Chapter 79 Punishment Measures

Chapter 79 Punishment Measures

Once he understood this, Wang Er swallowed back the words he had originally intended to say. He forced a smile and said, "No, no, we don't think you've been unfair. There's no need to ask the village elders or go to the yamen. You can handle it yourself."

Chen Lizheng stared at him. "Alright, then let's leave it at that for now. If you have any complaints about my decision later, I'll immediately hitch up a car and take you to the county town to report it to the police."

Chen Lizheng was unfamiliar with the current laws of the dynasty, and as a village official, he had no way of obtaining the newly enacted Great Wei Law. However, he had heard some basic information about the laws of the previous dynasty from his father, the previous village head of Mingfu Village.

The two laws they can apply to this matter are: "Thief shall be punished with fifty strokes of the cane if he does not steal money" and "Those who rape (women under the age of ten, even if they are sexually assaulted, shall be beheaded); if the act is not completed, they shall be exiled five hundred li; those who are injured shall be strangled."

This means that even if a thief does not obtain any property, he will still be punished with fifty strokes of the cane; a criminal who commits rape will be beheaded (if the woman is under ten years old, even if the other party consents, it will be considered coercion); a criminal who fails to commit rape will be exiled 500 li away; if the woman suffers physical harm, he will be sentenced to hanging even if the rape was unsuccessful.

Wang Sanhu's attempted theft resulted in a punishment of fifty strokes of the cane, while his attempted rape resulted in exile to a place 500 li away. Since the matter was handled privately within the village and without official approval, exile was deemed inappropriate. Therefore, the village headman planned to replace the punishment with caning or a fine.

He raised his voice, “If what Wang Sanhu did were handed over to the yamen for judgment, he would be whipped fifty times by the yamen runners and then exiled to a place five hundred miles away to do hard labor.”

Upon hearing this, most of the villagers couldn't help but hiss and gasp.

The villagers who didn't react were either clueless children who didn't understand what the punishment meant, or experienced elderly men and women who had heard about it before.

"Given that we are in a village, the exile policy is not very applicable. I have decided to follow the old rules and replace the exile of 500 li with a beating or paying silver."

“Now your family has two choices. One is to let Wang Sanhu receive fifty lashes and then your family will give twenty taels of silver to Miss Xie. The other is that Wang Sanhu will not only receive fifty lashes, but also eighty more strokes of the cane.”

Fifty lashes would be fine; a beating on the back wouldn't kill Wang Sanhu, but eighty strokes would definitely kill him.

Jiang Yuan even took the initiative to say to Chen Lizheng, "I will carry out the execution."

He spoke those four words in a calm tone, but the look he gave Wang Sanhu made Wang Sanhu feel that this little bastard didn't mean "I'm here to carry out the execution" at all, but rather "I want his life."

Terrified, Wang Sanhu cried out, "Father, Mother, save me! Save me! I don't want to be punished! Waaah, I don't want to be punished!"

Tears and snot streamed down his face as he cried like a 130-pound idiot.

Tan Xinghua felt sorry for her son and said without thinking, "Okay, okay, your parents will save you, save you."

Her husband and eldest son were struggling with the outrageous amount of twenty taels of silver. Thanks to the late Wang Eryou, their family was considered to be doing well in the village, but they had only saved a little over ten taels of silver in total.

Twenty taels of silver was a sum they couldn't scrape together even if they borrowed from all their few relatives. They could only sell one or two acres of land. But land was the lifeblood of farmers, and asking them to sell their land was more painful than cutting off their own flesh and bleeding them dry.

Seeing that his father and brother remained silent, Wang Sanhu cried even more miserably. He hopped over to Wang Eryou, pleading, "Father, Father, please save me! You can't abandon me, it's you..."

"Shut up!" Wang Eryou shouted, cutting off Wang Sanhu's reckless words in time.

“We’ll pay.” He looked at Chen Lizheng. “Twenty taels it is.”

Chen Lizheng nodded, "Alright, deliver the money to me before noon on the ninth day, and I'll be a witness for both of you."

To prevent this family from shamelessly insisting that they had given Xie Wan Niang money when they clearly hadn't, and then denying it after taking the money.

This wasn't Chen Lizheng overthinking things; it was simply that this family had a criminal record.

Wang Eryou, who indeed harbored such dark thoughts: ...

He cursed Chen Lizheng with all sorts of vicious words in his mind, but on the surface he had no choice but to nod and agree, "Okay."

Chen Lizheng glanced at Wang Eryou, whose face was contorted with pain, and knew perfectly well that he was secretly cursing him.

Although Chen Lizheng wouldn't take such things to heart, he would settle scores on the spot if he had a grudge. "As for you three accomplices, each of your families will contribute one man to the regular and miscellaneous labor assignments made by the county government this year."

Although Chen Lizheng and his father also took advantage of their positions to gain some benefits, what they gained were gifts for running errands for the villagers or festival gifts sent by the villagers themselves, rather than unscrupulously manipulating matters such as corvée labor and taxes.

Apart from the Wang family, who were punished for committing crimes, other families in the village with able-bodied men took turns serving in the military.

This punishment was not light for the Wang family, but it was within a reasonable range. Even if Wang Eryou and the others were dissatisfied, they still couldn't find any fault with Chen Lizheng.

But they were not willing to accept the punishment so easily, so they started making a fuss about Xie Wanniang hitting Wang Sanhu.

Tan Xinghua pointed at Xie Wanniang, "Village head, my Sanhu was beaten like this by that little bitch, shouldn't she give some money to treat my Sanhu's injuries?"

Xie Wanniang scoffed, "Who are you calling an old slut? Don't you know that 'those who enter someone's house without cause shall be flogged forty times, and those who are killed by the master shall be punished without exception'? Do you understand what that means? If you don't understand, go back and read more books."

This law was learned by Xie Wanniang from her adoptive father during the war years. At that time, some refugees sneaked into Xiejia Village, attempting to rob the villagers' homes. The eldest son of that family accidentally killed someone while protecting his family and felt guilty and uneasy. Her adoptive father then brought up this law and told the other party unequivocally that he had done nothing wrong.

Some villagers, unable to tolerate the Wang family's behavior, immediately asked Xie Wanniang, "Does this mean that if someone like Wang Sanhu breaks into someone else's house without permission, it's perfectly acceptable for us to kill him on the spot?"

Chen Lizheng's brow twitched, and he was about to say something when Xie Wanniang shook her head. She said:

"It depends on the situation. If the person comes through the main gate and makes noise to alert us, but doesn't intend to steal anything or harm us, then we cannot kill them."

"If it's simply that you don't welcome him, but he refuses to leave, you can only drag him out or beat him out. Killing him is not an option."