During the Wude period of the Tang Dynasty, in the Yingru area at the junction of Henan and Anhui, there lived a scholar named Wei Xi (not the same person as Du Fu's "Send Wei Xi to Langzhou to Record Events and Join the Army") , his character is indifferent, "often silent, not engaged in making friends, he spends his free time reading and studying, gardening, and planting crops", showing the attitude of a recluse who has nothing to do with the world. Therefore, when the boy servant at home staggered into the study, he cast a reproachful look on him, feeling that there should not be anything worth panicking about in the world.
Internet pictures
However, when the child told him what happened, Wei Xi's face suddenly turned pale. He never thought that this kind of thing could only be found in "Sou Shen Ji" "The strange thing that can only be read in the book actually happened in his own home!
The child said that he was hoeing in the garden, hoeing, hoeing, and the hoe seemed to be tied to something and could not swing it. He knelt down and took a closer look. It turned out that there was a lot of hair wrapped around the hoe. Those long hair seemed to grow out of the soil, and every strand was filled with chill...
1
Weeding out a woman’s hair
Many people who prefer the past to the present are used to dreaming back to the Tang Dynasty. In their view, the Tang Dynasty was China is the best society, open, equal, and diverse. The sky in the Tang Dynasty is clear, and the people of the Tang Dynasty love it... In fact, as long as you read more books, official history, unofficial history, or notes, you will understand that the Tang Dynasty Like any dynasty in Chinese history, happiness only belonged to the powerful, and the common people were thankful if they could have enough food and clothing - as for the bottom, most were struggling on the line of life and death.
The Tang Dynasty was a relatively "developed" period of the slave system in ancient my country. Slaves were divided into "official families" and "private families". In essence, there was not much difference. They both lost personal freedom and rights. A "untouchable" who is like a slave. "Laws of the Tang Dynasty" says: "Slaves and maidservants, the law is better than livestock products." The law stipulates that they have the same social status as cattle and horses.
Therefore, it often happens that masters kill slaves without permission, but the punishment is so light that no one takes it seriously. The government's attitude is not only appeasing, but simply conniving. Conscience scholars were very angry about this, which was particularly prominent in ancient notes. "Tongyou Ji", which records the "Wei Xi Incident", is one of them - Chen, the author of "Tongyou Ji" Shao, whose life story is unknown, was probably a hermit like Wei Xi.
Let’s go back to the beginning: After listening to the child’s report, Wei Xi quickly went to the garden with him and continued digging with a hoe. His hair “grew deeper and thicker, and was not messy, as if it was newly combed.” ". Wei Tie became more and more frightened, and he dug the hoe lighter and lighter. When he dug to a depth of more than a foot, he saw a "woman's head" appearing in the soil, and her skin looked as if she were alive. Wei Xi hurriedly dug again, and actually dug out the entire body, but the clothes were broken into powder. When Wei Xi was thinking about whether to report it to the official, the woman took a few breaths and slowly sat up. Wei Xi and the child were so frightened that they both sat down on the ground, thinking they were dead bodies.
The woman asked for some clothes from Wei Xi, put them on, bowed to him several times, and said that she was the slave girl of Wei Xi's ancestor, her name was Li Rong, and that the master's wife was "very jealous". She was beautiful, but she always harbored hatred. When her master was not at home, she instigated a few evil slaves to "bury her alive in the garden." When the master came back and asked about it, he said that she had eloped with someone else, "More No one knows.”
Wei Xi didn’t understand. Since she was the slave girl of her ancestors, how could she not be dead after being buried alive? Li Rong said that when she just died, two men in black led her to a "big palace, Guangdian." The King of Hell sat down at the place where she died, and asked her how she died. The man in black could not explain clearly, and Li Rong "did not dare to complain to my wife," so she was taken to another "official office" and was examined by the judge. After repeated questioning, she said that she "killed the lady unreasonably out of jealousy." The judge immediately ordered that the lady's life be reduced by eleven years and be given to Li Rong. Li Rong was supposed to be alive, but the judge made a mistake. She was punished and dismissed from her job, and the case was put on hold for more than ninety years. It was not until yesterday that "a heavenly official came suddenly to search for those who were stagnant in the Nether System and the Underworld, and ordered them to be sent away" that Li Rong came back to life. Wei Tie was very surprised and asked her how she had been able to "preserve her beauty and skin care" for the past ninety years. Li Rong said: "Down here, whenever there is an unresolved matter, the stewards of the realm will apply medicine all over the body, and the body will not decay at all." Bad." After saying that, he took a shower and changed clothes, "he looks like he's about twenty years old."
At the end of the story, of course, Wei Xi and Li Rong come together happily, but there are three points worthy of readers’ attention: First, the murderous “lady” did not have her life shortened by eleven years after all; Because her tomb might have been arched when this punishment was carried out; secondly, Li Rong did not dare to tell the truth about her wife’s murder in the underworld; thirdly, her case had been shelved for ninety years, but she did not dare to tell her the truth. The Ming Guan complained, and she said: "There are many people like this, and they are called ***, so the Ming Guan is not in a hurry." One can imagine the miserable fate of the slaves at that time, and the suffering they suffered. The devastation was so severe that he had become accustomed to accepting all injustices in the world, and he even had no expectations for the underground "official government".
[$HR getPages$
2
The body thrown into the pit
In the Tang Dynasty notes, it is recorded that the maid was mutilated by her master The most numerous records are undoubtedly Zhang Jue's several records in "Chao Ye Qian Zai". Putting aside the absurd and superstitious elements in them, we can see some cruel realities.
Internet pictures
During the Zhenguan period, Fan Lue of Puyang married his wife Ren. Fan Lue doted on a maid, and Ren "cut off her ears and nose with a knife." Soon, Ren became pregnant and gave birth to a girl with "no ears or nose." When the girl grew up, she was constantly worried about her natural appearance. However, she noticed that an old maid in the family had no ears or nose, but she didn't look like she was born with a knife wound on the cut-off part. "When the girl asked, she told her the reason, and she cried because she hated her mother."
Liang Renyu, the general of Xiaowei, doted on a maid. "My wife Li was very jealous and abused her." She had the maid tied up and strangled her neck while hitting her on the back of the head with a hammer. The maid wailed: "I am a despicable person. I don't even have freedom. My wife locked my neck and smashed my head. Why should I be so bitter?!" In this way, the maid was brutally killed. , "More than a month after death, Li's disease often causes the maid to call him." Not only that, Li had four malignant sores on her head. The malignant sores festered from the outside in and invaded the brain. The pain caused Li to wail day and night, and she died in extreme pain for several months.
There was a man named Du Chang in Songyang who bought a maid named Jin Jing and liked her very much. This made his wife Liu very angry. One day after Du Chang took a bath, he asked Jin Jing to comb his hair. A few days later, Ms. Liu had two of Jin Jing's fingers cut off. Unexpectedly, two days later, Ms. Liu contracted a malignant sore called "Fox Thorn" and her two fingers were rotten. Du Chang also bought He married a maid named Yulian who was good at singing and dancing. "Chang loved her and admired her kindness." When Du Chang was not at home, Liu took advantage of Du Chang's absence and gouged out Yulian's tongue. Soon, Liu's tongue developed sores. It was also going to rot. Mrs. Liu was anxious and asked a Zen master what to do. The Zen master said: "Madam, out of jealousy, cut off my maid's finger and lost her finger. She also cut off my maid's tongue, and now it is cut off again. I repent sincerely. It can be avoided." Mrs. Liu quickly repented and recited the Sutra for seven days. The Zen master asked her to open her mouth. "Two snakes came out of the mouth, one foot or more. She cursed them quickly, and they fell to the ground, and her tongue calmed down."
The most terrifying thing was a murder that occurred in Zhijiang County, Jingzhou. The county magistrate Zhang Jing liked his maid. His wife Yang took advantage of Zhang Jing's business trip to kill the maid and threw her body into a manure pit. When Zhang Jing came back, he couldn't find the maid and asked again and again. Yang said that she had run away. Zhang Jing knew that his wife had always been cruel and cruel, so he knew that the maid must have been harmed by her and stopped asking questions. Unexpectedly, soon after, Yang fell ill and kept dreaming that the maid came to ask for her life. It happened that Zhang Jing's colleague, the county administrator Xia Rong, had the ability to "judge the underworld" and told Zhang Jing: " Your wife got sick because she killed her maid and threw her body in the toilet, and now the evil spirit is looking for her to settle the score." Zhang Jing checked with Yang, who was so frightened that she told Zhang Jing the truth. The remains of the victimized maidservants were fished out from the cesspit, "bathed in fragrant soup, and buried in thick layers." However, the maid's ghost hated Yang so much that she would never let her go. A few months later, Yang died of illness.
On the surface, the above four stories are just stories about the cycle of nature and unsatisfactory retribution, but readers should also see clearly: the male protagonists in all the stories only play the role of playing with women, and making trouble after something happens. The so-called doting on maids, but treating them as beloved toys. If the toys are broken or lost, they don’t care, just buy another one... When you see the word "retribution" in ancient notes, it is probably just a literati. The helpless writing turns anger into imagination. In reality, the Ren family, Li family, Liu family, Yang family and their husbands, no matter how they harmed others, they still caught up with the prosperous age and enjoyed peace.
三
The "strong support" of the Lord of Hell's revenge
The act of killing the maids still did not ease until the Song Dynasty. Northern Song Dynasty scholar Zhang Shizheng's "Kuo Yizhi" "An incident was recorded in ". In the second year of Jiayou reign of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, Chang Xun, the county lieutenant of Qianjiang County in Jingzhou, went out for business one day. He was riding his horse on the official road. Suddenly he saw someone hiding in the grass beside the road. He rushed his horse forward to check, and saw only two ten people. The three or four-year-old girl was hunched over like a beggar, her eyes were full of fear, her body was covered in scars, and most of the wounds had suppurated. Chang Xun asked them who they were and how they got here. The two girls said that they were female slaves from Huang Ba’s mother-in-law’s family. One of them ate two extra pieces of meat when eating leftovers. Huang Ba’s mother ordered “whipping hundreds of them and using fire chopsticks” "Burn my body all over"; the other one fell asleep in the middle of the work because she was tired, and was bumped into by Huang Baniang. "I hung my feet on the beam and cut my flesh with a knife." After the two girls accepted the punishment, Huang Baniang's anger remained. , stripped them naked, locked them in a barn, and deprived them of water and food for three days and nights.
Internet pictures
After hearing this, Chang Xun was very angry and asked them how they escaped. The two girls said that they were cuddling together and crying, thinking that they might die. While they were in the barn, a white-bearded man suddenly came outside the barn and called them to jump out. The two girls said, "We are hungry and tired, and the barn is so deep. How can we jump out?" Weng said: "You just jump!" The two girls jumped out of the barn with support, as if being lifted up by a force. The white-bearded man took them to the official road and said: "You are in the grass. Stay here for a while, and an official will pass by to rescue you."
Chang Xun thought, it seems that the white-bearded man must be a god, he expected that I would come here, as a county captain. , how could he ignore this kind of persecution of his maid? So he took the two girls back to the county government office and ordered Huang Baniang to be arrested and executed immediately. What was even more frightening was that Huang Baniang confessed that she had been tortured to death before. There were so many maids that "every time it was dark in the house, fierce ghosts would roar and live in front and behind." Huang Baniang knew that the laws of the world could not do anything to her, so she was extremely arrogant and turned a blind eye to the howling ghosts. The result proved that her judgment was correct. Chang Xun sent her to the superior government office for imprisonment, and she only paid a fine. was released.
However, the author suspects that the fierce ghosts transformed by the maids are not actually as scary as the green-faced fangs. "Kuo Yi Zhi" wrote: There was a period of time in the Chenzhou Tongjian Hall, and there was always a beautiful woman who suddenly disappeared. Suddenly, someone asked her her name. She said her surname was Kong, "I was a slave girl from Taiwei Shi's family who was killed because of an offense." It happened that the famous lyricist Yan Shu was in the Wanqiu area and "relyed on new sounds" every time. Every time he composed a new lyric, before it spread, "the ghost would spit it out and sing it outside." Although I don't know what she sang, I guess it was There are some sad words like "the flowers fell outside the curtain and tears fell" or "the sky is far away and the clouds are dark, and I can only feel haggard".
Such a "fierce ghost" naturally cannot scare beasts like Huang Baniang. Mr. Lu Xun admired Nudiao precisely because of his spirit of revenge. Therefore, I prefer a story told by Liu Shu from the Song Dynasty in "Qing Suo Gao Yi": A businessman named Li Zhengchen, his wife suddenly fell ill, "There was something like a huge lump in the belly, and it moved in the belly from time to time. The pain is unbearable and cannot be cured by any treatment." Li Zhengchen went to a fairy and asked what was going on. The fairy said that your wife once killed a pregnant maid, and the wronged soul was in her belly. Li Zhengchen asked how to save him, and the fairy said that your wife had done something unjust and her revenge had already been registered in the underworld. The Lord of Hell tried his best to help, but no one could save him... Not long after, "his wife suffered a lump in her belly and then died." , or he died of severe pain and gastrostomy." Li Zhengchen saw a dead woman falling out of his wife's split stomach, "There are still four marks on her body."
From ancient times to the present, China has been a country where many people accept the situation and accept it, but few people rise up to resist. "Retribution must be retaliated" has always been regarded as a derogatory connotation. Not long ago, on the 80th anniversary of the death of Mr. Lu Xun, some philanthropists made insinuations and attacks. His "never forgive anyone" spirit, in their view, the source of unrest is always the maid's rebellion, not the master's murder - from this perspective, they are the slaves who will never be saved.