Han official!

Chapter 126 The smell of tea
Guo Jie was about to knock Du Junao's two-foot sword away when he soon saw that the Han envoy An Guo Shaoji had slept with the Queen Mother of Nanyue and was even able to instigate her to rebel.

"Little brat!"

Du Congmu was immediately terrified, her face pale. She twisted her plump figure and blocked Anguo Shaoji's way. "How dare you kill a distinguished guest in front of me? Do you still see the female ruler of the Ba Ling Du family in your eyes? Or, in your eyes, I have never been your mother."

The Han Dynasty laws had strict regulations on filial piety: if thieves killed or injured their parents, and the parents accused their son of being unfilial, they would be imprisoned and not be allowed to compensate with titles, be exempted from punishment, or redeem their son.

This means that if children intentionally harm their parents, if the parents go to the county temple to complain about their children's unfilial behavior, they will be immediately imprisoned and will not be able to avoid punishment or make up for their mistakes by buying a title to atone their sins.

Holding his ring-handled sword, Guo Jie bowed towards Chang'an in the southwest and shouted angrily, "The emperor has just issued an edict to respect the elderly. Do you want to be accused of being unfilial?"

In February of the first year of Jianyuan (140 BC), the emperor granted double tax exemption to people over years old. That is, if there was an elderly person over years old in a household, the whole family would be exempted from paying tax for two people, and would pay coins less each year.

Those who are ninety years old will be exempted from military service. That is, if there is an elderly person over ninety years old in a household, one person will be exempted from military service and will not have to participate in heavy corvee labor.

Du Jun'ao's face turned pale as he stared at Guo Jie who was riding on a horse and accusing him, and he almost fainted.

How did the offense and defense change?
Originally, Du Junao brought hundreds of his fellow tribesmen and his wife's family to capture the bandit Guo Jie who broke into Gushuli.

Guo Jie has been charged with the crime of gangsterism.

After Guo Jie's nonsense.

The person who broke the law changed from Guo Jie to Du Junao.

It is still a serious crime of filial piety.

"you you."

Du Junao didn't dare thrust the two-foot-long sword in his hand. It dropped to the ground with a clang. He pointed tremblingly at Guo Jie, who was looking at him with contempt: "You thief! You slander me!"

"Spray you?"

The contempt on Guo Jie's face deepened. "What I said is entirely true. In February of this year, the Emperor issued an edict respecting the elderly. This is a blessing that everyone in the neighborhood and village knows about. The Han Dynasty law also has laws regarding unfilial behavior, which is also true. Which of these words slandered you? Ha, you damned heroic hero Du Junao, you are nothing but an unfilial and despicable villain."

"I you."

The ethos of the Western Han Dynasty was to despise life and value death more than anything else. Du Jun'ao cared most about his reputation, but Guo Jie actually flung dirty water on him for being unfilial. He became so angry that his blood rushed to his head, his face turned purple, and he fainted without even being able to catch his breath.

"uncle!"

"uncle!"

"Uncle!"

The relatives around Du Junao were horrified and rushed over one by one to support Du Junao who was lying on the ground, which really scared everyone.

Chong Huangrou looked at Guo Jie with eyes full of respect and disbelief.

Can Han laws still be used in this way?
Guo Jie really played all kinds of tricks on him.

Guo Jie couldn't stand the Insect Emperor's tender and affectionate look, so he turned his face away and quickly glanced at An Guo Shao Ji.

An Guo Shao Ji immediately understood what Guo Jie meant.

"Hey."

An Guo Shaoji sighed deliberately, "It's not that I'm trying to sow discord between the Lady and her sons. Du Jun'ao had already drawn his sword and nearly stabbed the Lady, but the sons didn't even come out to protect her. Unlike me, I only felt sorry for my younger sister."

Guo Jie had a strange look on his face, and the more he listened, the more he felt something was wrong.

Full of tea flavor.

However, An Guo Shao Ji's words are very useful.

Du Congmu's beautiful eyes looked at An Guo Shao Ji softly, her eyes almost becoming thready.

Especially the last word "Xijun", which makes her look a little shy as if she is a young girl of marriageable age.

The faces of the village official, Tian Dian and other sons changed. Thinking of Du Junao stabbing Du Congmu with a two-foot sword, a surge of anger surged in their hearts.

In addition, the most prestigious Du Junao has fallen into a coma, which is a good opportunity to fight for Jia Zi.

do not miss it!

The village official and Tian Dian immediately brought their clansmen and his wife's family to the opposite side of Du Junao, pointed at Du Junao at the door, and started cursing.

"You thief! How dare you attack my mother? I will never tolerate you."

"You thief! You don't even have filial piety in your eyes."

"Du thief! I must seek justice for my mother today."

Guo Jie rode a Hexi horse, sitting high and seeing far, and he could clearly see that at the entrance of the rammed earth gate, a group of people wearing linen jackets and trousers separated from the densely packed Du clan members.

The Du clan members were divided into two distinct groups and began to confront each other at the inner gate.

The originally friendly tribesmen soon became hostile to each other.

Most of the tribesmen around the village official wore linen jackets and trousers, and their lives were much harder than those of the tribesmen who appeared from time to time behind Du Junao in black trousers.

The market price of soap trousers was quite high, and could be sold for as high as eight hundred coins (recorded in the Dunhuang Han bamboo slips).

A dan of millet cost only a little over a hundred coins, and a piece of silk stocking was equivalent to the annual output of seven or eight mu of land, or the annual tax of seven or eight people.

Guo Jie felt very relieved.

The clansmen around the village officials and the field officials lived a hard life, so they had a strong desire to fight for the family inheritance.

Just as Guo Jie expected.

Tian Dian was furious and said, "My mother used to be a concubine, but now she is the principal wife. My brother and I are also legitimate children. Why should Jiazi be handed over to that bitch Du Ji? The family fortune accumulated by the Ba Ling Du family for generations has finally fallen into the hands of someone with an outsider surname."

Tian Dian knew Du Junao's idea and planned to marry Du Ji to a cousin who was five generations away from her.

In this way, the family property fell into the hands of Du Junao's family.

It will not fall into the hands of the sons of the village official, the field official, etc. who are born from the same mother.

Tian Dian pretended to be confused and, according to Guo Jie's statement, kept saying that the property of the Ba Ling Du family was given to outsiders.

This aroused the anger of Du Congmu's family and his wife's family.

The same hatred.

Seize the family property of Du family in Ba Ling.

Seeing that both sides were on the verge of an outbreak, Guo Jie added fuel to the fire, drew out his two-foot sword and threw it directly at Du Junao.

"Uncle, be careful!"

"puff!"

"what!"

It’s a pity that Du Junao was surrounded by a group of relatives, so they didn’t kill him.

Killed a nephew who took the initiative to block the sword.

Guo Jie acted quickly and no one saw him do it. They only saw the village official, Tian Dian, throw a two-foot sword from behind and kill Du Junao's nephew.

Du Junao's clansmen's eyes instantly turned red, and they roared a few times, drawing their ring-handled swords and rushing towards the village official and Tian Dian.

"Ah! How dare you launch a surprise attack and kill these damned mediocre dogs!"

"We can't let the local official go. We must avenge our nephew!"

"Kill! Kill all of you, and the hemp paper workshop will be ours!"

When Du Junao was awakened by the sound of swords clashing, he opened his eyes wide, his face full of disbelief: "This, this."

Du Junao was extremely sad.

I actually saw the scene of fellow tribesmen killing each other.

It was an extremely cruel scene for a patriarch.

"stop!!!"

Du Junao screamed in pain and wanted to stop it, but he couldn't. He could only watch his clansmen fall one by one.

Or he was killed by his own people.

Du Junao burst into tears: "After I die, how can I face my ancestors?"

At noon (11:15-12:00), Yi Zong, feeling uneasy, hadn't arrived yet. He found Yin Qi and Wang Wenshu, two lieutenant officers, and summoned a group of thief-catchers and prison officers to head east of Baqiao. This time, Yin Qi led the thief-catchers from Xiangshi Street to Chang'an Avenue, a street connected to Qingming Gate, the middle gate of the eastern city wall.

Wang Wenshu was only in charge of the Chang'an Prison. However, he had a high reputation among the Twenty-Eight Prisons of Chang'an, and was equivalent to a hero among the Twenty-Eight Prisons of Chang'an.

Wang Wenshu's reputation in the Twenty-Eight Prisons was no less than Guo Jie's reputation in Chen County.

Many of the 28 prison officials obeyed Wang Wenshu's orders, and some even outranked the prison clerk who was in charge of the prisons.

The clerks from Chang'an Prison and Shanglin Prison brought back pork, scallions, vinegar and other meat and vegetables, and they often showed off to the clerks from other prisons when they met them.

The prison official of Sihu Prison was quite envious.

The Sihu Prison had once imprisoned Guo Jie. Although they were relatively polite and did not resort to lynching, this still made many of the Sihu Prison's petty officials upset and even angry.

The struggle among the upper-level officials caused the lower-level prison clerk to offend Guo Jie.

The superiors never care about the petty clerks, let alone what the prison clerks think.

No matter how angry the prison clerks were, they had no choice but to find a few older and more experienced officials and go to the official temple in Chang'an to find Wang Wenshu, hoping to mend the relationship between the low-level official and Guo Jie.

Wang Wenshu readily agreed, and taking the opportunity to go to Gushuli, he immediately called some of the prison officials from the Sihu Prison and went together to the village where the Du family of Baling lived.

At dusk (18:00-18:45), Yi Zong, Yin Qi, and Wang Wenshu, along with dozens of people, arrived at Gushu, panting, and stood on the road at the entrance where granaries, hibiscus, and mulberry trees were planted.

Saw an amazing scene.

The entrance to Gushuli was filled with corpses and wailing villagers. There were sixty or seventy people lying densely packed together, and the blood had dyed the rammed earth red. From time to time, a few crows flew over and pecked at the corpses on the ground.

A fight broke out in Gushuli.

As many as seventy or eighty people were killed or injured!
This place is Baling Town in the capital, and it must be a major case that shocked the court.

What surprised Yi Zong and the other two the most was.

However, Guo Jie and his companions were riding their Hexi horses safely and soundly, without a speck of blood on their bodies, and it seemed that they had nothing to do with the fight.

Yi Zong secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

The deaths and injuries of dozens of people seemed like a trivial matter to the cruel officials, but it had to comply with Han laws.

Any cruel official who confiscated the property of the powerful and killed the powerful and their relatives who resisted stubbornly would have a copy of the Han law in his hand.

Act in accordance with the law.

Cruel officials are most afraid of breaking the law knowingly.

When Guo Jie saw the expression on his wife's brother Yi Zong's face, how could he not know what he was thinking.

Any arrest must comply with the provisions of Han law.

That is to say, procedural justice must be ensured.

All the cruel officials were people who were familiar with the laws, and Zhao Yu and Zhang Tang were the ones who made the laws.

Zhao Yu formulated the "Chao Law".

Zhang Tang formulated the "Yuegong Law".

All of them are important legal codes that influenced the Han Dynasty for hundreds of years.

The cruel officials obeyed the Han laws because they had too many enemies. If they violated the Han laws, they would soon be attacked by countless officials.

Guo Jie chuckled and said, "The villagers in Gushu Village were fighting over property. The dozens of people lying on the ground were all from the same tribe. They were more ruthless than this official."

Yi Zong laughed: "It seems that Lord Zhao's plan can provide us with another batch of millet."

"Guo Jie!"

Du Junao sat on the ground in a daze, his black robe stained with the blood of his people. Suddenly, he cried miserably, "I'm going to chop off your dog's head and avenge my people in the granary!"

Du Junao grabbed the two-foot-long sword on the ground, his face covered with tears, and rushed towards Guo Jie.

"boom!"

"boom!"

The prison warden of Sihu Prison kept an eye on Du Junao to prevent the prisoners from suddenly attacking and injuring others.

The prison clerk had a lot of experience in encountering prisoners who suddenly attacked him. He only took a glance at Du Junao and keenly sensed that he had the intention to hurt people.

Yu Xiaoshi swung the iron bar at the perfect time, hitting Du Junao's knee directly and knocking him down on the spot.

"Mr. Guo, do you want to arrest him and put him in the Temple Prison?"

The twenty-eight prisons in Chang'an each have their own purpose.

Chang'an Prison was where prisoners captured by the temple in Chang'an County were detained.

The newly established Shanglin Prison was used to detain criminals arrested by special imperial decree.

Most of the prisoners arrested in the Temple Inter-Prison were those who broke into the Nine Ministers' Temple, the Prime Minister's Mansion, the palace gates, etc. without permission, and there were also some prisoners arrested by lieutenants.

When Guo Jie heard the word "Sihuyu", he realized that the prison official who came this time was from Sihuyu, and he was overjoyed.

He actually got involved in the Sihu Prison of the Northern Army stationed in Chang'an.

It can already affect the lieutenant's prison.

Guo Jie also understood the intention of the prison clerk to deliberately mention the Sihu Prison, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, brothers, my last imprisonment in Sihu Prison had nothing to do with you prison clerks. It was just because of the targeting of powerful people. How could I hate the prison clerk? Brothers, you are worrying too much."

A word brothers.

The prison officials finally felt relieved and couldn't help but feel ecstatic.

The heroic hero Guo Jie who killed a tiger with his bare hands.

He actually became close friends with the petty officials like Yu Xiaoshi who were fighting for food.

The prison clerks had never received such courtesy before, and each of them looked at Guo Jie with gratitude in their eyes.

"Guo Guo Jie!"

Du Junao's knee was nearly broken, and the pain made him breathless. He took a few deep breaths to barely relieve the severe pain in his knee, and gritted his teeth and said, "Du Ji slandered Princess Pingyang. The mastermind behind this is the Maoling Lingling Ling. You can only arrest Du Ji and the Maoling Lingling Ling, not the innocent people in the village."

He couldn't bear to see the family fortune accumulated by the Ba Ling Du family for generations fall into Zhao Yu's hands.

Du Junao continued, "Even more so, the property of the Du family of Ba Ling cannot be confiscated. The person who forged the letter was Du Ji, so she can only be sentenced to one city day of grinding milling. There is no law to confiscate the property."

He looked at Guo Jie with confidence.

The property of the Du family of Ba Ling was surely preserved.

Yi Zong, Yin Qi and Wang Wenshu frowned, knowing that Du Junao was telling the truth. According to Han law, Du Ji and Maoling Magistrate would only be sentenced to one city day of pounding rice.

The property of the Du family of Ba Ling cannot be confiscated.

just
If there is no fine.

It would be a wasted trip.

The thief catcher and the prison officer were dumbfounded, their faces full of sorrow. It seemed that their families would have no meat to eat.

"Ah."

Guo Jie sneered, looking at the fearless Du Junao, and said contemptuously: "Do you really think that I can't confiscate your property?"

He then said something.

A reason for confiscating the property of the Du family at Ba Ling.

Du Junao's face was filled with fear, and his body was shaking like a sieve.

Even the three cruel officials Yi Zong, Yin Qi and Wang Wenshu were shocked when they heard this reason.

Guo Jie stated the reason calmly.

"You are wrong. When it comes to the emperor's royal family, it is not a simple forged letter."

"It's witchcraft."

(End of this chapter)