Fifteen Strings of Cash


Evil Deeds of the Rat	Suspected Are the Innocent		Wrongly Accused
Cai, Qinglin	Yang, Ling		Wen, Yuhang


Meeting with the Governor	Meeting with the Governor		Meeting with the Governor
Ji, Zhenhua Shen, Xiaoming	Ji, Zhenhua Shen, Xiaoming		Ji, Zhenhua


Searching for the Rat	Searching for the Rat		Searching for the Rat
Ji, Zhenhua Cai, Qinglin	Ji, Zhenhua Cai, Qinglin		Ji, Zhenhua Cai, Qinglin


Judgment Day for the Rat	Judgment Day for the Rat
Ji, Zhenhua Cai, Qinglin	Ji, Zhenhua Cai, Qinglin

Fifteen Strings of Cash
A bibulous pork butcher returns home one night very drunk and carrying fifteen strings of cash loaned him by a women relative to help start up his bankrupt shop again. Before stumbling to bed, he informs his pretty stepdaughter that he in fact received the money for her purchase price as a slave girl. Believing his drunken jesting, the terrified daughter runs away in the night to seek safety with an aunt in a distant town. After her flight, Lou the Rat—rogue, gambler, and petty thief—seeing lights in the pork shop and the door ajar, enters to find the butcher snoring on his bed and his half-concealed money visible beneath the pillow. In trying to make off with it, the Rat awakens the tipsy sleeper, a struggle ensues, and the pork butcher is killed with his own meat chopper. The next morning the neighbors find the corpse, and Lou the Rat, who is among them, cunningly directs suspicion toward the missing daughter. The watches are called out, and the neighbors join in the search. The daughter is discovered on the highway in the town company of a merchant's apprentice sent to buy goods in the town for which the girl is also headed. Unfortunately for the apprentice, the purchase money he carries totals exactly fifteen strings of cash. The young couple are thrown into jail right away and condemned to death by a stupid circuit judge who requires no other proof than the circumstantial evidence available. I despair, the young couple appeal to the local prefect, who has been ordered to supervise the execution but is noted for his fair-mindedness. After listening to their full story, he obtains reluctant permission from his immediate superior to conduct an investigation. Disguised as a fortune-teller, he tracks down Lou the Rat to a country temple and in a classic scene obtains all the evidence he requires through a piece of smart detective work. The murderer is arrested and brought to trial, while the wronged young couple and pardoned, rewarded, and set free. Characters 1. You Hulu, a bibulous pork butcher 2. Qin Kuxian, his old neighbor 3. Su Xjuan, his stepdaughter 4. Lou the Rat, a gambler and rogue 5. Xiong Youlan, a merchant’s apprentice 6. Guo Yuzhi, Magistrate of Wuxi 7. Kuang Zhong, prefect of Suzhou 8. Chou Chen, Governor of Jiangsu 9. jailer 10. Assistant to Kuang Zhong 11. Night Duty Officer 12. Headman Four Neighbors Two court Runners Four court attendants Four executioners Captain of the guard and four guards Act 1 (Evil Deeds of the Rat) Gourd You, a down and out butcher in Wuxi, a town in the metropolis of Changzhou, is elated to get a loan of fifteen strings of cash (the approximate equivalent of $20,000 today) from some relative to reopen his butcher shop. To celebrate his good fortune, Gourd drinks to intoxication before returning home. Once home, the drunken man lies in poor humor to his stepdaughter (whose mother had died), Delicate Su, that he has sold her to some rich family for cash. Su is so upset by the news that she sneaks out to her aunt in a neighboring town for help. Oblivious of her departure, Gourd dozes off into a wine stupor. At this point, Lou the Rat, a disreputable reprobate in town, walks by Gourd's house, having just lost everything at the gambling table. Seeing the lights still on in the house and the door open, he invites himself into the house, where he spots Gourd sleeping with a lot of cash falling out of his pockets. The Rat's attempt to take the money by force awakens Gourd, and they start a fistfight. In the scuffle the Rat grabbed a chopper and killed Gourd. Grabbing most of the fifteen strings of cash (some fell behind the bed), the Rat flees. As the day breaks, a neighbor Old Qin comes to pay Gourd a visit and discovers the murder and the disappearance of the daughter. When all the neighbors, including the Rat, gather, they agree to Rat that the daughter must be the suspect. The Rat and some then set out to look for her, while others go report the murder to the magistrate. Act 2 (Suspected Are the Innocent) On her way to her aunt in Gaoqiao, Su loses directions, when a young man by the name of Friendly Xiong, traveling in the same direction, offers Su to walk together to their destination. Before long, the posse looking for Su catches up with them. After some questioning, the Rat convinces all others that the two have been carrying on an illicit affair, which was met by Gourd's opposition, which led to his murder. To make matter worse for the two young people, fifteen strings of cash, same amount of money as was robbed of Gourd, are found on Xiong, whose explanation as to where the money came from falls on deaf ears, as the posse cannot believe anything he has to say. It is at this moment that runners from the city arrive on the scene and place the two under arrest and take them back to the magistrate of Changzhou. The scene ends with the Rat congratulating his good luck of finding two perfect scapegoats. Act 3 (Wrongly Accused) The magistrate of Changzhou, Stubborn Guo, is a man of limited intelligence and overloaded stubbornness. Refusing to hear any plea of innocence from Su and Xiong, he deals the two with a guilty verdict and sentences them to death. Act 4 (The Execution) Su and Xiong await their execution in the metropolis of Suzhou, with its magistrate Loyalty Kuang acting as the Supervisor of Execution by the governor of the province, Compassionate Zhou. Before the two are sent to the execution site, they come face to face with Kuang, whom they have long heard is a most just and compassionate official. After some desperate pleading and defensive argument, Kuang begins to think that they might be wrongly accused. He finally decides to put off the executions and sets off to the governor's mansion to ask Affectionate Zhou for the case to be reopened and reinvestigated. Act 5 (Meeting with the Governor) Despite Kuang's explanation and pleading, Compassion Zhou refuses to reopen the case and expresses displeasure at Kuang's interference. Kuang, however, persists in his requests to be allowed to spend a little more time reinvestigating the case, and finally Zhou agrees. Kuang sets off to Changzhou to find out the truth about the murder case. Act 6 (The Rat is Suspected) Kuang is in Changzhou joined by the city's magistrate Stubborn Guo in the reinvestigation of the murder of Gourd You. After much questioning has been put to the Headman and neighbors of the county where Gourd resided, one suspect comes into light -- the Rat. Act 7 (Searching for the Rat) Disguising as a fortune-teller who tells fortune by analyzing words offered by his clients, Kuang comes to a small Daoist temple in Wuxi, the town in Changzhou where the extremely jittery Rat is hiding. Ingenious, cat-and-mouse question-and-answer games lead to the Rat's admission to the crime. Not knowing that he has himself spilled the bean, the Rat thinks he is going to escape with the help of this warm-hearted fortune-teller, a godsend in his moment of need. Act 8 (Judgment Day for the Rat) The Rat is brought to justice and Friendly Xiong and Delicate Su are freed. In gratitude and elation, the two innocent youths sing Kuang's praises. All's well that ends well! By Ben Wang September 2004


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