In the Ming and Qing dynasties, prisoners sentenced to death were routinely to be beheaded after the autumn, mostly at Caishikou. In the Qing Dynasty, the examination of death row prisoners was very strict, and they had to go through "three trials and three decisions" (local governors, punishment departments, and court trials), and finally the emperor's royal pen was checked before they could be be beheaded.
Here, taking the Qing Dynasty as an example, let's talk carefully about the basic process of execution at Caishikou and some relatively unpopular knowledge.
The death row inmates sentenced to be beheading were uniformly escorted from the prison of the Ministry of Punishment to caishikou for beheading, and they were all executed on the same day. In fact, in the Qing Dynasty, there were not many prisoners executed by the emperor every year, generally only a few to twenty or thirty, for example, the Kangxi Emperor was more benevolent, and the average number of prisoners executed each year was less than 10.
On the day of the execution, the commander of the infantry, Yamen, sent hundreds of horse infantry troops to surround the court, and the supervising officer was the chief officer of the Punishment Department or Dali Temple, and an earthen platform would be set up in the northeast corner of caishikou, surrounded by large tarpaulins on three sides. According to the rules, on the day of execution, the beheading official should offer sacrifices to the shrine of Yama Wangye and place incense burner sacrifices, which is a rule since ancient times, indicating that the decapitation of the prisoner should choose an auspicious day.
In the middle of the execution ground, there are ten thick tree stumps, why ten? This represents the Ten Halls of Yan Luo in the Yin Cao Prefecture, and the prisoner puts his head on it during the execution, only to wait for the executioner to fall with a knife. But the strange thing is that these ten tree stumps are all for male prisoners, and as for female prisoners, they are not far to the southwest, and there are also several small tree stumps, and these tree stumps are actually places where merchants sell meat and chop ribs and kill chickens and fish on weekdays.
Why did the Qing Dynasty beheaded prisoners choose Caishikou? Because this place is particularly bright, it is a fork in the road, and as the years go by, there are more and more vendors in the vicinity, and as long as the Execution Department posts execution notices here, the surrounding shops will be crowded with people waiting to see the liveliness. Needless to say, the intention of the imperial court was to borrow this place to declare the majesty of the law.
The ancients always did things as a rule, and so did the beheadings of prisoners. Before the execution, we must let the prisoners eat and drink enough, even if they become ghosts, they will not be hungry ghosts, once there are more "hungry ghosts", the world will become chaotic, if there is no one to pay tribute or send money to the lone ghost, it will endanger the human world and the country and the society.
Before the offender enters the court of execution, that is, before noon, the prisoner who calculates the hour will keep shouting:
"Noon has not yet arrived, eat enough to eat, there is an afterlife in the Yang World, and the Yin World turns to the Yang early."
As soon as the shouting passed, there were restaurant guys hired by the Punishment Department for many years, carrying wine altars and stews, pouring wine and meat on the prisoners one by one.
The prisoners also knew this rule, this was their last meal in the yang, so they would not resist, and they ate this severed head meal according to the rules. After the last sip of wine, the prisoners smashed the bowl and, as usual, came to say the same sentence
"Eighteen years later a good man again"
、
"Don't waste this life, the geese also leave a sound"
A class of words. It is said that this was all the advice of the great leaders of the Punishment Department, and as long as they shouted in this way, they could walk in peace and be reincarnated as human beings.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the executioner took a large knife of the ghost's head and cut it down, and the head was separated with only one knife. The executioners of the Qing Dynasty were a mysterious profession, and the people said that they and Yan Wangye were friends, because only their family provided for Yan Wangye. Most of the people engaged in this business are Han Chinese, and flag people are not allowed by law.
Executioners are not the official establishment of the imperial court, they are open for business one day a year, although there are also family members who send some silver, but they are basically not enough to spend. However, they often have contacts with the Punishment Department, so they also do some business on weekdays, mostly bodyguards and the like, but employers generally do not know their true identities.
In many film and television works, a word is often mentioned - beheading and abandoning the market. In the literal sense, it should be that the body of the prisoner was abandoned at the mouth of the vegetable market after the execution. In fact, this was not the case, the Ming Dynasty often had the custom of violently committing corpses, but the Qing Dynasty would leave the whole body to the family in addition to being rude to those Qin criminals.
After each execution, the servants would hire special personnel to re-stitch the prisoner's head on the corpse, so that the deceased would be left with a whole body, and these people were called "soul masters" who specialized in the business of carrying, transporting and burying corpses.
As a family member, in order to bury the corpse, they have to spend a sum of silver, and if they are poor, they have to sell their children and daughters, or sell themselves into slavery in exchange for their relatives to bury themselves. If the prisoner has no family, the vendors around the market will raise money and find someone to bury him in the mass grave.
There is another saying that on the day of the execution, the vegetables and fruits sold in the vegetable market must not be brought home after they are sold, even if they lose money and make money, they must be abandoned here to help beggars or poor people.
Of course, the Ming and Qing dynasties did not necessarily kill prisoners in Caishikou, and for those leaders who rebelled, or foreign invaders who invaded the frontier, every time they returned to the dynasty after victory, a prisoner sacrifice ceremony would be held, and then the prisoners would be executed at noon.