A knife in love

Chapter 405

After hearing Situ Qiao's words, Murong Danyan was very surprised, and said, "The capital? Could it be that we are walking around in the middle of the mountain, but we can't even go back to the capital?"

After she finished speaking, she turned to look at Li Qiufeng.Under the starlight, he was surprised to see him staring blankly at the tall city tower tens of feet away.

Murong Danyan was suspicious, and turned to look at the leaders of other gangs.But seeing Liu Yong, Deng Yao, Zhu Sanjia and others also had expressions of disbelief.There were only three or four people who were like me. Although they also had expressions of surprise on their faces, they didn't look like they had seen a ghost like Li Qiufeng, Situ Qiao, Liu Yong and others.

The more Murong Danyan looked at Li Qiufeng's expression, the more frightened he became. He didn't know what was so strange in this tower that could scare Li Qiufeng, Liu Yong, Deng Yao and others into such a state.As for Situ Qiao, although he has a strange temper, he is not small in courage. He does not know how many tombs have been stolen.Why is there a look of astonishment at this time, and what did you say "returned to the capital"?

Murong Danyan was suspicious, and just when he was about to ask again, he heard Deng Yao say: "Could it be that the corridor in the mountain is not leading to some Jingxin Temple at all, but Yao Guangxiao's old suspicious array? He set up here A tunnel was built to lead to the capital in the place where the army supplies were stored. Once the capital changes, the reinforcements can go to the capital through the tunnel under Hutou Rock, and they will come out by surprise.”

What he said was not asking anyone, but rather talking to himself.Murong Danyan said: "Master Deng, why don't I understand what you said?"

Deng Yao smiled wryly, and said, "Girl, do you know where this tower is?"

Murong Danyan shook his head, and said: "I don't know about that. But look at the momentum, it's not like an ordinary city will build such a tower. But Mr. Situ just mentioned the capital. Could it be that the tower is the city wall of the capital? ?”

Deng Yao nodded and said, "That's right. This tower is the inner city at the south gate of the Forbidden City in the central part of the capital. It's called the Meridian Gate, which refers to the gate under the tower in the middle..."

Before Deng Yao finished speaking, Murong Danyan clapped his hands and said, "I know. Pushing out the Meridian Gate and beheading, is this the city tower you're talking about?"

Deng Yaodao: "Exactly. If the emperor wanted to behead the minister, he asked Jin Yiwei to tie him up and push him out of the Meridian Gate. The eunuch read the imperial decree on the tower, and then the Jin Yiwei executed the sentence..."

"not like this."

Li Qiufeng said suddenly, interrupting Deng Yao's words.Deng Yao was taken aback, although he had seen the Meridian Gate, but the story of "pushing out the Meridian Gate and beheading" was also told by others, and he had not seen it himself.

Seeing Li Qiufeng speak, Murong Danyan patted his chest lightly with his right hand, and said happily, "Brother Li, you have finally spoken."

Li Qiufeng was still staring at the tower, holding the Xiuchun knife tightly in his right hand, and said word by word: "The Lord Deng said that this is the Meridian Gate of the south gate of the Forbidden City. The five que pavilions, shaped like phoenixes, are called the Wufeng Tower by the people in the capital. However, "beheading at the Meridian Gate" is just an absurd legend among the people. Since Emperor Chengzu issued an edict to build the Forbidden City in Beijing, until the present Emperor Jiajing When he ascended the throne and sat in the palace, he never pushed ministers out of the Meridian Gate and beheaded them, but some ministers died outside the Meridian Gate. The Meridian Gate is where the Forbidden City held a grand ceremony. How could someone kill someone in such an important place? The punishment of the court rod, Originally, it was not intended to kill people, but to punish criminals. It was indeed carried out by the captain of Jinyiwei. When the first emperor Zhengde was in power, he went to Jiangnan for a year. There were more than 130 ministers including Shu Fen and Huang Gong on the east side. At that time, Liu Jin, the governor of the East Factory, collected bribes and threatened private revenge. He conspired to kill people during the execution. If the toes are closed, the victim must be beaten hard and the victim will be killed with one stick. As a result, among the 130 officials who were sentenced, 100 officials were punished because they offended. Liu Jin was beaten to death on the spot. Among the remaining officials, those whose family members gave gold, silver and jewels to Liu Jin and his henchmen suffered minor injuries even though they received the imperial rod. Although the stick was seriously injured, it was not fatal. After the current emperor Jiajing succeeded to the throne, due to the dispute over the ceremony, he was strongly advised by the officials. The emperor was furious and ordered more than [-] ministers to be escorted to the court outside the Meridian Gate. Seventeen officials were beaten to death on the spot. Other than that, there has never been another murder in the Meridian Gate in Ming Dynasty.”

Murong Danyan said tremblingly: "Beating to death more than ten people alive, what is the difference between this and beheading? It is better to beheaded than beheaded. It is very refreshing to kill people with a knife. Wouldn't it be better to beat people to death with a wooden stick?" Much more cruel than beheading?"

Li Qiufeng shook his head and said: "Miss Murong, you are a girl, and you know very little about official affairs. For officials, being punished by the court rod is not a capital crime. Even if you get beaten, it is only temporary. It is just a hindrance to official career. If beheading, it is a capital crime of ransacking the family and exterminating the family, and most of the family members will be implicated. Therefore, for officials, the court stick is much better than beheading. The emperor ordered the punishment of the court staff to be imposed on officials. It is not intended to kill people, but to punish them. As for the killing of ministers, most of them were done by the eunuchs who imprisoned them. In the more than 28 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there were [-] officials who died because of the imperial staff, but compared with the previous dynasty, the number is still relatively small. Much less. During the reign of Emperor Ming of the Eastern Han Dynasty, court sticks were generally made of chestnut wood. If you pull it along the way, the sharp barbed hook will tear off a large piece of the victim's body including the flesh. If the executioner is merciless, the victim's flesh and flesh will be beaten and scratched, and the body will be torn to pieces. The execution officer Most of them died under the court rod. Even if they did not die, nine out of ten would be disabled for life. Although the highest number of court rods is one hundred, this has no practical significance. After hitting fifty or sixty times, the victim can no longer bear it. Live and die. A person with a hundred royal rods rarely has a chance to survive."

Murong Danyan and Deng Yao were dumbfounded when they heard it, and the gang leaders and heads standing beside Li Qiufeng could also hear clearly, and all of them were surprised.

Murong Danyan said tremblingly: "Is it true that, as Gang Leader Deng said, there is a tunnel in the mountainside under Hutouyan, which leads directly to the Meridian Gate?"

Li Qiufeng shook his head and said: "Impossible. The capital is more than a hundred miles away from Hutouyan. Although we have walked for several hours in this mountainside, it is absolutely impossible to reach the capital. .”

When he said this, he was still staring at the Meridian Gate, and after a while, he said word by word: "Unless Yao Guangxiao is really as powerful as the legends say, and cast a magic like the Earth Shrinking Technique in this cave..."

When he said this, he turned his head slightly, looked around, shook his head again, and said in a deep voice: "No, this is definitely not the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City!"

Deng Yao said: "The old beggar has been to the Meridian Gate several times. Although he sneaked in, he still remembers it clearly. The shape of this tower is the same as that of the Meridian Gate, except that there are no guards on the city. Maybe because it is night, those The officers and soldiers on duty went to sleep lazily..."

Li Qiufeng didn't wait for him to finish, he turned around and pointed behind him and said, "Big Leader Deng, if this is really the Meridian Gate, there should be the Daming Gate behind us, and we can see the Chengtian Gate even further from the Daming Gate. But Mr. Deng, why not?" Looking back, what is behind us?"

Everyone walked over from the corridor meandering all the way, and when they got here, they were shocked by the situation in front of them, and forgot to look back to see where they came from.At this moment when Li Qiufeng said, Deng Yao and others looked back, only to see a cliff like a knife-cut axe behind them.The entrance of the corridor that everyone drilled out is impressively above the stone wall, and you can see the light from the fluorite on the stone walls on both sides of the corridor.

Those who were shocked by the situation in front of them have all seen the Meridian Gate before.As for the few sect masters and sect leaders who had never seen the Meridian Gate, although they were also surprised, it was because such a majestic and majestic tower suddenly appeared in the middle of the mountain.Deng Yao, Liu Yong, Situ Qiao and the others had all seen the Meridian Gate before, so they naturally knew that going south from the Meridian Gate was the Daming Gate, and outside the Daming Gate was the Chengtian Gate.But when he turned around and looked around, he couldn't see any towers except for a tall stone wall that didn't reach the top. He immediately knew that the situation was different. The tower in front of him was definitely not the Meridian Gate.

Liu Yong said to Situ Qiao: "Mr. Situ, where do you think this tower is?"

Situ Qiao looked bewildered, thought for a moment, shook his head, and said, "This, this... I don't know..."

Everyone was very surprised, and thought in their hearts: "This person can actually say the word 'don't know', it's really an anecdote in the world!"

Situ Qiao looked at the tower, and then said: "I thought it was true what the surnamed Zhu said, Yao Guangxiao built a temple in the middle of the mountain as the center to drive the various organs in the middle of the mountain. Unexpectedly, he would actually build such a city tower in the middle of the mountain. It stands to reason that Yao Guangxiao advised Zhu Di to rob the world of Emperor Jianwen. At that time, Beijing was not named Beijing, but Beiping. In Beiping, there is only Yanwang Mansion The scale is much smaller than that of the later Forbidden City. And Yao Guangxiao secretly built a place for storing military supplies and supplies in the mountainside. Why did he build such a tower? And in terms of shape, it is also similar to the later Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Generally the same?"

Liu Yong pondered and said, "According to what Mr. Situ said, the construction of this city tower was earlier than the Forbidden City?"

Situ Qiao nodded and said: "Exactly. When Zhu Di conspired to fight for the world, it was still in the Hongwu period. And he issued an edict to build the imperial palace in Beiping City in the fourth year of Yongle. The scale of the imperial palace is so huge, even though Zhu Di recruited millions of people , but it took 15 years, and it was not completed until the 19th year of Yongle. Later, Zhu Di moved the capital from Yingtianfu to Beiping, and changed Beiping to Beijing, and Yingtianfu was called Nanjing. In this way, Yao Guangxiao built the underground tower. Five or six years earlier than the Forbidden City in Beijing."

Chu Danyang said: "According to what Mr. Situ said, it took millions of people to build the Forbidden City, and it took 15 years. The manpower and material resources spent by Yao Guangxiao to build the city underground here are many times more difficult than building the Forbidden City in Beijing. At that time, although Zhu Di was named the King of Yan, he had not obtained the emperor's edict and had no right to use the soldiers from the guards around Beiping City. No matter how powerful Yao Guangxiao was, how could he recruit so many civilians to build the city?"

In fact, everyone present had this question in their hearts, but no one raised it.After Chu Danyang finished speaking, everyone was silent.After a long while, I heard Li Qiufeng say: "Perhaps this tower is not what we thought, although it looks the same as the Meridian Gate we saw, but there is no Hall of Supreme Harmony or other halls inside. In this case, recruiting more than [-] civilians can build this tower in four to five years."

(End of this chapter)