Section 45
45
"Don't hide it from Lord Shen, my brother does have a record of Xu Zhiming's crime of buying officials and lords in Yunnan over the years, engaging in favoritism, perverting the law for bribes, and forcibly obtaining it, that is, the private secret account book...... Madam, Zishan, do you want to hand over the account books to Lord Shen to read first, and then make a decision?" Li Yulong said.
"Zishan, what do you think?" Deng Yanling asked.
"You and Brother Yun Fei can trust the people I can trust. But before handing over the account book, the maiden had a few words to say, if she was offended, she hoped that Lord Shen would forgive her sins. Deng Zishan took out a cloth bag from her arms (in order to prevent accidents, the cloth bag has been kept by Beimen Yunfei. When Shen Tianpeng revealed his identity at the "Fulai Inn", on the way to the "Mountain Moon Listening to the Wind" Inn, Yunfei from the north gate returned the cloth bag to Deng Zishan, so that she could decide whether to submit the account book in the bag to Lord Shen in time), and said in his hand.
"Since I have sworn to the brothers of the North Gate, then you are also my brother-in-law, although you have something to say, it doesn't hurt to say it. Shen Tianpeng said.
"This account book was originally a shield used by my father to defend himself, but I didn't want it to end up being a talisman to kill my father. Deng Zishan said with some sadness, "My father has been an official for many years, and he knows that officialdom is dark and sinister, and he often says: 'Under the absolute totalitarian rule of the imperial power that has remained unchanged for thousands of years in the Celestial Empire, people are not officials, and they are ordinary officials. I have gone deep into the big dung pit of officialdom, and I am in the company of maggots, and I will inevitably be contaminated with filth and stench. If you are not greedy, how can you mix in officialdom? What is loyal to the king and serves the country, and what loves the people like a son, all are, but they are just high-ranking words to fool the foolish people. For example, I am the political envoy, and the people who determine the fate and future of the glory and disgrace of my eunuch are the emperor and the people around the emperor, the ministers of the court and the central government who can directly give advice to the emperor, the relatives of the emperor, and the governors and officials of the governor's office. I'm not greedy, how can I deal with the officials who come down to inspect the capital? How can I receive the imperial relatives who pass by? I really want to be an honest gentleman who is not stained by mud, and how can I make my superiors and subordinates embarrassed? With only that meager income, how can you ask those people under me to support their families? Who will work for you? Under the rule of my jurisdiction, knowing that he was a corrupt and perverted law, I was arrested by the political secretary's yamen, and he entrusted his relationship to open up the yamen, colleagues, superiors, and subordinates to ask for favors, and you didn't let it go? Knowing that it was a dark and dirty deed, he took the silver to ask me to do it, but if you didn't do it, he bypassed my political secretary and took the silver to find Futai, Zhentai, Daoyin, and the Taiwan system. Sometimes, even other yamen have received money and benefits, but in the name of official errands, they have handed it over to me to be handled by the political secretary, what can I do? Every year, have I been honest and corrupt, and have corrupt officials been eradicated? In Yunnan alone, in the 17th year of Kangxi, Wu Sangui, the king of Pingxi, died of illness in the suppression of the rebellion in the imperial court; In the forty-fifth year of Qianlong, he arrested Li Shiyao, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou; In the fourth year of Jiaqing, the huge greedy He Shen, who had supervised the Li Shiyao case, was also given to commit suicide in prison....... If this dictatorship system of imperial rule and man-rule remains unchanged, even if it is another 100 years, 1,000 years, 10,000 years, no matter how the dynasty is changed or what country name is used, there will still be hundreds of He Shen, Li Shiyao, and Xu Zhiming. When money is so powerful that it can buy everything, who dares to guarantee that rich people will not do bad things, ugly things, and dirty things? When the totalitarian power is so great that it is not supervised and can control everything, who dares to guarantee that officials will not be corrupt, will not degenerate, and will not do evil? When all kinds of desires of people are not controlled by external forces and can be vented and indulged at will, people will become evil beasts, and they will dare to trample on people's morality and morality without any scruples, and even kill people and set fires, drink people's blood and eat human flesh; If he were the head of the emperor, the leader of the monarchs, the ministers, and the leaders, he would lead a country and the entire nation into darkness and drag them to hell: from the king Da Ji who knocked on the bone and sucked the marrow and had a lapsesarean section, to the Ying Zheng Zhao Gao who was greedy and the Confucian pointed to the deer as a horse, and then to the Empress Lu who made people into adults, and Zhu Di, the Ming Chengzu who killed the wives and daughters of Emperor Jianwen's loyal ministers, and killed 3,000 palace maids...... In the big dye vat of officialdom, I can't clean myself, all I can do is try my best not to harm others, not to bully the weak, not to create unjust prisons, not to form alliances with the great evildoers, to get by, and to go with the flow. Before my father went to the governor's office, he seemed to have a premonition, so he gave me the account books for safekeeping. And repeatedly instructed: 'Although I don't want to be a corrupt official, I can't be a loyal servant who is honest and honest. I did not keep this account book to fight corruption and prosper honestly, revitalize the dynasty, please the emperor, and reap benefits. I'm just trying to protect myself. It's just because I don't want to completely sell myself to take refuge, thinking that Xu Zhiming has treated me as a thorn in the flesh all these years, and he can't kill me as soon as possible. But even if he can't tolerate me, because I have the account book in my hand, he will be jealous, and he will not dare to act rashly. Therefore, this book is very important and should never be given to anyone lightly. 'Who knew that when he passed through Qujing, his father would ......" Speaking of this, Deng Zishan couldn't bear her grief, and couldn't control her sad tears.
"How did your aunt and nephew escape this?" Shen Tianpeng saw that Deng Zishan was a little sad and sad, so he opened the topic and asked.
Seeing that Deng Zishan had not yet regained her calm, Deng Yanling replied: "On the day my brother was killed, it was the Tiger Festival (called "Luo Ma" in Yi language) by the local Yi people in Qujing. During the festival, after the adult men of the village worship the earth lord at the back of the village, 8 people are selected by the sorcerer's divination. These 8 people put on a blanket painted with tiger stripes, painted tiger stripes on their faces, feet and hands, made up as a tiger, and danced various dances that simulated production, life and reproduction under the leadership of the black tiger head, and went to the whole village to exorcise ghosts for each family, which is called "Luo Ma Nai Bang" in Yi language. During the Tiger Jumping Festival, every household in the former village offers incense to the "Tiger God", and each household has to dance a tiger dance from the front of the door to the house, in order to drive away evil spirits and ask the Tiger God to guard. At night, fires are set up in the fields and villages, and tigers dance around the village. --Author's note). After dinner, my brother was in the prefect's office to read the file. Zishan and I had nothing to do, so we went to a neighboring village to watch the young men and women of the Yi nationality singing and dancing. On the way back, I was shocked to hear that my brother had been killed, and the government had been surrounded by many officers and soldiers. Another suspicious person looked around along the street to inquire about the whereabouts of me and Zishan, Lenovo's brother once said that he had Xu Zhiming's incriminating evidence, Xu Zhiming refused to let him go easily, if he was unexpected, in order to prevent being killed by others, I had to protect Zishan and the account book, sneak to Lincang to take refuge in Yunfei's father at the north gate, and seek an opportunity to enter the Beijing Saint. Seeking justice for him is still secondary, the main thing is that Xu Zhiming can no longer be allowed to go unpunished, and continue to kill innocents indiscriminately and harm the place. ”
"Therefore, I will hand over this account book, together with the petition written by my aunt and nephew to the imperial court to severely punish the real culprit and uphold justice for my father, and hand it over to Lord Shen, the daughter of the people implores the lord to do the right thing for heaven, not afraid of the obstruction of power, not tempted by fame and fortune, and submit this account book and the letter to the emperor in person, and bring Xu Zhiming to justice as soon as possible, and live up to the filial piety of the people's daughter, so as to comfort the soul of the father in the sky!" Deng Zishan said, and handed the account book and the letter to Shen Tianpeng.
"You can rest assured, Shen Mou became an official, but because Lord Zhou of the Criminal Department appreciates and relies on him, he just wants to try his best to punish the traitor and eliminate the evil, uphold justice, and uphold justice, and even life and death have been put aside, so why do you care about fame and fortune? This official is on a mission this time, and he is here for the murder of your father, and he does not dare to slack off in public or private. With the confession of Tang Jian, the prefect of Qujing, and the confession of the official of the government office, and the fact that you are witnesses, plus such an important account book, how many days can Xu Zhiming be rampant?!" As he spoke, Shen Tianpeng looked through the account books and the secret letters and letters sandwiched in the account books, and said in a loud voice: "Good! Good! There are evidences in the account books, records of time and place, and evidence of Xu Zhiming's favoritism, corruption, and forcible gain. There are also the feudal platform, Zhentai, Daoyin, Zhitai, Futai, the governor and other yamen over the years to share the illegal gains of the spoils, some officials intercepted the signatures of the court disaster relief silver, approvals, secret letters, the price of buying the official mantle, the list of people involved.... No wonder Xu Zhiming spared no expense and spared no effort to recover the account books and kill you. ”
After Shen Tianpeng finished speaking, he handed the account book to Yan Wanli and asked: "Lord Yan is a local official in Yunnan of the Criminal Department, do you see if there are any events in the account book that you know and officials you know well?"
Yan Wanli took the account book and flipped through it carefully, looked at it again, and said: "Xia Guan's eyesight is a little clumsy, this place is a little dim, I will go to the light to see and then reply to the adult's words." ”