But this one just admits to death, and he doesn't listen to anyone's advice, and he is almost stunned-

Fortunately, his family's fields are still there, and his mother-in-law is asking a few more people to help in the spring and autumn planting seasons, and this day can still go on. It's just that the good times didn't last long, and after the Su family got up, they began to annex the land outward, and the twenty acres of watered land that this Wu Tongsheng naturally couldn't escape the covetousness of the Su family.

It didn't take much effort, and these lands became the Su family, and Wu Tongsheng's family became tenants.

Wu Tongsheng naturally couldn't bear this breath, and the scholar was angry, so he came to the door to reason with the Su family. As a result, the Su family was very polite, for the sake of the same scholar, they also left him to have a meal, and said that the matter of this land is easy to discuss, you can rest assured that we will definitely not ink your land.

Wu Tongsheng came back happily, and when he met people, he said that the Su family was good, and said that you all said how unreasonable the Su family was, how strong and domineering it was, I think it was very good, people were very reasonable, everyone was a scholar, and it was easy to talk!

As a result, two days later, in the middle of the night, Wu Tongsheng's house broke into a few black-clothed men, held him down and beat him violently, and then walked away. Wu Tongsheng's body was already weak, and after giving this beating, he swallowed his breath before dawn. Naturally, the family members went to the county government to complain, but the county government did not accept it at all, saying that you have no evidence, empty words, and no human and material evidence, so how can we investigate the case?

In fact, there is no need to check, the people in this ancestral village and the surrounding villages know who did it. Who else could there be besides the Su family? Besides, the Su family has done this kind of thing before.

The reputation of the Su family has long spread.

Since then, the Wu family has declined, but this house has remained. Now the Wu family's generation is the son of Wu Tongsheng who was killed, and I don't know what to do now.

Everyone couldn't care about it at this moment, and they poured into the courtyard, and then they saw that the door of the hall was wide open, and the crying became clearer and clearer when they reached this point. A man was kneeling in the hall and crying, looking at the figure, it seemed that he was only half a child.

And on the roof beams of the hall, there are two people hanging around at this moment!

Everyone gasped.

It turned out that the two members of the Wu family were hanged!

Originally, when they poured in, they still had a little intention of watching a good show, but at this moment, this mind was gone. The crowd that had been disturbing suddenly quieted down, and everyone looked at the two swaying figures in the hall in a daze, silent.

The Wu family was originally one of the best families in the village, and there was a scholar, seeing that people were doing well, they said that they had no idea in their hearts, which was a lie. Later, the Wu family declined, and it was not for nothing that there were schadenfreude and even cynicism behind the scenes. But now, seeing this tragic scene, I am sad and gloomy in my heart. Mainly because of this, I thought of myself - the food has been robbed, and it is not the season to go to the field to dig wild vegetables, and I will starve to death when I see it!

Who has the leisure to gloat?

Everyone looked at the half-grown boy silently, and at this time, suddenly there was a burst of voices outside: "Elder Wang is here, Elder Wang is here." ”

Then the crowd was separated, and an old man walked in surrounded by two strong young men, this old man was about fifty or sixty years old, his hair and beard were already gray, but he still had a strong physique, his waist was straight, and his face was also a little red, which seemed to be a very good nutritional supplement.

He was holding a long cane in his hand, but it seemed to be more decorative.

The two strong young men around him are also very different from the other villagers, most of the other people are yellow and thin, and they look weak and weak, but these two young men are big and round-waisted, and they are powerful, and they are not lacking in food and drink at a glance.

When they saw the old man coming, everyone saluted one after another, claiming that they had seen the old man.

It turns out that this old man is a character like the so-called village elder. At the beginning, the township elder was the title of the official, the subordinate of the local official, in charge of the education of the six townships, and every two townships were concurrently served by three dukes. In the court, it is called the "three princes", and in the township, it is called the "village elder". "Zhou Li, Local Official, Preface Official": "The old villager, the second township is a public person." Zheng Xuan's note said: "Old, honorific titles." Wang placed six townships, and the public also had three people. The three dukes, the inner and the king's discussions, the matter of the six officials, and the teaching of the six towns, they want to be the people, and they are the hometowns of the subordinates. ”

Another saying is: the township elder is the respected official of the Zhishi, or the township party is highly hoped, so the respected is called the public, not the imperial court. There is no office, and there is no need for them.

And now, this official position is long gone, and the township elder only refers to the elderly and virtuous people in the township.

Tang Lulun has a poem: "Only after the farmer, the old man of the township is idle." ”

Although they did not hold official positions, in this era, the village elders were a group of people with considerable power. In the Ming Dynasty, there were no government agencies below the county level, and the local rule relied on two kinds of people, one was the gentry and the other was the village elders. Sometimes, the gentry and the village elders coincide again.

Generally speaking, the villager is the head of a large local family, and he has a lot of prestige in the local area, and he relies on his seniority in the clan to say everything. Generally speaking, if there is a criminal case in the local area, several village elders can get together and discuss it, and they can make a decision, and there is no need to report it to the county at all.

For example, if you steal something, you will cut off one finger, if you steal money, if you are pregnant, if you are pregnant, you will be burned to death......

This kind of punishment without any trial, without relying on the laws of the state, is largely based on clan rules and artificial determination, which seems to be barbaric and bloody and unreasonable, but in this era, it is very normal. Even the county yamen knew about it, and they usually sat idly by.

They will not offend the powerful people in these villages below the county level because of this.

In Gain's time, the old gentry were very helpful to the local government. If there is no ruling body below the county level, naturally there will not be much power, and a county can be as little as tens of thousands of people, and as many as hundreds of thousands of hundreds of thousands of people. In fact, out of the county seat, it is the old gentry of the township who are maintaining.

Their power is tacitly acquiesced by the government, and at the same time, they also have certain obligations - for example, a certain Jiangyang thief fled to a certain place, and the sea fishing document came, and the county magistrate only needed a word, and it would not be long before the Jiangyang thief would be caught and sent by the people. Because the flow of population was slow at that time, almost everyone in a place knew each other, and the arrival of outsiders was as conspicuous as a black cat in a pile of white cats.

This Wang Lao is such a figure.

His family is actually no longer in the ancestral village, and when he was young, he still lived here, and there was a lot of land here. The Wang family has been a big family in this ancestral village for generations, and the second house with a brick house in the village in addition to the Wu family is his family, but his family is bigger and more generous. The Wang family has lived here for a hundred years, and the ancestral hall at the entrance of the village belongs to his family. But later, the Su family was powerful, and he couldn't provoke it, so he simply sold the land at a low price, and then the family moved out.

I heard that his sons have made a lot of money in business in the county, and now they have bought land elsewhere, and they have some money. However, Wang Lao still lived here with several children of the clan and guarded the ancestral ancestral hall.

Perhaps for an old man, this is the most important thing.

After Wang Lao came in, he looked inside and let out a long sigh. He walked to the door of the hall, tapped the ground lightly with the cane in his hand, and said to the half-grown child: "Sanwa, don't cry, crying is not a way now, it can't make your father and mother sway like this, let's take them down and bury them." ”

What's the idea of that half-sized boy? After listening to it, he nodded vigorously, and his mouth whimpered and cried. He is only thirteen or fourteen years old, although in this era there are many children who have married, but after all, he is still a child, and seeing his father and mother hanged, his heart is painful and sad.

After Wang Lao finished speaking, he didn't care whether the half-grown son agreed or not, so he directly asked people to go up and dissolve the two corpses. However, the people are taboo about ghosts and gods, and they all cower and don't dare, Wang Lao looked at them and snorted coldly: "I'm going to starve to death, I'm going to sit on a starving ghost, and I'm afraid of a dead person?" ”

After speaking, he asked the two clansmen who came with him to dissolve the corpses, but the two men were not afraid, and they stepped forward to relieve them very neatly.

The two bodies were moved outside the house, both of them hanged, their tongues sticking out long, and their eyes staring at the boss, which was very terrifying. Some of them glanced at it weakly, but they couldn't help but take a few steps back and turn their heads to dare not look again. When everyone saw it, they didn't have a taste in their hearts.

"This is all the sin of the surname Su!"

It's strange to say, but Old Man Wang is not afraid of the dead at all, the cane in his hand slammed the ground fiercely, and his face was full of anger: "Let's guys, which one hasn't paid all the taxes completely?" He couldn't protect the food and money himself, so he robbed it from the bandits, but it ended up on our heads, and asked us to wipe his ass! Let me tell you, old man, I know best, those grain, the bandits actually didn't take much at all, what do you think, those bandits want gold, silver and jewelry, and the food takes up space and is clumsy, heavy and inconvenient to carry, what are they doing to rob the grain? "In fact, our tax grain has not been robbed! It was the Su family who robbed it themselves, and they wanted to forcibly requisition the food in our hands to make up for it! "Now, in your family, some daughters have been snatched away, some mothers-in-law have been snatched away, all the food is gone, can you survive starvation for a few days? I'm afraid that in a few days, I will starve to death! ”

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