In the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908 AD), a piece of news spread in Chaozhou: 300 heinous bandits were executed by the prefect known as "Chen Qingtian".
When the people heard the news, not only were they not happy, but they returned to their homes one after another, closed their doors, and the streets were deserted.
Three years later, another news came: the prefect of Chaozhou, "Chen Qingtian", would be executed by the revolutionaries. After hearing the news this time, the people rushed to tell each other, clapped their hands and said that they were happy, and helped the old and the young to go to **.
Chen Qingtian's teacher, the ninety-year-old writer Wang Minyun, did not feel strange when he heard the news, but sighed and said: "I said that if he didn't listen, he knew that he would have this day." ”
Chen Qingtian: "Who is it?"Why did the common people not feel sorry for his execution, but were so excited?And when he executed the bandits, the common people were terrified
Chen Qingtian's name is Chen Zhaotang, Qing Wenzong Xianfeng was born in the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859) in Guiyang, Hunan, in a family of eunuchs, he was born with a golden key.
Chen Zhaotang's father, Chen Shijie, was a staff member of Zeng Guofan, who came up with a lot of golden ideas and made great contributions to suppressing the Taiping uprising. Therefore, after the Taiping Army was suppressed, Zeng Guofan strongly recommended to the emperor and let Chen Shijie serve as the governor of Shandong, become a feudal official, and become famous.
The common people still hope that their son will become a Chan, and Chen Shijie hopes that his son can reach or surpass him and have greater achievements in the future. attaches great importance to the education of his children and nephews, and spares no expense to hire the late Qing Dynasty writer Wang Minyun as their teacher.
Under the guidance of Wang Minyun, most of the ** of the Chen family have become talents, among which his son Chen Zhaokui and nephew Chen Zhaowen have become high school scholars, and they have all gone to the Hanlin Academy to become editors, known as them"A family of brothers, two Hanlin", enviable.
The other son, Chen Zhaotang, was not so competitive, and his performance disappointed his father. His father not only hired famous teachers for him, but also let him study in famous schools such as Sizhou Tiancangyan, Changsha Yuelu Academy, and Chengnan Academy. However, he began to participate in the scientific examination at the age of 16 and has been taking the examination for 14 years, and his name is Sun Shan.
In the fifteenth year of Guangxu (1889), Chen Zhaotang, who entered the year of establishment, completely lost confidence in the road of scientific research. If you are the children of ordinary people, you have to accept your fate, go home to repair the earth, and spend the rest of your life in mediocrity. Chen Zhaotang is the second generation of officials, his father has resources and money, and helped his son donate a county magistrate to Xingwen County, Sichuan to be the county master.
After that, Chen Zhaotang's mother and father died one after another, and he had to spend six years at home to mourn.
In the twenty-first year of Guangxu (1895), Chen Zhaotang, who had completed the mourning period, took office in Yunyang County, Sichuan, and finally could make great progress.
At the beginning, he was very dedicated, and worked hard for the peace and prosperity of the party, and in order to let the children of the poor family study, he donated money to build the college. When adjudicating cases, he is honest and honest, ensures judicial fairness, does not wronged a good person, does not let go of a bad person, and convinces the parties.
When he was transferred to Dayi County, the villagers stayed in front of his carriage with tears in their eyes, and later sent him on foot for dozens of miles, reluctantly.
Dayi County is a long-standing and difficult place, with very poor public security and rampant banditry. To what extent?In broad daylight, the common people did not dare to go on the road alone, for fear of robbery;The little woman did not dare to be at home alone, for fear of being defiled.
As soon as Chen Zhaotang took office, he began to vigorously rectify public order. A county government had no armed forces and could not do anything against the bandits, so he mobilized the local people and set up an autonomous armed force to protect the territory and the people.
As a result, it only took a year for the bandits to be so frightened that they ran away to other places, and the law and order situation changed greatlyAlthough it can't be said that "the road is not left behind, the night is not closed", at least everyone does not have to worry about traveling.
Through Dayi's suppression of bandits, Chen Zhaotang became famous, and everyone said that he was a bandit nemesis and a bandit king.
Liu Xinyuan, the prefect of Chengdu, was overjoyed when he heard about it, when he was troubled by the rampant banditry, frequent thefts, and deterioration of social security in Chongqing Prefecture (now Chongzhou City, Sichuan), and hurriedly transferred Chen Zhaotang to Chongqing Prefecture in the 25th year of Guangxu (1899).
Chen Zhaotang happily took office and vowed to do a big job, ** bandits there. After taking office, Chen Zhaotang not only copied his experience in Dayi, but also established a armor protection system for everyone to supervise each other and report in a timely manner.
For those who committed minor crimes, as long as they changed their ways, they were given heavy rewards and land were allocated. Bandits who refused to repent were caught with severe punishment and their noses and ears cut off.
He also set up a "rapid reaction force," and once a citizen reported a case of theft or robbery, these capable personnel immediately rushed to the scene on fast horses to quickly investigate and arrest the criminals.
After more than a year of rectification and crackdown, the public order situation in Chongqing Prefecture has been greatly improved, and "the prodigal son of thieves has turned back and is happy and convinced," and the people applauded.
However, some people have questioned his approach, arguing that the improvement of the law and order situation is based on his indiscriminate killing and indiscriminate use of torture.
For example, Li Chengli, the magistrate of Xindu (Xindu District, Chengdu), was very dissatisfied with Chen Zhaotang's approach, and some people acted as matchmakers, wanting Chen and Li to marry their daughters to Chen Zhaotang's son.
Li Chengli refused, saying that "I can't afford to climb high", and he heard about Chen Zhaotang"killed 300 thieves a year", saying that he was simple and rude in his treatment of thieves, not to mention killing, too cruel, and did not handle cases according to the laws of the Qing Dynasty.
Chen Zhaotang disagreed, intoxicated;Moreover, he was also appreciated by the emperor, and planned to promote him in the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (1900) and let him go to Jianzhou (Jianyang) to be the governor.
At this time, something unfavorable to Chen Zhaotang was posted, and his cousin Xia Shouyan was promoted from Sichuan East Province to Sichuan Provincial Government as the political envoy of the Sichuan Provincial Prosecutor's Office. According to the Qing system, the two brothers could not be officials in the same province, so Chen Zhaotang was reappointed to an idle post in Jiangxi.
Chen Zhaotang was very depressed at that time, and there was no place for heroes. But two years later, Chen Zhaotang met the noble Cen Chunxuan.
When the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, Cixi and Guangxu fled, and Cen Chunxuan, who was then the political envoy of Gansu, made a meritorious contribution to the rescue, and he was red and purple.
In 1902, the Sichuan Elder Association (gang organization) revolted, and things were a little tricky, and Cixi urgently transferred Cen Chunxuan as the governor of Sichuan to put out the fire.
But Cen Chunxuan is not too expert in "suppressing bandits", and he has no score in his heart. At this time, someone recommended Chen Zhaotang to him: "This person is an expert in 'suppressing bandits', let him come." ”
Cen Chunxuan was very happy and immediately recommended Chen Zhaotang to Qiongzhou as the governor. Thanks to the combined efforts of the two, the Presbyterian uprising was quickly suppressed.
Since then, Chen Zhaotang has become Cen Chunxuan's right-hand man, and he will never leave the left and right.
The following year, Cen was transferred to the governor of Liangguang and asked Chen Zhaotang to follow him and lead the Wu Kuang army there. No matter how others criticize, Chen Zhaotang insists that he is a good official, except for being ruthless, he has no other problems, and adheres to three principles: not lustful, not greedy for money, and not favoritism. After arriving in Guangzhou, according to the regulations, Cen Chunxuan gave Chen Zhaotang 2,000 taels of ** as expenses, but Chen Zhaotang did"Return the full amount"。
At that time, Guangxi encountered a major drought that had not been encountered in a hundred years, the people were in dire straits, and bandits and thieves increased overnight"The big ones slaughtered the city and plundered the wilderness, and the small ones took wealth and looted things"。
Chen Zhaotang was happy when he saw it, because he could show his skills, and suppressing bandits was his forte.
He recruited thousands of Guiyang guys"Two Guangtang characters for the whole army", began to fight in the whole province of Guangxi, killing thieves with nowhere to hide, crying dad and calling mother.
In the 31st year of Guangxu (1905), after the public security situation in Guangxi improved, Chen Zhaotang immediately went to Guangdong without stopping and started a new battle.
At this time, Chen Zhaotang had already become a powerful general from a small magistrate, and completed the gorgeous transformation from a civilian official to a military attaché. No one thought that this would become a bad thing and bring disaster to Chen Zhaotang.
Soon after arriving in Guangzhou, Chen Zhaotang's self-confidence was bursting, and his eyes were empty. In his heart, he is the great savior of the people of Limin, and the affirmation of himself by the court and his superiors illustrates this.
He served as the prefect of Huizhou, and after he began to "clean up the township", this mood was even more inflated, and he began to sweep away the "thieves" with an iron fist without mercy. As a result, Huizhou ushered in a bloody storm and fell into a terror, and within a year, the people gave Chen Zhaotang a nickname - "Chen Tubo".
In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, many of the so-called "bandits" in Guangdong were revolutionaries, and their appeal was to "oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty", not to rob homes and houses, which was essentially different from the bearded dreadlocks in the northeast.
Chen Zhaotang doesn't care about these, as long as it is a force that opposes the Qing Dynasty, it must be eradicated, as cruel and ruthless as a harsh winter.
When eradicating, unscrupulous means. In his heart, only to maintain stability is legal, and he can do whatever it takes. The most typical method is to follow the procedure, not to report to the police level by level, not to wait for the autumn to be beheaded, and to catch the "bandits" and correct the law on the spot.
Is that a bandit or not, and who will determine it?It was initially determined by the patriarchs of various ethnic groups and finally determined by Chen Zhaotang.
On August 20, 1907, the "Guangzhou General Chamber of Commerce" newspaper published a notice of "Huifu Chen Shouban Qingxiang Document".
The notice asks for each gentry and the house"The bandits in the clan must be quickly tied up and punished according to their names, in order to pull out the **"。It means that the Huizhou gentry and merchants will determine who is the bandit in the clan, and then punish them with capital punishment.
The real bandits have long been the kings of the mountains, who will stay in the clan honestly?Therefore, what is killed is often the small fish and shrimp, the real predators, but they will get away with it.
The ideas of the Cantonese people are trendy, and the people are very calm, and they are very dissatisfied with Chen's approach, and they do not approve of him doing so. "Current Affairs Pictorial" once reported a case of indiscriminate killing of innocents handled by Chen Zhaotang under the name of "Huizhou Mansion Grass Kan Human Life".
There was a small businessman named Robin Er in Yong'an, Huizhou (now Zijin County, Heyuan), who was kidnapped by the bandit Wu Huoguang in 1906. After receiving Luo's father's report, the "Qingxiang Camp Office" quickly attacked and captured the hostage Robin Er and the bandits together. That's when the funniest thing happened.
The kidnappers offered bribes to the officers and soldiers on errands, claiming that they were victims and were kidnapped by Robin II. Chen Zhaotang ignored Luo's bitter defense and put him to death. Afterwards, Chen Zhaotang knew that he had unjustly killed an innocent person, but the real kidnapper had already escaped, and he could only take the ** person Hu Youde into custody.
The Current Affairs Pictorial commented: "Chen Shou killed innocents indiscriminately, and he was well-known to the people. ”
Chen Zhaotang stayed in Huizhou for three years, during which he killed more than 3,000 people, and how many of them should not have been killed, or unjustly killed, can be imagined.
On November 27, 1909, Chen Jiongming, a member of the Guangdong Consultative Bureau, said this:"Of the more than 3,000 people killed by Chen Zhaotang in Huizhou, there were indeed a lot of injustices during this period. "
Chen Zhaotang's unscrupulousness is related to the instigation of the imperial court, and the emperor takes local stability as the basis for the assessment, and acquiesces and even encourages ** to do so.
In this context, the magistrates rushed to follow suit, "Therefore, everyone who is a magistrate wants to be Chen Zhaotang." "Chen Zhaotang's notoriety was later learned by his mentor Wang Minyun, and he worked tirelessly to persuade his students.
In the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908), Chen Zhaotang's 50th birthday, Wang Minyun specially wrote "A Couplet on Chen Shugan's 50th Birthday", implicitly persuading:"Five horses and one skull, brothers embroidered;Division whale crocodile, people and things in the same spring. "
It means that Chen Zhaotang, as a magistrate, should not always fight and kill, but should learn from Han Yu, who served as the assassin of Chaozhou in the Tang Dynasty, and wrote "Sacrificial Crocodile Text" to drive crocodiles for the benefit of the people.
Only when benevolent government is practiced, the people are free from grievances, and the society is just, can the local area be peaceful.
Otherwise, the symptoms will not be cured.
The people can't live anymore, there is no way out, "being a bandit is death, and being a bandit is also death", killing people can only intensify the contradictions and stop the boiling.
In August of the 34th year of Guangxu (1908), Chen Zhaotang set a record for murder:"One ** punished 300 people, and the county was terrified", which is chilling, the people not only did not cheer, but did not dare to go out.
Although Chen Zhaotang killed a lot of people who shouldn't have been killed, he was an official of the imperial court, so he didn't have anything.
As the saying goes, "when you come out to mix, you always have to pay it back", and Chen Zhaotang could not escape punishment. In the third year of Xuantong (1911), the Wuchang Uprising broke out, Chaozhou was soon recovered, and Chen Zhaotang was also captured by the revolutionaries.
At 8 a.m. on November 22, the revolutionary army tied Chen Zhaotang to a long bamboo ladder and hung a long slogan on the top of the ladder, which read 11 big characters: "Execute the thief Chen Zhaotang to thank the world."
When the people heard the news, they helped the old and the young to go to **, and some people lit firecrackers to express their joy.
Amid the cheers of the people, Chen Zhaotang, who was tied up with all kinds of flowers, was escorted to the photo wall in front of the department, his mouth stuffed with dry dung, and then he was shot.