In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, a woman in Dengzhou, Ah Yun, was promised by her uncle to marry Wei Dawei of the same village while guarding the funeral for her mother (her father had died prematurely). Wei Da was rude in appearance and very old, and Ah Yun was reluctant to let him become his husband.
In order to get rid of this marriage contract, Ah Yun took advantage of Wei Da's rest and slashed a dozen knives in a row with a knife, and Wei Da was lucky not to die (a finger was cut off). Soon Ah Yun was arrested by the county magistrate and confessed to his crime. Zhixian sentenced her to death for "murdering her husband" according to the Song Law and reported it to Zhizhou.
Xu Zun of Dengzhou Zhizhou believed that the marriage contract between Ah Yun and Wei Da arose during Ah Yun's filial piety period and could not be identified as husband and wife, so Ah Yun's crime should be ordinary "attempted murder" and should not be sentenced to death. However, not knowing whether Xu Zun was intentional or unintentional, he ignored that Wei Da had multiple knife wounds and a broken finger.
Description: In ancient times, "murder of a husband" (a "rebellion" among the most heinous crimes) was the death penalty regardless of the outcome of the crime.
Here it needs to be explained that the concept of marriage in the Song Dynasty is completely different from our current concept of marriage, and it must be decided by the elders. Therefore, Ah Yun's uncle promised her to Wei Da against his will, which itself was in accordance with the legal and ritual traditions at that time.
Although the ceremonial tradition also stipulates that marriage cannot be married during the mourning period, people do not privately oppose the conclusion of marriage contracts, but the marriage ceremony must be held after the funeral. According to ancient tradition, once the marriage contract is concluded, the man and the woman are actually married.
From this we can see that although Xu Zun is justified in the tradition of etiquette, he is not all on his side. This is exactly the case, when the case was reported to the Trial Court and the Dali Temple for review, Xu Zun's sentence was rejected, and the sentence was changed again to "marriage against the law, murder of relatives and husbands", and sentenced to hanging.
Explanation: "Marriage against the law" is that although the court believes that the marriage contract between Ah Yun and Wei Da violates the law, they actually reached a marriage contract. Ancient China was not a legal society, but a ceremonial society, and to some extent social ethics were above the law (such as blood revenge, kinship and invisibility). This is important, and in fact it has also contributed to the escalation of the subsequent struggle.
Xu Zunben was a judicial official sent by the Dali Temple to train in the local area, either out of instinct or to show off his own skills. Xu Zun again refutes it, reiterating his reasons for believing that Ah Yun's marriage contract is invalid, and based on this, he pointed out that the trial court's basis for sentencing was wrong and should be regarded as an ordinary attempted murder.
The Inquisition itself felt that the argument of "murder of the husband" was somewhat untenable in the law, but they were not willing to bow their heads and admit their mistakes, so they caught another key point in the case - "murder has been injured".
In the beginning, Yun Xu did not marry, suspected that his son-in-law was ugly, served his sleeping house, carried a knife and slashed it, more than ten wounds, could not be killed, and broke one finger. The officials who seek to steal the veracity, suspect what the clouds are doing, cling to it, and want to increase the number of robberies, but spit out the truth. On the day of obedience to Yun Nacai, the mother's clothes have not been removed, and should be regarded as mortals and should be judged by the dynasty. There is a siddang who has been injured for murder and retorts: "When the cloud is asked, it should be asked." Trial and hanging, not. ”
History of Song Xu Zun Biography
The relevant records of the above History of the Song Dynasty are very brief, but the amount of information is quite large, and the author tries to explain it here. The inquisition means that even if the sentence is not "murder of the husband", "murder has been injured" (meaning that the murderer committed murder when he intended to murder and injured the victim, according to the laws of the Song Dynasty, this is a capital crime), the murderer will be sentenced to death.
Xu Zun was worthy of being an expert in the law, and he immediately found another reason to refute it, and if a prisoner voluntarily confessed before the judicial trial, it could be regarded as a voluntary surrender (according to questioning), and the crime should also be reduced by two degrees according to the law. That is to say, even if Ah Yun is sentenced to death based on "murder has been injured", Ah Yun can also reduce the crime and avoid death according to "according to the question".
Description: After Ah Yun was caught by the county magistrate, he confessed, and the interrogation of the arrest was not a judicial interrogation in the Song Dynasty, but a criminal interrogation (in fact, as now, the judicial interrogation belongs to the court, and the police are called criminal investigation and taking notes). Because during the time of Emperor Zhenzong of Song, there were prisoners who cried out for justice before the execution, and the Ministry of Punishment believed that this was an unjust case caused by the coercion of confessions by local servants, so it requested a decree to revoke the right to interrogate local servants, and Zhenzong allowed it.
A loophole in the song law was inadvertently dug up in the confrontation between the two sides, so the two sides also reached an impasse. Dali Temple and the Trial Court simply reported the case to Emperor Shenzong of Song and asked the emperor to adjudicate it. The first strange case of the Northern Song Dynasty, the "Dengzhou Ayun Case", officially opened the curtain.
Because the laws conflicted in this place, Song Shenzong could not determine who was right and who was wrong, probably out of the maintenance of the relationship between the group and the subject, he played "peace and thin mud". First he approved of the sentences of the Dali Temple and the Inquisition, but he pardoned Ah Yun as emperor (note this).
However, Xu Zun did not appreciate it, and he must overturn the judgment of the Dali Temple and the Trial Court. Continuing on the Song Shenzong: "When Ah Yun is asked, he should turn himself in for the case. Trial sentence, Dali sentence hanging, not yes. (The "case question" here is the same as the previous "press question")
Song Shenzong had no choice but to transfer the case to the Punishment Department for retrial. The results of the trial of the Punishment Department are the same as those of the Trial Court and the Dali Temple, and the death penalty is the same. The view of the Ministry of Punishment is that if too much emphasis is placed on "asking questions", it is a disguised encouragement to the murderer to commit the crime, because after committing the crime, the suicide can be exempted from capital punishment.
Explanation: The original intention of formulating the "according to the question" system was that the ancient criminal investigation methods were very backward, and the criminal's voluntary admission of guilt could greatly reduce the cost of solving the case. For example, criminals absconded or hid evidence of crimes, and the ancient government sent a large number of personnel to pursue the murderers, which may not be found for several years.
Xu Zun once again defended himself, repeating his reasons, and emphasizing that blindly killing would block the road for future criminals to surrender themselves. Failure to conform to the principle of "suspicion of guilt is light" will also create unjust, false and wrongly decided cases.
Xu Zun's stubbornness drew the imperial historians into this judicial debate, believing that Xu Zun was deliberately interfering with the judicial trial for his fame, and asked the emperor to send the case to the Hanlin scholars for discussion and to finalize the case as soon as possible. Therefore, Emperor Shenzong of Song passed on the decree to "order the Hanlin scholars Sima Guang and Wang Anshi to discuss together."
After Sima Guang and Wang Anshi had studied the file, they both believed that Ah Yun was not involved in the crime of "murdering her husband". But apart from that they had no other common opinion.
Portraits of Sima Guang (right) and Wang Anshi (left).
Wang Anshi believed that "surrendering to reduce guilt", so Ah Yun was improperly sentenced to death. Sima Guang believed that "murder had been injured" and that there was no problem in sentencing him to death. Moreover, Sima Guang pointed out that Ah Yun was going to kill people because he suspected wei da was ugly, and the malice of the murder was very great, which not only violated the original intention of the law to reduce the crime, but also encouraged the murderers in the world to commit crimes.
The disagreement between Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, combined with their attitude toward the change of law, led to the rapid politicization of the case, and officials in the court took sides according to their own positions. It was also at this time that the "Ayun case" changed from a judicial struggle to a political struggle between the reformers and the conservatives.
Since the laws of the Song Dynasty did contradict each other on this issue, the dispute between the two was whether they would disagree with the other (in principle, both of them were justified). Seeing this, Song Shenzong decided to come up with a judicial supplementary interpretation to solve the problem, and in July of the first year of The First Year of Xining, Song Shenzong issued an edict: "Murder has been injured, and those who want to turn themselves in in the case should subtract from murder to the second class." ”
Instead of being solved, the problem escalated further.
After the edict was issued, the officials of the Three Laws Division publicly resisted and impeached: "What was discussed was improper." Emperor Shenzong of Song had no choice but to order Wang Anshi to discuss the issue with the officials of the Three Laws Division, and at the seminar the conservative faction dug a pit for Wang Anshi.
They said that if the killing had been injured, the sentence would be allowed to be reduced. So "killing is dead", is it allowed to surrender and reduce the sentence? Wang Anshi did not realize that this was a pit, so he jumped in, turned his head back to Song Shenzong and said, "Official, Shuwen did not fully explain things..."
On February 2 of the second year of Xi Ning's reign, Emperor Shenzong of Song issued another edict: "From now on, those who have committed murder have turned themselves in and surrendered voluntarily, and they have wanted to take action, and they have played an edict", expanding the scope of self-surrender and commutation of sentence to "killing people who have died". This edict is also known as the "Edict of Gengzi".
This edict of unrestrained expansion of surrender and commutation of sentences immediately pushed Wang Anshi and Song Shenzong to the cusp of the storm, and the imperial court was opposed from top to bottom. Liu Shu, the "Ministry of Sentencing" (similar to today's Minister of Justice), returned the edict to the prime minister on the grounds that "the edict of Gengzi was not exhausted" and refused to carry it out.
Under pressure, Emperor Shenzong of Song issued an edict on February 17 stating that he would withdraw the "Edict of Gengzi". However, this act of being refuted by his subordinates to retract the edict seriously damaged the emperor's authority. The faction that held the view that "murder has been wounded" took this opportunity to demand a reconsideration of the law.
Emperor Shenzong of Song had no choice but to allow the "Second House" to renegotiate the "Ah Yun case."
Note: Erfu refers to the Prime Minister, the Governor and the Privy Council, and the conclusions reached in the discussion of the Second House of the Song Dynasty can directly become the laws of the Song Dynasty.
The Erfu were also divided into two factions, Wang Anshi and Sima Guang, and the result was that they argued for half a year, with no results. However, in the argument, Wang Anshi and Song Shenzong realized a problem. The key to the "Ayun case" is not to judge the punishment, but whether the emperor's edict can be rejected.
Thinking of the "Xining Transformation Law" (Wang Anshi Transformation Law) that has been launched, an important condition for its success is whether it can be prohibited. If the emperor's edict can be rejected, the prohibition of the order will inevitably become empty talk. The emperor's Song Shenzong had to make a strong decision on the "Ah Yun case" in order to maintain his imperial authority.
On August 1 of the second year of Xi Ning," the emperor issued an edict: "The murder of a person surrenders himself, and the case is to be raised, and it is carried out in accordance with the edict of Jia Yin in February this year." That is to say, Song Shenzong reiterated the "Gengzi Edict" that he had received. Emperor Shenzong also demoted Liu Shu, Wang Shiyuan, and other officials of the Imperial Court who insisted on opposing the edicts from the imperial court. Sima Guang's edict was also ignored.
In the end, the protagonist of the case, Ah Yun, was sentenced to "edification" (equivalent to exile or house arrest, and was supervised by the government to live within a certain range), and later encountered amnesty, and was able to restore his freedom and marry and have children.
Sixteen years later, in the eighth year of Yuanfeng, Sima Guang re-assumed the post of chancellor (both Wang Anshi and Song Shenzong had died), and changed the provisions of the law modified by Song Shenzong's "Jiayin Edict" to "those who surrender themselves according to the question, do not have to reduce their ranks" (vicious crimes are not reduced), and this strange case can be regarded as an official conclusion.
To digress, many articles on the Internet now say that Sima Guang immediately arrested and executed Ah Yun after he returned to power, which is unfounded nonsense.
The focus of Sima Guang's concern in this case was not Ah Yun's crime at all. Sima Guang believed that the emperor could pardon the criminal after the sentence was imposed, but the emperor could not issue an edict at the time of interrogation to change the sentence.
If the emperor had this power, it would first mean that all the laws of the court would be invalid, because the emperor could at any time influence the judgment by edict during the interrogation. This will cause serious damage to the imperial order.
This also means that the emperor himself will be able to do whatever he wants, because any doctrines, laws, and promises that bind him, including the emperor himself, can theoretically be lifted by issuing an edict. This is unacceptable to the civilian bureaucracy.
In addition, the "Jiayin Edict" will indeed condone the murderer to commit murder in fact, because as long as it is not a heinous crime, the self-surrender after the murder can be avoided from death, which is unreasonable in itself. This is also the reason why Sima Guang must revise the relevant provisions of the "Jiayin Edict" after coming to power.
Secondly, as mentioned earlier, Song Shenzong used his privilege to publicly pardon Ah Yun's capital crimes. Sima Guang was a mature politician with no vendetta against Ah Yun himself. What is the need to execute Ah Yun and openly oppose the Former Emperor in front of the people of the world?
Going against the wishes of the former emperor was a very taboo thing in ancient China, and no one would want to do such a thing if it were not for the fact that it had to be done. It can even be said that this kind of behavior is a political suicide, and it has no benefit to oneself except to give people a handle.
Even if it is to be done, it is often done in the name of the false emperor. When successive emperors changed course or rehabilitated and re-convicted some people because of political needs, they often had to say that "the previous emperors had this intention."
Therefore, even if Sima Guang wanted to execute Ah Yun in his heart, he would not put it into action (you said that he sent someone to assassinate Ah Yun behind his back, and the author felt that it was more credible).
Of course, the above is only the author's own reasoning, believe it or not, everyone can express their own opinions. The author can provide another circumstantial evidence to support his own point of view.
Many Song history enthusiasts have studied this case, and they have found that there is no record of Sima Guang killing Ah Yun in the Song Dynasty historical materials that are still alive today.
There were only two possibilities, the first of which was that Sima Guang did not kill Ah Yun. The second type of Sima Guang erased and tampered with all relevant records, and had the ability to deter insiders from mentioning it after his death. Do you believe That Sima Guang has this ability?
If this does not prove that Sima Guang did not kill Ah Yun, then what is the basis for those articles to draw the conclusion that Sima Guang killed Ah Yun?
It is true that history can be tampered with and deliberately destroyed, but it cannot be completely concealed. Because everyone can record and circulate history, the truth cannot be eliminated.
It can be logically self-contradictory. We know that many people in history have organized and systematically tampered with historical records, although their specific reasons are different, but the purpose is the same, and they want future generations to think that what they are saying is the truth.
But there is a problem, no matter how to change, as long as future generations know that they have tampered with it, they must understand that what they are telling is not the truth. This is contrary to their purpose.
So why didn't they erase the record of tampering with the act itself and let future generations know that they tampered with history?
The reason is simple, they don't have the ability to do this.