After bypassing the two large rooms, it is the real prison of the Criminal Department. When Qin Tai and Zhan Xiaoxiao saw this two-story house, they were almost frightened by this house. It's not that the house is too imposing, it's not that the architecture is too scary, it's that the house is too general and basic. If this is the prison of the Criminal Department, the prison of the general county government is a super prison. What would a national prison look like? It's just a big joke.

Qin Tai knows something about the prison of the Criminal Department, although he has not been here in person, but he has been yearning for it for a long time. According to Qin Tai's understanding, he learned that this prison of the Criminal Department was personally supervised by Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, and he attached almost as much importance as the palace. In order to build this prison of the Criminal Department, Zhu Di pushed back the progress of the palace back then. For the sake of this prison of the Criminal Department, Zhu Di beheaded the heads of seven supervising officials before and after, and spent half of the silver to build the palace to build this prison of the Criminal Department. It can be seen that the construction site of this prison of the Criminal Department is impregnable, and it will definitely not be such a simple building. Qin Tai immediately figured it out, this was just an illusion, and people couldn't guess the true appearance of the prison of the Criminal Department.

After walking into this house, Qin Tai and Zhan Xiaoxiao immediately felt stuffy. It turned out that this house did not look big, but in fact it was made of iron, and it was not an ordinary brick house. On this floor of the ground floor are a rest room, in which some jailers on night duty lie in the middle of the line, which seems to be the rest room of the jailers. In addition to the scattered lounge, there are three entrances and exits to the underground, one bright and two dark. There was also an improvised passage to the upper floor, guarded by a soldier at the door, who did not allow outsiders to approach casually. Later, Zhan Xiaoxiao learned through a jailer that upstairs was the soldier's observation room. There was not only a cannon on it, but also some muskets and repeaters. In the event of an accident, the upper floors can control the commanding heights within a few hundred meters of the house. Upstairs there is also a "message room", which is not used to collect intelligence, but to control the passage from the ground to the underground. In the event of an accident outside the prison department, the soldiers upstairs will ring the alarm bell inside. Once the perimeter is breached, a mechanism will be activated upstairs to cut off the passage above and below ground. The upstairs organ message room can only be closed but not opened, and the only way to open it must be to open the mechanism from the inside, or to open it from the main organ to control the mechanism. The location of the General Organ is known only to the senior officials of the Criminal Department, and the password to open the General Organ is known only to the servants of the Criminal Department who are in charge of the Criminal Prison.

Qin Tai finally saw what a state-level prison was, and the entire prison was all-metal. The inner walls of the prison are made of iron, and the outside is surrounded by large blocks of granite. If you bomb blindly, even if the artillery bombards for a few days, you won't be able to blow up this prison. The jailers of the prison of the Criminal Department called this building "Wang Bawo", and the prison of the Criminal Department called it "Wang Bahu". It's ironic, but it's also a sign that it's safe.

Once underground, this is where the real prison is located. Inside is a stepped cell, with a total of five floors, the first floor is an interrogation room and a special cell, the second to fourth floors are ordinary cells, and the fifth floor is a water cell. Special cells for felons or unconvicted suspects are placed on the first floor to facilitate interrogation or torture of criminals. There are also some jailers' duty rooms on the first floor, which are places for some jailers to rest on duty. Some torture instruments were hung on the walls, and some were stacked on the ground. The second to fourth floors are held for convicted prisoners. Serious offenders or condemned prisoners are held in separate cells, and some dangerous prisoners are held in solitary confinement. Ordinary criminals are kept in large cells, usually 10 to 15 people in a room. Some wealthy criminals can also be kept in a single room through layers of relationships. Some disobedient prisoners, or those who offended the prison of the penal department, will be locked up to the lowest level, where the water prison is quite terrifying. Zhan Xiaoxiao later learned that the water in the dungeon was not living water, not only stench, but also a lot of corrupt things. Prisoners who are imprisoned in a water prison for half a day will be worse off than dead, and they will have to endure harassment by rats and other things, and they will have to endure the stench. The worst thing is that this water is poisonous, and after soaking in it for a long time, it will produce germs. Qin Tai told Zhan Xiaoxiao that the biggest harm of this kind of water prison is to harm the body of the prisoners, and the prisoners who come out of the water prison are inhumane and even unrecognizable. It is the most vicious kind of punishment, and it is also a method of torturing people. It is strictly forbidden to use this method in ordinary prisons, but I did not expect that this kind of inhuman cell is still used in the prison of the Criminal Department.

As a newcomer, Qin Tai and Zhan Xiaoxiao walked around roughly together, and wandered around the first to fourth floors. For various reasons, the fifth layer of the water prison did not allow Qin Tai and Zhan Xiaoxiao to enter. However, such a visit also surprised Qin Tai and Zhanxiao. On the first floor, there are more than 30 duty rooms and a large bunk, which can allow hundreds of jailers to rest and be on duty. There are 133 special cells and 13 interrogation rooms, plus a large square. On the second floor, there are 147 large prison rooms and 317 single rooms. On the third floor, there are 156 large prison cells and 283 single rooms. The fourth floor is all single rooms, with a total of more than 760 rooms. The prison is trumpet-shaped, and the further down it goes, the larger it gets, so that the fifth floor should be larger than the fourth, and the total area should be more than three times that of the first. Qin Taichu made a rough estimate that this national-level prison of the Ministry of Criminal Justice could hold tens of thousands of people, or even more prisoners, and it was indeed one of the largest prisons in the Ming Dynasty.

In fact, Qin Tai still underestimated this prison of the Criminal Department, and the maximum capacity of this prison of the Criminal Department was more than 37,000 criminals. After Ming Yingzong was reinstated, he arrested all the ministers who supported his younger brother Emperor Jingtai. Except for some officials with backgrounds who were temporarily imprisoned in Dali Temple, and some clan relatives and nobles were imprisoned in Jinyiwei's "Imperial Prison", all of them were imprisoned in this prison of the Criminal Department. In order to justify the name and prevent everyone from making trouble, all the ministers and their families in the prison of the Criminal Department were reduced to the people and all their fame was abolished. Led by several ministers, Yu Qian and others, this famous minister of the Ming Dynasty was finally completely abandoned by the royal family. Thinking that Yu Qian repeatedly persuaded Yingzong not to easily drive the expedition, Ming Yingzong not only did not listen but also forcibly left Yu Qian in the capital. As a result, after the "Battle of Tumubao", the military strength of the Ming Dynasty took a sharp turn, and Ming Yingzong himself was captured by the enemy Wara. The enemy used Ming Yingzong to conquer the border pass, surrounded the capital, and attempted to destroy the Ming Dynasty. At this critical moment, Yu Qian took people to meet the Empress Dowager Sun, asked the Empress Dowager Sun to preside over the overall situation, respected Ming Yingzong as the emperor, and asked Ming Yingzong's younger brother to ascend the throne as the new emperor. Later, the Wara people released Ming Yingzong back, and Emperor Jingtai was unwilling to return the throne to his brother Ming Yingzong, so he imprisoned Ming Yingzong in the Chonghua Hall of Nangong. Yu Qian maneuvered between Ming Yingzong and Emperor Jingtai many times, but Ming Yingzong thought that Yu Qian was a traitor, and Emperor Jingtai gradually alienated Yu Qian. Ming Yingzong secretly contacted the old ministers, and with the support of the general Shi Heng, Ming Yingzong was restored. not only forced Emperor Jingtai to death, but also arrested Yu Qian and others. Yu Qian left the famous "Lime Yin" in the prison of the Criminal Department, leaving behind "I am not afraid of broken bones, only the innocence is left in the people." The classic text. At that time, the prison of the Criminal Department was overcrowded, and the first to fourth floors were full, and even the single room was full of six or seven criminals. Later, it really couldn't be closed, and a jailer thought of the fifth floor, and after opening this floor, he found that the prison of the Criminal Department was really much more relaxed. It's just that the fifth floor is not a place for people, and moans and screams can be heard from time to time. In addition, the prison of the Criminal Department does not treat prisoners as human beings, and food is only delivered once every three days, and when the fifth layer of the prison is opened, the stench and smell of blood fill the entire prison. Many of them had ulcerated skin, and some of them were so hungry that they had eaten human flesh with each other. After thinking about it again, Ming Yingzong decided to kill a batch and release a batch. Yu Qian and others must die, and some inconsequential officials and their families will be released. When the officials of the Criminal Department came to release the prisoners, they found that many criminals had died, and some of the prisoners could not even find their bodies. Even those who are released from the fifth layer are sick, and it is estimated that they will not live long.

I don't know if it was arranged by accident or intentionally, the room where Qin Tai and Zhan Xiaoxiao lived temporarily turned out to be the prison room where Yu Qian lived back then. Because of the classic poems left by Yu Qian, this cell was left empty for a long time, and no criminals were arranged to detain them. After Qin Tai and Zhan Xiaoxiao were arranged in, Zhan Xiaoxiao inadvertently discovered this secret. Qin Tai has a lot of respect for Qian, and once made a "dark sacrifice" for Lord Yu Qian in his hometown, so Zhan Xiaoxiao knows Yu Qian. Qin Tai finally saw the idol's handwriting, and he was a little excited for a while, and he touched the handwriting for a long time and didn't speak again.

Zhan Xiaoxiao turned around and went out, stopping the officials of the Criminal Department who were about to leave, the purpose was to ask the officials to explain the orders of their superiors. With this official's clear answer, everyone handed over part of the old file to Zhan Xiaoxiao. Zhan Xiaoxiao took these files back to the room, and after sorting them out, they were handed over to her husband Qin Tai for review. Zhan Xiaoxiao was used to doing these jobs, and long before he got married, Zhan Xiaoxiao was already Qin Tai's right-hand man. I don't know if it was because the people in the prison of the Criminal Department were sloppy, or if they did it on purpose, many files were incomplete, and some files were mixed with other files at will. Fortunately, Zhan Xiaoxiao and Qin Tai were not only meticulous, but also mentally prepared, so they didn't feel troublesome.