Chapter 11: Reaping What You Sow

Left-handedness, in ancient times called being "left-favored," was seen as unlucky in the West. Although China also considered the right hand the "proper hand," it never held any extreme prejudice against the left-favored.

Now, the fact that Heifu is left-handed caused the testimonies of Huyang Village Chief, the merchant Bao, and the others to collapse under their own weight.

The presiding magistrate, Xi, naturally did not believe it so easily. He specially had Heifu step forward and write his own name on a wooden tablet.

You might not believe it, but the Qin state, long dismissed as a land of "ignorant masses," actually had the highest literacy rate among the Seven Warring States. Although Lord Shang burned all the poetry and histories clean, he established "study chambers" to train specialized legal practitioners — essentially a form of higher education.

Beyond that, low-level village and district clerks were also required to be literate. If a village chief or a common villager could not read or do sums, how could they tally household registrations and organize corvée labor for the state? On this foundation, the principle of "law as the teaching, officials as the teachers" was established. Shang Yang once said: "When officials and commoners wish to know the laws and ordinances, they all ask the law officers. Thus, under Heaven, no official or commoner fails to know the law." He required officials to spread legal knowledge to the masses. The Xi before us did exactly this work in his youth, receiving people daily who came to consult the law. After a commoner finished asking, the law officer had to write the matter down on a wooden board, split it in two, archive one half as "Legal Answers," and give the other half to the commoner to take back as proof. In this way, as one told ten and ten told a hundred, not only did the law take deep root in people's hearts, but some clever individuals also found a channel to learn to read.

Heifu did not know a great many seal-script characters and could write only a few hundred. Kneeling on the ground, he held the brush in his left hand and, stroke by stroke, square and upright, wrote the four Qin small-seal characters "Heifu is innocent" on the wooden board. The matter was then beyond doubt — if he were right-handed, the characters would have long since slanted off who knows where.

The merchant Bao, who had just been spouting barefaced lies, collapsed in an instant. His face ashen as death, he plopped down onto his backside like a pile of mud.

Afterward, under Xi's sharp and relentless cross-examination, the merchant Bao kowtowed repeatedly and admitted to the fact that he had colluded with Huyang Village Chief to fabricate testimony and commit perjury.

Once a breach had been opened in him, Xi successively broke through the three village guards as well. They all confessed, saying they had only lied because they were coerced by the village chief and the Thief-Catcher.

Finally, the Thief-Catcher Mai also confessed fully, leaving Huyang Village Chief alone, stammering and speechless.

He never imagined, not in his wildest dreams, that he would lose over a simple distinction between the left hand and the right hand.

By this point, retracting his confession was already too late.

With this, the truth of these two cases came to light. After a brief consultation with his subordinate clerks, Xi began the "pronouncement of judgment" in court — that is, reading aloud the verdict.

At this moment, Heifu once again witnessed the meticulous precision of Qin law: nearly every type of crime had a corresponding punishment.

The first to be convicted were the three bandits.

The curly-bearded bandit Pan had committed the "crime of abscondence" by evading border garrison duty, as well as the "crime of banditry and homicide" through multiple robberies and murders. On the latter count alone, his death sentence was nailed down. With the two crimes combined, Pan was sentenced to death by dismemberment. He would be sent back to his registered home in Jingling County for confirmation of all his crimes, then publicly executed — his body torn apart and then beheaded, the head hung up and the corpse displayed as a warning to the masses... Just imagining the scene made Heifu's scalp crawl.

The other two Chu bandits were somewhat luckier. They just barely did not satisfy the "group banditry" crime requiring five or more persons, and because they were not Qin people, the authorities could not verify their prior identities or crimes. The two also claimed they had never killed anyone. Thus, they were sentenced under ordinary "abscondence from another state" and "banditry" laws, tattooed and made wall-building convicts. One could well imagine two more penal laborers added to the civil engineering projects in Nan Commandery, with little chance of being redeemed back to commoner status.

After this, it was the turn of the Huyang Village group to be sentenced.

"Huyang Village Chief Zhen, a petty official who eats from the state's measure, was meant to hold the two-foot wooden tablet and proclaim the laws and ordinances to the people under his jurisdiction. Yet, knowing the law, he broke it, scheming to steal merit and swindle rewards, and falsely accused the common soldier Heifu of assault. For these three crimes combined, the sentence is: shaving, tattooing, and border garrison exile! However, in consideration of his noble rank, three ranks shall be stripped to offset the punishment, commuted to shaving, redeemable tattooing, and the 'gathering firewood' penal servitude."

Huyang Village Chief Zhen knelt on the ground, listening blankly to his own verdict.

He had inherited his father's noble rank just upon reaching adulthood, becoming a respected "Ornamented Sash," yet he still yearned obsessively to climb one more rank, to reach the fourth rank of "No Corvée," so that he could forever be exempt from the one-month-per-year rotational garrison duty...

So in recent days, he had vigorously drilled the village guards at Huyang Village and gone out to capture bandits, yet always without results. Until that day, when he heard the merchant Bao come to report a crime, he was overjoyed — only to be beaten to the punch by two lowly common soldiers, which left him deeply unwilling to accept it.

Zhen, eager for quick success and momentarily blinded, listened to the Thief-Catcher's goading and decided to steal the merit and swindle the reward. He never imagined he was digging a huge pit for himself, getting entangled in a lawsuit, and that the presiding judge would be the utterly impartial Xi.

After the incident, his family secretly tried to pull strings and make arrangements for him. But in Qin, at least on the surface, no one dared openly accept bribes and bend the law for personal gain. Qin law spelled out in black and white what could be done and what could not, and countless Qin officials, steeped in the law since childhood, were watching with sharp eyes!

Yet in the end, they still found a crack: they bribed the petty clerk who delivered meals to pass messages, using threats and bribes on the merchant Bao to make him cooperate in retracting his testimony and fabricating false evidence. As long as they flatly denied any act of stealing merit and swindling rewards, and further nailed Heifu with the crime of assaulting an official, this trial could be won!

But who could have guessed that, even before Xi could launch a meticulous investigation, the lies concocted by this group would collapse under Heifu's skillful cross-examination.

The ever-arrogant Zhen had actually capsized in the gutter at the hands of a lowly common soldier, a black-headed peasant!

Now, every word Xi read aloud sounded to Zhen's ears like the death knell of doomsday!

Shaving meant having all his hair shaved off; tattooing was branding the face; redeemable tattooing meant this punishment could be bought off with money. Gathering firewood meant going into the mountains to collect kindling — also a form of hard labor...

For Village Chief Zhen, just in his twenties with a life that had been a smooth, open road, this was an unacceptable outcome!

"I refuse to accept this!"

No sooner had he heard the verdict than Zhen, red-faced and thick-necked, began to bellow.

"I refuse to accept this! I want to petition for retrial!"

Petitioning for retrial was a review system unique to Qin. If a party refused to accept the judgment, they could request a retrial within a statutory period. The county would then report the case to the Commandery Deputy. If they still refused to accept the Commandery Deputy's judgment, they could continue to petition for retrial, reaching up to the Chamberlain for Law Enforcement in Xianyang, where the supreme court would conduct a final review, with a time limit of three months. In this way, wrongful convictions made through momentary negligence by the commanderies and counties had a chance to be redressed by the Chamberlain for Law Enforcement. The most famous case was in the first year of King Zheng of Qin, when a musician named Jiang was falsely accused of stealing an ox. Refusing to accept it, he petitioned for retrial repeatedly, and in the end, it was indeed discovered to be a wrongful case. Those careless county-level judges all received punishments.

"Are you certain you wish to petition for retrial?" Xi asked.

Stiffening his neck, Zhen said, "Absolutely!"

Xi closed the bamboo slips, the ink still wet, and looked down at Zhen from his elevated position.

"Do you believe this official's judgment was in error?"

"Do you believe you are still wronged?"

"Do you believe the Commandery Deputy or the Chamberlain for Law Enforcement will make an exception and show you mercy beyond the law?"

Xi's rapid-fire questions exploded beside Zhen's ears like thunderclaps. His lips went pale as he murmured, "I dare not. It is just... just that this punishment is too severe..."

"You find the punishment too severe?"

Xi sighed and said, "Had you not held a noble rank of the Second Order or above, allowing you to slightly offset the crime, the punishment would be even heavier! And do you know, if your petition for retrial fails, according to Qin law, your penalty will be increased by one degree! At that point, the punishment will be even heavier — perhaps nose-cutting or foot-severing!"

Only then did Zhen's heart turn to dead ashes. He knew the facts of his crime were rock-solid, his testimony riddled with holes, and it had all been exposed right in court and recorded in the official deposition. Even if his family had influence reaching to the heavens, there was no possibility of overturning the case if it went to the commandery or to Xianyang. He kowtowed and said, "I admit my guilt. I dare not mention petitioning for retrial again..."

After Huyang Village Chief admitted his guilt, dealing with the remaining people was easy.

The Thief-Catcher Mai, as one of the principal offenders, was sentenced under "false accusation reciprocal punishment" combined with "swindling rewards," shaved and sent to border garrison exile. He would still have his head shaved, and because this man was only a First Order noble, he had no way to offset the crime, so he was banished to garrison the frontier. It might be a very long time before he could return to his hometown — even worse off than Huyang Village Chief.

The three village guards, as accessories, were shaved and made wall-building convicts for three years. At least they did not have to leave their hometown; by the time their hair fully grew back, they would be more or less free. The three immediately kowtowed in gratitude, feeling this was already an enormous leniency.

The merchant Bao was much the same. Sentenced simultaneously under "false accusation reciprocal punishment" and "fraud and forgery," he was shaved and made a wall-building convict for five years. As the merchant was led away, he wept with snot and tears streaming, saying that had he known it would come to this, he never should have helped the village chief and the others commit perjury.

In short, after the verdict was read, those below the court either admitted their guilt or were stricken with terror.

Heifu, watching this group's wretched state, felt an incomparable sense of satisfaction.

He now felt that the crime of "false accusation reciprocal punishment" was truly excellent. If someone falsely accused you and it was proven, they would bear the same punishment as the crime they accused you of. For example, if someone falsely accused you of murder but had no evidence, ultimately losing the case, then they could just wait to be beheaded. Thus, in Qin, although reporting wrongdoing brought rewards, one had to weigh the matter carefully before filing an accusation.

With this ordinance, Heifu felt as if he had put on a suit of thorns-reflect armor. After winning the lawsuit, all criminal liability rebounded onto the heads of the false accusers. And so those six people, though their punishments varied, all had to suffer head-shaving and penal servitude.

What does it mean to reap what you sow? What does it mean to be caught in your own trap? What does it mean that those who harm others will ultimately harm themselves?

This is it!

But this sense of elation was soon diluted by harsh reality.

When he had blocked the road to file his complaint, Heifu truly had not imagined that these people would be sentenced so heavily. Xi's cold, emotionless demeanor made him witness once again the severity of Qin law.

"So this is the consequence of crossing the red line. No matter how many years you toiled diligently and tread carefully before, one moment of carelessness in breaking the law, and your entire life is ruined." Qin law stipulated that anyone who had committed a crime could not be appointed as an official. Although that Huyang Village Chief had relied on his noble rank to avoid a bit of punishment, he was basically cut off from officialdom for life.

Just as Heifu was sighing with regret, Xi summoned him and Ji Ying forward. The two hurriedly stepped out of line.

Xi closed the verdict book, took another bundle of bamboo slips from the clerk's hands, and said flatly, "This official has finished meting out punishments. It is time to speak of rewarding merit."

Upon hearing these words, Heifu and Ji Ying exchanged a glance, and both saw the delight in the other's eyes!

After all these days of litigation, this moment has finally arrived!

PS: "Those of the Upper Maker rank and above shall be sentenced to fuel-gathering; those of the Commoner rank and below shall be punished with wall-building." — *Miscellaneous Excerpts of Qin Law*. Those holding the rank of Upper Maker and above can indeed be exempted from certain punishments.

The judgment in this chapter is primarily based on the Yuelu Qin slips cases "Shi and Others Arresting Robbers and Seeking Reward" and "The Case of Gui and Suo Transferring the Reward Plot."

Also, after careful study, Qin still honored the right... so that uncle of the Huyang Village Chief should be the County Left Commandant; the earlier text has been corrected.

(End of Chapter)