In the late Qing Dynasty, there were several major cases with sensational effects in China, among which the most influential and the most controversial one was "Yang Naiwu and Xiaobaicai Case" . The case of
even attracted the attention of Cixi and , and eventually led to more than 100 officials being investigated and dealt with. What is going on?
Yang Naiwu is a native of Yuhang, Zhejiang. He passed the imperial examination for scholar at the age of 20 and passed the imperial examination at the age of 33. His future is bright. He is a well-known scholar in the local area.
At that time, he was quite dissatisfied with Zhejiang officials' practice of deducting the people's food. He had openly opposed local officials Liu Xitong many times, which caused a rift between the two.
▲ Stills of Yang Naiwu
At that time, there was a tofu shop named Ge Pinlian who rented a room at Yang Naiwu's house. He and his wife "Xiao Baicai" are Bi Xiugu , and lived in it.
Because Ge Pinlian is busy with work, he is often away from home. Bi Xiugu often learns to read and recognize words with Yang Naiwu, which has caused the rumors of "sheep eat cabbage" in the local area.
After the rumors spread, Yang Naiwu forced the Ge couple to move out of their residence by increasing rent in order to protect his reputation, and the rumors gradually disappeared.
But shortly after the two moved away, Ge Pinlian suddenly suffered from a serious illness. Although Bi Xiugu found several doctors to treat him, she still had no way to make things happen.
After Ge Pinlian died, the body had bleeding from his mouth and nose, and the color was bluish, which aroused Ge Pinlian's mother's suspicion.
▲ The arrested Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai
She had heard about the rumors between Bi Xiugu and Yang Naiwu before, which made her firmly believe that it was her daughter-in-law who joined forces with adulterers and poisoned her son.
So, she asked the Yuyao government to open a coffin and conduct a complete investigation of the cause of her son's death.
Liu Xitong heard that in this case, Yang Naiwu was the suspect , so she immediately sent her disciple Shen Caiquan and the coroner to the scene to inspect.
When the coffin was opened and the coroner felt that although Ge Pinlian's body was not normal, it was still somewhat different from the body that died of poisoning.
But Shen Caiquan forced him to make the "Ge Pinlian died because of taking arsenic" and submitted the report to Liu Xitong.
▲ Stills of Xiaobaicai
After getting the autopsy report, Liu Xitong quickly sent someone to capture Yang Naiwu and Bi Xiugu and sentenced them severely.
Under the torture of life worse than death, Bi Xiugu finally confessed: was to join hands with Yang Naiwu and poison her husband with arsenic.
Yang Naiwu was even forced to confess a "medicine seller" that did not exist.
Liu Xitong directly found a pharmacy shopkeeper with the same surname as Yang Naiwu said as the doctor as "personal certificate" .
Based on the trial results, Yang Naiwu was sentenced to death by killing , and Bi Xiugu was executed by Lingchi, and then the ruling was handed over to the yamen at all levels for review.
This is a common case of betrayal in ancient my country.
However, Yang Naiwu's identity as a juren made this case eventually develop into a major case known to the whole country, and had a profound impact on the local political situation in the late Qing Dynasty.
After the judgment was released, Yang Naiwu's family yelled unjustly about this unintentional disaster.
Yang Naiwu's sister found Yang Naiwu's classmates, hoping that they could help themselves and argue for Yang Naiwu.
These scholars know that the judgment in the Yang Naiwu case will have a great impact on their future career and social status.
Therefore, they spared no effort to provide help to the Yang family, and finally successfully made the wealthy businessman Hu Xueyan provide the Yang family with the fees for complaints to come to Beijing and opened up all the links.
This made the case of Yang Naiwu known for the first time.
▲ The wealthy businessman Hu Xueyan of the Qing Dynasty
After The Ministry of Justice received the complaint from the Yang family, they reviewed the documents submitted by Yang Naiwu.
In this material, Yang Naiwu pointed out that his previous confessions were all caused by controversy. When the incident occurred, he was not in Yuyao. His cousin and his brother-in-law could testify for him.
In the late Qing , newspapers and modern media methods have appeared in China.
The Yang Naiwu case quickly spread throughout the streets and alleys through publicity in newspapers such as " declaration ", which aroused people's attention. The public opinion pressure of
led the Ministry of Justice to make a decision to review it.
However, according to the Qing Dynasty laws, the review of this case must still be handed over to local officials in Zhejiang to complete.
In fact, before the review order was issued, government officials at all levels in Zhejiang had completed the approval of the Yang Naiwu case.
Therefore, once the verdict is overturned, the entire bureaucratic system of Zhejiang Province will be inseparable from it.
▲ "Shenbao" during the Guangxu period
In this case, they can imagine the results of their retrial of Yang Naiwu and Bi Xiugu.
During this retrial, they not only did not carefully check the evidence submitted by Yang Naiwu, nor did they reopen the coffin and examine the autopsy.
instead continued to use even more cruel punishments in the court, which made Yang Naiwu and Bi Xiugu complain and had to admit their previous crimes again. The result of
is obviously unacceptable to Zhejiang students. Yang Naiwu's sister then appealed for the second time in Beijing and received another retrial.
But the Qing government's case trial process cannot be changed after all, so this time it will be handed over to the Zhejiang Yamen for processing.
During the previous retrial process, media such as Shenbao followed up on the progress of the case, and Zhejiang officials abused punishments were also reported in the newspapers.
This aroused dissatisfaction among the people across the country, and people also changed from scolding the adulterer to doubting the authenticity of the case trial.
Faced with pressure from all parties, officials in Zhejiang Province skillfully used the "drag" word .
They do not actively hear the case, nor send people to investigate, they just wait for the limelight to pass, and then hand over the previous trial results to the Ministry of Justice.
This almost pushed Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai into a dead end.
▲ Empress Dowager Cixi
But at this moment, Sichuan Censor Wang Xin presented a very important memorial.
In this memorial, he wrote:
...Minist Hu Ruilan . The reason why Yang Changjun dared to do this was because the two empress dowagers ruled the country from behind the curtain, the emperor was in power over the age of the emperor, and the great power was not slandered, so he despised the law and despised the emperor and was unscrupulous.
This directly opposes the officials in Zhejiang Province and the rationality of the rule of Empress Dowager Cixi. This remark like
aroused the great attention of Cixi, and the Yang Naiwu case also ushered in a turning point.
While Wang Xin presented the memorial, the students in Zhejiang Province still did not give up their efforts.
They finally won the support of the important officials in the court, Weng Tonghe , through joint appeals by officials from Zhejiang in Beijing.
Weng Tonghe has been in the officialdom for many years, and he can see that Cixi is dissatisfied with the collusion between local officials.
took advantage of Wang Xin's opportunity to submit the report and put forward the opinion of taking the review authority of the Yang Naiwu case to the Ministry of Justice .
▲ Weng Tonghe Portrait
This proposal was strongly opposed by some local officials.
Sichuan Governor Ding Baozhen , once ran to the Ministry of Justice and was furious, saying that if this case was to be reversed, no one in the area would dare to be an official again!
However, because Cixi had a strong desire to rectify local officials, she finally handed over the review authority of the Yang Naiwu case to the Ministry of Justice.
The reason why Cixi made this decision was that Wang Xin and Weng Tonghe’s proposal was just a fuse.The real reason for
is that Cixi hopes to use this matter to weaken the power of local governments.
Previously during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, in order to win over the Han military group and help the Qing court suppress the rebellion, Cixi gave these officials great power.
These officials have also formed their own interests in various provinces in Jiangnan, and their relationship with the Qing court is becoming increasingly alienated.
Cixi does not want the capital to become a useless "Bald Commander" in the future. She must use some means to take judicial power back from the local government to the central government.
Yang Naiwu's case naturally became a good excuse.
The Ministry of Justice sent a specialist to Zhejiang to handle the case. After the officials arrived, they first tried two criminals and related witnesses.
This time, the relevant witnesses revise all confessions in the classroom, indicating that Yang Naiwu and Bi Xiugu are innocent.
▲ Coroner in the film and television drama
Then the officials of the Ministry of Justice ordered someone to open a coffin for an autopsy. After examination, it was determined that Ge Pinlian did not die of poisoning, but died of illness.
Only then did the grievances between Yang Naiwu and Bi Xiugu have been completely cleared.
Reasonablely, the case between Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai should come to an end, but this case is still called unsolved case by some people.
This is mainly because there are several doubts in this matter:
First of all, whether there is a private relationship between Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai has never been confirmed.
In the relevant reports, the official only denied the fact that they poisoned Ge Pinlian, but there was no conclusion on the relationship between the two.
This also made some public opinion always believe that Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai were able to overturn the case by relying on Cixi's blessing. They were actually adulterers who poisoned Ge Pinlian.
Furthermore, during the first autopsy, the silver needles of the coroner did turn black.
▲ poison test silver needle
This could also be proved at that time that Ge Pinlian died of poisoning, and this clue was never overturned in the subsequent review.
In the final official explanation, the Ministry of Justice denied the credibility of this evidence on the grounds that the coroner did not clean the silver needles in accordance with the regulations before the autopsy, and then reversed the case for Yang Naiwu.
But some people think this reason is too far-fetched. How could coroners use a black needle to test the poison?
This explanation means that there is no silver here, and Yang Naiwu must have nothing to do with Ge Pinlian's death.
But no matter what the dispute is, with Cixi's intervention, the case finally settled and there is no room for discussion.
This also made several details in the Yang Naiwu case never proved and became an eternal unsolved case.
During the trial and judgment of this case, the innocence of Yang Naiwu and Xiao Baicai no longer matters later. The focus of the
incident has evolved into a battle between the central and local governments, which has turned the truth of the case into a competition between the two parties.
The winning side can always rewrite the result to what they want.
▲ Stills of "Yang Naiwu and Xiaobaicai"
I'm afraid that this political background at that time was the result of the Yang Naiwu case and the fundamental reason why it has been questioned.
When a case is mixed with too much political color, its real details are doomed to be recreated. This case also makes us understand the chaos of the late Qing government and the darkness of the ancient judicial system.
Note:
The relevant content of this article about the case of Yang Naiwu and Xiaobaicai is referenced from "The Difference of Justice - Analyzing the Judicial Game between the Central and Local People with the Case of "Yang Naiwu" in the Qing Dynasty as an Example", published in "Journal of Ningbo University (Humanities Edition)" May 2018 issue
