History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 1040: Genius Zhang Yong
1. Don’t be inferior to others

Although Zhang Yong was a scholar, he also liked to wield swords and sticks. He "learned fencing at a young age" and had a lot of martial arts skills. He always had a chivalrous spirit. He was "not arrogant and not particular about details". Generally speaking, the phrases such as "like to be chivalrous" and "not arrogant" are the standard features of ruthless people in society such as Zhu Wen, Yang Xingmi, and Huang Chao, but they also appeared in this scholar. Is it called a young man without an arrogant spirit? When Zhang Yong was young, that is, before he passed the imperial examination and became an official, he was poor and arrogant. Even though he was penniless and lived in a foreign land, he was still dissatisfied and angry, "What are you looking at? Try looking at another one!"

2. Smart way of handling household affairs
When I was the governor of Hangzhou, there was a difficult civil lawsuit. The process was simple, but the trial was extremely complicated. The brother-in-law sued his brother-in-law for embezzling the family property. The brother-in-law said that when the owner of the house, that is, his father-in-law, died, the brother-in-law was only three years old. Before his death, the father-in-law made a will, asking him to help raise the brother-in-law, and promised to give 70% of the family property to him as the brother-in-law, and only leave 30% to the brother-in-law. The brother-in-law also took out the written document signed at that time and scolded the brother-in-law for being ungrateful. Over the years, he, as the brother-in-law, had raised him with his own hands and acted as both a brother-in-law and a father. Now that the brother-in-law has grown up, he has turned his face and refused to admit it.

Zhang Yong took the suicide note, threw it to the ground without even reading it, then raised his glass and poured a glass of wine on it, as if paying tribute to the deceased. "Your father-in-law is a smart man! If he had said at the time that he would give you 30% and 70% to his son, I'm afraid his son would not be alive today. It is because he said he would give you 70% that you raised the child to adulthood." So the court ruled: 30% to your brother-in-law and 70% to your brother-in-law.

When the people of Hangzhou heard about it, they all praised Zhang Yong for his wisdom.

3. It's just murder, what's the big deal?
3.1 Rope sawing wood
When Zhang Yong was the magistrate of Chongyang County, he found a petty official who had stolen a coin from the government treasury, so he ordered him to be caned. The petty official was not convinced and said, "I just took a coin, why do you need to punish me so severely? If you have the guts, go ahead and kill me. I don't believe this is a capital crime!"
"Challenge? It's all about whether I kill you or not."

Zhang Yong immediately picked up his pen and wrote down a famous saying: "One penny a day, one penny a thousand days. A rope saws through wood, and water drips through stone."

Afterwards, the petty official was beheaded.

Note that Zhang Yong's first job after passing the civil service exam was as the magistrate of Chongyang County, Ezhou. A freshly graduated college student who had just passed the civil service exam was assigned to a small county town as the county magistrate. He found out that a temporary worker had embezzled one yuan of public funds, so he sentenced him to death and executed him immediately...

He did a big thing right after his debut. This young man is really awesome.

3.2 Trouble comes from the mouth
When a petty official disobeyed him for a minor matter, Zhang Yong put a shackle on his neck as a punishment. The petty official was not convinced and said:
"Kill me if you can!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yong said, "Hey, kid, you want to challenge me? Do you think I don't dare?" He immediately beheaded the petty official.

3.3 Lin Lu kills the servant
There was a weak scholar who passed the civil service exam and was assigned to a remote county town as an official. His servant took advantage of his weakness and forcibly took his daughter as his wife. Zhang Yong happened to pass by here and accidentally found out about this absurd thing. He was indignant and said, "Since you are here, don't say anything, brother, leave this matter to me." Then he pretended that he didn't know about it. The next day, he told the scholar that he was going to play in the suburbs and wanted to borrow his servant as a temporary follower. When the two of them arrived in the wilderness, Zhang Yong saw that there was no one around and immediately drew his sword and killed him.

It’s too troublesome to go to court, why not just kill the person directly? It’s just murder, it’s not a big deal.

3.4 Black Widow

When Zhang Yong was the governor of Yizhou, he once met a new widow who was crying for a deceased person. However, her words sounded a bit fake and did not seem to be from the heart. So he invited her to the yamen for tea and asked her about the cause of her husband's death. The young widow said that he died suddenly of a sudden illness.

"Has he ever been ill?"

"No."

"Yeah, how could a healthy person suddenly die of illness? Let me die of illness too and see, then you kill me, come here!"

Zhang Yong asked the coroner (forensic doctor) to carefully examine the body, but no obvious trauma or poisoning was found. However, Zhang Yong insisted that this was a murder case of her husband, and evidence of murder must be found, otherwise... "Coroner, you know what kind of temper I have, don't make me angry!"

The coroner was extremely anxious but helpless. He couldn't frame someone, could he? After returning home at night, the depressed coroner complained to his wife about this unfortunate job. As a result, his wife suddenly had an idea and asked him to carefully check the top of the deceased's head.

In ancient times (before the Qing Dynasty), adult men did not shave their heads, so adult men at that time had waist-length hair. The next day, when the coroner carefully looked at the top of the deceased's head, he was shocked to find that a long nail had been nailed into the deceased's head. It was indeed murder!

Zhang Yong was very happy, and then ordered the coroner's wife to come for tea. After a round of praise and reward, Zhang Yong's attitude suddenly changed 180 degrees, and he glared in anger and shouted: "If you have never done this, how would you know this method?"

The coroner's wife was shocked at first, then stunned for a long time, and then she confessed her past. It turned out that she had used the same method to kill her ex-husband.

So Zhang Yong executed these two extremely smart and imaginative women together. Does this story sound familiar? Yes, Mr. Guo Degang adapted it into the classic long-form stand-up comedy "The Picture of Good and Evil" (also known as "Three Cases in Shuntian Prefecture and 22 Lives"), only changing the names and time, and even the details are almost copied from the original.

4. Don’t like to kneel down

Zhang Yong hated red tape the most and did not like his subordinates to kneel and kowtow to him, so he warned his subordinates not to kneel when they met him and to keep all etiquette simple.

What if someone insisted on kneeling to show goodwill? That would be very interesting. Zhang Yong would either keep kneeling to return the favor, embarrassing the person, or he would curse at the person, making him even more embarrassed.

“As long as I am not embarrassed, others will be embarrassed.” - Zhang Yong

5. If you don’t listen to the advice of elders, you will suffer the consequences.
When punishing a junior officer who made a mistake, Zhang Yongde, a veteran general, caused his death (beating him to death), and was reported to the court. Zhao Guangyi issued an edict to punish Zhang Yongde. Taizu and Taizong were most wary of military generals abusing their power, especially border generals who were good at killing, and especially meritorious veteran generals like Zhang Yongde. He was Zhao Kuangyin's predecessor and the former "Palace Front Inspector". He was sent out because of the "Inspector Becoming the Emperor Incident", which allowed Zhao Kuangyin to take over the Palace Front Inspector and then stage a mutiny to seize power. At this time, Zhang Yongde was stationed in an important border town, holding a large number of troops, and was good at killing his men. Wasn't this obviously a step into Zhao Guangyi's hands?

At that time, Zhang Yong was working in the Sealing and Refutation Office. He rejected the edict and attached his own opinion, saying that it was not a big deal, it was just killing a man. Your Majesty let Zhang Yongde guard the border. If Zhang Yongde was punished for the death of a small officer, it would greatly weaken Zhang Yongde's prestige and cause his subordinates to look down on him, which would be detrimental to his leading the troops.

Zhao Guangyi refused to listen, thinking that this was exactly what he wanted, to kill the prestige of the generals. The edict was passed by force.

Soon, a large number of memorials from subordinates jointly accusing their superiors came into Zhang Yongde's troops, causing chaos in the army and no one was able to suppress the rebellion.

Zhao Guangyi began to feel regretful, and Zhang Yong came to Zhao Guangyi with a heartless attitude, "Look, what did I say before? I told you not to listen to me."

Zhao Guangyi praised him and comforted him, but he also felt a little... Who is this guy? He is so stupid.

6. Song Dynasty Detective

When Zhang Yong was the magistrate of Jiangning Prefecture, a monk came with a pass to get it stamped. The staff processed it according to the general procedure for issuing a passport, but Zhang Yong stared at the monk for a long time, and then ordered him to be handcuffed and thrown into jail.

Everyone was puzzled. What did a monk who went to the West to seek Buddhist scriptures do to provoke you? Did you want to eat him or sleep with him?

Zhang Yong went to the court to try the case and asked the monk how many years he had been a monk. The monk replied that he had been a monk for seven years. Zhang Yong smiled coldly, "Then what about the mark on your forehead?"

The hall suddenly fell silent. The monk was horrified and immediately confessed all his crimes.

As mentioned above, in ancient times, men had waist-length hair, which was usually wrapped with a turban, so there would be marks on the forehead. If a monk shaved his head and became a monk for seven years, the marks would have disappeared long ago. The "monk" in front of him must have just shaved his head not long ago, and he used someone else's certificate of ordination. There must be something serious going on.

According to the confession of the "monk", he was originally traveling with a monk. On the way, he saw the monk's wealth and became greedy. He killed the monk, then shaved his hair, put on monk's clothes, took the monk's certificate and impersonated him.

Everyone then admired Zhang Yong's keen insight.

There were many similar cases. People at that time compiled the cases handled by Zhang Yong into a book called "Collection of Admonitions to the People", which was published and became a best-seller for a time.

So far, we have had a preliminary understanding of Zhang Yong. He is both civil and military, with a strong sense of justice and an even stronger temper. He is very different from the image of a "scholar" in our perception. He feels more like Zhuge Liang + Zhang Fei. Moreover, he has been recommended many times by the prime ministers in the court, such as Su Yijian, Kou Zhen, Li Hang, and Song Xi, so he gradually came into the sight of Emperor Taizong Zhao Guangyi.

(End of this chapter)