The basic procedure of litigation in the Ming Dynasty was that the person who filed the complaint submitted the complaint to the court in the prescribed notice, and the county lord conducted a procedural review to see whether the complaint was qualified and whether the complaint was indeed himself. This is the case.

For civil lawsuits, it is necessary to first issue tickets such as "supervision and accountability tickets" and "coupons", so that the licensed government officials can organize mediation between the two parties, and if the mediation fails, they will begin to prepare for trial.

At this time, an "investigation ticket" should be issued, ordering the official to conduct an investigation and visit with a license, find out the true cause of the matter, report it to the lord in writing, and sometimes collect relevant evidence, seize and seal the property, etc., and then issue a ticket to summon the defendant and witnesses to hold a trial.

After the trial, the corresponding judgment will be made according to different circumstances, if the county master is relatively strong, this kind of judgment can be made in the court, if not, it is generally drafted by the criminal master after leaving the court, and then the judgment is pronounced at the next court session, or directly posted on the wall to announce.

After Yang Qiuchi took his seat in the public seat, the officer of the torture room (which can be understood as "the president of the court case filing division") first collected the complaint of the person who filed the complaint today, sent it to Master Jin for preliminary trial, and then gave it to Yang Qiuchi for procedural review, and then returned it to Master Jin to write a letter of approval and file the case within three days.

After this matter was done, Master Jin handed a large stack of bills to Yang Qiuchi and said, "My lord, this is the case that has been accepted last time and the two parties and witnesses have arrived in the court, waiting for the court to hear it today. I had already seen these cases last night, and the relevant verdicts were written on the pleadings. ”

Yang Qiuchi nodded, and he had a bottom in his heart. Picked up the first shape and looked at it, the neat block letters, although it is traditional, but I have been used to reading it for so long, the shape of the Ming Dynasty is very simple, the regulations generally cannot exceed two hundred words, and I read it in three or two clicks.

This case is a lost and found dispute. There was a person on a big stone on the side of the road picked up a delicate blue and white short-spouted teapot, handed it to the yamen, the yali out of the revelation, the result of two people came to claim at once, last time that Jiang Zhixian didn't know which one to award, so he pressed the judgment and pushed it to Yang Qiuchi.

Yang Qiuchi instructed: "The plaintiff Jiang Wenming and the defendant Zhu Jiaohua in the lost and found dispute case are in court!" ”

The soap on duty ran to the front of the hall and shouted loudly, and the two men in green clothes and short shirts bent down and knelt down in the hall. Yang Qiuchi verified his identity and asked the plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua to speak first.

Zhu Jiaohua said: "Master, the teapot recruited by the yamen is an heirloom handed down by the villain's ancestors. Please call the shots! "Kowtow again and again.

Defendant Jiang Wenming hurriedly said: "No, what he said is false, the blue and white teapot belongs to my family, and it was left to me by my father." He lied! ”

"Phew~!" Plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua took a sip, "You just told a lie, that blue and white is obviously mine, you fucking see the money!" ”

"You're swearing? You're just fucking looking at money! ”

"Your mother's death! Lao Tzu hacked you to death! ”

"Fuck you! Give it a try! ”

…… Yang Qiuchi snapped and shouted, "Bold! Filthy words came out of the lobby, roaring at the court, clearly contempt for the official, someone is coming! Stretched out his hand and drew a order from the lottery holder on the public case and threw it off the stage, shouting: "Drag me down, twenty palms per person!" ”

"Yes!" On both sides, soaps came up and grabbed the two and dragged them to the platform at the entrance of the lobby, and the two grabbed one and one was executed. This kind of punishment is to be whipped with a special "leather palm" made of leather, although it is not a punishment prescribed by law, but it can be used by tacit consent.

There was a crackling beating, and the blood splattered from the corners of the two people, screaming like killing pigs, and the crowd of onlookers laughed in unison.

Laughter is laughter, however, the onlookers already have a preliminary understanding of the official prestige of the new official master, and the official prestige is very necessary to increase his prestige, in this regard, Master Jin has already explained to Yang Qiuchi, and he must find a way to establish this prestige as soon as possible. These two people happened to collide with Yang Qiuchi's muzzle and became the first object to establish their official authority.

After finishing the palm and dragging the two people to the hall, Yang Qiuchi asked, "Have you confessed your guilt?" ”

The two kowtowed again and again: "The villain is guilty, and he won't dare anymore." ”

"That's good!" Yang Qiuchi nodded and asked, "When you threw the teapot that day, was there anyone next to you?" ”

"Nope." Both of them replied, and the plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua said, "I had something to do that day, and I was in a hurry, so I forgot the teapot on the big rock on the side of the road, and there was no one else around at that time." ”

Jiang Wenming also said: "You are talking nonsense, it is obviously my teapot, I forgot it on the stone, you read the revelation and ran to fish in troubled water!" ”

"You're just fishing in troubled waters!"

…… Yang Qiuchi saw that the two of them were going to quarrel again, so he was shocked and stopped, thinking that everything in this revelation was written, and of course others wanted to see the wealth. Turning his head to look at Master Jin on the side, he said, "What kind of good treasure are they fighting for?" Take it for me to see. ”

Master Jin respectfully handed over the blue and white short-spouted teapot. Yang Qiuchi took it, he didn't study these gadgets much, and asked Master Jin, "Is this thing worth anything?" Look at the two of them fighting red-faced. ”

Master Jin said with a smile: "My lord, I have seen this blue and white short-spouted teapot, it is from the Song Dynasty, and the market price is about twenty taels of silver." ”

Twenty taels? Isn't that 20,000 yuan? Well, it's not bad, no wonder these two boys are fighting for a fight.

Yang Qiuchi asked again: "This teapot is only the size of a fist, and it can pour a cup of tea, what can it be used for?" "Yang Qiuchi doesn't like to drink tea, so he doesn't have much research on tea utensils.

Master Jin said: "My lord, this teapot is drunk directly on the spout of the teapot in your hand, and it is not poured into the cup." ”

Just drink it with your mouth? Yang Qiuchi's head flashed, and he turned his head and asked the original defendant, "Have you ever drunk tea with this teapot?" ”

"Drunk." The two replied in unison, glaring at each other again.

That's easy to do, Yang Qiuchi thought, drink tea with the teapot spout in his mouth, the teapot spout should have residual saliva and even oral mucosal epithelial cells, and after extraction, test the blood type, and then test the blood type of the two, and compare, it is possible to determine who the teapot is. However, your own reagents are valuable and cannot be used on these small cases.

So what to do, Yang Qiuchi put down the teapot, picked it up and looked at it, only to see that the judgment written by Master Jin on it was: "The valuation is twenty taels of silver, the plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua pays the defendant Jiang Wenming eight taels, and the teapot belongs to the plaintiff." ”

What the hell is this judgment, it's just mud! Yang Qiuchi scolded in his heart.

This Yang Qiuchi doesn't understand, Master Jin's trick had a famous hall in ancient times, called the "four six points" adjudication method, which judges the winning party six points and the losing party four points, so that the two sides will not be too different, so as not to cause the loss party to be angry and re-sued, and the lawsuit is endless, and it is often used to judge this kind of confused case. It is also commonly known as "playing fifty boards each".

However, Yang Qiuchi didn't want to judge like this, so he decided to find clues to find out whose teapot it was.

He put the shape down, looked at the teapot carefully, and suddenly his heart moved, and he thought of an idea, and said, "You both say that it is yours, so do you dare to swear?" ”

"Dare!" The two said.

"Good! The two of you write your oaths on paper and stamp them with handprints, and I will put your oaths on the land temple in front of the yamen, and let the land lord decide, are you willing? ”

The two glanced at each other, nodded and said, "Okay, let the land lord decide!" ”

Yang Qiuchi instructed Master Jin to give them pen and paper to write an oath, and then took the blue and white short-spouted teapot and turned it out of the back hall.

He was walking towards the back hall with his head down, almost crashing into a group of people, looking up, startled, several girls behind the warm pavilion screen were looking at him eating and laughing, but it was Song Yun'er, Qin Zhihui, Song Qing, Bai Sumei, the four of them, and the three little maids such as Hong Aya.

Yang Qiuchi asked in a low voice, "What are you guys doing here?" ”

Song Yun'er also said in a low voice: "Listen to your trial of the case!" ”

The mud doll Song Qing also said: "Husband, can the land master really be clear?" ”

Qin Zhihui and Bai Sumei were relatively quiet, not as good as Song Yun'er and Song Qing, they just looked at Yang Qiuchi with concern, after all, this was the first case he tried after he arrived, and they were a little nervous for him.

"Of course you can!" Yang Qiuchi glared, "Can a husband still lie?" Wait here, I'll come when I go! "Take a step and go to the inner office.

"Where are you going?" Song Qing shouted in a low voice.

Yang Qiuchi waved his hand to let them leave it alone, and trotted back to the inner office.

After a while, he hurried back again. Song Yun'er asked first, "What are you running around?" ”

Yang Qiuchi waved his hand: "You guys wait to watch the show!" ”

Back in the lobby, Yang Qiuchi asked, "Is it written well?" ”

The two kowtowed: "It's written." ”

"Have you stamped your handprint?"

"Covered!"

"Bring it on!" Yang Qiuchi Dao Master Jin took those two oaths to Yang Qiuchi's public case. Yang Qiuchi lay on it and looked at it carefully for a while, and said, "Take the two of them to the land temple next to the yamen and kneel down, and let them swear verbally and face to face in front of the land lord!" The official then came. ”

The soaps agreed, and led the original defendant out of the hall to kneel in front of the land temple next to Zhaobi. The two swore an oath.

The onlookers had never heard of the case of the land lord, and they all discussed it, and they all felt that it was lively to see it now, and they all stood on tiptoe and looked at it with their necks up.

After a while, before Yang Qiuchi came out, a soap officer ran in boldly and reported: "Master, everything is ready, and they have sworn an oath." ”

"Hmm." Yang Qiuchi got up unhurriedly, took the two pieces of white paper with the oath written on them, and walked out of the lobby step by step, squinting at it, Song Yun'er and a few of them also came to the back of the crowd to look, not far away was Xia Ping and the female guards were on guard.

This land temple is not really a temple, it is a statue of the land lord, built a shrine to protect from the wind and rain, and there is a long case in front of it to put incense burner offerings.

The two defendants were kneeling in front of the land lord, glaring at each other angrily.

Yang Qiuchi walked to the front of the case, and there was already a soap Li ready for incense, candles, and paper money. Yang Qiuchi put the two oaths on the table, respectfully put on three incense sticks, and burned some paper money in an incense burner on the table.

Put your hands together and pray loudly: "The land lord is above, this official has tried the case of the plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua and the defendant Jiang Wenming competing for the blue and white short-spouted teapot, and the judgment is not clear, and the land lord is specially invited to make a ruling on his behalf." If either of them has lied, please apparilate on their oath to instruct! The official now presents the oath and asks the land lord to look at it. ”

After that, he first picked up the oath of the defendant Jiang Wenming, held it high for the onlookers to see, and then bowed down and grabbed both sides of the oath and sent it to the land lord.

For a moment, he took back his oath, glanced at it, and then showed it to everyone, and there was no change on it.

Yang Qiuchi picked up the oath of the plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua again, and first showed it to everyone, and then stretched it out in front of the land lord. After a moment, he took it back and looked at it, sneered, and turned to hold the oath aloft for display.

Wow~! The crowd screamed and took a few steps back, and the timid ones even screamed in fright and turned to run.

It turned out that the plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua's oath showed a brown-red hideous face!

Plaintiff Zhu Jiaohua's face was pale, his body was weak, and he fell to the ground, and the defendant Jiang Wenming was pleasantly surprised, and repeatedly kowtowed to the land lord to thank him.

Yang Qiuchi sneered: "Zhu Jiaohua, what else do you have to say?" ”

Zhu Jiaohua first peeked at the land lord in horror, got up with a shudder, and kowtowed to the land lord a few times: "The villain is guilty, the villain is guilty of money, and wants to fish in troubled waters, the villain is guilty, beg the land lord to spare his life!" Then he turned around and kowtowed to Yang Qiuchi: "Master, the villain is guilty, ask the master for forgiveness." ”

Yang Qiuchi peeked at Song Yun'er and the others, only to see that their faces were surprised and surprised, and their eyes were full of admiration. Yang Qiuchi was so proud in his heart that he ordered: "Bring them in!" He stepped into the lobby.

The onlookers broke out into thunderous applause, and the onlookers all knew that Jiang Zhi County had not been able to clear the case before, and now the new county lord actually invited the land lord to personally judge the case, and he was really a god and a man, and they all discussed:

"It turns out that the land lord of the county government is so spiritual!"

"It's like, it's really amazing!"

"Why haven't you heard of spirits before? It must be that this new lord has something to do with the lord of the land, and he takes special care of him, so he will appear! ”

"It must be!"

"I don't know if the land lord can manifest and help my wife give birth to a son."

"If only the spirit could show me a way to make money!"

"I'll come tomorrow to ask the Lord of the Land to bless me with a top score!"

…… Yang Qiuchi shook his head and paced into the lobby amid applause and praise, returned to the back of the public case and sat down, looking at Master Jin and the officials, only to see that they all showed awe, as if what was in front of them was not the county lord, but a god.

(To be continued)