Chapter 817 Interrogation
When Yin Shang was told by the rude township president in front of him that he had an affair with Zhao Huo's wife, Zhao, he was in love with Zhao Huo and murdered Zhao Huo.
Yin Shang immediately laughed out loud at this. He, the legitimate son of the Yin family, would kill someone because of his wife who was a former slave?
That is to say, your Taishan Army has come over. Otherwise, even if he doesn't like it himself, even if he randomly rewards his subordinates, that Zhao Huo will drag his tail like a dog to make fun of him.
But when Yin Shang saw Zhao who was also dragged into the township office, he fell silent.
Because he really knew this Zhao, and he really had an affair with him.
But that's the end of the relationship. This person is the maid next to his mother, and there are countless people like her in the dock. If this person hadn't helped him hide his identity, Yin Shang wouldn't even be able to remember this person. Zhao family.
But now looking at the crying Zhao, Yin Shang decided to be silent for a while to see what the situation was like.
How did he become a murderer?
……
The township president of Yin Shang's side is called Liu Yuan, and he is an ordinary veteran of the Taishan Army.
In his early years, he was a fierce soldier under Liu Yan, the famous general of Jibei Kingdom. Later, he surrendered to the Taishan Army with a group of comrades at the Wenshui River. Later, he was selected into the Taishan Army for his bravery.
If it weren't for this fate, there would be no difference between Liu Yuan and Zhao Huo lying in front of him.
They are all mud people.
Therefore, when the villagers told him about Zhao Huo, Liu Yuan felt empathy with Zhao Huo in his heart.
For people like Liu Yuan, he even got his surname after joining the Taishan Army.
The fierce soldier who was still called Yuan at that time applied for the surname Liu because he was nostalgic for the tragic death of his old master Liu Yan, and the Taishan Army actually approved it.
After that, Liu Yuan followed the Taishan Army on expeditions east and west. When Suile entered Hulao in the east, he was already a general. Later, due to the lack of officials in the local area, Liu Yuan felt that he was getting older and wanted to settle down. So I applied to be the township president of Yinshibi.
Liu Yuan is very satisfied with this result, because the township president is considered to be a high-ranking official in the local area. He has five Wubi and Lishes under his management, and he can manage a lot of them. Thousands of people.
So how could Liu Yuan be dissatisfied?
It can be said that with the Taishan Army and the King, he, Liu Yuan, had all this.
But if he is greedy, then there is something that Liu Yuan feels is a pity.
That is, according to some officers in the army, the king does not seem to want to be in Luoyang, saying that the atmosphere in Luoyang is too magical and not suitable for our eldest wife.
Liu Yuan is a rough man, he wonders where the Luoyang Demon is? But since the king said so, it seems that the city may not really be here in the future.
This is Liu Yuan's pity. After all, no matter how ignorant he is, he still understands that a township president in the Gyeonggi area must be more important than an ordinary township president.
Not to mention anything else, just let your son study in Beijing in the future. If he can study at home, it will definitely be what all parents look forward to.
After being assigned to this township called Beishankou, Liu Yuan already knew that his roots would be rooted here in the future, so during his days in Beishankou, he tried to do things as impartially as possible.
After all, the foundation for the future is here, so why not take care of some nostalgia.
Therefore, after Zhao Huo's mother came to the township office to report the crime, Liu Yuan took the township clerk to the township office.
At that time, the director of the office, who was also the village's thief catcher, had already asked several villagers to set up a matting tent, and the prisoner was also waiting there.
Technicians who could examine corpses and living bodies already existed in the Han Dynasty, and they have always been an important means for officials to find out the facts of the case.
Our Zhang Wang’s father-in-law, Cai Yong, has explained these judicial details, and the severity of the victim’s injury is determined according to the injury, wound, break, break, depth, and size.
This was still a fight case, but now it involved a murder case, so the township took it even more seriously, and had already sent someone to the county to hire a widower.
There is no way, there are only three or four villagers in a county, and if there is something going on in the township, they must be asked to come down and inspect it in advance.
And the widower who was recently assigned to Gong County is even more extraordinary. It is said that he was trained in the military and has experience in damaging corpses.
Now, Liu Yuan finally came over with everyone, big and small. With him as the president of the township, Wu Zuo began to inspect the body under the canopy under the gaze of all the villagers.
Liu Yuan received simple training when he was assigned to a place by the army.
Although the Datai organizational system was groundbreaking, it was generally similar to the Han system, with both placing great emphasis on the grassroots level below the county level.
In addition to the complete staff in the county, the township also has the responsibility of criminal punishment.
Of course, townships are definitely incomparable with counties. In addition to a few fixed staff such as clerks, bosses, and thieves, Liu Yuan's subordinates are all helpers sent by various communes.
Just like this time, whether it was arresting Yin Shang or Zhao, or going to the county to invite widows to work in the countryside, it was people from these communes who did it.
It can be said that the backbones of the township teams and communes are the boss’s grip at the grassroots level.
At this moment, Liu Yuan was standing under the pergola, watching Wu Zuo inspecting the body.
He still attaches great importance to this matter. As a Gyeonggi region, Gong County is actually very easy to manage. The head of Guizhou here is under the management of the Han family, which is considered polite at best and cowardly at worst.
When Liu Yuan was in the army, he had heard about how difficult it was to be assigned to Paoze in Bingbei and Hepingzhou. There were hybrids between Hu and Han, and they were unruly and unruly. They would draw swords on each other if they disagreed, and there were countless murders in just one year. .
All the robes assigned there are all without a headache.
Not to mention those who were a mixed bag of Hu and Han, even some Jizhou areas were like this. The people under their rule were really cruel. He had even heard of someone committing suicide in front of the township president.
As a township president in these places, you don't dare to say anything harsh. Otherwise, if you don't agree with me, you will be killed. You just say whether you can bear it.
But the Gyeonggi area is really different. Just talk about dividing the fields. In the past, in Hebei and Bingzhou, who didn't kill people? But here it is, so gentle and elegant.
The powerful men gave away the land in a gentle manner, and the Guizhou disciples took the land in a gentle manner. In Beishankou Township, there were four docks and a village, and a total of six people died.
These were all the lawless people selected by the Taishan Army to kill when they arrived at the place.
So, now that such a murder case suddenly occurred in the village, do you think Liu Yuan takes it seriously or not?
Under the Datai system, homicide cases are the most serious of all criminal cases. The reporter can even go to the township or county to report the crime at any time, and can even directly suppress the grievances.
In a homicide case, the examination of fatal injuries is crucial, so the chief official of the township or county must preside over the investigation on the spot.
In fact, Liu Yuan violated the rules this time, that is, the autopsy must be done at the scene where the victim was killed, or where the body was found, instead of dragging the body outside the township office now.
But Zhao Huo died at home, and his old mother didn't understand this. She only asked a few people from the community to carry her son's body to the countryside to report the crime.
So, that's all.
Now that the weather is hot and there has been a severe drought recently, Liu Yuan no longer cares about these details and begins to order Wu Zuo to conduct an autopsy as soon as possible, otherwise the body will rot and he himself will be affected.
At this time, Zhao Huo's body was placed on the reed mat. He was naked from top to bottom. Liu Yuaneng could tell that he was an out-and-out poor man, with traces of labor all over his body.
Seeing this, Liu Yuan already felt angry in his heart.
Here, Wu Zuo also started to examine the body. He was very careful and had been trained in the whole process.
He first looked at the body on the mat, checking whether there were any wounds on the whole body. Then he began to check the facial features, and then he also checked the eyelids, toes, and valleys one by one. After doing this, he took out a silver plate from the box and put it into the deceased's mouth. Then he looked at the silver plate and wrote on the paper.
By the time he finished all the inspections, it was almost half an hour later, and the people in the village had already been impatient with the wait. When they saw that the inspection was completed, they started shouting:
"Are you poisoned?"
"I think it's poisoning. Huo's face is so distorted. What could it be if it's not poisoning?"
Wu Zuo was not affected by these outside influences, but reported to Liu Yuan:
"Mr. Liu, there are no injuries on the deceased's body. Only his tongue is swollen and covered with spots. This is indeed a symptom of poisoning. However, when the humble silver plate was inserted into the deceased's mouth, it did not change color, so it is not certain. The deceased must have died of poisoning.”
What Wu Zuo said was very conservative and professional.
But Liu Yuan had his own ideas. He asked:
"Are there some poisons that will not discolor silver plates?"
Wu Zuo nodded, admitting that there was.
Then Liu Yuan asked again:
"Does Zhao Huo's tongue mean that he was poisoned to death?"
Wu Zuo raised his head and glanced at Liu Yuan. When Liu Yuan directly called the deceased's name, Wu Zuo guessed Liu Yuan's tendency.
So he thought again:
"The symptoms are indeed there, but it is not clear whether the poisoning was intentional or unintentional."
Liu Yuanyi waved his hand and said carelessly:
"This is my business. Okay, you write the report and several of us present will sign it."
This is another great system, that is, any autopsy report signed by a man must be signed by many officials present. If so, they will be responsible for any discrepancies in the future.
Seeing Liu Yuan like this, Wu Zuo had no choice but to remain silent, and then retreated to write a report.
After Liu Yuan received the autopsy results of Wu Zuo, he already had concerns in his mind.
He still trusts Wu Zuo's conclusion, because the eldest wife is different from Wu Zuo of the Han family. The latter is almost a pariah among the people, almost equal to the son-in-law, and is a truly untouchable person.
It is precisely for this reason that these people are often bribed and fabricate perjury at will, so that the Han officials themselves do not really believe in the conclusions of the authors, and often let the thieves in the county judge for themselves.
In Datai, the situation is completely different.
Because King Zhang attached great importance to surgery, while vigorously developing surgery, he also cultivated a large number of surgeons with the ability to examine cadavers.
These people are all well-established in Datai, and no one will lose their official salary for a few copper coins, so these officers are relatively trustworthy.
Of course, because these people are established and receive fixed amounts of rice every month, only the county can afford to support them.
After Wu Zuo retreated, Liu Yuan led the township officials into the township office.
When Liu Yuan told Zhao Huo's mother that his son had died of poisoning, the mother fainted from tears.
After finally getting Zhao's mother to calm down, Liu Yuancai asked who had last contacted Zhao Huo and who might have poisoned Zhao Huo.
In the end, these conclusions all pointed to Zhao Huo's wife, Mrs. Zhao.
Afterwards, Ms. Zhao was imprisoned in the township office. However, Ms. Zhao was deeply saddened by her husband's death, but she denied poisoning her husband. She only told Liu Yuan that she had given Zhao Huo three chickens to eat last night.
Regarding this, the president of Yinshibi Commune can testify.
As a result, the case was already dead here, but Qiu Pi, who had been sent out by Liu Yuan to find out what the villagers were talking about, came back and brought Liu Yuan some explosive news.
That was that the Zhao family had an affair with Yin Shang. Later, Qiu Pi found out that Yin Shang was actually the legitimate son of the Yin family. He had changed his appearance before the arrival of the Taishan Army.
As soon as this information was combined, Liu Yuan immediately realized that this was a planned poisoning of their Taishan Army supporters, and it was the thieves who were anti-Taiwan who were determined to persevere.
You, Yin Shang, are a member of the anti-Taiwan army. Otherwise, why did you lurk when the Taishan army was coming? It must have been a conspiracy.
Liu Yuan originally sympathized with Zhao Huo, but now he heard that the ones who killed him were an adulterer and an adulterous woman, and the adulterer was the enemy of their eldest wife, so what else could he say?
In this way, Yin Shang was captured directly and escorted all the way to the township office.
After Yin Shang listened to this from beginning to end, he was shocked. He never expected to be implicated in this way.
After all, he had studied intensively from Taixue. Yin Shang thought that this was a method used by the eldest son to eradicate them, the children of the aristocratic family. He knew that he could no longer focus on this case, but loudly denounced the Taishan Army's sinister intentions.
Therefore, in the verandah of the township office, he loudly scolded the Taishan Army for being shameless and despicable. It was really disgusting that he would use this method to insult people's innocence.
In order to let the villagers outside the door hear him, Yin Shang shouted that he would rather die than surrender, and even if he died, he would leave his name in the world.
Outside the government office, some members of the Yin family were also gathering. They had gathered after Yin Shang was captured and brought into the government office.
At this moment, Da Lang was heard shouting urgently, and they were also making noise outside, cursing the Taishan Army for being shameless.
But the more trouble there was, the more Liu Yuan became convinced that this was a group of powerful forces deliberately opposing the Taishan Army, so he immediately concluded the case and made it a solid case.
At this time, the trial of the case was never based on physical evidence, but on oral confessions.
In fact, let alone oral confessions, before the Qin Dynasty, cases were decided by divine judgment. Sometimes a sheep could be used to decide who was guilty and who was not guilty.
There is no truth to this kind of case.
Therefore, after the Qin and Han Dynasties, oral confessions began to be valued, which was already a great progress.
At this moment, Liu Yuan was naturally taking a confession. As the poisoner, he first interrogated Zhao.
At first, Liu Yuan only used coercion and inducement, but Zhao refused to admit that she poisoned her husband.
In this way, Liu Yuan had no choice but to resort to tricks.
Needless to say, in the Han family, it was allowed to torture prisoners to extract confessions, and it was even the only way to obtain confessions.
How could you admit it if I didn't beat you to the point where you would be worse off than alive?
In fact, this is also a conviction of possession, which means that you are believed to be guilty, and finally a confession is extracted based on this.
And how could Mr. Zhao be able to withstand the five poisons? She immediately admitted that she had poisoned her husband.
But the next question comes, that is, what did Zhao use to poison Zhao Huo? But in the end, Zhao didn't know what could poison people.
What to do at this time? In order to settle the case and convict Yin Shang, Liu Yuan had to give something. Otherwise, if he sent it to the county, wouldn't it be an insult to his old boss if others saw it?
But what poison to write about?
You must know that poisoning is a very technical matter, and the price is very expensive. Even if you want to get it from a wealthy family, it is impossible, let alone a woman.
At the critical moment, Shu Zuo thought of a way and wrote about Aconitum.
This stuff is found all over the mountains and can be obtained with a little refinement.
As for how Liu had this knowledge, wasn't she once Yin's maid? Isn't it reasonable to know some knowledge about poisons when working in the back house of a noble family?
That can only be said to be quite reasonable.
So, the case was settled.