Great Song Super Scholar

Chapter 398 Gathering Evidence
A group of people walked into the inner house. Ouyang Xiu's mansion is an official house, which occupies a small area of ​​only five acres. After a short walk, the situation is probably clear. There is indeed no two-story building in Ouyang Xiu's mansion.

Fan Ning asked Ouyang Mingyuan again, "Does your residence have real estate elsewhere?"

Ouyang Mingyuan shook his head, "This is the house in the capital, and there is another ancestral house in my hometown."

"How long has it been since your uncle came home?" Fanning asked.

"Almost almost four years."

Fan Ning and Li Weizhen looked at each other. Wu Chunyan married into Ouyang's family three years ago. Maybe she went back to Ouyang's ancestral home, but she definitely did not go back with Ouyang Xiu.

Li Weizhen whispered to Fan Ning again: "I didn't see the pond!"

This is also a key issue. There are neither small buildings nor ponds in Ouyang Xiu's mansion, which is completely inconsistent with the description in the poem.

Fan Ning nodded, "Go and talk to Senior Ouyang!"

When everyone came to the inner hall, Ouyang Xiu invited Fan Ning and Li Weizhen to sit down. Fan Ning asked with concern, "How is senior Ouyang doing now?"

Ouyang Xiu sighed, "My body probably collapsed, and I couldn't support it after walking dozens of steps. I couldn't see anything a few days ago, and now I still have white spots in my eyes. Now I can hardly read."

Ouyang Xiu is famous for being highly myopic. Now that he is old and has cataracts, he may still be able to undergo surgery in future generations, now!Fan Ning could only smile wryly.

"Excuse me, Fan Zhiyuan, how is the investigation going?" Ouyang Qian asked anxiously next to him.

Fan Ning glanced at her, and said slowly: "This matter actually does not stand up to scrutiny. The informant used a poem as evidence, but the environment in your residence does not match the description in the poem, so we believe that the element of false accusation is more big."

"Exactly!"

Ouyang Qian said angrily: "Our family has such a large population and the house is tight. How could such a dirty thing happen? It's clearly a false accusation against my father."

Seeing that Ouyang Xiu was silent, Fan Ning said to Ouyang Qian, "May I ask Miss Qian to avoid it for a while?"

Ouyang Qian was startled, "Why?"

Ouyang Xiu sighed, "Qian'er, you should avoid it for a while!"

Ouyang Qian stood up with a puzzled expression and retreated.

Fan Ning then said to Ouyang Xiu: "Senior Ouyang, please tell me!"

Ouyang Xiu pondered for a long time and said: "This poem was written by me the year before last. It actually describes the Dongmen Jiaofang. The woman in it is an official prostitute named Zhu Caimei. She can testify that this poem was written for her. There is a An original copy of the poem."

This kind of thing is really hard to say, but in order to prove his innocence, Ouyang Xiu had to go all out, after all, the reputation of being romantic is much better than that of incest.

Fan Ning nodded, "I will find out as soon as possible, and then report to the officials, Senior Ouyang, feel at ease to recuperate."

But Ouyang Xiu felt very helpless in his heart. What can he do if he finds out, his reputation has been completely ruined.

Fan Ning recorded the statement, asked Ouyang Xiu to sign and draw a deposit, and then came out of the inner hall. Ouyang Qian sent them to the gate all the way. Fan Ning smiled and said, "Miss Qian, please stay!"

Ouyang Qian wanted to say something, but her lips moved, but nothing came out.

Fan Ning glanced at her, then turned and left. Li Weizhen and other officials followed her out.

Everyone boarded two carriages and returned to Jianyuan.

Fan Ning pondered for a while, and said to Li Weizhen: "You go to the Dongmen Jiaofang and do two things. One is to draw the drawings, and the other is to get the confession of the official prostitute Zhu Caimei, and get the original manuscript of Ouyang Xiu's poem. .”

"Humble job, let's go!"

The two divided their troops into two groups, Fan Ning returned to Jianyuan, while Li Weizhen rushed to Dongmen Jiaofang with two officials.

As soon as Fan Ning returned to his official room, an official came in with a thick stack of documents, "Report to the Zhiyuan, all the letters against Ouyang Xiu in the past five years have been found."

"how many?"

"A total of 74 copies!"

"There are so many!" Fanning was taken aback.

"Most of them were complaints from scholars after the imperial examination last year. We sorted out the 74 submissions, and seven of them are valuable."

The officials handed over a stack of letters to Fan Ning, and Fan Ning flipped through them. These seven copies were Xue Zongru's various complaints against Ouyang Xiu.

One of them was Xue Zongru's accusation against Ouyang Xiu for leaking the test questions. It was last May. Xue Zongru had not yet served as the censor at that time.

Fan Ning looked through the other six letters, accusing Ouyang Xiu of corruption and accepting bribes, accusing Ouyang Xiu of having multiple houses in the capital with unknown sources of money, and accusing Ouyang Xiu of plagiarizing the poems of his predecessors.

These seven indictments were all stamped with the seal of the Procuratorate's investigation of no evidence.

Now that all kinds of evidence have been gradually assembled, we are waiting for the final step of Li Weizhen's investigation.

.........

It was dusk when Fan Ning returned to the mansion. In the dining hall, the food had already been set. Zhu Pei smiled and said, "I thought my husband was going to drink with his colleagues today to welcome the new official."

"I was going to go, but there is a case today, so it was delayed, let's talk about it another day!"

Zhu Pei poured a glass of wine for Fan Ning and said with a smile, "Husband has entered the mood so quickly?"

"It's Ouyang Xiu's case, which is quite special."

"I read that the tabloids are talking about him every day, saying that he doesn't care about the lives of his family, half of his salary is spent on drinking and prostitution, that he is too romantic, and has a few illegitimate children outside, husband, are these true? ?”

Fan Ning sneered and said: "This kind of "tabloid" is like this. There is one lie among the nine truths, but the most important one is a lie. It is true that he likes to drink and prostitutes, and it is true that his family lives in poverty. But there are absolutely no illegitimate children."

"Then is the incident between him and his daughter-in-law true?" Jupe asked curiously, resting his chin.

She is no different from other women, and she especially likes to listen to this kind of gossip news.

Fan Ning still shook his head, "According to my current investigation, this matter should be a false accusation."

"Have you found evidence?"

Fan Ning laughed, "Actually, it is common sense to know that there is a problem. His in-laws are bachelor Wu Zheng, who is also the father of his daughter-in-law Wu Chunyan. If Ouyang Xiuzhen had an affair with his daughter-in-law, Wu Zheng would let Ouyang Xiu go? As far as I know, Wu Zheng is also going to write to the imperial court, demanding that Xue Zongru be severely punished."

Zhu Pei frowned, "Since there is no evidence, why does the tabloid keep exaggerating this matter so that everyone in the world knows it and completely ruined Senior Ouyang's reputation."

"The Tabloid wants to make money, so it's not that it fabricated this incident, but that it really happened in the imperial court, how could the Tabloid let go of such an eye-catching thing?

In fact, the key point is that Ouyang Xiu himself is more romantic, and he offended the proprietor behind the "Tabolo", otherwise, why would my grandfather Fan Zhongyan not have such a thing, because everyone doesn't believe it, so they can't play it up. "

"My husband is right. I am a romantic person. When encountering such a thing, even if I am innocent, I can't explain it clearly."

Fan Ning tapped the table lightly with his index finger. What he had just said with his wife reminded him of one thing, and he should investigate Wu Zheng's attitude on this matter again.

. . . . . . . . . .

Before dawn the next day, Fan Ning got up early again to prepare for the court, packed up and got into the carriage. Today is the small court meeting, but he has to attend as usual.

But today there is a little tea boy in the carriage, named Xiaowen, very handsome, his parents are both servants of the Zhu family, both are free in name, but in fact they have to rely on the Zhu family to live.

Xiaowen is only eight years old this year, and he started working as a tea boy for Zhu Yuanfeng last year. Zhu Pei saw that he was smart and good at ordering and frying tea, so he asked him to be his husband's tea boy.

Zhu Pei gave his parents five kans a month, which is a high salary in Zhu's house, two guans more than before, so his parents happily sent him here.

Xiaowen is not tall. In the carriage, he would move a small stool to sit at the door, take a soup bottle made of sterling silver, and add it to the officials at any time. He has been doing these things for a year, and he is already very proficient .

"Xiaowen, what's your last name?" Fanning asked with a gentle smile.

"For the returnees, my surname is Wen, and my name is Wen Xiaoyi. Because there are already three Xiaoyis in Zhu's mansion, everyone calls me Xiaowen."

Xiaoyi is one of the most common names for market men in the Song Dynasty, just like what is called "second child" today, and there are a lot of them.

Fan Ning asked again: "Are you literate?"

Xiaowen shook his head, "I only know my own name."

This is not bad, illiterate can be placed in the official room.

The carriage first went to the Jianyuan, the gate of the Jianyuan was opened, and some handymen were already cleaning the yard. Fan Ning asked Xiao Yi to take Xiao Yi to the waiter, and he continued to go to the palace by himself in the carriage.

Even though the court meeting was boring, he had to attend.

(End of this chapter)