The first assistant of the poor family

Chapter 563 The water has not yet fallen, and the stone has not yet emerged [4000 words two-in-one chapter]

Linqing Tongzhi Li Tai is dead, very dead.

When the handyman in the brothel found the naked dead body in the barrel, he cried out in surprise.

Immediately afterwards, the entire Linqing knew the terrible news.

Gu Dingchen naturally did too.After learning the news of Li Tai's assassination, he was shocked at first, then furious, and then ordered Zhizhou Zhao Mengqing to investigate the matter, and set a ten-day deadline for Zhao Zhizhou.

Within ten days, if Zhao Mengqing can't find out the truth and catch the murderer, then he will be punished together.

Zhao Zhizhou patted his chest as a guarantee, saying that he would obey the order of the imperial envoy and bring the murderer to justice.

He also showed great enthusiasm for work, ordered the three classes of government officials to search the whole city, and finally captured a blacksmith with a scar on his face.

According to Zhao Zhizhou's words, all clues point to this person, and he must be the murderer who killed Li Tongzhi.

Gu Dingchen immediately went to the prison for interrogation, and the blacksmith naturally kept complaining.Gu Dingchen felt that the matter was full of doubts, so he asked Zhao Mengqing what was going on.

Zhao Zhizhou wept and said: "If the imperial envoy doesn't believe in the subordinate, he should be dismissed and investigated. But the imperial envoy, please don't doubt the professional ethics of the subordinate."

Gu Dingchen: "."

"I don't doubt you, but you say that a blacksmith assassinated Li Tongzhi, you have to produce some evidence, right?"

"What the imperial envoy said is that the officials dared to call the yamen servants to take people, so they naturally found evidence. According to the old bustard of the brothel, the blacksmith Chen San did go to the brothel that night and ordered a few girls."

"Pick up the important ones!"

Gu Dingchen said arrogantly without anger.

"Yes Yes."

Zhao Mengqing continued: "Master Imperial Envoy, think about it, it is extremely unusual for a blacksmith to go in and out of a brothel. With his financial resources, if he spends a night in a brothel, he may lose a piece of meat if he doesn't go bankrupt. Then why did he suddenly appear in the brothel? ?”

Zhao Mengqing's inducement obviously worked. Gu Dingchen pondered for a moment and said, "According to what you said, this person is indeed very suspicious."

As for the blacksmith's grievance, it doesn't really explain anything.Any murderer will desperately cry out for injustice after the crime is committed. This is more of a means of self-protection.

"But why would a blacksmith have an enmity with Li Tongzhi?"

Gu Dingchen was still skeptical about the blacksmith's motives.

"This, I'm afraid I can only torture him to tell him the truth. However, I have heard some gossip. It seems that Li Tongzhi has an affair with Chen Tiejiang's wife."

The blacksmith captured by Zhao Mengqing was of course just a scapegoat, but he was not randomly captured from the street.

The reason why he chose this person was naturally to investigate the details of his identity.

This blacksmith, Chen San, is a native of Linqing. His ancestors and grandchildren have made a living by blacksmithing for three generations, and he married a wife, the Sun family.

Sun gave birth to two sons and a daughter to Chen San.The family is happy and harmonious. Although life is hard, there is hope.

But everything changed a month ago. Mrs. Sun, who had just given birth to a daughter for Chen San, was called by Li Taili, the prefect of the same state, to be a nanny for the newborn son.

This is a very common thing. The wives of official families are generally unwilling to breastfeed in person, so they find breastfeeding women from common people's families to be nurses to breastfeed on their behalf.

Blacksmith Chen San did not object to this.After all, the nanny can reap a lot of money, which is very important for poor people like them.

But tragedy happened.

Sun went to Li Tongzhi's mansion and ran back within two days, closing the door and ignoring anyone.

Chen Tiejiang felt sorry for his wife, so he brought the prepared meals to her house.But he asked several times but no one came to answer the door.

Chen Tiejiang was in a hurry, so he kicked open the door.

As soon as he entered the room, Tiejiang Chen was completely dumbfounded.The daughter-in-law kicked over the stool and hanged herself!

A good woman died like this, Chen Tiejiang was naturally distraught.

After grief, he naturally hated Li Tong deeply.

My mother-in-law couldn't think of committing suicide after she went to Li's house to be a nurse. Even a fool would know that Li Tongzhi must have done something unbearable to her.

Chen Tiejiang really thought so, but he didn't have any proof, so he couldn't do anything to Li Tongzhi.

Before sending someone to assassinate Li Tai, Zhao Mengqing knew about it and made a plan.Once the imperial envoy ordered him to solve the case, he would arrest Chen Tiejiang to top the vat.

No one knew better than Zhao Mengqing that the murderer was not Chen San.But all he wanted was Chen San's motivation.

No bloody man would allow his wife to be defiled by another man, even if this man is an official of the imperial court.

Chen San has enough motivation to do this.

As for Chen San going to the brothel to buy sex, it was naturally Zhao Mengqing who forced the procuress to give false testimony.

Witness this kind of thing, if you say it is true, it is true.If you say it is fake, it is fake, and there is no conclusion to speak of.

Zhao Mengqing controlled everything in his hands, even the imperial envoy couldn't see the flaw immediately.

Gu Dingchen's face turned blue and purple, and finally he flicked his sleeves and said, "If this is true, then it's not surprising that Chen Tiejiang assassinated Li Tai."

After speaking, he interrogated Chen Tiejiang again.

This time, the poor Tiejiang Chen did not know the inside story, and admitted that Li Tongzhi had done indecent things to his mother-in-law.

Gu Dingchen was furious, and even if he wanted to convict Chen San, thinking that he was taking revenge on Li Tongzhi, he sneaked into the brothel and killed Li Tongzhi while he was bathing.

Everything is so logical, nothing unreasonable at all.

In Gu Dingchen's view, Li Tongzhi was wrong to insult Chen Tiejiang's wife, but Chen Tiejiang killed Li Tongzhi violently because of this, which was also an atrocity.

Just because Chen Tiejiang was wronged before, it cannot be concluded that his murder was correct.

Killing an official ordered by the court is of course a capital crime.

Gu Dingchen immediately sentenced Chen San to beheaded.

Of course, this still needs to be reported to the Ministry of Punishment and approved by the Ministry of Criminal Justice.

Zhao Mengqing saw it in his eyes and was happy in his heart.

As long as Chen Tiejiang is executed, the case will be closed.In the Ming Dynasty, there were very few cases where the verdict was overturned, not to mention that this was a case personally tried and judged by the imperial envoy, who would dare to overturn it?
When Gu Dingchen's book arrived in the capital, it was naturally delivered to the Secretary of the General Administration.Classified by the Secretary of the General Political Department and sent to the cabinet.

Xie Shen and Li Dongyang were the first to see this memorial.

Both of them were puzzled, why did Linqing die as soon as Gu Dingchen arrived in Linqing, and why he was still the second in command like Tongzhi.

What's even more strange is that it was a blacksmith who assassinated Mr. Tongzhi.

Although Gu Dingchen described the background of the matter, Xie Shen still felt that it was very unusual.

"Grand Xiya, in my opinion, there must be something strange about this matter."

Xie Shen said in a deep voice: "Linqing is where Chaoguan is located, the place where the Yellow River and the Canal converge, and its position is extremely important. An official in such a place must be very capable. I have read Li Tai's evaluation by the Ministry of Officials, and I have always It's the upper middle class. Then, why did he only serve as an adjutant in Linqing?"

"It's really weird."

In fact, what Li Dongyang wants to ask is what does this have to do with this case?But did not ask.

"In my opinion, Li Tai must have taken the position of Linqing Magistrate and wanted to replace him."

Xie Shen said unhurriedly: "Don't look at the prefect who only has a fifth grade, but the prefect of Linqing is just like the prefect of Suzhou, which is actually more than one level higher than other prefectures. I have worked in Linqing for three years. , I’m afraid I’ve earned enough money for retirement.”

Although Xie Shen's words were a little blunt, they were true.

As long as there is a relationship with the canal, there must be rich gray income.

"So I suspect that this matter is not as simple as the assassination of Li Tongzhi by the blacksmith, but probably a battle within the Linqing government."

The reason why Xie Shen is so sure is not because he is supernatural, but because it all happened so coincidentally.

As soon as Gu Dingchen arrived in Linqing, Tong Zhi Li Tai died violently on his back, and then Zhizhou Zhao Mengqing immediately arrested the murderer Chen Tiejiang and brought him to justice.Everything seems to be pre-drilled, just go through the process.

More importantly, Xie Shen didn't believe Chen Tiejiang's thesis that Li Tongzhi was assassinated.

If Chen Tiejiang really wanted to assassinate Li Tongzhi to avenge his dirty wife, he could have done it a month ago. Why did he have to wait a month later, when Gu Dingchen arrived in Linqing?

Isn't this unreasonable?In this case, he either chooses to slaughter the dog official immediately and become a real man, or he simply swallows his anger and smashes his teeth and swallows it to become the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.There is absolutely no possibility of enduring it for a month before doing it.

There is only one explanation, that is, it was deliberately arranged by someone.

Perhaps Chen Tiejiang's wife was indeed insulted by Li Tongzhi, but since this guy didn't do anything at the time, it is more likely that he will become a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Xie Shen is more willing to believe that Li Tongzhi's death was due to a power struggle, and the person who most wants to shut him up must be someone who has a direct conflict of interest with him.

After tossing and turning, Xie Shen could only focus on Zhao Mengqing, Zhizhou.

There is another reason that prompted him to make this judgment, that is, Gu Dingchen intentionally or unintentionally mentioned a sentence in the memorandum, saying that a small official had previously reported that Zhao Mengqing, the prefect, had robbed the women of the people and raised singing prostitutes.

Later, the matter was settled, but Zhizhou and Tongzhi fought violently, and even cried in front of Gu Dingchen, begging for justice.

This is intriguing.

Xie Shen knows better than anyone about power struggles.

Compared with the imperial court and the cabinet, local power struggles can only be regarded as playing games at best.

Xie Shen can see through these tricks at a glance.

If Xie Shen guessed correctly, then Li Tai must be behind the small official's denunciation of Zhizhou Zhao Mengqing.

Afterwards, Li Tai and Zhao Mengqing tore their faces apart, and Zhao Mengqing decided to pay the murderer. After killing Li Tai, he blamed the incident on the blacksmith Chen San.

With such a string, things are much more reasonable.

Of course, this is just Xie Shen's inference.He told his thoughts to Li Dongyang, a senior scholar of Shoufu University. Li Shoufu pondered for a moment after hearing this, and said, "Human life is at stake. We really shouldn't jump to conclusions. Let's report this matter to His Majesty first."

"Well, according to what Xi Yagong said, I will go to the Leopard Room right now."

It has to be said that after this incident, Xie Shen has to re-evaluate Gu Dingchen's ability.

Originally, he thought that Gu Dingchen was a well-known official in history, and his ability should be very outstanding, so he entrusted him with the dredging of the canal and recommended him to Linqing as an imperial envoy.

Who would have thought that Gu Dingchen would be so careless in his work that he would be easily coaxed into it.As long as you are not a nerd, you can see the clues in this kind of thing.

It's a pity that Gu Dingchen is such a bookworm.It is true that he is the No. [-] Scholar, but after he won the No. [-] Scholar, he has been compiling books in the Imperial Academy for qualifications, and then moved to the East Palace. After becoming the deputy examiner of the Enke Examination, he jumped directly to the Ministry of Rites. He has no experience in any place.

For these Confucian scholars who kept their ears to the outside world and only read the books of sages and sages, the experience of serving in the local area was particularly crucial.

This can make up for the lack of more than ten years before their lives, and give them a clear understanding of human nature.

It's a pity that Gu Dingchen was too smooth, and there was no chance to let him out all the way.

This is tantamount to his deathbed.

In fact, if you look at the academicians of the Ming Dynasty, most of them were talkative gangsters, and the so-called ability is just kind and muddy. Zhang Ju is an exception in this regard.But Zhang Juzheng also served in the Yamen of the capital, so he cannot be regarded as a complete stupefied scholar.As for Xie Shen, needless to say, as a time traveler, his vision and perception are much higher than these people from the Ming Dynasty.

After Xie Shen came to the Leopard Room, he was received by the emperor soon.

Zhu Houzhao has been depressed these days, because his favorite concubine Mrs. Liu has contracted a strange disease, and her body is covered with red spots, which are extremely itchy.

The imperial doctors of the Imperial Hospital were helpless, and Zhu Hou looked after him anxiously.

After seeing Xie Shen, Zhu Houzhao asked urgently: "Sir, can I ask that Dr. Li to see my concubine's disease?"

Xie Shen thought to himself that the divine doctor Li that His Majesty was talking about must be Li Shizhen's father, Li Yanwen.

It should be said that this person also worked in the Tai Hospital for a short time, but because he could not adapt to the cramped environment of the Tai Hospital, he finally resigned and left the capital, and began to travel in the medical field.

But Li Yanwen has always been in contact with Xie Shen, so he should be in Hejian Mansion now.

If Xie Shen wrote a letter, he might not be able to invite Li Yanwen back.

"I obey the order. However, this genius doctor Li has a weird temper. I can only write a letter to persuade him to return to Beijing. As for his reaction after reading the letter, I cannot guarantee it."

Zhu Houzhao was overjoyed when he heard the words, as long as there is a glimmer of hope, it is good, and he would be so demanding.What's more, Miracle Doctor Li and Mr. Xie have a very close personal relationship, if Mr. Xie can't invite him, no one in the world will be able to invite this miracle doctor.

"Your Majesty, I'm here for Linqing's affairs."

Zhu Houzhao frowned and said, "Linqing? Didn't Gu Qing just go to Linqing a few days ago? Why did something happen?"

"Your Majesty is wise, this matter was sent to the cabinet by Master Gu Chen."

"Oh? Mister said to take a look."

Zhu Houzhao waved his hand.

"The minister obeys the order."

Xie Shen made a respectful salute to Zhu Houzhao, and then read the memorial.

Zhu Houzhao was silent for a moment and said: "It's another murder case. This bold and unruly man dared to assassinate the imperial court official. What are you waiting for? He should be punished according to the canon to warn the world."

Xie Shen almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

Could His Majesty have the ability to think independently, everything is so casual, the process of approving the execution of death row prisoners by the Son of Heaven is really just going through the motions.

"Your Majesty, this matter is probably not as simple as it appears on the surface. According to the minister, there may be other secrets." Xie Shen then repeated his analysis and deduction with Li Dongyang to Zhu Houzhao, which caused Zhu Houzhao to say angrily: "They are Bully, bully, what do you think Mister should do about this matter?"

(End of this chapter)