。但是，他們不知道失敗者其實也滿痛快，因為失敗的終點，也就是另一場勝利的起點。這些可憐的同胞啊，他們不知道，他們永遠不會知道。 在劊子手的準備行刑過程中，他又放眼望去，望著天上的浮雲，隨著浮雲，他的思緒快速的閃過。他想到江湖中人，在臨死前慷慨激昂大喊：二十年後還是一條好漢！他感到也該喊一句，但不要喊那種輪迴性的。輪迴是不可信的，死後妄信有來生，是一種怯懦、一種自私，對來生沒有任何指望而死，才算堂堂的生、堂堂的死。想到這裏，他笑了。突然間，像從浮雲裏劃破一條長空，他的喊聲震動了法場： 有心殺賊， 無力回天。 死得其所， 快哉！快哉！ 劊子手驚奇地望著他，讚美地點了點頭。他對拿鬼頭刀的同胞從容一笑。一般死刑犯會要求劊子手：給我個痛快！但他不屑做此要求他求仁得仁，早就很痛快了。 ☆☆☆☆☆☆ 譚嗣同的軀體靜靜地仰臥在菜市口，他的頭顱滾在一旁，血肉模糊。老家人胡理臣，帶著另一個老家人羅升和瀏陽會館的長班，一起趕過來，料理善後。先從西鶴年堂要來一盆水，抱起頭顱，洗去泥土與血跡。他們含淚望著小主人，小主人的兩眼圓睜著，嘴張開著，又像死不瞑目、又像大聲疾呼。由於被砍下來半天了，面孔已經開始癟下去，癟下乍看是縮小，其實是腫脹的前奏，再過一天，就腫脹得面目全非了。那時候，就很難認出本人來了。 老家人們焦急的等棺材到，在下午，棺材抬來了。綴元師傅也請來了。師傅把頭顱端正的接在頸腔上，用熟練的技巧，在脖子正面左右各連一針，又在背面補上一針，就算完成了歸位的手續。大家把屍體抬進棺材裏，釘上了棺材蓋。老家人點了香，撫棺而跪，磕了頭，就由槓房抬起棺材，向西走去。第一個經過的路口就是北半截胡同，胡同南口就是瀏陽會館。老家人胡理臣痛苦的想著：真沒想到我家少爺住的地方，離刑場這麼近！ 一行人等再朝西走，越過了一個胡同口，走到了下一個胡同口，開始左轉進胡同，走到盡頭再右轉，一座古廟展現開來。他們在廟門口歇下，胡理臣先進廟裏洽辦，羅升在斜陽中望著廟門，正門上頭有三個大字法源寺。