According to legend, Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin set an oath monument in the Taimiao, ordering his descendants to be emperors, to give preferential treatment to the descendants of the former dynasty clan, and not to kill the literati and the people who wrote things, otherwise the sky will destroy them. In addition, Zhao Kuangyin also issued a "Pill Book Iron Voucher" to the Chai family, with which the descendants of the Chai family will never die from crime. Chai Jin, the "Little Tornado" in the novel "Water Margin", is a worry-free life because of the iron voucher of the Danshu.
It is a pity that fairy tales are always deceiving. The real history is that after the death of Zhou Shizu Chai Rong, his fourth son, Chai Zongxun, succeeded to the throne, and he was called Zhou Gongdi. Behind Song Taizu Huangpao, Chai Zongxun was named King Zheng and moved to Fangzhou. Zhao Kuangyin promulgated the imperial decree to give preferential treatment to the emperor's mother and son, and gave the Chai family a "red book iron coupon" (a gold medal for exemption from death) to ensure that the Chai family's descendants will always enjoy wealth and no additional punishment even if they commit a crime. However, Chai Zongxun died in Fangzhou in the sixth year of Kaibao in the Northern Song Dynasty (973). He was only 20 years old. The "Song History" records: Zhao Kuangyin heard the shock and mourned in plain clothes. He dropped out of the court for ten days and called "Emperor Gong". Buried in Shunling (now Guodian Village, Guodian Town, Xinzheng City, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province) on the side of King Sejong's Qing Tomb. Since the descendants of the Chai family have no longer been seen in official history records, what is the use of the "Pill Book Iron Voucher"? And what's the matter with the phrase "Chai's descendants, no additional punishment is allowed if they are guilty"?
Song Luyou's "Summer Copy" once recorded: Song Taizu in the third year of Jianlong (962) secretly engraved a stele, standing in the compartment of the Taimiao dormitory, known as the oath stele . It is usually covered by a golden mantle with a pin, and the door key is tightly closed. Taizu ordered the relevant departments to open the seal only when the Taimiao Four Seasons Sacrifice and the New Emperor ascended the throne. After the ceremony, please read the oath. At that time, only one illiterate little yellow gate followed, and the others were far away in the courtyard, afraid to look up. The emperor walked to the monument and then worshiped, kneeled and watched silently, and then bowed out again. The officials and the servants didn't know what to say. The emperors of the Northern Song dynasty "all followed the story, and they read it like a ritual and dare not disclose it." Until the change of Jingkang, the golden people swept away the sacrificial rituals, and the gate of the Taimiao opened, so people could see this monument. The oath stele is seven or eight feet high and more than four feet wide. There are three lines of oaths engraved on it: one is "The offspring of the Chai family (Zhou Shizong) shall not be given additional punishment if they are guilty. Slaughter, you must not even sit on a branch"; one is "not to kill scholar-bureaucrats, and those who speak in the letter"; the other is "if the descendants have this oath, heaven will die."
That is to say, there is actually a half sentence after this sentence: "Infringement and conspiracy, stop in prison, don’t slaughter, nor "Lianzai branch", that is, it is not that you cannot kill, but you cannot kill in the public! So it is estimated that if Chai Jin in "Water Margin" really lived in the Song Dynasty, he would have died bizarrely before Song Huizong could have waited.
