Li Fan was appointed magistrate of Huang County and was deeply loved by the people of Huang County. He stayed in office for a long time. When he was about to finish his third term, a disaster occurred.
Li Fan administrative decisions in Huang County benefited the people and won their love, but they offended the interests of a few rich people. His superior, the governor of Dengzhou, was also “aware of his integrity, but jealous of his straightforwardness. He often spoke well of him, but secretly harmed him.”
In the eighteenth year of Emperor Kangxis reign, a murder case occurred in Huang County. A criminal attempted to rape a woman, and upon hearing the news, her parents rushed to arrest him but were killed by the criminal instead. The criminal was later captured and sentenced to death. He reported the case truthfully to the prefecture, revealing that the criminal was a relative of the prefectural official. The prefectural official ignored it, but Li Fan punished the criminal according to the law. This was indeed his due punishment, but when the prefectural official saw that he had killed his relative, he altered the charges, claiming that a farmer couple had stolen grain, and his relative had killed them to protect state property. Li Fan disregarded the laws of his own dynasty and wrongly executed an innocent man. As a result, the court issued an edict to imprison Li Fan.
The official who carried out the arrest came to Huang County and, seeing the high plea from the people of Huang, decided to take Li Fan to the mansion first. Upon hearing this news, the people of Huang County agreed to send off Li Fan on the day he left the county. They would support the elderly and carry the young, burning incense and holding candles along the way. The cunning officials learned of this plan and took Li Fan away overnight.
Li Fan was arrested and thrown into the imperial prison as a major criminal. Thousands of commoners came to visit him. It was a hot day, and those with money bribed the jailers to bring fans inside for him; those without money sat outside the prison, weeping all day long. Later, the court discovered this and moved Li Fan to Wanping Prison. The commoners continued their visits, crying in the prison, while also sending Li Fan many eggs and chicken dishes. One dawn, the magistrate of Wanping noticed roosters crowing throughout the city. Upon investigation, he found that the roosters were crowing because the chickens sent by the people of Huang County had been delivered to Li Fan. The magistrate reported this to the court, which then exiled Li Fan to Shanhaiguan, where he worked during the day and guarded the pass at night. Due to the long distance, many commoners could not make the journey, so they wrote numerous petitions to appeal their cases. Thus, Li Fan was imprisoned for three years. Thanks to the appeals of the commoners and the help of his friends and family, he was eventually released. This is the story of “The Commoners Crying in Prison.”
After Li Fan was released from prison, he had no money to go home. He was temporarily taken in by a friend in Wuhu. It was not until he was 63 that his family took him back to his hometown to enjoy his old age.