Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Wandering Daoist

The person who carried out the "peeling and grass" operation for Zhao Jinzhou was a man named Zhang Mengcheng, because he did not have any practical experience and lacked relevant technical information, which led to the "peeling of the grass" was not successful, first of all, the ratio of straw and lime was seriously out of balance, and the excessive lime caused the epidermis of the specimen to be seriously dehydrated, resulting in cracking and threading of the sutures of the back and abdomen, and in the end, even the face was seriously cracked, which was really unsightly to put on the court, and it happened to be at this time when the yamen came with news, Said that the supervision history sent by the imperial court should personally pay homage to the remains of Comrade Zhao Jinzhou, the first "peeling and grass" care object in Hubei, which really saddened Zhang Mengcheng, in all fairness, for Zhao Jinzhou's "peeling and grassing" operation was a failure, at least it should not be like this, at this time Zhao Jinzhou seemed to be unrecognizable, and even said that in addition to the outline of a person, it is basically impossible to see that it is a person.

Thinking of this, this Zhang Meng Cheng simply came up with an extremely stupid "cat" method to solve the annoying "cracking" problem, that is, pouring water on the surface of the "corpse skin", and then applying butter to moisturize, hoping to temporarily alleviate the dehydration and cracking of the "corpse skin", and first fool the supervision history.

"Drenched?" Hearing this, Zhang Guozhong faintly felt that something was wrong, Maoshan Shu believes that the incomplete body is one of the main reasons for the aggravation of the soul's resentment, the ancient beheading and beheading, and finally the head of the criminal must be restored and reburied, otherwise it is easy to cause disaster, this is the unwritten rule of the executioner industry for thousands of years, and this Zhu Yuanzhang is not good at yin and yang and two is not channeling, but he just patted his brain and came up with such a trick as "peeling", which is easy to cause disasters. happened to meet this cold and sour puppet who poured oil on the fire and poured water on the corpse, Zhao Jinzhou was already angry when he suffered a catastrophe, and the water is the main yin, and the yin is used to resolve resentment, isn't this looking for bad luck?

"Well, it was okay at the time, Zhao Jinzhou's body was placed in the Yamen, and it has been twenty years since it was placed, and the Yamen was originally a place to gather evil, so it was peaceful...... "Chenguang Daoist shook his head, "But don't forget, the Yamen is a place for political affairs, how can it always put the corpse on the court?" ”

In the thirty-first year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1398), Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang died, Huizong Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne and changed the name of the first year to "Jianwen", a Hongwu, a Jianwen, it is not difficult to see from the year name that compared with Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang's one-size-fits-all strategy of "using heavy codes in troubled times", Zhu Yunwen's governing policy seems to be more focused on "convincing people with virtue".

Sure enough, the first decree issued by Zhu Yunwen after ascending the throne was to find a place to get away the "specimens of corrupt officials" that were placed on display in the yamen, because although he had seen this kind of specimen of corrupt officials from "peeling the skin and grass" among the people when he was young, Liu Yingzhang, to be honest, it was so disgusting that he didn't do anything after he took the throne and thought about removing these specimens first.

When dealing with Zhao Jinzhou's "corpse skin", a magistrate in charge of this matter originally ordered the officials to bury it back to the "Eight Thieves' Grave", but after more than 20 years, and when the "Eight Thieves' Grave" was dug up, he did not set up a grave to save trouble, but only set up a wooden sign, which had long been lost at this timeThe cause of death of these four people is the same as that of a sudden onset of distressed disease, according to modern parlance is myocardial infarction, for a time the streets and alleys are naturally rumors, saying that Zhao Jinzhou's soul is not scattered and the evil ghost asks for his life, the prefect at that time, Lei Zhongli, also invited a group of monks to chant the scriptures, but to be honest, this kind of aimless chanting is meaningless, it is not difficult for people who know a little about Taoism to see that in terms of the situation at that time, the most important measure should be to find the location of the eight graves as soon as possible, Dig out Zhao Jinzhou's body to be buried with his corpse skin, first overkill and then bury with his relatives, and then exceed, in the order of "corpse looking for skin" in order to calm the resentment of evil ghosts under the condition of ensuring safety, so as to further exceed the practice, but the original intention of the prefect Lei Zhongli to find monks and chant scriptures is only to calm things and stabilize the people's hearts.

At that time, there were also a few Taoist priests who reminded Lei Zhongli that just reciting the scriptures like this is equivalent to wasting taxpayers' money, and if you want to eradicate the root cause, you must find the corpse overdue, but Lei Zhongli misunderstood that these Taoist priests wanted to exaggerate the facts to make more money, and almost moved to punishment for this.

Time is like an arrow, four years of time is fleeting, Jianwen three years (1402), Zhu Di led his troops to attack Yingtianfu, Huizong Emperor Zhu Yunwen disappeared news spread all over the north and south of the river for a time, for this matter, the common people heard about it, but it felt numb, most people think that this is no different from the country brothers to divide the family and fight, are your old Zhu family's country, who is the emperor to close my bird matter? For a while, except for a few virtuous ministers and officials who had complained about Zhu Yunwen a few times, and they were all dealt with as the current counter-revolutionary, they did not make any waves.

There is a way that once a son of heaven and a courtier, a new official changes a group. This year, the prefect Lei Zhongli returned to his hometown after illness, and the new prefect Zhang Wenyong arrived in Xiangyang, intending to replace the general judgment * Li Guang, the new official took office, promoted cronies, and recruited the old department. This Li Guang even embezzled and took bribes seriously and made a lot of money, and the bribe-taking money was just that, but the embezzled money has long been frozen, and several years of gathering sand into a tower, this big hole can not be plugged in a day or two, once he is replaced, this big deficit will be in the daylight in an instant, although the law at this time has been much looser than Hong Wunian, but it is basically enough to cut off his head twice, and after repeatedly flattering Zhang Wenyong without success, this Li Guang has a murderous intention, and wants to find a way to get rid of it while Zhang Wenyong has not yet done it to himself.

To be honest, for Li Guang, who is powerless, it is not difficult to set a murderous target, the key is to implement, Zhang Wenyong is an official of the imperial court, and he wants to hire an ordinary robber to assassinate him, the risk is too great, once the assassin is caught and bites himself out, it is the sin of the nine clans to dig the ancestral grave, and he wants to do it himself, but this Zhang Wenyong is always alienated from himself, and he has no chance at all, just when Li Guang is at a loss, Xiangyang City suddenly has a bizarre serial murder case, The causes and consequences of the whole case can only be described in the words "unbelievable", and the occurrence of the murder suddenly ignited the flame of hope for Li Guang, who could only sit and wait for death.

In Xiangyang City, there is a nouveau riche named Zhang Cong who started by selling smuggled salt, and he is also a master who eats corn cobs for three meals and two meals in ten years, and in recent years, he has two money in hand, so he thinks about moving the ancestral tomb to build a new tomb to glorify the ancestors, Zhang Cong's ancestors are poor and middle peasants for three generations, and they were all buried in Longhugang before, but not long after the tomb was moved, Zhang Cong's family had a murder.

Before moving the grave, this Zhang Cong had a room of concubines called Zeng Shan'er, and Zhang Cong's original wife Liang has always been at odds, Liang has a younger brother named Liang Zhongbao, is a gangster, thinking about revenge on Zeng Shan'er all day long, and soon after Zhang Cong moved the grave, Zeng Shan'er died inexplicably at the door of the house, and the night before the violent death, he also had sex with Zhang Cong, this Zhang Cong went out in the morning and found that the concubine died at the door, so scared that he almost urinated on the spot.

The new prefect Zhang Wenyong is a person who does not believe in evil, and he didn't think about any crooked ways at all, and after a general understanding of Zhang Cong's family relationship, he concluded that it was the Liang family that instigated his brother to kill Zeng Shan'er, and without saying a word, the Liang sisters and brothers were escorted to the lobby and severely punished, and after the torture was fruitless, they were temporarily put in prison, but just a day later, Zhang Cong himself died, and the cause of death was roughly the same as Zeng Shan'er, and this Zhang Wenyong took all the servants of Zhang Cong's family to the lobby and tortured them one by one. But in the end, there was no result.

Just when Zhang Cong's servant was on trial in the front hall, Li Guang came to the prison and saw Li Guang, this Liang family can be said to be like seeing a savior, to be honest, selling smuggled salt is a capital crime in all dynasties, the reason why Zhang Cong was able to swagger and sell illicit salt for several years is completely thanks to this Li Guang's blessing, and there are more unclean things between the two families, and Li Guang inquired about Zhang Cong's relocation of the ancestral grave in the name of helping the Liang family.

Listening to Liang talk about Zhang Cong's relocation of the grave, Li Guang immediately thought of the tragic death of the three officials a few years ago because of burying the skin of Zhao Jinzhou's corpse. After coming out of the prison, Li Guang visited Zhang Mengcheng, the two hundred and fifty servants in charge of the autopsy, according to Zhang Mengcheng's analysis, Zeng Shan'er and Li Guang died with a broken neck bone, and the strength can be said to be unprecedented, the perpetrator must be good at kung fu, at least he has to practice kung fu such as "eagle claw gong" and "iron sand palm", street gangsters like Liang Zhongbao should not have so much strength, hearing this, this Li Guangjue's psychology is almost guessed, even if Zhang Cong has an enemy, his concubine Zeng Shan'er will not have anything to do with those heroes of the rivers and lakes, The only explanation for the reason why people can break their neck bones is that the perpetrator was possessed by ghosts and gods, and it seems that those rumors that have been circulating in Xiangyang Mansion for decades seem to be true, and Zhao Jinzhou's unjust soul is really not gone......

In fact, as far as Li Guang is concerned, if there is any other way to kill Zhang Wenyong, he will never fight these ghosts, ghosts and gods, but now he has indeed reached the point of desperation, seeing that he is about to step down, once the new general judge reviews the previous official documents, his death date will come, and now he can only be a dead horse as a live horse doctor, and put the treasure on these ghosts, ghosts and gods, if he can really summon the ghosts and gods to kill this Zhang Wenyong seamlessly, and then take office as the new prefect and replace his subordinates, It will take at least a year for this whole process to go down, and even if it is not enough to plug the hole, such a long time is at least enough to go away and fly incognito. And just when Li Guang was complacent because he came up with a way, the question came again, how to get the ghosts and gods to harm Zhang Wenyong? It's hard to dig up Zhao Jinzhou's corpse and bury it in Zhang Wenyong's yard, not to mention that he doesn't know where Zhao Jinzhou's specimen is buried, even if he knows, I'm afraid that the person who dies first will be himself.

Coincidentally, just when Li Guang turned from joy to sorrow, he went to Zhang Cong's house to investigate the clues, the actions of a traveling Taoist attracted Li Guang's attention, this person first turned around Zhang Cong's house for a long time, and after seeing the iron lock hanging high, he asked the neighbors about the whereabouts of this family, seeing this situation, Li Guang hurriedly stepped forward to give a salute, and told Zhang Cong what happened after moving the grave to this traveling Taoist person, after listening to Li Guang, the old Taoist was also a sigh, saying that there must be evil ghosts in this house. I wanted to make some hard-earned money for his demon eradication and ghost suppression, but I didn't expect that everyone was taken by the government.

Hearing what the Taoist priest said, Li Guang was naturally overjoyed, and hurriedly invited Lao Dao to his home and set a table of first-class wine and food, with the strength of the wine, Li Guang told Lao Dao all the series of death cases caused by Zhao Jinzhou's specimen a few years ago, and expressed his situation at this time and his intention to kill Zhang Wenyong.

As soon as he heard that he wanted to kill someone and was an official of the imperial court, the Taoist priest was also hesitant for a while, and finally this Li Guangyi gritted his teeth, and simply vomited blood and opened a sky-high honorarium of three thousand taels of silver. I let you earn all the hard-earned money of eight lifetimes at one time, there is a way that money can make ghosts grind, how can a wandering Taoist ever see three thousand taels of silver? For the sake of the silver ticket, this old way was half-pushed and half-agreed......

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Note*:

General judgment: the name of the official position, under the prefect in charge of grain transportation, family land, water conservancy and litigation and other matters.

The concept of the value of silver in the Ming Dynasty: how much was three thousand taels of silver worth in the Ming Dynasty? The popular accounting method on the Internet is to take the ancient and modern rice prices as the conversion standard, Ming Yongle year five taels of silver can buy about a ton of rice, with the current wholesale price of about 3,500 yuan per ton of rice, the value of one tael of silver in the Ming Yongle year is about 700 yuan, 3,000 taels is 2.1 million yuan, but the fact is not necessarily the case, there were no chemical fertilizers and pesticides in ancient times, there was no combine harvester, and there was no super rice expert like Yuan Longping to invent high-yielding varieties, so the rice at that time should be more gold than now, Moreover, the current price of rice is regulated by the state, and it does not fully reflect the objective value of rice, so the "exchange rate" of one tael of silver and 700 yuan is only a very conservative reference comparison, and its actual value is much higher than this figure.