Original Text
Scholar Zhu was a native of Yanggu County, a frivolous young man fond of jesting. After his wife died, he went to seek a matchmaker. On the way, he encountered the wife of his matchmaker's neighbor, and finding her quite beautiful, he joked to the matchmaker, "Just now I saw your noble neighbor—truly young and lovely. If you were to arrange a match for me, this person would do." The matchmaker replied in jest, "Pray kill her husband, and I shall devise a plan for you." Zhu laughed and said, "Very well." Over a month later, the matchmaker's neighbor went out to collect debts and was murdered in the wilds. The magistrate arrested all the neighbors and subjected them to severe torture to extract confessions, but no clues emerged. Only the matchmaker recalled the jesting words she had exchanged with Zhu, and thus suspicion fell upon him. Zhu was brought to the yamen, but he denied everything vehemently. The magistrate then suspected the murdered man's wife of adultery with Zhu and tortured her as well, applying every conceivable punishment. Unable to bear the agony, she falsely confessed. When Zhu was interrogated again, he said, "A woman's tender flesh cannot withstand such cruel torture; her confession is all false. If she dies wronged and is further branded unchaste, even if the gods and spirits are ignorant, how could I bear it in my heart? Let me confess the truth: I wished to kill her husband and marry her—I alone did this deed, and this woman truly knows nothing of it." The magistrate asked, "What proof do you have?" Zhu replied, "There is a bloodstained garment as evidence." The magistrate sent men to search his home, but no such garment was found. Zhu was tortured again, nearly dying several times, until he finally said, "My mother could not bear to produce the evidence and send me to my death; let me go and fetch it myself." Thus he was escorted home, where he said to his mother, "Giving me the bloodstained garment means death; not giving it also means death. The outcome is the same—better to hasten than delay." His mother wept, went into the house, and after a long while brought out the bloodstained garment. The magistrate examined it and confirmed it as genuine, sentencing Zhu to decapitation. Upon repeated reviews, Zhu maintained the same confession.
After more than a year had passed, the day of execution drew near. The magistrate was about to review and verify the prisoner's crimes when suddenly a man strode directly into the courtroom, glared at the magistrate, and cursed him loudly, saying, "A muddled official like you—how can you govern the people?" Dozens of bailiffs rushed forward to seize this man, but he waved his arm and sent them all tumbling to the ground. The magistrate, terrified, sought to flee, but the man thundered, "I am General Zhou, attendant of Lord Guan! If you, muddled official, dare to move, I will slay you on the spot!" The magistrate listened in trembling fear. The man then declared, "The murderer is Gong Biao—what has Scholar Zhu to do with this?" Having spoken thus, he collapsed to the ground as though lifeless. After a moment, he revived, his face ashen. When asked who he was, it turned out to be none other than Gong Biao himself. Under torture, he confessed fully to his crime. It transpired that Gong Biao had long been a lawless rogue; knowing that the matchmaker's neighbor had returned from collecting debts, he assumed the man carried much money, but after killing him, he found nothing. Hearing that Scholar Zhu had been beaten into a false confession, Gong Biao secretly rejoiced. On this day, he came to the courtroom, unaware of what possessed him. When the magistrate asked how Scholar Zhu's bloodstained garment came to be, Zhu himself did not know. Summoning Zhu's mother for inquiry, it was learned that she had cut her own arm to stain the garment with blood. Upon examining her left arm, the knife wound had not yet healed. The magistrate was greatly astonished by this. Later, the magistrate was impeached for this affair, stripped of his post, fined a sum of money as atonement, and died while in custody. After more than a year, the matchmaker's neighbor's mother wished to have her daughter-in-law remarried, but the daughter-in-law, grateful for Scholar Zhu's righteousness, chose to marry him instead.
The Chronicler of Strange Tales says: Hearing cases is the foremost duty of an official; accumulating hidden virtue or losing heavenly conscience both hinge on this matter, and one cannot but be cautious. A hasty temper, greed, and cruelty are certainly contrary to heavenly principle; but procrastination, perfunctoryness, and a passive attitude also harm human lives. When one person files a lawsuit, several farmers are delayed in their farming season; when one case is tried, ten households may be ruined—can this be considered a trivial matter? I have often said to those in office: do not recklessly accept complaints, for this is to accumulate great virtue. If it is not a major case, there is no need to detain people awaiting judgment; if there is no difficult issue, why hesitate? Even if there are ignorant villagers or quarrelsome country folk who occasionally argue over trivial matters and thus bring a lawsuit, it is merely to borrow the official’s words to settle their dispute—there is no need for all parties to appear in court. Only the plaintiff and defendant need be summoned, and with a stroke of the rod or whip, their tangled conflict can be immediately resolved. Is this not what is meant by a magistrate who sees through matters like a god? I often observe today’s officials handling cases: once a summons is issued, it seems forgotten. The officers sent to arrest people do not cancel the summons until their bribes are substantial enough; the clerks do not hang up the hearing notice until their gains are sufficient. Thus deceived and delayed, months and years pass, and before the case even reaches the courtroom, the litigants’ wealth has already been squeezed dry! Yet those who sit loftily as parent-officials over the people lie leisurely in bed, indifferent to all. How could they know that in the fiery depths of the prison, countless wronged souls stretch their necks, barely breathing, waiting for rescue? Of course, for those stubborn and vicious troublemakers, there is little to pity; but for the innocent good people caught up in it, how can they endure it? Moreover, among those wrongfully implicated, the wicked are few and the good are many, and the harm suffered by the good is doubly severe. Why? Because the wicked are hard to bully, while the good are easy to oppress. The yamen runners beat and insult them, the bailiffs extort them—all because they see them as good people and dare to inflict violence upon them. Once these good people enter the government gate, it is like stepping into a sea of fire. If the case is settled a day earlier, they gain a day of peace. What great matter is there that one can watch those gasping for breath in the courtroom waiting for trial, ignoring them as if afraid that the deep ravine of greed cannot be quickly filled, deliberately delaying the days? Though this may not yet be called cruel or violent, the sin created is the same. I once saw a case file in which the urgently needed key criminals were only three or four people, while the rest were innocent commoners, all wrongfully implicated. Some were victims of old grudges over trivial matters, others were targeted for their wealth and thus accused. So the accuser uses all his strength to seek a resolution to the main case while maliciously settling small scores on the side. If a name is written at the end of the complaint, it is like suffering a deep-rooted poison; enduring all kinds of torment in the yamen becomes a pain that cuts to the bone. When others kneel, he kneels too, like a flock of crows gathering; when others come out, he comes out too, like monkeys tied together. Yet the examining official does not question him, nor do the clerks—he is utterly useless to the judgment, but enough to ruin his family, fill the runners’ pockets, sell his wife and children, and let petty men vent their private grudges. I deeply hope that those in office, whenever a person is brought in, will briefly interrogate them, release those who should be released, and punish those who should be punished. This requires only a dip of the brush and a flick of the wrist, yet it saves countless lives and nurtures much righteous spirit. Those in power have never considered this—how could they think that only ropes and knives can kill people?
Commentary
In this case, Zhu Sheng's inappropriate jest should have rightly marked him as one of the suspects subject to interrogation and investigation. In this regard, the district magistrate committed no error. His fault lay in being subjective, careless, and especially in resorting to torture to extract confessions.
Torture and forced confessions have been the root of all unjust cases throughout history, both in ancient and modern times, in China and abroad. In the West, due to the more developed concept of human rights, the law presumes innocence until proven guilty, with fewer drawbacks. In ancient China, the concept of human rights was underdeveloped, and there was a tradition of presuming guilt, so torture and forced confessions were prevalent, as the saying goes, "Man is a base creature; if not beaten, he will not confess." In this story, Pu Songling is deeply indignant at the county magistrate's muddleheaded and arbitrary conduct, and full of sympathy for Zhu Sheng and the neighbor's wife, who suffered unjust torture. In his "Historian of the Strange's commentary," he specifically argues that too many irrelevant people should not be implicated in the process of hearing a case. He says: "I earnestly hope that officials, whenever they summon someone, will briefly interrogate them and then dismiss those who should be dismissed, rather than punishing them. It takes only a moment to dip the brush and move the wrist, yet it can save many lives and preserve much vitality." Pu Songling makes the same argument repeatedly in his "Essentials of Good Governance" under the section "Prohibition of Implication." Pu Songling's arguments are righteous and earnest, cutting deeply into the malpractices of litigation in the Qing dynasty, and Feng Zhenluan highly praised them, saying: "The reason this book has endured for so long is that it contains such arguments to sustain it."