章 90: Chapter 91: Trial and Execution
The trial on the second day was held in the square. All the captives were brought there to watch, and of course many Sleeping Bears and Chiricahuas also came to watch.
For almost everyone, this is an unheard of scenario.
As the chief in charge of the three functions of legislation, administration and justice, although Ma Shao had already established laws and simple judicial procedures, this was the first time he had held such a large-scale trial.
Amid the discussions of the crowd, a total of nine people were tied up and taken to the center of the square.
More than 20 Sleeping Bear warriors, holding long swords in their hands, surrounded them without saying a word. As "bailiffs", they were all carefully selected and had outstanding heights, adding more solemnity to the trial.
The nine tied people were naturally the prisoners to be tried. They were the chiefs and war chiefs of the five tribes, as well as the traitor Fang Lian.
There were originally eleven people, but two of them had died on the battlefield yesterday.
Most of the nine people looked pale. Although they had no concept of trial, they could feel the solemn atmosphere.
When the Sleeping Bears saw them, they all looked down on them: "These ignorant fellows actually dared to challenge the Apaches!"
"Yesterday on the battlefield, they had nearly twice as many people as us, yet they were beaten like weeds under the feet of a herd of buffaloes!"
"Today is the day they die. I think I should bring something and throw it on this man's head—"
"Silence!" shouted the soldier maintaining order.
In addition to those standing next to the prisoners, there were a total of more than two hundred soldiers and militiamen near the square, especially around the prisoners, all standing upright with muskets in their hands.
People quieted down.
At the same time, Ma Shao also came out of the chief's hall and walked straight to the square, accompanied by the high priest Rainy Day and the Oak Chief.
Ma Shao sat in the seat belonging to the judge, and the trial officially began.
He first looked at Fang Lian, read out a series of his crimes, and then asked: "Fang Lian, do you plead guilty to the crimes I just mentioned?"
As he said this, he gestured to the soldier next to Fang Lian, who immediately pulled out the rag stuffed in Fang Lian's mouth so that he could speak.
"I swear I'm going to--" Fang Lian started cursing, but before he could finish his words, a rag was stuffed into his mouth again.
Ma Shao nodded calmly: "The prisoner voluntarily gave up the opportunity to plead his case."
Then he continued, "Fang Lian has committed four crimes: treason, splitting the tribe, insulting the chief, and inciting internal war among the indigenous people... The facts are clear and the evidence is irrefutable. I hereby sentence the traitor Fang Lian to death by firing squad. The execution will be immediate!"
"Woo——" Fang Lian's eyes were bloodshot and wide open, but he couldn't utter a word.
Ma Shao continued to try other prisoners.
Except for the square-faced man, the rest were pure war criminals, three of whom were diehards, and their natural fate was death penalty.
Until it was the owl's turn to be judged.
"Owl, you believed the rumors spread by Square Face, instigated internal wars among the indigenous people, and destroyed the unity of the indigenous people. Do you plead guilty?" Ma Shao looked directly at Owl.
The owl knelt on the ground, lowered his head, and said in a trembling voice: "I plead guilty, I confess... I shouldn't have attacked Sleeping Bear on impulse. The indigenous people should unite instead of attacking each other. As a sinner who destroyed the unity of the indigenous people, I am willing to accept any punishment!"
Ma Shao paid attention to people's reactions.
The Sleeping Bears mostly reacted with disdain and contempt to Owl's remarks. In their view, Owl was just being cowardly and trying to win some sympathy, which was indeed the case.
The captured Comanches heard this and reacted with confusion and anger.
Ma Shao had stated the charge of "inciting internal war among the indigenous peoples" many times, and someone had translated it for the prisoners throughout the process.
At first they didn't take it seriously, but seeing their chief kneeling down and confessing his guilt, they couldn't help but have some vague self-doubts in their hearts: Is this really an unjust war that I am participating in?
Of course, they were more angry and aggrieved. Seeing Owl kneeling on the ground and confessing his guilt, the Comanche warriors felt as if they had been betrayed.
Under the surveillance of the surrounding Sleeping Bear soldiers, the captives dared not say much, but their attitudes were not difficult to detect.
This seems to have some effect, Ma Shao thought.
He looked at the confessing owl, nodded, and continued: "Considering your confession and the fact that you were deceived by others, your punishment can be mitigated. Therefore, I declare that the death penalty will be waived and the sentence will be changed to ten years of hard labor."
Even though the two had communicated last night, Owl couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he heard these words.
When the four people before him were sentenced to death one after another, he was upset for a while and thought he was going to die anyway.
Fortunately, he finally escaped the disaster and was spared the death penalty.
Without the threat of death, Owl's tense attention was relaxed, and he finally turned his head to look at the Comanche captives not far away.
From the looks in his tribesmen's eyes, he knew that he was probably no longer respected.
The same thing happened to the next few prisoners. They confessed their crimes and accepted the punishment without hesitation, and were thus pardoned and only sentenced to ten years of hard labor.
The so-called ten years of hard labor naturally refers to compulsory work such as reclaiming farmland and building buildings. It does not really last for ten years, and there is a certain amount of remuneration.
Of course, the Indians were not aware of this. In their minds, labor was slavery, just like what the whites did to the blacks or what the Comanches did to the Utahs.
After the trial, the soldiers began to execute the four death row prisoners. No one was allowed to watch, at least not children under the age of twelve.
Only the prisoners were brought in to watch, so that they could know the fate of the diehards.
Fortunately for the four death row inmates, the method of execution was not hanging, the most common death by hanging of that era, but shooting.
But unfortunately, Ma Shao also designed a unique process to enhance the deterrent effect of executions - shooting in random order.
He made four prisoners kneel on the ground in a row, with an executioner standing behind each of them, pointing the gun at the back of their heads, and then shot them one by one in random order.
There is no doubt that in this era before the advent of lethal injection, shooting someone directly in the back of the head was a fairly civilized form of execution.
It only takes one bullet to kill instantly.
However, this random order of execution still caused the four death row inmates to almost collapse psychologically. No, to be precise, three of them.
The first person to be shot did not have time to linger in fear for long, as the lead bullet quickly ended his life.
The next three were not so lucky. They knew they were going to die, but they couldn't be sure after which gunshot they would fall. Every gunshot was a huge psychological torture.
People's love and obsession with their own lives are so strong that in the last few minutes of their lives, they shed all their cold sweat and even urine. If there were no rags stuffed in their mouths, I wonder what kind of sound they would make.
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