In modern society, the death penalty is generally only applicable to people who are extremely evil, so it is not common, but in ancient times, the punishment requirements were very strict, and criminals faced all kinds of torture, so they were very afraid of the death penalty. However, a strange thing happened during the Tang Dynasty, when Emperor Li Shimin released 390 death row prisoners home for the New Year, and agreed with them to return to Beijing after the year to ask how many people came back?
The four sides eventually ascended to the throne of the emperor
At the end of the Sui Dynasty, the emperor went around fighting, making the people's lives miserable, seeing that the Sui Dynasty was about to fall, so Li Yuan attacked Chang'an in the name of Zun Sui, and finally the Sui Gong Emperor Yang You, knowing that the Sui Dynasty was no longer able to return to heaven, ceded the imperial throne to Li Yuan, who claimed to be the empress dowager and established the Tang Dynasty.
Li Shimin was the son of Li Yuan, who had been very intelligent since he was a child, and had a vision for many things, and when Li Yuan sent troops to attack Chang'an, Li Shimin made a lot of efforts.
In 615 AD, the Sui Emperor was surrounded by turks at Yanmen, and Li Shimin was sent to reinforcements, but at that time, the strength of the troops was limited, so he ordered his subordinates to respond to the battle with the strength of the army, creating the momentum of a large army to cover up his small number of troops, but he did not expect that this move successfully deceived the enemy, and the enemy thought that the rescue force was strong and retreated in a hurry.
Li Yuan called the empress Dowager Li Shimin the title of Shang Shu Ling (尚書令) and the Great General of the Right Wu Hou (右武侯), the King of Qin (秦王), and the title of Yongzhou Mu (雍州牧), and Li Shimin (李世民) also worked harder to fight for the Tang Dynasty.com.
In 618, xue ju, the king of western Qin, invaded Jingzhou, Li Shimin led an army to fight it, Xue Ju's army had more than 100,000 people, it can be said that it was the leading figure in the divided forces at that time, but Li Shimin was not afraid, and confronted him, and a few months later Xue Ju died, and his son also surrendered.
Li Shimin's bravery made him receive unanimous praise, so Qin Shubao, Wei Chi Jingde, Cheng Yaojin and other talents were willing to follow him, and more importantly, his father Li Yuan appreciated him very much, feeling that Li Shimin was a man of both moral integrity and ability in his son, and intended to pass the throne to him.
In this way, Li Shimin aroused the jealousy of Li Yuan's other sons, especially Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, who planned to get rid of Li Shimin. Li Yuan had many concubines after he claimed to be emperor, and Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji liked to deal with these concubines, but Li Shimin was not at all moved, and offended many concubines, so they joined forces with Li Jiancheng and others to blow the pillow side wind in front of Li Yuan, dividing the relationship between Li Shimin and Li Yuan.
Since the ancient emperors were worried about their sons plotting rebellion, Li Jiancheng deliberately said in front of Li Yuan that Li Shimin wanted to rebel, saying that Li Shimin had heavy troops in his hands, afraid that it was very dangerous, and he provoked Li Yuan to be suspicious of Li Shimin, and finally Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji almost poisoned Li Shimin with poison, which shows that there is no brotherhood in their hearts.
In the face of these deliberate difficulties and exclusions, Li Shimin's cronies persuaded him to raise an army to resist, and finally in order to protect himself, in 626, Li Shimin launched the Xuanwumen Rebellion, killing Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, and later Li Yuan passed the throne to Li Shimin.
After reviewing the dossiers, 390 death row inmates were approved to return home for the Chinese New Year
After Li Shimin became emperor, he paid great attention to people's livelihood, and after his early conquests, the situation in the country was generally relatively stable, people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and the crime rate dropped significantly.
Although many crimes can be solved by small punishment, but the death penalty is not simple, the ancient requirements for the death penalty execution are very strict, can not be directly solved by the locality, every year the death row inmates will be taken to the capital, by the emperor to do the last trial, to see if there are unjust, false and wrong cases, and finally wait until the emperor approves these death row inmates can be executed.
Zhenguan 6 years, the death row inmates were escorted to the capital according to the convention, the case files were handed over to Li Shimin's hands, he looked at the full case file very surprised, counting a number of death row inmates as many as 390 people, it is reasonable to say that in recent years the country is relatively peaceful and rich, how can there be so many death row inmates, so Li Shimin decided to go to the prison privately to visit and investigate.
When Li Shimin came to the prison and saw that the death row inmates were in a variety of ways, some were in a confused posture of being loveless, some did not care about him at all, and there were many who shouted injustice, so Li Shimin went to the side of a person who shouted injustice and asked him why he was sentenced to death, and what grievances he could say.
At this time, the death row inmate stopped shouting injustice, and he told Li Shimin that he had a beautiful wife and a lovely child, and the family was very happy, but unfortunately, the family was poor and could only earn a meager income by working as a coolie in the landlord's house.
However, He Cheng thought that his wife was actually occupied by the son of the landlord's family, and he was angry enough to go to him for theory, but he was beaten by the landlord's men, and when he was angry, he took a flat burden and hit the landlord's son, and directly beat the person to death with a heavy hand.
Although Li Shimin sympathized with him, he did beat people to death, and the death sentence was deserved, so he asked the man why he did not first report to the officials to ask for his wife, but to ask for it himself, and the man said that these landlords and the government were all in collusion, and they went to report the case themselves, and the people did not care at all, there was no way but to go to find his wife, but he did not regret killing people, but he only pitied the young son in the family.
Look at most of the others are also forced to helplessly commit crimes, sentenced to death, many people have concerned relatives at home, which makes Li Shimin particularly unhappy in his heart, after returning to the palace, he issued an order, decided to release these 390 death row inmates to go home for the New Year, for a period of 1 year, so that death row inmates can come back after 1 year to accept punishment.
All death row inmates returned as scheduled
As soon as this order was issued, all the death row inmates cheered, although there was only a life expectancy of 1 year, but it was also a lot of money, they packed up their things and went home to see their families, but there were many voices of opposition from the court, first, so many death row inmates were released, it would definitely make people panic, once these people committed crimes again, it would be difficult to account for the people, and second, these death row inmates may not be able to catch them again once they escape, which adds a lot of work to the personnel of the Punishment Department.
How could the emperor easily retract what he said, and the ministers could not say anything more, but the miraculous thing was that after 1 year, all 390 death row prisoners had returned, and Li Shimin was grateful that these people were not traitors and evil people, and knew how to keep their promises, so he ordered all pardons.
Although this matter is recorded in the history books, modern historians still have a skeptical attitude towards this matter, first, the political and legal situation at that time is relatively comprehensive, and these criminals are likely to have local officials guarding their homes, and they consider that if they escape, they will bring disaster to their families, so they will return to the capital as agreed.
The second point is that Li Shimin had just arrived at the emperor for a few years, but the Xuanwumen change he launched still brought him damage to his reputation, and he urgently needed one thing to let the people see his tolerance and generosity and for the benefit of the people, so he released the death row prisoners, and even some people speculated that at that time, Li Shimin was likely to tell the death row prisoners that if they came back after 1 year, they could be exempted from the death penalty, so although the historical data was recorded, people could not believe it, after all, the historical data was also artificially recorded.