History can't bear to look at the complete collection

Chapter 91 Cruel Punishment 2
Perspective on the Progress of Ancient Criminal Law

The punishments invented by the ancients revolve around the word "food" to a large extent. For example, a punishment called "醢" is to chop people into meat sauce, while the so-called "preserved" is to make people into meat. Dried meat, and "cannon punishment" is to tie people to the metal shell of a large stove to roast mature meat, and "wok cooking" is to throw people into a pot to cook meat soup.

These punishments retained the customs of many primitive tribes enjoying human flesh, and combined cooking and punishment. This method of punishment was widely used in the Yin and Shang Dynasties. After the Zhou Dynasty, "chopping" gradually replaced "cooking". It has become the main method of punishment.The "cutting" punishment in the Zhou Dynasty can be roughly divided into three types: car splitting, beheading and killing, among which "cutting" means cutting in half. It can be said that the appearance of cutting in half represents a certain progress in Chinese history to a certain extent.

The tool used for the half-cut was initially an ax or axe. It was not until the popularization of iron that the sharp knife became the main tool in punishment. However, if the executioner is unskilled and cannot cut off the victim's body with a single knife, he will be laughed at by the crowd.

Therefore, with the continuous advancement of technology, the tools for cutting in half have changed from axes, to knives, and then to guillotines. Guillotines are very easy to use. Enter under the guillotine, raise the knife and drop it with your hand, and you can "sibling in different places".

During execution, the prisoner must take off his clothes, expose his waist, and then lie down on the chopping board. This is a cruel torture to the prisoner both mentally and physically.Many prisoners died of fright before they had time to execute.

Lu Xun wrote in the article: The Chinese are "the people who can study the human body best and use it naturally. The neck is the thinnest, and they invented beheading; the knee joints can bend, and they invented kneeling; their buttocks are fleshy, but not fatal. , invented spanking..." The invention of the half-cutting can be seen that the ancients have been able to control the prisoners psychologically. The rulers used the torture of half-cutting to cut off the backbone of the rebels and educate obedient and obedient citizens.

The reason why cutting in half is cruel is that the main organs of a person are in the upper body.The prisoner was still conscious after being severed at the waist, and it took a while for him to die. The pain was unbearable and extremely painful.Therefore, in order to alleviate the pain of the prisoner, the family members of the prisoner usually arrange for the executioner to use the knife from the upper part during execution, so that the death can be faster.And if someone has a grudge against the prisoner and wants to take the opportunity to deliberately torture the prisoner, the executioner will let the executioner use the knife from a lower place, and even put the prisoner's upper body on the tung oil board to prevent the blood from flowing out, so that the prisoner will suffer. I couldn't breathe for several hours.

Many people who were to be cut in half endured great psychological pressure before being executed. Thinking that they would endure such a cruel punishment, first of all, they could not bear it psychologically.But there is one exception. He is Han Xin when Chu and Han were fighting. He was able to deal with it calmly and without fear when he was cut in half.

At that time, Han Xin was about to be cut in half because he violated the military law. After the person who was tortured with him was beheaded, he had no fear. Why? Why do you want to kill the strong man who won the world for him." Xia Houying, the supervisor at the time, was impressed by Han Xin's courage when he heard this, and immediately let him stay under the sword. Afterwards, he recommended Han Xin to Liu Bang.

The half cut ran through the entire feudal dynasty, and it was not terminated until the Yongzheng period. The last cut in history was awarded to Yu Hongtu, a Henan Xuezheng in the Qing Dynasty.Yu Hongtu supervised his studies in Minzhong. At that time, the imperial examination system was very strict, and cheating was rigorous, but he did not expect that during an imperial examination, his concubine colluded with a servant and accepted bribes from others to leak the examination materials to that person.

The concubine pasted the examination materials on the back patch of Yu Hongtu's official uniform, and when Yu Hongtu entered the examination room wearing it, the servant secretly took it off from behind and gave it to the briber, without him noticing it at all.Later, when he was reported, Emperor Yongzheng ordered him to be cut in half. Because he didn't know it beforehand, Yu Hongtu didn't know that he was going to be cut in half until he arrived at the execution ground. He couldn't give the executioner money in order to die quickly. The pain of the knife.

Later, even Yongzheng was moved with compassion and ordered to abolish this tragic punishment. So far, since the Zhou Dynasty, the half-cutting that lasted for more than 2000 years was considered to be terminated in the Yongzheng period.

(End of this chapter)