Qin Official

"This is an anonymous letter, and you're still opening it!"

Heifu pressed Ji Ying's hand that was reaching for the straw rope and scolded him sharply. At the same time, he also noticed that Li Xian had done the same thing as him. But seeing that Heifu had stopped Ji Ying, he silently stepped back. .

"I..." Ji Ying was startled by the two people's reactions. He was stunned for a while, and finally remembered the last old postman's instructions to him, and suddenly he was sweating profusely.

It turns out that Qin's laws specifically stipulate that if you receive an anonymous letter, you must not open it! If you take it apart to look at it, you are breaking the law and you will be fined...

If Ji Ying had opened the letter just now, he would have to pay a fine of more than 4,000 yuan. Like the pavilion chief, as a grassroots civil servant, the postman also has a basic salary, but it is only 50 yuan a year. of rations. Calculated according to the "forty rice per stone" that the food price dropped after this autumn, we would have to work for two years without eating or drinking before we can pay it off.

"It's okay, it's okay, otherwise it would be terrible."

Ji Ying wiped his sweat and was thankful, while Hei Fu took the wooden letter in his hand and looked at it with a frown.

Because of Qin's relay-style postal system, inspections were very strict and an anonymous letter was basically not allowed to be sent between multiple locations. Therefore, there is only one possibility for this letter, and that is that someone secretly dropped it in while Ji Ying was delivering the letter.

Although Hei Fu didn’t know the content inside, it was probably a report letter! I want to borrow it from the mailman and hand it over to the government.

Despite the strict laws of the Qin State, which encouraged people to report rape, it also made strict regulations on reporting. Once the accusation was untrue or exaggerated, they would face "false accusations and rebellion."

Therefore, the Qin government's attitude towards the anonymous reporting letter is clear: if the reporting in the letter is followed and people are arrested and executed, I am afraid that everyone in the Qin Kingdom will be in danger, so this style of criticism without paying any price cannot be encouraged. Anonymous reports will not be accepted! Not even a glance...

Unless you have captured the person who wrote the letter, you can then open the letter, compare the testimonies, and ask for clarity.

"Ji Ying, do you know who put this in?" Heifu asked.

"How did I know..." Ji Ying was very wronged, "I didn't know there was such a letter in the basket until just now."

"Ting chief, since we haven't caught the person who posted the letter, we might as well burn it."

Li Xian, like Heifu, knew about this law. The recommended method of disposal in the law was to "burn it." This thing would be a hot potato even if it was kept. No matter what was written in it, if it was burned, it would be clean.

But Heifu seemed to have his own plan. He asked everyone to calm down and asked Dongmen Bao to call Pu Zhang, Xiao Tao and Yu Liang to the main room. As the director of the pavilion, he wanted to open a A small town hall meeting...

…

A moment later, all the members of the Huyang Police Station were seated on several straw mats in the small hall.

Seeking to steal the Dongmen Leopard, the father of the pavilion is Pu Zhang, the mailman is Ji Ying, and the pavilion soldiers are Li Xian, Yu Liang, Xiao Tao, plus Hei Fu, there are seven people in total.

And on the desk in front of them was the anonymous slip.

"That's just the way it is."

Heifu simply recounted what happened and glanced at the six people.

"As Li Xian said, the law stipulates that if an anonymous letter is submitted and the author cannot be caught, it must not be opened. It is better to burn it."

Everyone nodded, thinking this was the appropriate way to handle it.

Heifu paused for a moment and then said: "But you also need to know that the law also says that if the person who submitted the letter can be captured, the two of them will be rewarded!"

"Reward two concubines?"

When everyone heard this, except Li Xian, who had known about this rule, their expressions changed.

The so-called concubines refer to male and female slaves, male slaves are ministers and female slaves are concubines.

Qin was not an "advanced feudal country that abolished slavery" as promoted in later history textbooks, quite the opposite! The laws and regulations of this country are very advanced, but in some aspects, they are also quite backward. The proportion of slaves and prisoners in Qin's population is the largest among the seven kingdoms!

For example, in Anlu County, there are hundreds of male and female prisoners, concubines, and concubines who work for the government as city servants, ghost laborers, and rice pounders. In addition, almost every household of civil officials and nobles has one or two slaves. Many families, such as Li Xian's family and the local Lu Youli family, even have dozens of slaves. …

A large part of these slaves were the surrounding barbarians, or prisoners captured in the war. The law of Qin stipulated that "the bandits who surrender shall be treated as subordinates." Qin fought with the six kingdoms, and the dead were beheaded and the living were captured. A large part of them became As a subordinate minister, he flowed into the state of Qin. Of course, there were also Qin people who were implicated in crimes and became slaves. In the military merit system, some people rose and others fell, maintaining the balance of this hierarchical pyramid.

The children of concubines were also slaves, which led to an increasing number of slaves in Qin. Only slaves who performed meritorious service on the battlefield could redeem themselves and their families from freedom. This was the only way out.

The status of slaves in the Qin State was extremely low. Although Qin laws stipulated that slaves could not be killed or abused at will, they could be regarded as property and were allowed to be bought and sold. There was a phenomenon in various parts of the Qin State that "the cities of slaves and maidservants were placed in the same stalls as cattle and horses." In the human market of Anlu County, adult slaves and concubines were worth 4,300 yuan each, which was equivalent to a piece of armor or one hundred shi of rice. , as for the underage concubine, the price is even cheaper, only worth 2,500 yuan.

In other words, two adult concubines, plus a child, can be exchanged for an ox or a good horse. It is true that humans are inferior to animals...

Heifu naturally rejects this kind of system, but now he is just a small pavilion chief. He cannot protect himself under the tide of the times, let alone change the system.

He could only sigh silently and said: "Of course, two concubines, even two female slaves, are not enough for us to divide."

As soon as these words came out, except for the serious Li Xian and the old Pu Zhang, the other four people all laughed, especially Ji Ying who laughed the most lewdly. Everyone is a strong-blooded man and they all understand, but Xiao Tao is still a little confused.

"But it's different when it comes to money. Two concubines are equivalent to 8,600 rewards. When the time comes, we can choose not to have concubines but to get rewards!"

Everyone had different reactions when they heard about such a large amount of money.

Dongmen Bao, Ji Ying, and Xiao Tao were no strangers to this scene and looked at each other with smiles.

Pu Zhang's squinted eyes widened, and Yu Liang clenched his fists, licking his lips with his tongue, feeling a little moved.

Only Li Xian had an expressionless face and seemed not to take the money seriously.

Heifu saw the expressions of the six people one by one and said with a smile: "So, I want to try to see if I can catch the anonymous poster. If I can catch it, I will share the reward with everyone in the pavilion. !”

"Okay! Listen to the director of the pavilion!" Dongmen Bao, Ji Ying, and Xiao Tao are Heifu's best friends and have no objections. The Yuliang family is poor and needs money, so they also support the proposal.

Pu Zhang was the father of the pavilion and did not participate in the arrest. Although he was a little tempted, he finally shook his head and said that he was old and would not participate in the affairs of young people.

Only Li Xian raised his hand to Heifu and said: "Tingzhang, the reason why the reward for capturing the anonymous poster is so high, far higher than that of ordinary murderers and thieves, is because it is difficult to determine the whereabouts of the person who submitted the letter. As long as he is not witnessed by others, Come, he can just pretend that nothing happened. It's not like murder, there is a corpse as a clue, and it's not like stealing, but you can find where the property is. How should we look for it?"

In Li Xian's opinion, this matter is very troublesome. If the letter can be opened and the contents are read, the identity of the author may be roughly guessed. But now that the letter cannot be opened, they can only make blind guesses. It is extremely difficult to catch the person.

However, this problem did not seem to scare Hei Fu, but he said with confidence: "Otherwise, this matter is difficult to say, easy to say, but easy!"