Chapter 88: Crime and Punishment

In the twenty-first year of King Zheng of Qin, during the last third of the fourth month, just after the Start of Summer, the weather in Anlu County grew hotter by the day. Mole crickets chirped in the lush grass, earthworms burrowed out of the soil, and in every household's vegetable garden, king gourds swelled and bitter herbs bloomed — a scene of flourishing summer abundance.

Yet in the county seat's government quarter, the air itself was thick with restless unease.

Inside the county prison, jailers and prison guards stood watch outside the cells with tense expressions, sending men in to patrol every half shichen, for the cells were packed full of convicts still awaiting sentencing.

The weather was sweltering, the cell space cramped, and a foul stench hung in the air. These hundred or so offenders — or rather, ordinary-looking common folk — all sat dejectedly on rice straw, regretting what they had done.

The jailers murmured among themselves: with just their dozen or so men, keeping watch over them was hard enough — how had that little Village Chief, with only five men, managed to capture everyone in an entire hamlet?

In the great hall just a wall away, the Deputy Magistrate was also watching fretfully as the ordinance clerks argued endlessly over the statutes, silently cursing to himself: "It's all that Huyang Village Chief's fault. I only sent him to find one abducted woman, and he goes and arrests the entire hamlet. How am I supposed to clean this up now!"

By this time, over a month had passed since the Blind Mountain Hamlet incident that had shaken the entire county.

The case involved so many people that from the Deputy Magistrate down to the ordinance clerks, the judicial officers of Anlu County had spent over half a month, enduring many sleepless nights, just to sort out one by one the native places of the abducted women and the crimes and transgressions of everyone in Blind Mountain Hamlet.

But the hardest part still lay ahead. Led by their hamlet officers, the people of Blind Mountain Hamlet had repeatedly purchased abducted women of unknown origin and covered for one another. When Village Chief Heifu came to investigate, they had maliciously mobbed him and even shown intent to kill an official and flee for their lives — these crimes could not be washed away.

But that raised the problem: how should they be sentenced? Leniently or harshly?

"Since the crimes are already clear, we simply follow the statutes and pass judgment."

Prison Clerk Xi's stance was unequivocal: handle it by the book!

But the Deputy Magistrate still hesitated.

"Lord Xi, this matter is not like an ordinary case. It concerns the lives of a hundred or so people — we cannot afford to be careless."

Xi said with a stern face, "Deputy Magistrate, in the laws of Qin, there has never been a precedent for lenient treatment simply because the offenders are numerous! Back when Lord Shang first took office and reformed the law, there were noble clans who defied the law and engaged in private feuds — those punished numbered in the hundreds, heads rolling until the Wei River ran red. In the ninth year of our present king, when Lao Ai plotted treason, he himself was torn apart by chariots and his clan exterminated; his several thousand retainers were all stripped of their property and exiled to the remote frontiers of Shu Commandery..."

"If several thousand could be punished, why balk at a mere hundred-odd?"

"How can a small, insignificant county like Anlu compare itself to Lord Shang or His Majesty the King?"

The Deputy Magistrate said in a somewhat conciliatory tone, "Prison Clerk, aside from the few principal offenders, could the rest be treated as having surrendered themselves, to reduce their culpability?"

"Deputy Magistrate, the people of Blind Mountain Hamlet never intended to surrender and confess. Only after the hamlet gatekeeper who incited them to kill an official and flee was shot dead did they submit and allow themselves to be captured, under Village Chief Heifu's intimidation."

Xi remained utterly unyielding. Since the evidence and testimony showed that the people had not surrendered themselves, no leniency could be granted!

In his view, when law enforcement clashed with lawbreaking, there was only victory or defeat — no room for pity!

Unable to persuade his stubborn subordinate, the Deputy Magistrate stamped his foot in frustration. He knew perfectly well that if they followed the law to the letter, who knew how many would end up dead and how many punished.

When that happened, this case would surely shock the entire Southern Commandery, perhaps even alarm the Commandant of Justice, and become the most prominent case in the whole realm this year. Far from receiving commendation, he, the Deputy Magistrate, would be impeached for lax governance and poor dissemination of the law, which had allowed such a huge scandal to erupt. Even if he escaped punishment, it would leave an embarrassing blot on his official record.

It was precisely because of this that the verdict had been delayed again and again. The Deputy Magistrate had consulted the Commandery Deputy, but no reply had come from that end — it was truly maddening.

Fortunately, just as the fourth month was drawing to a close, the order from Southern Commandery finally arrived, belatedly.

The Deputy Magistrate had not expected that the commandery's reply would be identical in opinion to Xi's, consisting of just four words:

Punish without fail!

As it turned out, Southern Commandery had not been idle these past days either. Based on the testimony of the abducted women in Anlu County, the Commandery Deputy had dispatched several capable ordinance clerks from Jiangling City. Following the clues, they had ultimately rounded up the entire gang that specialized in trafficking young men and women in Jingling County — and the "old crone" who had once abducted Kite was among them.

After a surprise interrogation, the Commandery Deputy was stunned to discover that this gang was a family-run operation, its tentacles reaching across the entire Southern Commandery. It was connected to over a hundred missing-person cases in various counties of the commandery over the past few years. Most of the missing were youths and maidens: the girls were sold off to poor and remote areas, while the boys had even been sold as slaves to Wei and Chu!

It actually involved the outflow of population! This was intolerable. And so, while sentencing all those traffickers to death, the Commandery Deputy also decided to send a dispatch to Anlu County, demanding that this case be handled as a capital case — made into a model case, to serve as a warning to all the people of the commandery!

Since the commandery had said so too, the somewhat soft-hearted Deputy Magistrate had no choice. After heaving a long sigh to the heavens, he ordered Prison Clerk Xi and the others to hurry and fix the offenders' sentences.

"The hamlet chief of Blind Mountain Hamlet, as a hamlet officer, knowingly broke the law, shielded his hamlet residents, secretly dealt with the traffickers, took the lead in purchasing women, and repeatedly raped the woman Kite — what is the ruling?"

Inside the hall, Ordinance Clerk Yue was responsible for the records. Because so many people were involved in the case, they had to first determine each person's charges before sending them to the Deputy Magistrate for pronouncement.

Prison Clerk Xi was responsible for determining the offenders' punishments. Although he could recite the Qin statutes from memory, to be precise and avoid error, he still had to search through the mountain of legal codes for the Theft Statutes and the Miscellaneous Statutes, and pass sentence according to the corresponding articles.

"Blind Mountain Hamlet Chief Feng, whose crimes are heinous and of the utmost evil. According to Article Nine of the Theft Statutes: one who abducts and sells people shall be torn apart; one who knows a person has been abducted and sold yet trades with them shares the same crime. His crime warrants death. With the additional charges of rape and so forth, he is sentenced to be torn apart by chariots! His family members, knowing the hamlet chief was breaking the law yet failing to report him, and also assisting in confining the abducted woman Kite, shall likewise be implicated. Their property shall be confiscated. The men shall have their feet amputated and become wall-builders; the women shall be tattooed on the face and become bondmaids!"

Yue hastily recorded this, then asked about the next name: "What is the ruling for the Field Overseer?"

"The Field Overseer did not participate in the buying and selling of people, so his crime is somewhat lighter, but the crimes of dereliction of duty and shielding cannot be excused. His rank shall be stripped, his family property confiscated, his feet amputated, and he shall become a wall-builder. His family members shall be shaved and become wall-builders and grain-pounders!"

As for the hamlet gatekeeper who had called on the hamlet residents to kill an official and flee for their lives — although the man was already dead, since he had dared to shout such a slogan, he had to be prepared to have his bones ground to dust. His putrid corpse was to be dug up and subjected to the supplementary punishment of being torn apart by chariots, and his entire family reduced to wall-builders and grain-pounders.

In Xi's subsequent judgments, those households that had knowingly purchased women they knew to be abducted were also sentenced one after another to be torn apart. As for the three brothers who had cruelly abused the trafficked woman Brew and locked her in a pigsty — one of them had already died from a crossbow wound that could not be treated. The remaining two had the additional charges of rape and wounding through assault appended. With three crimes punished cumulatively, they earned themselves the treatment of being torn apart by chariots.

In total, three people from Blind Mountain Hamlet were sentenced to be torn apart by chariots, and ten to be torn apart.

Following Xi's judgments, Yue used a vermilion brush to strike through thirteen names in one breath on the name roster written on the bamboo slips. His hand could not help trembling a little — after all, a single light stroke was a human life.

He thought to himself, "The law has no room for sentiment — that phrase truly fits Prison Clerk Xi. I must be ever so careful, and never break the law in this life, lest I fall into Prison Clerk Xi's hands..."

That said, there was one area where Xi did show leniency.

Apart from the four women who had voluntarily asked to leave, those households that had purchased women many years ago were spared the death penalty because the abducted women adamantly refused to admit they had been abducted and sold.

It turned out that in Qin, cases also had a statute of limitations: cases older than ten years were no longer accepted by the authorities. Furthermore, for a criminal case to enter litigation proceedings, the prerequisite was that someone had to bring charges. If the person involved did not bring charges, the case would not be accepted — equivalent to the later principle of "no trial without complaint."

Therefore, as long as those women who had been abducted and sold many years ago, and had since borne and raised children, did not reveal their identities and did not voluntarily bring charges against their current families, no litigation proceedings could be initiated.

Xi knew that if he pursued the matter to the end, even resorting to a bit of torture, he could absolutely dig up all those old matters and sentence those people to death.

But after hesitating, he chose not to extend and expand the net of the statutes.

He was a capable official, but he was not a cruel one.

He handled cases loyally according to the statutes, but he also had his own bottom line as a person.

Moreover, this did not mean those people were innocent. This case involved the collective lawbreaking of the entire Blind Mountain Hamlet. According to the Qin statutes' system of mutual responsibility in groups of ten and five, every single adult man and woman was implicated and held accountable.

Even more seriously, they were also suspected of attacking an official, and had even shouted the slogan of fleeing into Chu... This was the most fatal point. In hindsight, if they had followed Heifu's advice and surrendered themselves with him, they would not have ended up like this.

On the last day of the fourth month, which happened to be the day of judgment, because there were too many offenders, only one principal offender from each household could be sent to attend the hearing. Even so, the great hall of the county prison was packed densely with people.

Looking at so many offenders, even the Anlu Deputy Magistrate could not help but feel his scalp tingle. His voice was somewhat hoarse when he read the verdict.

In the final judgment, aside from the thirteen principal offenders sentenced to death, almost all the rest were reduced to penal laborers!

Dozens with heavier sentences suffered mutilating punishments and became wall-builders and grain-pounders; over a hundred with lighter sentences became firewood-gatherers and rice-sorters. None could hope to regain their freedom within three to five years. Only three households — hunters who lived far outside the hamlet and were proven to have had no part in the matter — escaped the calamity.

With both parents sent off to labor reform, the underage children were taken in by the Office of Rehabilitation, to be settled in various places as commoner soldiers or servants once they came of age.

When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. Judged in this way, Blind Mountain Hamlet was effectively wiped out in one fell swoop. Everyone became penal laborers, and the hamlet's administrative status could be directly abolished.

This also meant that this year, among the officials of Anlu County, aside from the County Artisan Chief, who could clap and laugh heartily because he had gained over a hundred penal laborers and bondservants, the rest — the County Magistrate, the Household Section, and the Township Overseers — would all be frowning in distress. The most important metric in the annual performance evaluation for ranked officials — registered households — might this year fail to increase and instead decline!

The household registration growth in Anlu County had never been fast to begin with — just barely enough to keep people scraping by. How could it withstand such a devastating blow?

So toward Hei Fu, who had handled this case, and toward Xi, who had passed judgment according to the law, the various officials in the county — though on the surface they all had to show support and praise — behind the scenes had long been cursing them openly...

"A village chief who ruins families, a prison clerk who exterminates whole households!"

(End of chapter)