Let me tell you a story and you will know:

China’s lottery has a long history. The earliest lottery betting method with lottery characteristics is probably the "Mengcai" in the Qin and Han Dynasties. . In the second year after Han Emperor Liu Bang proclaimed himself emperor, that is, in 205 BC, the first "colorful person" appeared in the urban area of ??Qianyang, not far from the royal family. The "colorful man" places 64 three-inch square lacquer boxes in a neat order on a stall table that is about ten feet long and five feet wide supported by four legs. The boxes are filled with silver, jade, gold and other "colorful objects", while some boxes are empty with nothing at all. Before betting, let the onlookers see the contents of the box clearly, and then pull up a curtain in front of the stall to cover everyone's eyes. The "Lottery Man" moves all the gold and silver in the box out of position to avoid being caught by the scheming onlookers - the Lottery Players, who will mark the correct position and win the lottery in one fell swoop. Finally, the "Lottery Man" covers each box with a piece of black linen cloth to prevent lottery players from seeing clearly whether there is anything in the box. After that, interested players can "bet" freely, with five bets (three boxes), one bet of silver and two coins. That is, one tael of silver can be invested five times. The maximum amount of luck for a lottery player is 10 taels of silver, which means that if you are lucky, in just a few moments, you can not only get the lottery items in the box, that is, gold, silver, and jade ornaments, but you can also get a high "bonus" at a ratio of 1:10 . The latter is the key to people's great interest in lottery since ancient times! During the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, "caixuan" stalls and even gates could be seen everywhere on the streets of Chang'an, the capital city. Citizens are smiling and having fun "winning the lottery", just like guessing riddles, wanting to "try it" with their luck. At that time, everyone from the third rank in the court to the soldiers and horse guards often went out in plain clothes and shoes to "choose the lottery". In the Song Dynasty, there were even more gambling phenomena. Although it had not been "industrialized", it was common in big cities and counties. Even when the Hui and Qin emperors were captured by the Jin soldiers, people "catching lottery" along the Qinhuai River in Nanjing often took photocopies. In the clear waves of the river. If the "Mengcai", "Catching Lottery" and "Selecting Lottery" mentioned above are of the nature of "gambling", and lottery is still in its infancy among the people, then by the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, gambling had already been transferred from the people to the government. , became an official lottery. At that time, floods and famines often occurred in the Jiangwan area, and people were displaced, which affected social stability and also affected the local tax revenue of the Qing government. Therefore, Emperor Guangxu once issued a large number of lottery tickets on the grounds that people in Jiangsu, Anhui and other severely flooded areas were in dire need of relief. In 1904, the 30th year of Guangxu's reign, Cen Chunxuan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, raised as much as 3 million taels of private funds for mining resources, building water conservancy projects, and building railways, all by issuing lottery tickets. The color grid is divided into five grades: one color, two colors, three colors, and even five colors. The winning amount for the luckiest person is 1:10000. That is, if you invest one tael of silver and win the jackpot, you can get a bonus of 10,000 taels. The winning bid is huge and mouth-watering! As the saying goes, a horse is not fat without night grass, and a man is not rich without extraneous wealth. The huge amount of winnings in the lottery has fueled the speculative psychology of lottery players, tempting thousands of people to be eager to try, and then bet in the lottery one after another. And the lucky ones who win the first, second, and third lottery prizes become "celebrities" in society and become the target of public criticism. Many people who invested heavily but failed to win, as well as those gangsters who secretly coveted money, began to take aim at these people who won the lottery and became rich overnight. Therefore, from the beginning of lottery, even in its gestation stage during the Tang and Song Dynasties, countless major lottery cases occurred with its germination and birth. The murder of Chen Shouze, the lottery maker of the Eastern Han Dynasty, happened on the fifteenth day of the third month of the lunar calendar in the second year of Emperor Guangwu's reign in the Eastern Han Dynasty. This day is the day to worship the gods. The people of Luoyang were gathering in front of the altar to pray for the blessings of the Dragon God and good weather. Suddenly, a flying horse came to report to Peng Yuchun, the official who presided over the "big sacrifice": A man was killed in front of the "Mengcai" (lottery stall), and he was bleeding profusely. The streets are miserable. Suddenly, people were shouting: It is a blasphemy to the gods to do this evil thing on the day of worshiping the gods! ... Peng Yuchun led his troops and horses to rush to the scene of the accident. I saw a bloody corpse lying in front of Meng Cai's stall. He was a male with a fair complexion and a beard. He was about forty years old. Blood seeped out from his neck...it was obvious that he had been killed by a knife, ax or other sharp blade. After checking the surrounding witnesses, they told that the deceased was a relatively wealthy gatekeeper not far away, named Chen Shouze, and it was Chen Shouze who set up this Mengcai stall. The onlookers told Peng Yuchun: Earlier, there was a burly man who came to bet, but unexpectedly his bet was not successful. In a moment of impatience, he borrowed money from the stall owner Chen Shouze, and Chen lent him five taels of silver. Who knew that this was the case? A man is unlucky and loses everything quickly. The man seemed unwilling to give up, and borrowed money from Chen to bet on the lottery. Chen saw that the man repeatedly borrowed money and lost money, said rude words, behaved rudely, and seemed to have an abnormal temperament, so he would never borrow money again, so the two started arguing. During the dispute, the man became more and more angry as he talked, and even pulled out his sword to make gestures. Chen Ruo would have been fine if he had retreated. However, Chen insisted on trying to reason with the man and scolded him as a "donkey's son"! The scolding made the man furious, and he rushed forward, slashing Chen Shouze on the neck with just one knife... Peng Yuchun, the officiating official, looked at the stall. Dozens of lacquer boxes were intact, and the gold and silver ornaments in the boxes were evenly distributed. Now, he ordered the government officials to guard the scene and some soldiers to report to Luoyang County Magistrate Yu Yan quickly, while he tracked the murderer along the way.

Peng Yuchun soon found out the whereabouts of the murderer. After the murder, the man fled all the way and disappeared in front of the gate of Yinjiu, the richest man in Luoyang... After hearing Peng Yuchun's report, Luoyang County Magistrate Yu Yan urgently ordered his subordinates to use Yinjiu to move into the house. As the center, a comprehensive investigation was launched. As a result, the murderer was found to be named He Guangzhou, who was hiding in Yinjiu Mansion. What troubles Yu Yan is that as the richest man in Luoyang, Yin Jiu is an extraordinary figure. He is the brother of Queen Guanglie Yin Lihua. He usually relies on the power of the imperial relatives, is lawless, and often does evil things. What makes the people even more resentful is that not only is Yinji himself causing harm to the village, but he also has nearly a hundred followers under his command. Some of these disciples did have martial arts and literary talents, but many were robbers and thieves. The above-mentioned murderer He Guangzhou, who killed Chen Shouze due to repeated arrests and defeats by Meng Cai, was one of them. What Yu Yan could not have imagined was that when he sent troops to search and arrest He Guangzhou at Yinjiu's mansion, the soldiers searched everywhere but could not find him. Obviously, He Guangzhou absconded secretly with his master's permission and support. As the days passed, Luoyang County Magistrate Yu Yan ordered his subordinates to step up the investigation several times, and sent people to use the cook as an "inside agent" to sneak into the Yinjiu Mansion as an undercover agent to find out the whereabouts of He Guangzhou's absconder. However, day after day, month after month, Two years have passed and there is no trace. The statue of He Guangzhou disappeared from the earth. Just when the case was about to be thrown into the deadlock, news suddenly came from Zhangye County, Gansu. The news said that Wei Liang, a local butcher who made a living by slaughtering cows and pigs, was imprisoned for committing suicide for money. Wei Liang spoke with a Central Plains accent, but did not say where his surname was from the Central Plains. He only said that his parents died when he was young. Since there were many cattle and sheep in the Western Regions, he was good at butchering skills, so he went west to Yangguan and as far away as Gansu to make a living and make a fortune. His wife Li revealed that her husband Wei Liang was from Luoyang, and he traveled to Western Xinjiang and arrived in Gansu because something happened at home. Because he was tall and had good skills, she married this foreigner who was more than ten years older than her. It turns out that this person is He Guangzhou. According to Han law, murderers should be beheaded. He Guangzhou was finally escorted back to Luoyang from Zhangye, and was executed at the Zhenggongmen in the third year of Jianwu (Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty), that is, on the first day of winter in AD 27. As a result, Yu Yan hurt Yin Jiu's face and even his relationship with Queen Yin Lihua, but Yu Yan was not afraid. He said: "If you are not upright, it will be difficult to govern the people below." Yu Yan's fair enforcement of the law was highly praised by the people of Luoyang, and This left behind this eternal legal saying: "With such a sergeant, the sky net will be well established, and no omissions will be missed!" The case of Hua Dang who became rich through lottery tickets and was murdered in the Song Dynasty During the Northern Song Dynasty, during the reign of Renzong and Mingdao, a shocking case occurred in Changsha, Hunan. Hua Dang, a student who became a wealthy man in the west of the city overnight, was killed, and all the millions in property he had obtained from "lucky lottery" were looted. The news shocked Changsha City and even the entire Xiangjiang River. Hua Dang, who was twenty-seven years old at the time, had been very smart since he was a child, and his neighbors praised him as a child prodigy. Regrettably, Hua Dang repeatedly failed in the exams, as if God was teasing him. Every time he faced the exams, he would either suffer from a cold and a headache, or he would suffer from vomiting and diarrhea, and he was so weak that he did not even have the strength to write when entering the exam hall. However, who would have thought that Hua Dang, who had failed in his scientific career, would become famous in the popular "luck-catching" style in Changsha. It turns out that the lottery draw in the Song Dynasty is very similar to the Mengcai draw in the Han Dynasty. The lottery notes are placed in the box. The difference is that the box used in the Song Dynasty draw lottery is made of hard paper. The box is divided into many small grids, and the lottery notes are placed in the boxes. The scrolls indicate the lottery value, which is the value of the lottery. These are "big lottery", that is, lottery selections with high bids, so they are also very risky. Relatively speaking, "small color" means that the grids in the box contain some small and exquisite decorations, such as fake jadeite, fake jade bracelets and other imitations. Because they are imitation jewelry, the price is naturally very low. Perhaps it was because Hua Dang was so smart that he repeatedly won the lottery and almost never missed it. Therefore, he was also nicknamed "Xuancaizi", which means a natural expert in lottery selection. Overnight, Huadang became famous as a "sudden rich" on both sides of the Xiangjiang River. It was precisely this kind of wealth that came easily that made him murdered in his prime, leaving his body lying on the bedside, which was horrifying! After the incident, the Privy Council (the central agency in charge of military affairs and supervision) ordered Ouyang Feng, the capital of Changsha, to solve the case quickly to prevent civil unrest. Due to successive droughts, locust plagues, and floods in the late Ming Dynasty of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, thieves were everywhere, and the society was in turmoil. state. After investigation, Hua Dang’s parents both died three years ago. After the mourning period, when Hua Dang became rich from lottery, he married Fang Huizhen, the daughter of Fang Hongchu, who had been an inspector in the city in his early years (an official specializing in hunting down murderers and thieves in coastal areas). On the night of April 6th, Huadang was hit on the head with a heavy object (a hammer, an ax and other crime tools) and his brain matter splattered and died. Strangely, Hua Dang's wife Fang Huizhen, who was at the scene and knew the most intimate details, also disappeared at the same time. Fang Hongchu, an old catcher who has retired and returned to his hometown after being over 60 years old, was shocked when he heard the news. Because he and his wife had only one daughter, whom they loved like the apple of their eyes, and his daughter had been married to Hua Dang for less than a year. How could this happen? ... Ouyang Feng had many doubts after checking: Although Fang Hongchu was a police officer, he would never kill the son-in-law of a newly wealthy family in his prime. So, could it be that Hua Dang's wife killed her husband and then ran away in fear of crime? However, according to the Fang family and Huadang neighbors, the two were extremely loving and inseparable after their marriage. Hua Dang bought Fang Huizhen some cakes, food and fine clothes and accessories from time to time, and he was very kind to his wife. Moreover, Hua Dang was extremely intelligent, fair-faced, and a well-groomed man. How could she kill such a husband after their wedding? Ouyang Feng analyzed it for a long time and concluded that the case was committed by someone near Huadang, and his motive was nothing more than murder for money.

But judging from this, why is it that Fang Huizhen is not seen alive and her body is not seen dead? Isn't it a weird thing? After thinking about it like this, Ouyang Feng gradually focused the case on the suspicious point of Fang Huizhen's disappearance. One day, Fang Hongchu came to report: When his daughter was a child, she played with her childhood sweetheart, the son of her former neighbor Yang Chaofu. Later, Yang Chaofu moved his family to near Yuelu Mountain. A few years ago, the Yang family came to propose marriage, but due to the death of their daughter Huizhen, He had known Hua Dang for a long time, so he politely refused. Now his daughter suddenly disappeared and his son-in-law was killed. Was it his fault? After Ouyang Feng heard this, he urgently ordered Yang Qing, Yang Chaofu's son, to attend the trial. After Yang Qing arrived in court, he confessed that he had given up on Huizhen for a long time. He said that he had never dared to watch chickens being slaughtered since he was a child. How could he dare to kill people with his bare hands as a decent man? The detectives searched the residences of the Yang family and their near and far relatives, but found no trace of Fang Huizhen. At this time, Ouyang Feng's assistant Lin Yuankui offered advice and said: "It seems that someone killed Hua Dang and then took Fang Huizhen hostage and flew away. If this is the case, it cannot be found in this city." He suggested searching inside and outside the city. A man who is missing or out of town, so it is possible to find the murderer. Sure enough, Lin Yuankui's investigation suggestion soon received a response. ——The day after the investigation order was issued, Master Wu Chan, the abbot of Yuelu Temple, sent someone to report that a monk named Huizhen in his temple suddenly disappeared from the temple a few days ago. The day he disappeared was the day Hua Dang was killed! According to the rural address of Huizhen before becoming a monk provided by Yuelu Temple, Ouyang Feng immediately found Huizhen's original home in Xixia Township, Wangdu Town, west of Changsha, and found Huizhen and a tearful Fang Huizhen from the cellar of his home. It turns out that when Huizhen was a child, he had a rough temperament, was brutal, and often got into trouble. His parents sent him to Yuelu Temple to become a monk in the hope that under the influence of the abbot's Buddhism, he could change his evil ways, become good, and return to his true nature. Unexpectedly, Hui Zhen's evil nature is hard to change. Although he chants Buddhist scriptures, he always has wild thoughts whenever he sees a woman worshiping Buddha and offering incense. That day, Hua Dang and his wife came to offer incense to ask for a son. The family's family background was clearly stated. They also saw that Fang Huizhen looked like a fairy. They couldn't help but have evil thoughts. After Hua Dang and his wife offered incense, they followed Hua Dang to Hua Dang's residence and killed Hua Dang. Go to Fang Huizhen... The news of Huizhen's execution shocked Changsha City. This case is not only the first case of a local monk being punished for committing evil since ancient times, but also the first major case since the emergence of "lottery" in the Xiangjiang River area. The theft of lottery tickets in the Qing Dynasty In the third year of Daoguang reign of the Qing Dynasty, Chen Huizu, a wealthy man in Zhanjiang and Dongguan areas of Guangdong Province, read ancient books and was very knowledgeable. From his reading of history, he suddenly thought that the practice of lottery selection from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Tang and Song Dynasties could be used as a way to make money with a huge profit. Therefore, he won over Guangdong officials and even the examiners, from the imperial examination to the provincial examination and the general examination. In the list of candidates, the names of many candidates who are likely to win are listed as "color backgrounds", which are written on thousands of paper scrolls. There are naturally many "empty lottery tickets" among them, that is, "empty tickets" without the name of the examiner - such tickets are naturally impossible to win the lottery. Because Chen Huizu was wealthy and had the support of the government, and Chen Huizu was well-educated and a philanthropic figure in the local area, the "big lottery" in the third year of Daoguang attracted thousands of lottery players, which was an unprecedented event. Unfortunately, after the imperial examination results were released, many people got "white tickets", and too few people "won the lottery", and even if they won the lottery, it was a "small ticket", which aroused public resentment, especially for large lottery tickets that cost a lot of money. The household was even more furious. Some people even claimed: "Kill Chen with blood and hatred!" On September 9th, during the Double Ninth Festival, Chen Huizu led more than 30 people from his family to his hometown in Yaoshan Township, Qionghai to worship his ancestors. On the way, he suddenly jumped out of the jungle. A group of robbers, all holding sticks and wearing black scarves on their heads, only showing their fierce eyes. Chen and his party were unprepared, and Chen Huizu was immediately pulled out of the sedan by the gangsters and hacked to death with a flurry of knives. His family members shouted "Help", but they were in the wilderness and there was no one to rescue them. Dozens of people died or were injured, and few survived. The only survivor was a servant named Wei Maoren whom Chen Huizu had just summoned. After he was hit in the head by a gangster with a wooden stick and passed out, he was mistakenly thought to be dead and so he narrowly escaped with his life. It was already midnight when Wei Maoren woke up. By the light of the stars and the shadow of the moon, he suddenly found a three-foot-long sword among the twenty or thirty corpses. There was still sticky blood on the knife. He immediately concluded: This bloody blade must have been thrown away by the bandits who killed the owner's family because they fled in panic... Dongguan County Magistrate You Kun felt very strange after hearing Wei Maoren tell what happened, because although Chen Huizu had a wealthy family Feng, but he has never done any bad deeds in life. He often provides relief to the victims in years of famine and famine, and many people have a good reputation for him. When did he become such an enemy that he wanted to kill everyone in his family? You Kun then personally led his officials and other officials to the murder scene fifteen or sixteen miles away from Haiyao Township. They conducted a careful investigation of the scene and its surroundings, but found no remains or other clues that could be used to solve the case. You Kun carefully observed the bloody blade that Wei Maoren accidentally obtained from the scene and found that the Daba knife was cast by a local blacksmith. He immediately asked his men to quickly summon all the blacksmiths in the county to the county government office and let them identify who cast it on the spot. The first person to identify, Yang Muching, took the knife into his hand and looked at it up and down, and then said: "This knife was made by Mr. Chen." Mr. Chen, named Chen Daowang, is the elder of the local blacksmiths. He is nearly sixty years old, so this book Pedestrians respectfully call him "Chen Gong". When Chen Daowang took the knife and looked at it, he found that he had cast it himself, because there was a unique circular mark on the handle, which could not be seen by an expert. Chen Daowang pointed to the knife and replied to the county magistrate You Kun: "This knife was given to Lin Yuning in Beifang Street in the west of the city a month ago.

Lin used to be a bandit. Later, when his old mother became seriously ill, he gave up his duties and fulfilled his filial piety and returned home to serve his sick mother. But I don’t know what the purpose of his knife is. So he asked Lin why. Lin Yuning said that in the past, all knives were handed over to the government, but now they only buy knives for personal protection. But the villain saw that he didn't seem to be telling the truth, so after making the knife mold and quenching it, he asked him if he still wanted to go back to his old business? He replied that he bought a lottery ticket with hundreds of taels of silver, but failed to win a single ticket. He really wanted to kill someone with a knife. Saying that, let me sharpen the knife faster..." After investigation, it was found that Lin Yuning was indeed a tyrant in Dongguan. In the past, he had cut and robbed roads and made some ill-gotten wealth, so his family had quite a lot of money. He also checked the head of the lottery bank. Chen Huili (a distant brother of Chen Huizu) confirmed that Lin Yuning was indeed one of the "lottery pickers" who invested the most lottery money. However, what the county magistrate You Kun never expected was that when he sent people to arrest the suspect Lin Yuning, the Lin family was in the process of arresting him. It turned out that almost all of Lin Yuning's family died of an inexplicable strange disease. Three years ago, Lin Yuning's father felt numb and painful all over his body in the middle of the night. When Lin Yuning's mother, Jia, stood up to look at her, Lin's father just said "Ah!" According to Lin Yuning's neighbors, not long after Lin Yuning went out with a big knife, her mother fell in front of the door. When everyone was struggling to lift her to the bed, she screamed that her whole body was numb and painful... Before everyone went to look for Lin Yuning, she gasped several times and died. When Lin Yuning returned home, she couldn't help but cry bitterly when she saw her mother dying on the bedside. But not long after she cried, she frowned. He cried out that his whole body was numb and aching, but after a few screams, he fell limply to the ground and died. The county magistrate You Kun ordered the soldiers to search Lin's house, and they found blood on his clothes and pants. A closer look at Lin's body revealed traces of blood between his fingers. There are also traces of blood on Lin's shoes, especially on the heels... At this point, it is basically certain that Lin Yuning was one of the murderers of dozens of people in Chen Huizu's family in the lottery incident. However, it is not certain that Lin is dead. Convicted. In order to investigate the case further, You Kun posted notices several times, clearly announcing that the principal criminal Lin Yuning was dead. As long as the remaining criminals surrendered, they would be pardoned... But time passed year by year until the end of Daoguang, that is, AD In 1851, Emperor Xianfeng succeeded to the throne, and You Kun had already been promoted to the prefect of Liangzhou. No one surrendered, leaving only layers of unsolved doubts: Even if Lin Yuning was the chief culprit in the case, how did he gather dozens of people? Robbers? What are the names of those gangsters, where do they live, and why do they follow Lin Yuning to commit crimes? To this day, this huge mystery of the Qing Dynasty lottery is still an unsolved mystery.