The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

Nanjun is called "Nan" because it is relatively south of Guanzhong in Qin State. The summer here always seems to be particularly long. In early June, as the plum rain dissipated, the heat wave came again. In the rising temperature, the ancient Yunmeng Lake seemed to be boiling...

In this hot weather when everyone wanted to stay at home, it happened to be Heifu's turn to take a day off, so he stayed at home and didn't want to go anywhere, but the driver Sangmu couldn't sit still.

"Master, Yun Man and Li Ping will be executed in the market today. Don't you want to go and see?"

Hei Fu was sitting in front of an empty bamboo slip with a pen in his hand, thinking. Hearing this, he said, "Since I arrested these two, their fate has been doomed. What's there to see?"

Then he waved his hand and said, "Go by yourself. I won't go out today."

Sang Mu responded and went out. He was involved in this matter from beginning to end, and he also helped Hei Fu to send a message to Li Xian as a messenger, so today he really wanted to see the "results" that Hei Fu and his team had planned for more than half a year.

At this time, half a month had passed since Anlu Zuowei Yun Man and Yushui Township Sanlao Li Ping were "double-regulated" on the spot by Hei Fu. Because Hei Fu asked Li Xian to design a plan to lure Yun Man and Li Ping together and arrest them on the spot, eliminating the possibility of the two families arresting them by force, Yun's guests and servants fled after hearing the inquiry, while Li was honest and did not dare to act rashly.

Heifu left some of the county soldiers to assist Anlu County in arresting the escaped Yun clan children and guests, while he himself escorted the two to Jiangling without stopping, handed them over to the thieves and prisons, and completed his mission.

During Heifu's absence, Dou Ran, a tough man, could not withstand the torture of water torture and confessed everything he could.

From the letters seized from Li's house, they were all ordinary greetings. There is a saying in this era, "Three generations of family service, the king; two generations and below, the master." It means that as a family servant, if you serve three generations, you must regard them as your own king and must not betray them. For four generations, you will regard them as your master, and life and death are up to your words.

Li served Ruo'ao for more than ten generations, and the deep affection could not be separated by a national border.

However, this was the Qin State where the law was above human feelings. Stealing a mulberry leaf was also considered theft, and returning the money and hiding it was also illegal. Li's behavior is like in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was in the mainland but kept in correspondence with Taiwan, and it was easy to be accused of espionage.

There are many cruel officials in the county government who are best at picking up details. Those who recount the friendship between the two families can be regarded as nostalgia for Chu and dissatisfaction with the Qin government.

Those seemingly ordinary greetings can be regarded as leaking the recent situation in Anlu, especially the details of the tomb robbery case of Ruo'ao that Hei Fu cracked, which almost put Hei Fu and Li You in danger...

Hei Fu remembered that after verifying the matter, Li Jun was very angry: "If this old man said more, maybe this lieutenant and Hei Fu would be prisoners of Dou Ran!"

Soon, Li Ping's "crime of colluding with princes" was confirmed and he was sentenced to be thrown into the city. Because his son and Li Xian had made meritorious reports, this crime was limited to himself and there was no need to implicate his family and clansmen. When he learned of the verdict, Lao Mai Liping laughed out loud and said that he deserved to die, which made Hei Fu feel sympathy for him...

Yun Man's case was a little different. The cautious Yun Man had destroyed all the letters long ago. According to Dou Ran's confession, although the two families had contacts, they were all on the commercial level. They used their respective powers to exchange what they had during the peace period between the two countries...

Yun sent their family's excess grain and leather to Edi in exchange for more gold, tin, and lacquerware from Chu! All transactions were secretly carried out in Yunmeng Lake. Because of this, Yun's family was rich and called Anlu, and was known as "Yunban County"!

Yun Man's crime was no longer a simple "communication with the princes", but a smuggling activity using his position. Fortunately, the all-encompassing Qin Law also had corresponding provisions.

Xi, who was in charge of the trial of the case, first apologized to the county governor and the county magistrate in shame, saying that he had been in Anlu for many years, but he did not know that Yunshi was secretly doing such things, and it was his dereliction of duty. Then he held the decree in his hand and said seriously:

"Shang Jun said that millet grows and gold dies, and millet dies and gold grows. One ounce of gold enters the country, and twelve stones of millet are exported outside the country! If gold and jewelry are accumulated in the country and exchanged for grain, the granary will be empty and the country will be weak! The border is not strict, the ban is leaking, and rice and millet are all in the hands of the enemy!"

"Yun Man communicates with the princes, this is the first crime, as a county lieutenant, he knows the law and breaks it, and trades with foreign countries privately, this is the second crime, and the law prohibits the export of grain, this is the third crime!"

Xi, who could not tolerate any sand in his eyes, angrily rebuked in court: "The county magistrate once wrote "The Way of Being an Official", which said that officials have five mistakes: one is to despise scholars and value money, two is to be dissatisfied with the court, three is to be good at taking while in office, four is to be disrespectful when receiving orders, and five is to settle down at home and forget the government. If there is one of the five, it is a bad official, and if there are three of the five, the official will be demoted and dismissed. Now Yunman has five of the five, which is really a great crime and he should be killed."

"All the above crimes should be investigated and punished together, and he should be beheaded!"

At this time, Yunman was too late to quibble. He and Liping were sentenced to be beheaded today.

Heifu should be happy that his old grudge was avenged, but for some reason, he felt a little bored afterwards and didn't even want to watch the death of his old enemy.

In the evening, Sang Mu came back. During dinner, he excitedly described how many people watched the execution. On a hot day, the county and township nobles of Anlu wore Chu clothes and were killed in the market like livestock...

"Li Ping was calm and went to the execution indifferently, but Yun Man was afraid of death and struggled for a long time, with feces and urine flowing everywhere. In the end, he was knocked unconscious and carried to the execution platform."

Sang Mu described the scene of Yun Man's execution: "The knife and axe were not fast enough. It took three cuts to break his waist. Yun Man's upper body struggled to crawl forward two or three steps before stopping. His eyes were wide open and couldn't close. It was really horrifying!"

Hei Fu listened quietly, his mouth full of food, but his heart was not moved. Maybe Yun Man felt that he was wronged. It was a pity that the seal character "miserable" had many strokes, and I wondered how many he could write...

After swallowing corn with fish soup, Heifu said: "He should indeed die with regrets, because at least the Li family only lost one patriarch, but the entire Yun family withered with branches and leaves."

To eradicate evil, after arresting Yun Man, Heifu instructed Li Xian and Ji Ying to hand over all the negative information about the Yun family that they had collected in the past six months, and began to investigate carefully from top to bottom.

When the wall fell, everyone pushed it. This move immediately triggered a wave of rage. In Anlu County and Jiangling, countless people sued the Yun family, including adultery, private fighting, buying people from Chu as slaves, killing cattle, drinking together, and gambling. Every crime was well documented.

As a result, the Yun family, which once had many children and friends throughout Anlu County, fell overnight. Except for Yun Xiong, the nephew of Yun Man, who was smart enough to escape from Yunmengze with a few people on the day Hei Fu went to Anlu to arrest Yun Man, the entire Yun family was almost not spared.

All officials were investigated. Some of them were seriously guilty and were to be executed along with Yun Man. Most of them lost their official positions or even became prisoners.

It is no exaggeration to say that one-third of the officials in various departments of Anlu County were vacant overnight!

The cause of all the results was planted at the beginning. The old grudges were over, and this was no longer Hei Fu's concern.

When Sang Mu went to watch the execution, he had carefully considered the words and wrote a short and easy-to-understand official document...

...

The next day, when Hei Fu went to work at the county lieutenant's office, everyone was still talking about the execution yesterday. Li You also brought up the past and praised Hei Fu for arresting Yun Man and Li Xian, and eliminating a chaos that could have caused unrest in the border counties without bloodshed.

Hei Fu told Li You seriously: "County lieutenant, the peace in Anlu is just an illusion. Although the fall of the Yun family removed a cancer from Anlu, it also cut off a piece of meat, which is also a big harm to Anlu. Now half of the officials in the Anlu County Lieutenant's office have been dismissed because of their involvement with the Yun family, and there are not enough people to handle daily affairs. The right lieutenant of Anlu County is a foreigner, and it is difficult to convince the public. The conscription and training of Anlu County may be affected, and it may even become the weak point of Nanjun, giving Chu an opportunity to take advantage of it..."

Anlu is a large county in Nanjun, with a population of more than 10,000 and more than 1,000 soldiers. In addition, in the war last year, the Anlu people led by Hei Fu had outstanding performances, so Li You planned to let the Anlu soldiers and county soldiers together as the main force of the Nanjun Corps. If this incident affects the conscription, it is not what he wants to see.

"Since Heifu told me about this, he must have a plan. You can tell me!"

Heifu took out the bamboo slips in his arms and presented them to Li You's desk with both hands.

Li You took a look and found that they were some suggestions for the current situation in Anlu, including quickly stabilizing the people's hearts and selecting outstanding grassroots officials and people with titles to fill the gap left by the fall of the Yun family.

Hei Fu recounted the thoughts in the article, saying: "The tyrants and lords occupying the local areas are not only in Anlu, but have always been one of the chronic diseases of Nanjun. County Magistrate Ye once carried out county rectification and killed hundreds of people in succession. The tyrants and lords in various counties were restrained, but they are still too powerful to be eliminated. Although they dare not harm the local area, there are still many people like Yun Man who use public resources for private purposes."

"Take Anlu as an example. Now that the Yun family has fallen and the Li family has lost its patriarch, it is a good opportunity to eliminate the power of the tyrants in one fell swoop! Those petty officials who were buried in the pavilions and villages because they had no family background and could not find a way out now have hope of making a breakthrough!"

Hei Fu saw clearly that small peasant families with five to eight people were the foundation of the Qin State and its army. Compared with the clan tyrants, these people were the biggest beneficiaries of military merit.

"Well said! In this way, if there are capable people to coordinate and implement, Anlu will surely recover quickly and be better than before!"

Li You clapped his hands and praised, then hesitated: "Anlu is a big county, and the vacant post of left lieutenant must be filled by a suitable candidate..."

At this point, he did not understand the unspoken meaning of Hei Fu's suggestion today? He smiled and said: "The right lieutenant must be an official in a different place, but the left lieutenant can be a local. Hei Fu, you are from Anlu, familiar with the situation in Anlu, and know about military affairs. If I appoint you as the left lieutenant of Anlu County, can you stabilize the situation in Anlu and train more than a thousand young men in Anlu into a powerful force for me?"