The Happy Life of Small Officials in Northern Song Dynasty

Song Xiang conscientiously checked the identities of the prisoners one by one, and soon climbed up to the stage and reported: "The prisoners are all themselves, and there is no mistake. Welcome to read."

Ouyang Xiu nodded and said, "Thank you, Mr. Song, please take a seat and wait."

Time passed slowly, the entire square was silent, people stopped cursing, stretched their necks and stood on tiptoes to look up and down the stage, for fear of missing the moment of beheading.

Not long after, a small official came to report: "My lords, it's almost three o'clock in the afternoon."

Ouyang Xiu nodded and ordered: "Prepare for execution!"

The executioners moved one after another, pulled out the death cards behind the prisoners, and pressed them one by one by their hair on the wooden pier like a chicken, and tied the hair to the nails on the side of the wooden pier to fix it.

The prisoners knew it was time to go on the road. The fear of lying on the cold wooden pier with their necks outstretched waiting to be stabbed caused many to cry and howl, and even more of them were already full of feces and urine, and their bodies were exhausted.

The six executioners on the stage had an astonishing tacit understanding. They pushed Feng Jingyao and others down on the wooden pier and tied them up. They stretched out their cold big hands in unison and touched the part of the knife on the back of their necks. He also muttered: "Don't move around, if you miss the target with this knife, you will get another knife and suffer more; moreover, it will damage our reputation. My six Ruan brothers have never been second-handed. Knife, don’t make people laugh at my poor craftsmanship, that’s the sin you committed before you died.”

Guo Pinchao and the others knew that there was no hope of escape. Although the words of the executioners were terrifying, they were true. It was better to be killed with one knife than to be chopped up several times like they were chopping vegetables, so they all collapsed in tears. On the wooden pier, I just want to die quickly.

The watchman said loudly, "It's three quarters past noon."

Ouyang Xiu stood up, raised the token in his hand and was about to throw it, when he heard a sound of horseshoes at the street, and someone shouted loudly: "The Holy Spirit has a decree, the execution will be postponed."

Ouyang Xiu and Su Jin turned pale, turned their heads and saw dozens of riders galloping along the street, the leader was dressed in Imperial Guard uniform, holding the reins with his right hand, and holding a brocade box with his left hand, Su Jin couldn't help it. Knowing people, but knowing the brocade box, it is the brocade box dedicated to the imperial decree.

However, Ouyang Xiu even knew the man on horseback. That person was Zhang Mei, the deputy commander of the army in front of the palace. As the name suggests, the Dianqian Army is directly responsible for the safety of the palace. It is more trusted by the emperor than the other two armies. Seeing it, he hurriedly put down his command arrow and stepped out to meet him.

How can Su Jin allow someone to disrupt the situation at a critical moment? Ouyang Xiu has a way out, but he has no way out. As long as one of these people survives, his life will be gone. Without thinking about it, he took the token from Ouyang Xiu's hand and threw it out. , shouted high in the mouth: "Execution!"

When the token hits the ground, the order arrives like a mountain. The executioners no longer hesitated, and swung their steel knives in unison and raised them high; Ouyang Xiu exclaimed: "No...!"

The executioners hesitated for a while, and Su Jin shouted in amazement: "Those who violate the order, beheaded!"

There was a dazzling light of knives, the sound of the steel knives cutting into the neck bone came and went, and the heads rolled down mixed with splashing hot blood. Suddenly, there was steam on the stage and off the stage, and the hot blood quickly hit the cold air. It became colder, and it turned into a sauce red after a while.

Ouyang Xiu and Song Xiang looked at Su Jin with their mouths wide open, and after a long time they looked at the heads all over the floor and murmured, "Special Envoy Su...you are...resisting the decree."

Su Jin said: "You two adults, don't panic, it has nothing to do with you, it is my order."

Zhang Mei watched helplessly as the executioners slashed and killed the prisoners one by one, but they were too far away, so there was nothing they could do. Angrily, she shouted at the crowded people blocking the way: "Don't get out of the way, left and right, give this general Whip."

The guards of the army in front of the palace who followed immediately whipped out their horsewhips and beat them on both sides without thinking.

Zhang Mei galloped close to the stage, got off her horse, looked at the headless corpses lying on the ground with a livid face, and suddenly stepped up to the stage after a few strides, ignoring Ouyang Xiu and Song Xiang leaving their seats to salute, shouting angrily: " Who gave the order? Who is it?"

Su Jin walked out slowly, cupped his hands and said, "This general is the order to beheaded by this envoy."

Zhang Mei approached Su Jin with staring eyes, looked him up and down, and sneered, "Who are you?"

Su Jin saluted and said: "I am Su Jin, the special envoy of grain affairs appointed by the imperial court."

Zhang Mei snorted and said, "You are that Su Jin? Did you give the order?"

Su Jin said: "Exactly."

Zhang Mei yelled coldly: "Take this person and bring him back to the capital for questioning."

Several guards in front of the palace swarmed forward, wanting to take Su Jin, Ouyang Xiu and Song Xiang panicked, sighed and didn't know what to do.

Su Jin took a few steps back, raised his hand and said, "Wait a minute! What crime did I commit?"

Zhang Mei smiled angrily, stared at Su Jin's face and said: "Why are you pretending to be confused? This general ordered you to suspend the execution according to the emperor's decree. Are you deaf? Or are you blind?"

Su Jin looked cold and said: "This general, please respect yourself. This envoy is ordered by the emperor. If you speak rudely to this envoy, this envoy will no longer be polite to you."

Ouyang Xiu hurriedly shouted: "The special envoy of Su is being rude, this is Zhang Mei, the commander of the deputy capital in front of the palace."

Su Jin sneered and said: "Even the high officials of the imperial court can't slander the officials appointed by the imperial court casually. This envoy is an imperial envoy. Although he has no rank, the emperor doesn't want this envoy to be insulted by others when he sees a high official." .”

Zhang Meifei was so angry that she pointed at Su Jin's forehead and nose and said, "Okay, okay! The emperor will give you two points of color and you will open a dyeing workshop. You really think of yourself as a person; today the general will take action against you, come on!" People, take down this disrespectful food envoy Su Jin."

Su Jin stared and shouted: "Who dares? Come and protect this envoy."

Both Zhao and Fang were dumbfounded. Zhang Mei and the others knew each other. Although Ma Jun and Dianqian Army were not affiliated, they were military commanders after all. Dare to make a mistake to Zhang Mei, relatives are different, if the imperial army in the Song Dynasty is the wife and the concubine, then the front army of the imperial army is the big wife, and the horse army and the infantry army are the second wife.

But Mr. Special Envoy is his immediate boss at present, if he doesn't respect Su Jin's order, he will directly disobey the order and annoy Su Jin, that day will not be easy.

In the middle of the dilemma, dozens of Xiang troops rushed up the wooden platform under the leadership of Pan Jiang, surrounded by more than a dozen guards of the front army.

"Bold! This person resists the order, how dare you help him, do you want to rebel?" Zhang Mei roared.

Pan Jiang cupped his hands and said, "Huidu commanded the general, and the lowly ranks are just following orders. The prefect of Song Dynasty has already granted the special envoy Su the right to deploy troops. Please forgive me, general."

"What? Reverse, reverse, it's okay, I didn't expect that someone would be so treacherous, I will report to the emperor, and you will all be executed." Zhang Mei roared, and he, who was used to domineering, did not expect to be killed by a group of people. Surrounded by the Xiang army like a turtle, it's like a person with high authority being stripped naked in front of everyone on an important occasion. It's a great shame.

"This... General Zhang, please be safe, this is the end of the matter..." Ouyang Xiu stepped forward with a smile on his face, intending to say a few words of comfort.

Zhang Mei interrupted him mercilessly, pointed to his nose and said: "And you...Master Ouyang, I didn't expect that you, an important minister in the court, would dare to resist the order and disrespect it. Let’s talk about affection, this time none of you can escape.”

Su Jin said coldly: "General Zhang, we are ordered to execute Yangzhou criminals. What are you doing here, jumping and calling? The execution ground is a place of official business. What are you doing here?"

Zhang Mei took a sip and said: "I have already spoken from afar, asking you to keep people under the knife, why do you execute them by force?"

Su Jin pretended to be surprised and said, "Did you shout? Why didn't the envoy hear it?"

Zhang Mei's eyeballs were about to fall off, she tilted her head and said with her mouth curled up: "How dare you lie and didn't hear you? How dare you tell such a lie under the eyes of everyone?"

Su Jin blinked innocently and said: "I didn't hear it at first, so how could I lie." Then he turned around and asked Pan Jiang and the others: "Have you heard?"

Pan Jiang shook his head and said, "There are too many people and the voices are noisy, I didn't hear the humble staff."

A group of soldiers also shook their heads and said, "We didn't hear that either."

Zhang Mei gritted her teeth and nodded frequently, then suddenly pointed at Ouyang Xiu and said, "Master Ouyang, what about you? Did you hear that?"

Ouyang Xiu didn't know how to answer, so he said hesitantly, "This...this...my officer..."

Su Jin said loudly: "Why do you need to ask the people on the stage? Why don't you ask the [-] to [-] people below the stage? You just said that you are deaf, but the people can't all be deaf?"

Without waiting for Zhang Mei to answer, Su Jin walked to the entrance of the stage and said loudly to the people in the audience: "Fathers and elders, this General Zhang from the capital said that I would not obey his order to keep people under the knife, and that he would kill criminals privately. I went to Beijing to punish the crime; I was extremely wronged, because I didn't hear him shouting, but he didn't believe it; so I want to ask you, have you heard him shouting to leave people under the sword?"

All the people had already seen the situation on the stage, although they couldn't hear clearly what Su Qingtian was arguing with this aggressive official, but they had seen the cause and effect with their own eyes, so they could guess to a certain extent.

At this time, there is no need to use the brain, and he opened his mouth and said: "I didn't hear it, we didn't hear anything."

Zhang Mei pointed to the audience and said: "A group of thugs, open their eyes and talk nonsense, do you want to die?"

A short man with a sharp mouth and monkey cheeks suddenly shouted: "My lord, the grass people heard you."

Everyone stared at that person in unison, wishing they could slap that bastard to death.

Zhang Mei said happily: "Very good, what did you hear? Tell me about it. To be honest, I will reward you!"

The man said with a playful smile: "There is no need to reward money. It is the duty of the people of my generation to report the truth to the officer for questioning. The villain has indeed heard it."

Zhang Mei laughed and said, "Quickly tell them."

The man said: "The villain heard it. Just now, a donkey was yelling at the street. I don't know if everyone heard it."

The common people roared with laughter, and someone agreed narrowly, "That's right, it's a big stupid donkey. I'm afraid it's the South Street butcher Zhang who is stirring up the donkey."

Zhang Mei's face turned purple, and she was about to draw her saber, but a guard in front of the palace quickly stepped forward to stop him, and whispered comfort in his ear.

Zhang Mei turned around with a sneer, cupped her hands to Su Jin and said, "Sure enough, the reputation is well-deserved, very good, I, Zhang Mei, admit it, but let me tell you, this matter did not pass so easily, see you in Beijing!"

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