Introduction: The Qing Dynasty, as we all know, is the last feudal dynasty in China, because it is closer to modern times, and the historical records of the Qing Dynasty are relatively complete. Especially in the late Qing Dynasty, the advent of the camera also left some representative old photographs.
These photos record some of the living conditions of the people in the late Qing Dynasty, and also record some distressing pictures, such as prisoners tied to pillars and about to be tied to Ling Chi and little girls began to wrap their feet.
These are real in the history of the late Qing Dynasty
According to historical records, the Qing Dynasty had many kinds of punishments for death row prisoners, such as hanging, beheading, lingchi, etc., of which the most serious death sentence prisoners would be executed. According to historical records, ling chi has two kinds: the first is that the body is dismembered into several pieces; the second is to endure the pain of a thousand knives and slowly torture until death.
Both forms of Ling Chi are very cruel, and just thinking about the situation at that time is creepy. In ancient times, prisoners who were generally sentenced to death were executed openly, so that the people could see this cruel and bloody scene, thus playing a deterrent and warning role.
However, this kind of thing will inevitably make people numb, and in the late Qing Dynasty, there were also some prisoners who were publicly executed in the photo, showing the social situation at that time. The picture below is taken by a British journalist Mo Lixun, a female death row prisoner who was executed. And the executor and the executed, as well as those around them, look indifferent.
This may be because people's hearts become numb when they see more during this period, and he also records the whole process at that time with photos. Although it is just some old black and white photos that are somewhat blurry, looking at these photos can imagine the bloody scene at that time, and you can't help but make people's hair stand up.
We can see that when this female prisoner was executed, she was slowly tortured by the executioner, starting from the chest, cutting off one by one with a knife, until finally only the skeleton was left, which can be said to be very cruel.
During the Guangxu period, after the change of the law, the minister of law, Shen Jiaben, requested the reform of the criminal law, and it was precisely because of the internal and external contradictions of the Qing government at that time that the imperial court adjusted and revised the criminal law, of which Ling Chi was abolished.
According to historical records, foot binding actually began in the Northern Song Dynasty and continued to the end of the Qing Dynasty, and we can now see the "three-inch golden lotus" that the ancients thought was "three-inch golden lotus" from some old photos or some old people.
Foot binding is when women are only four or five years old, they begin to wrap their feet tightly with cloth and do not let their feet grow. And in the process of growing bones, they are restricted by cloth, which will also cause the deformation of the bones of the feet to be very painful, but they are bound by this bad habit, thinking that the "three-inch golden lotus" is the most beautiful.
Before the Qing Dynasty, the excavated female corpses were still rarely seen to be foot binding, so it can be judged that foot binding was widely popular in the Qing Dynasty. Before the Qing Dynasty, it may only be that some women of rich families need to wrap their feet, in line with the aesthetics of those men with status, and be able to marry a good family.
The daughters of ordinary people may not tie their feet in order to be able to work, but by the Qing Dynasty, foot binding had become widespread among women of all walks of life. Although their minds have been brainwashed, thinking that the "three-inch golden lotus" is the most beautiful foot, the pain of the process is not something that ordinary people can endure.
Foot binding began at the age of four or five, when she was still a little girl, she had no right to choose, and could only be left to her parents to decide. Women with their feet wrapped in their feet generally cannot have much movement, as you can imagine, an adult's body, but the feet are only the size of four or five-year-old children, and the foot bones are deformed.
This seriously affects the normal activities of women, so as to satisfy the purpose of men to imprison women in the boudoir. There are also some so-called "three from four virtues" ideas, which imprison women as ideas, so as not to affect the status of men.
After the overthrow of the Qing government, Sun Yat-sen was the first to ban the requirement of women's foot binding, and by the time of the May Fourth Movement, more people opposed foot binding and the oppression of women, but the formal abolition was only after the founding of New China that women were completely liberated.
In the late Qing Dynasty, many foreign businessmen, diplomats, and journalists came to China, and they were very ignorant and curious about the behavior of Chinese women in their foot binding. So I took some pictures, and below are the old photographs of the late Qing Dynasty collected by Chatterton Josling.
Conclusion: From these old photos, seeing such a small girl, sitting on a chair, her feet are tightly wrapped, can no longer see the real shape of her feet, you can imagine how painful it is for a little girl who is only four or five years old, it is really painful.