Lu Ming

Chapter 657 Rescue the thief ([-])
If you use a drone to take aerial photos, the Hanyang government office in Hanyang City is a standard municipal office in the Ming Dynasty.

The government office faces south and is located in the northeast area of ​​Hanyang City—the true north represents the Forbidden City. In order to avoid taboo, the government office gave up the true north position.

The Hanyang government office covers an area of ​​about [-] mu, which is available to most government offices.Its interior along the central axis is a building complex with the lobby, second hall and inner hall as the core.

In addition to the second hall that people are most familiar with, the buildings in the entire government office also include side rooms, side rooms, horse houses, side rooms, list rooms, warehouses, department rooms, official houses, back houses, etc. The total number of houses and buildings is no less than a thousand. In fact, this is a pocket version of the Forbidden City.

With government offices, there are prisons.During the Ming and Qing dynasties, prisons must be set up in all prefectures and counties. This is one of the necessary administrative facilities for the ruling group.

The choice of the location of the prison is not random, and the location is generally west or southwest of the yamen.

The East hosts life, and the life gate and god gate are placed on the east side for ordinary people to enter and exit; the death gate and ghost gate are placed on the west side for death row prisoners to pass through.The southwest belongs to the land of Kun, which is regarded as a dirty place according to Feng Shui. Building prisons in this direction is to make the best use of everything.

Hanyang Mansion is no exception. The prison is located under the west wall of the mansion, adjacent to the outer wall.

The street outside the west wall of Fuya is called Yaxi Street.It is said that it is a street, but it is not wide enough, it can only barely accommodate two carriages, so it is more appropriate to call it an alley.

Because it is adjacent to the prison, ordinary people are afraid of bad luck and will not come here, so Yaxi Street is a deserted alley.In addition to writing fortune-telling and snack stalls, there are only two wreath shops.

Since ancient times, there have been countless secretive activities in the prison system, most of which are shady.

In addition, even on weekdays, officials and lords from all walks of life who come and go to the government office are equally unwilling to see unlucky prisoners and prisoners coming in and out of the office.

To sum up, the prison system actually escorts in and out of prisoners in many cases, including exporting/importing prohibited items, all through the west door.

The West Bianmen is located on the west wall of the government office, and it is an inconspicuous outer door.

This inconspicuous access door is the first checkpoint that a certain anti-thief rescue team focuses on.

In the previous planning, the plan to enter the prison from the front of the yamen was quickly rejected. There are frequent people coming and going, and there are too many uncontrollable factors to break into multiple access controls.

But Xibianmen is easy.As long as you break through this door, you can reach the prison system at the shortest distance while avoiding contact with other system personnel in the mansion.

It was noon on the second day after Bao Shinan and Xiaoguan "negotiated" in the restaurant.

During this period of time, the yamen naturally rested after get off work.However, a small number of excellent employees still have to work hard overtime, such as the prisoners in the prison. These are examples of Caritas love and deserve praise.

The next moment, Xiao Guan, who was wearing a plain robe, jumped off the side of the carriage parked on Yaxi Street.

After dusting off his robe, he reached out to take out two food boxes from the car, and the small pipe knocked on the animal face iron ring on the west side door.

There was a sound, and soon a prisoner on duty opened the small window on the door to observe.He clapped his hands and said hard work, and reported his name.Before it was too late, the door latch rang, and the door was quietly opened halfway, and the small tube was put in.

As soon as he entered the door, Xiao Guan glanced left and right.

What came into view was first a simple canopy against the wall, in which there were only two gentlemen and a bill.The rest is a long path between the feet.

The government offices and county offices built in the early days all had some military design requirements.

The existence of this lane is to provide a line of defense for the government and the government to guard after the city is breached.Therefore, the two high walls are made of high-quality blue bricks. The walls are 4 meters high, and there are rain-proof sliding tiles on them. mud."

The tubule is now between the two high walls.

Behind the case, the faces of the two prisoners in official uniforms were stiff.After putting the small pipe into the door, without further ado, he first searched his whole body carefully, including the food box.

After it was over, one of the thin-faced and mouse-whiskered men said, "Since I'm in charge of my friends in person, I'll explain myself to you, so let me do it."

"There is work, there is work." Xiaoguan then picked up the food box, and followed the thin-faced prisoner, and walked south along the wall for another 20 meters.

At this time, the real door leading to the yamen appeared on Xiao Guan's left hand.

When entering this door, Xiao Guan noticed: Unlike the first door opened from the inside, this second door, the thin-faced jailer took out the key, was a lock that was opened from the outside.

This idea of ​​use is easy to understand: the first door needs to be isolated from the outside world, so it needs to be opened from the inside.The second door is the working door for the staff in the aisle, which can be opened by the on-duty personnel at any time.

Xiao Guan secretly took note of this link.

After passing through the second gate on the second wall, another narrow passage appeared in front of Xiao Guan, and another high wall faced him.

This time, Xiao Guan knew: the prison has arrived.

Sure enough, I walked southward along this narrow path for more than ten meters, and then turned eastward, and it suddenly became clear: the main gate of the Hanyang government prison has arrived.

At this point, Xiao Guan, who had a general understanding of the topographic map of the government office in advance, was secretly pleasantly surprised: from a door to the prison gate, this journey is equivalent to walking in the corridor between the prison and the outer wall.

The prison complex virtually blocked the contact of irrelevant personnel.

This tacit design of the prison system is exactly what the rescue team needs.

From the outside, there is nothing special about the mysterious and gloomy prison in the legend.It is a traditional Chinese foyer with a curved inner splayed wall.

The door of the foyer is closed tightly as usual, with a black plaque on it, with the word "Prison" written on it.On the left and right sides, there are the same black vertical plaques, but it is a couplet: "I hope people will be happy in their careers, so why worry about prisons being empty."

Here, there is a guard on duty.Xiao Guan, who was following behind the thin-faced prisoner, took a closer look at the guard: an ordinary pawn with the word "forbidden" on his chest was leaning on a rotten chair, drowsy.

Theoretically speaking, the guards in charge of the prison system should belong to the "strong class" of the three classes of yamen servants.

However, due to the relatively strong professionalism and privacy, the people in the prison system are an independent hilltop among the government servants.The squad leader is called the prison head, and the ordinary employees are called jailers.

This group of people has a special establishment in the yamen, and it is at the same level as the head of the strong team called "dutou" as the saying goes.

Usually in the county government, the establishment of jailers is 6-8 people.In the Hanyang government office, due to the relatively large scale, there were 14 jailers in total.

Xiao Guan glanced at the guard, followed the thin-faced prisoner, and entered the prison through the short side door.

Passing through the gate, the first is a green brick screen wall.Going around the screen wall, what Xiao Guan saw was another ordinary main courtyard.

The front of the courtyard is the prison lobby, and the left and right sides are the office and torture room. Looking from the outside, there are indeed many instruments of torture hanging on the wall of the torture room. It looks blood-stained, and the gloomy smell comes out immediately.

And it was Bao Shinan who was waiting for Xiao Guan in the courtyard with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face.

Seeing Bao Laotou, Xiao Guan, who was already mentally prepared, hurried forward: "Haha, Bao Laotou is really a trustworthy person!"

"My job, my job."

Bao Laotou is extra polite today.After exchanging a few pleasantries, he waved back the thin-faced prisoner, and personally led the little tube inside.

Along the way, Bao Laotou also enthusiastically introduced to Xiaoguan: the left and right doors of the main courtyard lead to a courtyard where ordinary prisoners are held.

And the left side door that he leads Xiaoguan to go is the only way to enter the death row.

Through the left side door, Xiao Guan finally saw the legendary prison.

This is a courtyard where ordinary prisoners are held.Different from the fence-style prison cells similar to Datongpu in film and television dramas, real prisons in ancient times are actually rooms made of bricks and stones.

When he got here, Xiao Guan didn't have much to say, and followed the cell head step by step through the narrow aisle.

On both sides of the aisle, there is a row of ordinary cells.These rooms are all made of blue bricks, with narrow windows and low doors.

Looking up, the top of the head, which was so narrow that it felt like a ray of sky, was still covered with a rope net between the two eaves. The night walker and director flying around in the film and television drama probably didn't expect this.

Across the courtyard of ordinary prisoners, facing the narrow passage, are two forbidden rooms, where the jailers live.

Next to the forbidden room is the destination of Xiaoguan's trip: death row.

Death row is a separate door.On the door of the prison is engraved the head of "Qi An", which resembles a "tiger head", so it is commonly known as "Tiger Head Prison".

In the entrance hall of Hutou Prison, there is a door at the front and back, and the distance between them is only two or three meters, which is exactly the distance of a room.

The two doors were wide open at the moment, and Xiao Guan swayed into the death row following Bao Baotou.

However, when Xiaoguan passed through these two doors, he deliberately observed the position of the door frame.The next moment, he thought to himself: "As expected!"

The two prison doors are ingeniously designed, one opens to the left and the other opens to the right.When the prisoner escapes, even if he can open the first door in a hurry, he will often be helpless in front of the second door.The wisdom of the ancients can be seen.

Xiaoguan didn't know about this design beforehand.However, before he set off, his "brother" and master Huang Zhong took out a piece of paper from nowhere and told him nine subtleties that need to be observed as much as possible: the joint of the prison door is one of them.

The death row courtyard is not as crowded as the general prison courtyard outside. After all, the number of death row prisoners is relatively rare.

However, the construction of the death row courtyard is the most labor-intensive.

It is also a courtyard structure, three of which are cells with thick walls and bottom bricks, three cells on each side - the walls are 5 feet thick and filled with sand to prevent prisoners from punching holes to escape.

There are wells and sinks in the Death Row compound.In order to prevent prisoners from throwing themselves into the well, the width of the well is only half a foot, and the wheels and buckets are specially made.

As Baotou entered the courtyard, a prison came out of the forbidden rooms on the left and right sides.

What follows is the normal visitation process.First Bao Laotou recommended, and then Xiaoguan thanked the two elder brothers on duty for their hard work and handed over some money.

Next, Xiao Guan also handed one of the food boxes to the two old brothers: "It's cold, eat a small dish to keep out the cold."

After these procedures were completed, the smiling jailer took off the key hanging on the wall of the forbidden room and opened the door of a cell in the east of the courtyard for Xiao Guan.

After the thick wooden door was opened, as the sunlight shot into the prison, the first thing Xiao Guan saw was a thick fence—this fence also had a lock.

Through the fence, Xiao Guan finally saw the inside of the prison.There were indeed two people lying on the rotten grass in the corner.

The next moment, Xiao Guan yelled loudly: "Brother Tian, ​​Mr. Tian has asked my younger brother to come and see you!"

(End of this chapter)