Lu Jinping said: "Your analysis just now is correct, but it is only one aspect. Before that, I had some suspicions that something was wrong with the farmer, because when the first merchant was killed, the hunter proved that he slept with the farmer, and when he heard the cry, he woke the farmer. The hunter proved that he had woken him up in the middle of the night when he was by his side, but the farmer refused to testify on the hunter's behalf, saying that he had been there when he had woken up. This is not quite a common sense, because it stands to reason that if they prove each other, it will only strengthen their alibi evidence, and it will not affect him. But he refused to testify for the other party and pushed the other party to the position of the suspect, which just made me feel a little strange. But at this time I didn't have any doubts about him, and my suspicions were in the second death. ”

The second time, when the landlord died, he questioned the witnesses, and the farmer said that he was in the hall with the porter, and this was another case of mutual testimony that could exonerate the guilt, and as long as the farmer agreed with the porter's statement, both of them could get away with the suspicion, but the farmer was still unwilling to testify with the porter, saying that he was asleep at the time and did not know. This is even more unreasonable, because, no matter how well he sleeps in normal times, after several people have been murdered, and it is always so miserable, ordinary people cannot fall asleep immediately, let alone sleep so deadly. So I suspected that the farmer was lying, and judging by the fact that he was unwilling to testify on behalf of others and put others in the position of suspects, he wanted to muddy the waters and make us fight in a mess, so that he could take advantage of the gap and kill us. ”

"Of course, in the end, I was sure that he was an accomplice, and that was what you just said that he invited the others to drink bone broth before leaving. - Just now, the old woman boiled the bone broth, and I have already explained that this shop is a black shop, but he has no doubts and invites everyone to drink the bone broth made by the old woman, is he not afraid that the murderer has added poison to it? Combined with the judgment I have reached earlier, he is an accomplice. ”

"Eventually, I decided to try to get him out of the soup. Let him show his feet. Actually, I can't be sure if there is poison in the bone broth, but judging by the fact that the farmer just refused to drink it. I can conclude that the soup must have been poisoned. ”

Hearing this, the farmer, the old woman, and the young woman bowed their heads at last.

And at this time, the first rays of sunlight also shone on the window lattice.

――――――――――――――――――――

The Spring Festival is coming.

This is the first Spring Festival that Lu Jinping will spend after arriving in the Tang Dynasty, so he attaches great importance to it. Now that he was the magistrate of the land, he had nineteen servants assigned to him by the imperial court, and he had enough men to prepare for the New Year, and now he had enough money to make him a more abundant and rich Spring Festival.

Ye Qingqing took the initiative to take on the commander-in-chief of the Spring Festival preparations, because Lu Jinping did not hire a housekeeper, and there was no such job among the servants assigned by the imperial court. There is no need to hire a special housekeeper to take charge of this work in his current family wealth, so Ye Qingqing will temporarily act as his agent.

With Ye Qingqing's help, Lu Jinping was much easier, and he didn't need to worry about it at all. Instead, focus on the trial of the case.

It is gratifying that near the end of the year, there is peace and tranquility, not only no major murders such as homicides, but even ordinary criminal offenses have hardly appeared, as if those evil people who do a lot of evil also need a peaceful environment to spend their Spring Festival, which is the meaning of the ancient saying "called Hanako also has Chinese New Year's Eve".

The Spring Festival of the Tang Dynasty was put for ten days, and five days before the year and five days after the year, and now it is close to the day of the Spring Festival, and some people in the yamen have begun to ask for leave to go back to prepare for the New Year. But Lu Jinping didn't want to take leave to go back so early. Although he believed that if he asked Feng Tingshi for a leave, with his recent achievements in solving big cases, Tingshi would not embarrass him, and would definitely grant him leave to go home early. But Ye Qingqing helped prepare. Even if he took a leave of absence to go back, there was really nothing he could do to help. Therefore, he stayed in the yamen to deal with official business, and although there were no life cases and major criminal cases, he still had a lot of things to deal with, such as prison beheading.

In ancient times, there were generally two ways to impose the death penalty. One is the beheading after the autumn, that is, no matter when the death penalty is imposed at the end of the year, even if the emperor has issued an edict to approve the death penalty, it is necessary to wait until the autumn queen to organize the execution. The other is the execution of the death penalty, that is, once the emperor decrees the approval of the death penalty, after the decree is served, the local yamen must organize the execution of the criminal law against the condemned prisoners within three days, instead of waiting for the autumn to be executed. At this time, the court and rulers paid more attention to using the fastest execution to deter such crimes, rather than using the unified execution after the autumn to reflect the emperor's grace, which is a different value orientation.

However, for the officials below, this is not a good thing, because after the emperor's decree approving the death penalty is handed down, it must be organized and implemented, and this time is close to the Spring Festival, and before the biggest festival of the year, a criminal has to be executed, even if this crime is extremely heinous, but it is not a pleasant thing.

Lu Jinping's current mood is like this.

A case of death penalty has been approved by the emperor, and the holy decree has been approved, and he, as the judicial officer in charge of the prison in Tongzhou, is responsible for the organization of the execution and the supervision of the execution ground.

It was a homicide in which the condemned man was a butcher who split the forehead of an old man with a bone-chopping axe and then stabbed the old man in the temple with a pig-killing knife. What's worse is that before that, he had tried to sexually assault the old man's daughter-in-law, causing the woman to be humiliated and commit suicide. His reputation in the neighborhood is also not good, his personality is very violent, he is short of two pounds in trading, bullying and dominating the market, and forcing him to buy and sell. And he is very unfilial, the old lady is in her seventies and lonely alone in the countryside, he does not take the old lady to his side to practice filial piety, he was sentenced to be decided, and the locals can be said to be happy.

Therefore, although Lu Jinping is frustrated that he is still doing the job of an executioner when the Spring Festival is about to be celebrated, he still has to carry out this very happy thing, and he can't fake others.

At this moment, he was listening to a report from the chief officer of the execution cell, Sha Sifang, about the interrogation of the condemned prisoners before the execution.

Sha Sifang is a person in charge who was newly promoted from the criminal room after Lu Jinping came to power, which is equivalent to the president of the criminal division of the modern court, surnamed Sha. is an old man with gray hair, he has a deep attainment in Tang Law, Lu Jinping is not very familiar with Tang Law, and often asks him for advice. knew that he was familiar with Tang Law, so he promoted him to be the secretary.

The Tang Dynasty had to make a final interrogation before the execution, the main content was whether the other party had a last word to confess, or if there was anything unfinished, and who would hand over his bones to deal with. If the requirements of the condemned prisoner are in accordance with the etiquette law, the yamen will generally agree and help him handle it, because the criminal law of beheading is too harsh, and in order to make up for it, this slightly humane provision was made.

Sha Sifang reported to Lu Jinping after completing this matter.

Lu Jinping sat behind the long case, looking at the gray-haired sand room standing next to him, he really wanted the other party to sit down, but he now understood that in the Tang Dynasty, everything was about rules, especially the officialdom was very particular. Although he can do this, if he really wants to do this, it may bring a series of consequences, and he will even be referred to by the supervision of the imperial history, thinking that he is indecent as an official, which is not good, so he must also get used to the strict hierarchical order of the Tang Dynasty.

Sha Sifang himself didn't think that there was anything wrong with Lu Jinping, a young man sitting behind the warm pavilion and listening to him an old man standing there to report the situation, his face was full of respect, and he lowered his hand and smiled and said: "Sir, I have been inquired about my duties, this butcher is still crying out for ......."

Lu Jinping smiled and said: "There is no way to do this, we are not responsible for reviewing his crime now, whether it is unjust or not, and whether the criminal law is too heavy." Because, the procedure for his case has been completed, the emperor has approved it, and all we need to do is to carry out his death sentence, not to hear the complaint of whether he was wronged or not. ”

Sha Sifang nodded again and again with a smile and said: "Yes, yes, it is useless for the lord to be right, and the humble position also explained to him in this way, so he didn't listen to how he said that he was wronged, and the humble office asked him if he had any last words or something that our yamen could do for him, if he still shouted that he was not doing the right thing, then I would leave, just as he did not have this request, he had no wife and children, and when the time came, he would be executed, and his bones would be wrapped in a straw mat and buried directly in the mass grave." Hearing what I said, the butcher panicked, and hurriedly said a request, and felt that it was reasonable, so he came to report to the lord, did you do it for him? ”

"Oh? What does he ask, let's hear it. ”

"That's right, this butcher has no wife and no children, but he has an old mother in the country, who is over 70 years old this year, and she can't farm the land, so she gives the field to the people to help her, and collects half of the rent to barely make a living. And the butcher usually did not give money to his mother, and let the old mother be alone in the countryside, and did not take the old man to his side, and at this time he remembered his old mother. He begged us to send a letter to his old mother, so that she could collect the bones, so that they would not be thrown into the mass grave and dragged by wild dogs to eat. However, he had no money, because the yamen ordered his pork shop and savings to be compensated to the deceased for burial silver. His family is not well-off, and there are no assets left behind, so it depends on whether his old mother is willing to drag her old body to take care of his funeral. (To be continued.) )