One of the oldest civilizations to survive, China’s long-term success can be accredited
to its effort to harmonize its society at any cost. Oddly it was the teachings
of Confucius that helped China to devise horrendous and soul tearing punishments
that could make even stone-cold criminals wet their pants. Welcome to Nutty History,
and today let’s find out what law and punishment were like in Ancient China! Ancient Chinese Penal
code could also be called “The Five Punishment System”. That means, China basically only had five
types of punishments, and they were assigned to the crimes depending on the severity.
There is no certainty about who conceptualized the idea of these five punishments,
but the Chinese legends accredit it to a famed warrior named Chiyou. His specific clan was
unknown but many link him to the Hmong or their allies such as the Sanmiao or the Nine Li. Chiyou
in Chinese legends is regarded as a mythical king and because five punishments were associated with
him, the Xia dynasty implemented them during their rule. Before the Qin dynasty, the five
punishments were mostly focused on branding the criminals. For petty thievery and pickpocketing,
criminals were tattooed so they would bear the shame and disgrace of their crime for life.
For major robbery and looting, amputation was the norm. Cutting off the nose was the most common
degree of this punishment. The third and fourth punishments were also concerned with amputation.
You may lose one or both feet or if your crime was heinous enough, you may be punished by castration.
And lastly, death was reserved for the gravest of crimes. In this version, women had their own
separate set of five punishments. Again, the reason for a different set for women
is not entirely known anymore but, it could be attributed to China being a patriarchal society
where females weren’t generally held responsible for their crimes and it was believed that their
tolerance capacity was lesser than that of the men. Women’s five punishments were
forced to grind grain, fingers squeezed between sticks, beaten with wooden sticks,
forced to end their own lives, or in the harshest of cases, solitary confinement, and sequestration.
The first Imperial law codes of a centralized Chinese state came about when the Shihuangdi
established autocratic rule as the first emperor of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Qin China was ruled
by a school of thought known as Legalism that believed humans were naturally evil.
According to this philosophy, to create a harmonious society where the weak were safe,
the laws had to be simplistic, ruthless, and efficient. The founder of Legalism
was an advocate of draconian laws and proposed that the ruler alone should possess the power,
wielding his authority like lightning or thunder. He advocated the use of torture
and enforced labor alike for punishment and asked the judge to not shy away from execution as well.
Needless to say, following such oppressive laws didn’t end well for the Qin dynasty
and they were usurped by the Hans in 206 BC. This is when Confucianism was introduced in
the reformed constitution and the penal code of China. But legalism wasn’t exactly shunned,
enough traces of it remained in the system to keep the punishing system cruel and unforgiving.
After the introduction of the penal code based on legalism by the Qin dynasty and later the
institution of Confucianism by the Han dynasty brought changes to the five-punishment system.
In the imperial era, five punishments were changed to Bamboo lashes to the buttocks for petty crimes,
stick lashes to the back, buttocks, and legs for the repeated offense of petty crime,
penal service for 1 to 3 years for standard crimes, exile to a remote location such as the
island of Hainan in the south and lastly death by strangulation, slicing, or decapitation depending
on the gravity of a horrendous crime. Within each punishment, there were different degrees.
For example, a prisoner who was sentenced to be beaten with a light stick could be sentenced
to up to five degrees of punishment which dictated how many blows would be delivered. So,
a convict may get 10 to 50 beatings, the tenure of imprisonment could last for 1 to 3 years. Even
exile was subject to degrees so that the more severe the crime, the farther the convict went
afield. As for execution, a quick decapitation was considered worse than strangulation.
This may seem strange since strangulation is a slow and more painful form of death
and their ultimate degree of capital punishment was all about killing them slowly, cut by cut.
We know the section of this title may sound like an 80s Kung Fu movie,
but this was the most menacing method of torture and punishment in China. During the 10th century,
the five punishments evolved into more horrendous methods of penalties. Ling Chi or death by a
thousand cuts could only be sentenced by the Emperor's decree and was used for the crimes
of the highest degree in China called the “Ten Abominations”. The ten abominations revolved
around the matters of treason, parricide, murder of spouse, rebellion, and witchcraft. Like other
punishments, Ling Chi too had multiple degrees of punishment based on the severity of the crime.
This gruesome punishment followed a prescribed order starting with the flaying of pieces of skin,
muscles and then removal of body parts to maximize pain but keeping the vital organs functioning.
Commonly, Ling Chi consisted of eight slices to the body but it could go up to 120 slices. Yeah,
calling this punishment death by a thousand cuts seems like false advertising but hey
thousand does have a nice ring to it. The torturer would start with slicing the face, followed by
hands, feet, chest, stomach, and the final blow was made at the heart, or by decapitating. Western
writers who witnessed Ling Chi in their lives described it as torture for the soul. It was meant
to destroy the future of the offender’s spirit so it cannot be recognizable in the afterlife.
In the Ancient Chinese Judiciary process, judges and magistrates were treated with
absolute authority and respect. Witnesses and the accused would be in a prostrate position before
an official through the entire proceeding. The dread of being tortured loomed over the head of
the accused even in court. The ancient Chinese authority had full confidence in this cruel and
unwarranted system of justice even though they knew that from time to time a wrongly
tortured accused may give in and confess a crime despite being innocent. However, they advocated
that the torture method to justice is highly efficient because it saved time and money by
solving cases rapidly. As the criminal cases could be solved solely by accused confession,
torture would be deployed from the get-go and became an integral part of the investigations.
In ancient and imperial China, the verdict of any trial depended solely on the most important
testimony of all, the accused themselves. According to the Chinese penal code,
the accused could not be convicted without a confession. However, if you are thinking this was
the perfect loophole in their judiciary, think again. Yes, one person could deny all charges
as long as they want and not get punish despite damning evidence glaring in the face of the law.
But this also meant that the authorities could use any method to extract the confession out of
them as the case relied on it. Tying accused and witnesses around a pole by their arms during the
hearing was a standard procedure in Ancient Chinese courts. The guard would wind up the
poles to twist their arm so the witnesses and accused wouldn't dare to lie in their testimony.
Due to the harsh treatment, witnesses were understandably reluctant to come forward.
But if summoned, they would be dragged kicking and screaming into the court.
Don’t want to be on that jury court… Often, the accused and reluctant witnesses would be
restrained in a flat wooden framework that would be locked around a person’s neck called a Cangue.
The flat board restraint would be either borne by the shoulders or used as the top lid of a wooden
cage that was so small that the prisoner's feet could not quite touch the ground. This
treatment would put extreme pressure on the neck of the prisoner and could end up strangling them.
Often the flat board on the cangue wasn’t large enough so his hands could not reach his own mouth,
or he couldn’t lie down forcing the prisoner to require assistance to eat or drink.
The accused would have to wear cangue all the time until the hearing reaches its verdict,
or longer if they were found guilty. Even if the accused were not kept in prison, authorities will
still make them wear the cangue around their neck in public as a symbol of humiliation.
One slightly less sadistic method of execution was the neck tower. The prisoner was put inside
a Cangue cage and he would have only stones to stand on. Every day a stone or two is removed
so the poor prisoner would suffer a slow and horrendous death from strangulation.
In the Imperial administration, a senior official would dread the receipt of an Imperial letter
containing a piece of red silk as this had the clear meaning that the official was in
severe disgrace and was expected to immediately hang or poison himself. Another method included
pulling veins out of the back of the shins of the prisoner until he would bleed to death.
Not all Chinese capital punishments were concerned with physical torture. The Slow
Dropping of water was ceaseless mental anguish that might make prisoners cry for a quick death.
This Chinese Torture would include incessant and regular dropping of water on the forehead with the
prisoner’s body firmly strapped down providing no relief. If that wasn't enough there were occasions
when acid was occasionally also dropped that would painfully burn through the skin into the
brain. This increased the terror as the prisoner would not know if the next drop would be water
or acid. It has been reported through multiple media sources that modern
China still often treats prisoners the same way as ancient and Imperial China.
In 2021, media outlets described how Chinese citizens are secretly seized,
detained, and tortured frequently. Aside from these allegations, prisoners in China today may
be subject to physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and forced sterilizations. The United
Nations is trying to engage the Chinese government on this serious human rights issue.
So, what do you think could be done to stop such inhumane practices? Tell us in the comments but
if you are interested in more videos like this then check out the rest of our punishment series!
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