Preamble:
It has long been regarded as one of the most cruel punishments in the feudal period. Since the victim needs to watch his body being "pieced" little by little while he is awake throughout the whole process, this punishment is generally only used on heinous criminals.
Now we don't know who the first person to suffer from Ling Chi in history was, but the last person to be Ling Chi was recorded, this person is named Wang Weiqin, who was raised in the 20th year of Guangxu, and was sentenced to death in the 30th year of Guangxu in Caishikou.
In ancient times on the mainland, there was a saying that the punishment could not be inflicted on the doctor, and the law could not be punished by the people. So what crime did this Wang Weiqin commit that would make Cixi still have to be sentenced to death even though he was famous?
Dominate the neighbors
Wang Weiqin is a native of Zhougezhuang, Funing County, Yongping Prefecture, and his eldest son, Wang Zhirui, holds the position of secretary of Baqi Middle School in Beijing, although he has little power, but he is extremely close to the political center, and has accumulated a lot of political resources for the Wang family.
And the identity of the elder brother Wang Weisui is Di Sheng, who serves as the leader of the local Seedlings Association, and has many dog legs at his disposal. In addition, Wang Weiqin also has a younger brother, Wang Qi, who is a catcher in Funing County, and is familiar with local interpersonal relations and power operations.
At that time, the Wang family could be said to have hands and eyes in the local area, and the surrounding villages trembled when they stomped their feet in the real sense.
However, as the saying goes, if the road is uneven, someone shovels, and if it is uneven, someone takes care of it. Although the Wang family is extremely powerful in the local area, it is not without opponents, and the Li family in the same village is also a local noble family, not only prosperous, but also quite wealthy.
On weekdays, the Li family couldn't get used to the domineering style of the Wang family, so they often stood up and fought against Wang Weiqin, and gradually the contradictions between the two sides became deeper and deeper, and finally broke out completely in the 25th year of Guangxu.
In July of this year, Zhougezhuang suffered a continuous rainstorm, and the pigsty of the Li family was washed down, and a small pig took advantage of the chaos to run out, trampling on the crops of many villagers.
Seeing this scene, Wang Weiqin's eyes lit up, and he knew that the opportunity to overthrow the Li family had come, so he immediately ordered the servants at home to catch the little pig, and then he pulled the little pig to the Guanyin Old Mother Temple in the village in front of the nearby people to slaughter it, and shared it with the Qingmiao Congregation who was responsible for taking care of the crops.
Although the Li family was at fault first, Wang Weiqin was obviously humiliating the Li family in public by eating their pigs without the consent of the Li family.
And after everyone was full of food and drink, Wang Weiqin actually took them to the Li family to ask for compensation for the loss of crops. The Li family is naturally not vegetarian, and their pigs were indiscriminately killed by the other party, not to mention, they actually have to lose money, which is obviously bullying them.
So they beat Wang Weiqin and his entourage with sticks, and said that the Li family would definitely not give up on this matter.
But before the Li family could take action, Wang Weiqin took the first step to contact his eldest brother Wang Weixun and asked him to come forward to write a submission, saying that Li Jichang, the head of the Li family, was a bandit of the Seedlings Association. Then he found his brother Wang Qi and used his friendship with Funing Zhixian to fan the flames.
Sure enough, after receiving Wang Weisui's submission, Funing Zhixian was furious and threw Li Jichang into prison that night.
The head of the family was arrested, and the Li family was completely panicked, Li Jichang's sons Li Chao and Li Zhi hid directly in Taiwan for fear of being implicated by their father, at this time the Li family no longer had a man in charge, and in desperation, Li Jichang's daughter-in-law Da Li Ma came to the Wang family to beg Wang Weiqin to let Li Jichang go.
But who would have thought that Wang Weiqin was really not a thing, after seeing Da Li Ma's, he coveted the other party's beauty, so he used Li Jichang as a threat to force Da Li Ma's to comply.
But who would have thought that Da Li Ma was also a strong woman, and after being insulted by this, she actually picked up scissors and committed suicide and died in Wang Weiqin's house.
At that time, Li Jichang asked Wang Weiqin to compensate for the losses of the Li family, but also to erect a monument for the big Li Ma clan to wear filial piety to praise his martyrdom.
But Wang Weiqin, as a lifter, how could he wear linen and filial piety for a strange woman, so after some dispute, the two sides finally reached an agreement, Wang Weiqin can set up a martyr's monument for the Da Li Ma clan, and they will withdraw the case after the funeral
But after returning home, Wang Weiqin immediately regretted it again, he felt that if he really set up a monument to Da Li Ma's family, how should he write it? If you write about what you have done, won't everyone know about it? If the Li family wrote the fake, they would definitely not agree.
In the end, on the day of Da Li Ma's funeral, he simply sent a wordless tablet and did it hastily.
The Li family was naturally extremely angry, so they also overturned the previous agreement and never withdrew the case. Since then, the contradiction between the Wang and Li families has become bigger and bigger, and finally a year later, Wang Weiqin made a crazy move.
Slash them all
When the Boxer Rebellion broke out in 1901, Wang Weiqin, who had been idle before, was appointed by the Qing government to organize regimental training and cooperate with the British soldiers stationed outside Shanhaiguan to suppress bandits.
But who wanted to have soldiers in his hands After Wang Weiqin's ambition began to swell rapidly, his first thought at that time was to deal with the Li family to relieve his hatred.
In early March 1901, Wang Weiqin recalled his three sons to help. Soon after, he claimed that all 12 members of the Li family had colluded with the ticket bandits.
In order to avoid startling the snake, he first lured Li Jichang's two sons, Li Chao and Li Zhi, to the door of his brother Wang Qi and killed them. At that time, many people in Zhougezhuang saw this scene, but because of Wang Weiqin's obscenity, no one dared to report to the Li family.
Then Wang Weiqin brought people to the Li family again, this time he killed people indiscriminately, and in the end, the Li family was almost slaughtered, leaving only the wife of the second son Li Zhi, Xiao Li Ma, to survive.
Wang Weiqin left her life not because of any soft-heartedness, but because he knew that Xiao Li Ma had been at odds with her husband Li Zhi because of her mediocre appearance, and Wang Weiqin expected that she would not and would not dare to avenge the Li family, so he sold her to another family in exchange for money.
But he underestimated Xiao Li Ma's determination, and soon after, Xiao Li Ma escaped from the buyer's house, and then she started from the county government and sued all the way to the criminal department.
At first, those officials were also in cahoots with Wang Weiqin and tried their best to exonerate him, but they first rejected Xiao Li Ma's appeal on the grounds that the bodies of the Li family were incomplete.
Then Wang Weiqin beat all the witnesses of the day into accomplices of the Li family and threw them into prison, and at the same time, he found Xiao Li Ma's family and threatened her father to take good care of his daughter, but all this could not stop Xiao Li Ma's determination to petition.
Soon after, Xiao Li Ma's 6-month-old child was also poisoned, and the other two clansmen who protected her were also killed by Wang Weiqin, but even so, Xiao Li Ma stumbled all the way to the capital.
Pity her for a woman who didn't know anything at all, and finally handed the paper to the newly established General Bureau of Industry and Inspection. The Industrial Patrol Bureau is a yamen established in the late Qing government, and if it is put in the present, it is probably equivalent to a police station.
It stands to reason that the General Administration of Industrial Patrol had no right to accept the case at that time, but at that time, because the General Administration of Industrial Patrol had just been established, the minister in charge of Na Tong was idle, so he took Xiao Li Ma's paper.
At first, he thought it was just a civil dispute, but when he saw the ins and outs of the matter, he was furious, and he interrogated Xiao Li Ma overnight. After confirming the truth of the matter, he reported the matter to the imperial court the next day.
After hearing this, the ministers discussed a lot, some people this matter was too outrageous, maybe Xiao Li Ma made up to slander Wang Weiqin, and some people felt that this matter was true, and the two sides argued.
At this time, the assassin sent by Wang Weiqin to assassinate Xiao Li Ma also rushed to the capital, but Na Tong had already taken precautions, and the other party was directly arrested, and there was no opposition from the court.
After some interrogation, Wang Weiqin was finally sentenced to Ling Chi, and most of the rest of the people involved in the case were also sentenced to beheading.
According to the execution process at the end of the Qing Dynasty, generally in April every year, the subordinates of each governor and the subordinate personally interrogate and review the death row prisoners, and report to the criminal department within the limit of May, and the criminal department will sort out and play, and hand it over to the emperor in July, and the emperor will review and correct it in August.
Unfortunately, because it was Cixi's 70th birthday not long after, the execution time was postponed to 1905, and in April 1905, the Qing court announced that Ling Chi would not be exempted from this punishment because of Ling Chi's cruelty, but Wang Weiqin was extremely evil, so the Qing court "opened his net" to him and allowed him to catch the last train before Ling Chi's abolition.
One day in 1904, Wang Weiqin was sentenced to Ling Chi at the entrance of the Caishikou in Beijing, and on the day of the execution, the Caishikou was crowded with people, and at first Wang Weiqin could still maintain a superficial calm.
But when he was stripped of his coat and tied to the execution rack naked, he finally couldn't hold back any longer, with a frightened look on his face, his mouth open, and his facial expression had even begun to distort, as if he was begging for mercy loudly.
As the executioner cut off the flesh with a knife, Wang Weiqin wailed in pain, and at the same time, the onlookers applauded, and even a soldier from France filmed the whole process of the execution.
After Wang Weiqin's death, his relatives were afraid of being implicated and did not dare to collect his body. In the end, it was the fellow villagers who were officials in the capital who sent people to help collect the corpse and bury it in a nearby cemetery, so as to avoid exposing the corpse to the wilderness.
As a lifter, Wang Weiqin's future can be described as bright, but he was not right-minded, narrow-minded, selfish, and was finally sentenced to death.
On the other hand, Xiao Li Ma's family, we have to call a "really strange woman", she walked forward with a delicate body against the heavy darkness, and finally ushered in the light, which is really admirable.
In the long history of China, in addition to Xiao Li Ma, there are many female images of perseverance and courage, throughout the past and present, women like her who are resilient and courageous will be a lasting driving force to lead the society forward.
Reference: https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1769277648204958009&wfr=spider&for=pc