After handling the backlog of files, Du Yan immediately came to Xihe County on the pretext of visiting.
Fortunately, Fenzhou is not very far from Bingzhou. It only takes two days to go down the Fen River.
After arriving in Xihe County, Du Yan did not go to the county government immediately. Instead, he ordered someone to go to Tianshui Village for an on-site visit.
Tianshui Village is a very typical farming village. There are three hundred households in the village. The common surname in the village is Wang, and almost half of the people have the surname Wang.
The surname Di is just a minor surname, and there are only a few families in the village.
It seems that in a village like this, there won't be a single murder case brought to court in ten or eight years. Therefore, Di Qing's case has attracted much attention.
Even after several months, people are still discussing the case in the streets and villages.
Du Yan's followers pretended to be traveling salesmen and sneaked into Tianshui Village, and it didn't take long to find out the inside story of the case.
Xantai’s guess is correct!
As expected, there is another hidden story in this case.
The person who actually accidentally killed someone was not Di Qing at all, but Di Qing's brother Di Su.
After learning the truth, Du Yan's followers did not go back immediately to report it, but continued to visit to explore the hidden secrets.
Di Qing cannot take the blame for no reason.
He had to find out whether Di Qing took the blame voluntarily or was forced.
If it is the latter, this is obviously an unjust case.
But if it’s the former, it’s up to the person to decide exactly how to decide.
In this era, the awareness of confidentiality was extremely low. With a little effort, Du Yan's followers were able to get the truth out of the people of Tianshui Village.
It turned out that Di Qing took the blame on his own initiative, and the reason was very simple. Not only was his brother the eldest son in the family, he also married a bride and gave birth to a son.
Di Su has old people at the top and young people at the bottom. Unlike Di Qing, one person is full and the whole family is not hungry.
'This kid is quite loyal.'
After understanding all the inside information, Du Zhong couldn't help but sigh secretly.
Murder is a serious crime!
As the saying goes, a murderer must be punished with a life. Once he pleads guilty and is punished, the minimum the murderer will do is to be exiled thousands of miles away and join the army of thieves.
In some cases, the decision is to "abandon the market" directly.
(PS: Abandoning the market, that is, executing the death penalty on prisoners in a busy city. "Book of Rites": Executing people in the market, abandoning them with the crowd)
Du Zhong was Du Yan's companion when he was a boy, and was one of Du's descendants, although Du Yan didn't like some of the Du family members.
But he still trusted Du Zhong.
Since Du Zhong was named after the word "loyalty", he naturally had a preference for loyal people like Di Qing.
After investigating the ins and outs of the matter, Du Zhong calmly abandoned the salesman and continued to wander around the countryside.
It wasn't until dusk fell that Du Zhong returned to the county town.
evening.
Du Zhong came to a Taoist temple, where he and Du Yan had lived for the past two days. With Du Yan's level, of course he could stay in the official post when traveling.
But for the sake of confidentiality, it is more appropriate to choose to live in a Taoist temple.
"Xantai, this is the specific situation."
Du Zhong stood in front of Du Yan and informed the other party of the visit in detail.
After hearing the details of the case, Du Yan didn't speak for a while.
As he expected, this case was indeed an unjust, false, and wrongly decided case.
However, the case was beyond his expectation.
The case of Di Qing was a wrong one, but it was Di Qing who took the initiative to take the blame.
For a while, Du Yan didn't know whether he should overturn the case or not.
It would be against his principles not to overturn the case.
However, if he insisted on overturning the case, wouldn't it be a waste of Di Qing's loyalty and filial piety?
The law is nothing more than human feelings.
Legal principles are important, but benevolence and virtue are even more important.
After thinking about it, Du Yan decided to go to the county government office tomorrow and make another decision then.
The next day.
After hearing the report from the government officials and Xiantai's visit, Xihe County Magistrate Jie Wenrang vaguely guessed the purpose of the visit.
He and Du Yan were of the same age. Although Du Yan had no impression of him, he was deeply impressed by Du Yan.
Ranked fourth in the ranking, what an enviable ranking.
People like him at the bottom of the rankings can only start by selecting people. Xie Wenrang changed from selecting people to being a Beijing official. This stage alone took thirteen years.
Xie Wenrang was already over forty when he was given the title. More than ten years later, he was already fifty-six years old.
As a fifty-six-year-old county magistrate, it is foreseeable that he will have almost no chance to become an official in the court in this life.
And what about Du Yan?
At the age of more than 40 years old, he has already become a supervisor.
If nothing unexpected happens, Du Yan will most likely be able to become an official in Beijing in the future. If he is lucky enough, he may even get a glimpse of the two palaces.
The two were Jinshi in the same ranking, but their circumstances were completely different.
Of course, compared with Feng Yuan and Zu Shiheng, Du Yan's achievements are nothing.
"I didn't know that Xiantai's visit was not welcomed from afar, so I hope Xiantai won't be surprised."
Jie Wenrang hurried to the main hall, and before he got close, he held his hands and apologized from a distance.
Although the county magistrate is not under the jurisdiction of the Tidian Prison Department, to use an inappropriate analogy, if a senior political and legal official of a province goes to a local area for inspection, how dare he offend the local official?
Regardless of whether you have supervisory authority or not, you must provide for them well.
One level of official rank can crush someone to death, not to mention that there is several levels of difference between Xie Wenrang and Du Yan.
"When you know the magistrate of the county, you don't have to be formal."
On the other side, Du Yan saw Xie Wenrang's actions and quickly stood up, cupping his hands.
"I didn't notify you of this visit, so why am I wrong?"
After the greetings, Du Yan brought the topic to the tribute ceremony of the first year of Dazhong Xiangfu, which brought out the relationship between the same year, and the atmosphere relaxed a lot.
Immediately afterwards, Xie Wenrang took Du Yan to visit the Yamen.
In the blink of an eye, half an hour passed, but Du Yan did not mention the official business of this trip at all.
When he came to the prison department, Jie Wenrang was the first to bring up the Di Qing case.
"Xiantai, not long ago, a murder occurred in Xihe. I wonder if Xiantai has any impressions?"
"Um."
Du Yan smiled slightly and nodded.
"well."
Jie Wenrang lowered his head and sighed: "Actually...actually there is another hidden story in this case."
With that said, Xie Wen straightened his body and bowed respectfully to Du Yan.
"Xiantai, the lower official made a mistake in this case."
"The prisoner Di Qing is not the main culprit, he is... the culprit."
Hearing this, Du Yan couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
Jie Wenrang is actually an insider?
This case once again presented an unexpected situation.
After a long while, Xie Wen gave up and explained the whole story, and then took the initiative to plead guilty.
"This case is indeed the fault of the lower official, and it was left to Xian Tai's disposal."
"well."
Du Yan sighed quietly, Xie Wenrang chose to turn a blind eye out of sympathy. Although this matter was not in line with the law, it was in line with benevolent governance.
Although Du Yan is good at solving cases, he himself is not a pursuer of the rule of law.
Last night, he also thought about letting this matter go.
‘That’s okay.’
'Just answer the confused judge.'
'As for Di Qing's treatment, just take advantage of the amnesty and change it to a place of exile.'
According to regulations, murderers like Di Qing cannot be dispatched near Bianliang.
However, it doesn’t matter if you can’t go to the capital. Yingtian Mansion and Xijing are both the best places to go.