How Judge Bao Interrogated a Donkey
Long ago, there lived a poor man nicknamed Wang Wu-zi—Wang the Fifth. He had a donkey, which he used to carry firewood and coal. While others earned their living by the work of their hands, this poor man relied on the back of his donkey. He cared for his donkey as if it were a precious treasure—he fed it, watered it, and even chopped fine grass for it with a sickle. He pampered the donkey so much that its coat became smooth and its bristles shiny. Whoever saw it would praise it:"Truly, a four-legged treasure!"
Of course, that donkey was stubborn—after all, it was a donkey! From morning till night, it would stomp its hooves, never giving itself a moment's rest. While other donkeys could carry a maximum of 120 jin, this one could manage 240. Another donkey would make one trip, but this one could make two.
One day, the poor man loaded his donkey with charcoal and took it to town to sell. He tied the donkey at the gate and carried the sack of coal to sell. When he returned, the donkey was gone. In its place, a scrawny, mangy donkey was tied to the tree. The poor man panicked, running east and west, searching everywhere, but the donkey was nowhere to be found. Overcome with frustration, Wang the Fifth grew angry and dragged the wretched, mangy donkey to Judge Bao to file a complaint, though he didn't know whom to name as the defendant. After much thought, he decided to file the complaint against the mangy donkey.
Judge Bao entered the courtroom and began hearing cases. When he came to Wang the Fifth's complaint, he ordered the guards to bring in the defendant and began scolding him:
"Hey! Where did you come from? How dare you take someone else's name and pretend to be another!"
But the donkey hung its head in silence, not uttering a single word!
Judge Bao grew even more furious. He banged his gavel on the table and shouted:
"Wang Chao, Ma Han! Quickly put a muzzle on this donkey! Don't feed it or give it water! Lock it up tightly for three days. After that, we'll interrogate it again!"
The guards, both those standing beside the judge on the platform and those in the courtroom below, almost burst out laughing but didn't dare. They had no choice but to carry out the judge's orders. They locked up the honorable defendant—the mangy donkey—in an empty pen. Meanwhile, the news spread far and wide, and people marveled, having never heard of such a thing before. On the third day, when the trial was set to resume, not hundreds but thousands of people crowded the courtroom. Everyone wanted to see what would happen.
Three drumbeats sounded, and Judge Bao entered the courtroom and took his seat. The guards immediately brought in the donkey: its belly was sunken, its head hung low—a pitiful sight. Judge Bao banged his gavel on the table and shouted:
"Hey, guards! Give this wretch forty lashes, and make them hard!"
"As you command," the guards replied in unison. They took their rods and began beating the donkey. Ten, twenty, thirty—all forty lashes were delivered.
Finally, Judge Bao ordered:
"Now release it and let it go wherever it wants."
The mangy donkey had spent three days locked up, three days without food or water, endured forty lashes, and was thoroughly terrified. As soon as it was released, it bolted out of the courtroom and ran off. That was the last anyone saw of it. Judge Bao then ordered a guard and Wang the Fifth to follow its tracks and see which house it ran into—whoever owned that house would be the thief who had stolen Wang the Fifth's donkey and left his own mangy one behind.
Wang the Fifth and the guard followed the tracks, accompanied by a few curious onlookers. They walked a full fifteen li until they saw the mangy donkey run into the yard of a farmhouse. The group followed the donkey and, of course, found the stolen donkey and captured the thief himself.
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