The methods of punishment in ancient China were severe, not to say inhumane, and for
a good reason, the term "Chinese Torture" has spread throughout the world to refer to
the most chilling situations that you can face today.
In a civilization that, from a time before we can remember, has striven to maintain a
harmony among its people, the penalties imposed to achieve such tranquility ranged from being
branded for life to the most painful death.
Today we will discover "piece by piece" the punishments that generated nightmares in ancient
Chinese society.
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The Worst Punishment for Women in Ancient China.
Even the women of ancient China were not spared from being sentenced to one of these punishments.
In fact, they had their own catalog of tortures, which was nothing to be envied by the men.
It is true that for women there were some punishments that were more bearable.
Some consisted of forced labor or pressing their fingers against two pieces of wood,
while the least painful punishment for a man was to be whipped with a bamboo cane.
But this does not mean that women were spared, since, depending on the crime, they could
even lose their lives.
Among the most painful tortures applied mainly to women was the so-called "wooden donkey",
which consisted of a triangular-shaped wooden structure and a few logs or sticks to support
it.
Women who committed adultery were forced to sit on this torture device for hours at a
time, which caused permanent injuries that prevented them from walking again without
experiencing great pain.
With the intention of increasing the punishment for these women, heavy objects were hung from
their feet to make the injuries worse, there were also some wooden donkeys that had spikes
on the area where the person sat.
As a result of this, they damaged the parts that had contact with the spikes even more.
Death by a Thousand Cuts was the Worst Possible Punishment for a Prisoner.
The most feared sentence, the most agonizing end that anyone could face in ancient China
was called "Ling chi" or "Death by a Thousand Cuts", reserved only for the worst criminals
and considered one of the cruelest punishments in the history of mankind.
Any person that dared to commit one of the so-called "Ten Abominations" which included
treason, murder of your husband, wife or parents, rebellion and witchcraft, were condemned to
a slow and painful death.
This consisted of tying the prisoner to a post by their hands and feet, putting a piece
of opium in their mouth to lessen the pain on some occasions and then slowly cutting
the flesh from their body like a beef steak, depositing it in front of them until they
passed out and died.
Generally, the torture, both physical and psychological, lasted only about 20 minutes,
which possibly for the poor person would be eternal before passing out.
However, there are records of a person who lasted 12 hours before being able to rest
in peace.
In the event that the family of the prisoner was of good means, there was the possibility
of bribing the executioner so that he would kill him with the first cut before proceeding
with the others to spare him such unpleasant suffering.
This horrible practice began during the 10th century and it was not until 1905 that it
was banned, which puts us just over 100 years away from what was a nightmare come true.
The last person sentenced to this horrible death was an assassin who took the life of
his employer and insulted the empress.
For this, the execution was especially grotesque, lasting 3 days, until all the skin was removed
from the body.
All of this was documented in a series of striking photographs that technological advances
of the time allowed and that lets us imagine the suffering of all those prisoners.
The 5 Punishments for slaves in ancient China
In China there were 5 categories of punishments that were created with the intention of keeping
the people under control and maintaining social harmony.
These punishments differentiated between men and women, with women's punishments being
less severe because patriarchal society did not hold women responsible for their crimes,
unless they committed adultery, murder or witchcraft, making them liable to more sadistic
tortures or even death in all its different variants.
During all the dynasties, the punishments were practically the same.
They depended on the seriousness of your crime, the category to which you belonged and the
severity with which it was applied.
Among the punishments for men, the first and least severe was to tattoo the crime you committed
on your face, to present to society.
The area tattooed was larger depending on the seriousness of the crime.
This punishment was applied mainly to slaves who ran away from their masters or for petty
theft.
The second level consisted of cutting off your nose without any anesthesia, destroying
your sense of smell and sometimes the ability to breathe through the remaining orifices.
This punishment was reserved for those who committed a major theft.
For those who committed more heinous crimes, either or both feet were amputated if they
considered the damage done to be severe.
One variant was to open your leg at the knee and remove the kneecap making it impossible
for you to walk for the rest of your life.
In second to last place was castration.
This sentence consisted of cutting off the man's reproductive organs and forcing him
to work as a eunuch for an important or royal person.
These unfortunate ones were people who committed adultery or fell into corruption.
And as a last resort, death in any of its forms, being the most painful for mass murderers
or traitors of royalty.
Thanks to the teachings of Confucianism, punishments evolved and became less brutal with the beginning
of Imperial China.
However, death penalties were still the order of the day.
Torture was regularly used against prisoners in ancient China
Law in Ancient China was an important pillar for the control and harmony of society based
on the idea of "Crime and Punishment".
Influenced by philosophical currents such as Confucianism and legalism, Han Feizi, founder
of legalism, believed that the ruler alone should possess power and exercise it as a
"thunderbolt.
Following all these ideas, it was established by law that every person guilty of a crime
had to confess the crime in order to be sentenced.
So it was incorporated in the legal code that if the crime was voluntarily confessed, the
punishment was to be reduced or even annulled, only being responsible for the losses, except
in cases of murder, bodily injury or property damage.
However, many prisoners did not confess, so other methods were used.
Throughout the investigation process, the defendants had to present themselves before
an official who asked them simple questions.
If the prisoners refused to answer, simple torture was
applied to obtain confessions, which consisted of twisting the accused's arms around a post
while they were continuously beaten.
However, this was only the simplest form of torture employed.
There existed some torture techniques that were somewhat exotic and beyond the human
imagination.
For example, the so-called "Bamboo Torture", in which the prisoner was placed on a bamboo
plant so that over time, it would grow and slowly impale him.
There was also the famous "Water Torture", which consists of leaving water dripping on
the head of a tied up prisoner until the water begins to make its way through the skull,
a process that lasted for days, often driving the person to insanity before he was even
injured by the water.
These methods led some innocent people to confess to a crime they had not committed
in order to stop the torture.
Later, with the intention of saving time and money in the judicial processes of the era,
torture became a frequent and indispensable tool in almost every trial, corrupting legal
principles and laying the groundwork for the prevalence of forced confessions...
something that may sound familiar to you.
Today's dreaded Chinese execution vans
Currently, more people are executed for crimes in China than are executed for crimes in all
other countries in a year, combined.
Although this number has decreased over time, it’s now estimated that more than 1,000
criminals are sentenced to death each year in China.
There are 46 capital crimes for which you can be sentenced to death, ranging from inciting
a riot or espionage, to attempting to escape from prison or selling counterfeit drugs.
Until 1997, executions of criminals were carried out by firing squads.
They would have to designate a special area for the execution to be held, as close as
possible to where the prisoner was staying, and would move him to this area.
Due to the high costs and effort of the authorities to carry out the executions that were increasingly
in demand, execution vans were created which were equipped with a stretcher and
the necessary elements to administer lethal injections.
This allowed executions to be carried out on the spot where the prisoner was held, saving
the government tons of money, helping to develop these death vans, and claiming a more humane
way to carry out executions.
Although death sentence proceedings in China are similar to those in the U.S., with the
possibility of appealing a death sentence and lethal injection being virtually the same,
it has been noted that these dreaded vans are so convenient and facilitate the execution
so well that they are likely to make them the bread and butter of Chinese society.
Whether the minds behind China's laws create sophisticated new ways to carry out capital
punishment or return to brutal public punishments, which aren’t so far in the past, we'll be
keeping you posted, here at Copernicus’s Galaxy.