Xihe County.
After handling the backlog of files, Du Yan immediately came to Xihe County on the pretext of visiting.
Fortunately, Fenzhou is not very far from Bingzhou. It only takes two days to go down the Fen River.
After arriving in Xihe County, Du Yan did not go to the county government immediately. Instead, he ordered people to go to Tianshui Village for an on-site visit.
Tianshui Village is a very typical farming village. There are three hundred households in the village. The common surname in the village is Wang, and almost half of the people have the surname Wang.
The surname Di is just a minor surname, and there are only a few families in the village.
It seems that in a village like this, there won't be a court case for ten or eight years, so Di Qing's story has attracted much attention.
Even after a few months, there are still people discussing this issue.
Du Yan's entourage pretended to be a traveling salesman and sneaked into Tianshui Village, and it didn't take long to find out the inside story.
Xantai's guess is correct!
As expected, there is another secret behind this.
The person who actually accidentally killed someone was not Di Qing at all, but Di Qing's brother Di Su.
After learning the truth, Du Yan's followers did not go back to report immediately, but continued to visit to explore the hidden secrets.
Di Qing cannot take the blame for no reason.
He had to find out whether Di Qing took the blame voluntarily or was forced.
If it's the latter, this is obviously an injustice.
But if it's the former, it's up to the person to make the decision.
In this era, the awareness of secrecy was extremely low. With a little effort, Du Yan's followers were able to get the truth out of the people of Tianshui Village.
It turned out that Di Qing took the blame on his own initiative, and the reason was very simple. Not only was his brother the eldest son in the family, he also married a bride and gave birth to a son.
Di Su has old people at the top and young people at the bottom. Unlike Di Qing, one person is full and the whole family is not hungry.
'This kid is quite loyal. '
After understanding all the inside information, Du Zhong couldn't help but sigh secretly.
Murder is a serious crime!
As the saying goes, a murderer must pay for his life. Once he pleads guilty and is punished, the minimum the murderer will do is to be exiled thousands of miles away and join the bandit army.
In some cases, the decision is to "abandon the market" directly.
(ps: Abandoning the market, that is, executing the death penalty on prisoners in a busy city, "Book of Rites": Executioners in the market, abandoning them with the crowd)
Du Zhong was Du Yan's companion when he was a boy, and was one of Du's descendants, although Du Yan didn't like some people from the Du family.
But he still trusted Du Zhong.
Since Du Zhong was named after the word "loyalty", he naturally had a preference for loyal people like Di Qing.
After investigating the ins and outs of the matter, Du Zhong turned his back on the salesman and continued to wander around the countryside.
】
It wasn't until dusk fell that Du Zhong returned to the county seat.
evening.
Du Zhong came to a Taoist temple, where he and Du Yan had lived for the past two days. With Du Yan's level, of course he could stay in the official post when traveling.
But in order to keep it secret, it is more appropriate to choose to live in a Taoist temple.
"Xantai, this is the specific situation."
Du Zhong stood in front of Du Yan and informed the other party of the visit in detail.
After hearing the details of the case, Du Yan didn't speak for a long time.
As he expected, this case was indeed an injustice.
However, the situation was beyond his expectation.
Di Qing's mistake was a mistake, but it was Di Qing who took the blame.
For a moment, Du Yan didn't know whether he should sue for this.
It would go against his principles if he didn't change his mind.
However, if he insisted on overturning the case, wouldn't it be a waste of Di Qing's loyalty and filial piety?
The law is nothing more than human feelings.
Legal principles are important, but benevolence and virtue are even more important.
After thinking about it, Du Yan decided to go to the county government office tomorrow and make another decision then.
The next day.
After hearing the report from the government officials and Xiantai's visit, Xihe County Magistrate Jie Wenrang vaguely guessed the purpose of the visit.
He and Du Yan were of the same age. Although Du Yan had no impression of him, he was deeply impressed by Du Yan.
Fourth place on the head, what an enviable ranking.
People like him at the bottom of the rankings can only start by selecting people. Jie Wenrang changed from selecting people to being a Beijing official. This stage alone took thirteen years.
Xie Wenrang was already over forty when he was promoted to the imperial examination. More than ten years later, he was already fifty-six years old.
For the fifty-six-year-old county magistrate, it is foreseeable that he will have almost no chance to serve as an official in the court.
And what about Du Yan?
At the age of more than 40 years old, he has become a supervisor.
If nothing unexpected happens, Du Yan will most likely be able to become an official in Beijing in the future. If he is lucky enough, he may even get a glimpse of the two palaces.
The two were Jinshi in the same ranking, but their circumstances were very different.
Of course, compared with Feng Yuan and Zu Shiheng, Du Yan's achievements are nothing.
"I didn't know that Xiantai's visit was not welcomed from afar, so I hope Xiantai won't be surprised."
Jie Wenrang hurried to the main hall and apologized from afar before approaching.
Although the county magistrate is not under the jurisdiction of the Tidian Prison Department, to use an inappropriate analogy, if a senior political and legal official from a province goes to a local area for inspection, how dare he offend the local official?
Regardless of whether you have supervisory authority or not, you must provide for them well.
One level of official rank can crush someone to death, not to mention the several levels difference between Xie Wenrang and Du Yan.
"Xie Zhixian, there is no need to be formal."
On the other side, Du Yan saw Xie Wenrang's actions and quickly stood up, cupping his hands.
"I didn't notify you of this visit, so why am I wrong?"
After some greetings, Du Yan brought the topic to the tribute ceremony of the first year of Dazhong Xiangfu, which brought out the relationship between the same year, which made the atmosphere relax a lot.
Immediately afterwards, Xie Wenrang took Du Yan to visit the Yamen.
In the blink of an eye, half an hour passed, but Du Yan did not mention the official business of this trip at all.
When he arrived at the Prison Department, Jie Wenrang was the first to mention Di Qingyu.
"Xiantai, not long ago, something happened in Xihe. I wonder if Xiantai has any impressions?"
"Um."
Du Yan smiled slightly and nodded.
"well."
Jie Wenrang lowered his head and sighed: "Actually...actually, there is another hidden story behind this."
With that said, Xie Wen straightened his body and bowed respectfully to Du Yan.
"Xiantai, this official is at fault."
"The prisoner Di Qing is not the main culprit, he is... the culprit."
Hearing this, Du Yan couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
Xie Wenrang is actually an insider?
Here again, an unexpected situation occurred.
After a long while, Xie Wen gave way and told the whole story, and then took the initiative to plead guilty.
"This is indeed the fault of the lower official, let Xian Tai handle it."
"well."
Du Yan sighed quietly, Xie Wenrang chose to turn a blind eye out of sympathy. Although this matter was not in line with the law, it was in line with benevolent governance.
Although Du Yan is good at cutting off eucalyptus, he himself is not a pursuer of the rule of law.
Last night, he also thought about letting this matter go.
'No matter. '
"Just take the lunch box back to Judge Hutu." '
'As for Di Qing's treatment, he just took advantage of the amnesty and exchanged it for a place of exile. '
According to regulations, murderers like Di Qing cannot be dispatched near Bianliang.
However, it doesn’t matter if you can’t go to the capital. Yingtian Mansion and Xijing are both the best places to go.
