Emperor Wen of Han was the third emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, and he was one of the rare good emperors in the history of our country. After he personally came to power, he made great efforts to govern and build water conservancy, so that the people could recuperate and recuperate, and even more enabled the Han Dynasty to enter a period of strength, prosperity and stability, laying a material foundation for the powerful rise of the Han Wudi period.
In ancient China, the punishment of criminals was very severe to cruel, such as corporal punishment other than the death penalty. Corporal punishment is said to have been carried out from before the Xia Dynasty, Zuo Chuan Zhao Gong 6: "Xia has a chaotic government, and Yu punishment; Shang has chaotic government, but made a soup book; Zhou has chaotic government, and nine punishments are committed." "Corporal punishment refers to five kinds of punishments, including tuo (piercing face and ink), sword (cutting the nose), slashing (cutting the foot), gong (cutting the situation), and dapu (that is, the death penalty). This concept of punishment originated from the primitive homomorphic revenge theory of "the murderer dies, and the wounded person creates".
After Emperor Wen of Han became emperor, he adopted a policy of pro-government and love for the people, and he once issued a holy decree saying that whenever the people encountered something that could not be solved, they could directly write to the emperor, which looked like a letter from the modern people.
According to the Records of Filial Piety, in 167 BC, there was a man named Chun Yuyi, who was proficient in medicine in addition to serving as an official of Qi Taicang, and because he refused to rely on the magnates, he offended them, so some people complained to the government, was sentenced to corporal punishment, and was escorted to the capital Chang'an for torture.
Chun Yuyi and his wife gave birth to daughters, and before he was escorted to Chang'an, he did not sigh, "Having children without giving birth to men, there is a slow and urgent is not beneficial!" This shows the seriousness of his patriarchal thinking. His youngest daughter, Chun Yu Ti, heard her father's words and thought to herself, "Who said that women are inferior to men?" So she accompanied her father to Chang'an.
After they arrived in Chang'an, after receiving a holy decree from Emperor Wen of Han that could directly write a letter from the people to him, the little woman Chun Yu TiQian wrote a sincere letter to Emperor Wen of Han with a pen:
"The concubine father is an official, and Qi Zhong calls him honest and peaceful, and now he sits in the law and is punished." The concubines and wounded husbands of the deceased cannot be resurrected, and the torturers cannot be reinstated, although they want to be rehabilitated, there is no reason for them. Concubines were not made into official concubines, atonement for their father's criminal sins, and made themselves rehabilitated. ”
This means that my father was a clean official and a famous doctor, and now he has committed a crime and is punished for reason, but now the corporal punishment is too heavy, and the tattooing of the face, the cutting of the nose and the cutting of the foot will all harm people for a lifetime, and even if he is reformed in the future, he will not be able to heal. I am willing to be paid into the government as a slave to atone for my father's sins and to rehabilitate my father. At the same time, she also asked the emperor to abolish the cruel punishment of corporal punishment.
When Emperor Wendi of Han received the letter from this little woman named Chun Yu Ti Qian, he felt that his attitude was sincere and honest, and he was very sympathetic to their suffering. Yu Liang, he immediately summoned the minister in charge of the law and said: "The role of the criminal law is to warn people not to commit crimes again, and now this kind of corporal punishment will harm people for a lifetime, and it should be changed." ”
After some research by Zhang Cang and Feng Jing, the imperial chancellor, the criminal law was revised, replacing the tattoo on the face with labor, and cutting the nose and cutting off the foot with a board. These legal amendments were implemented with the approval of Emperor Wen of Han. This cruel corporal punishment, which has been practiced for thousands of years, has also been abolished.
The deeds of Ti Qian's rescue of his father were also included in the "Biography of a Spirited Woman" by posterity to give commendations: "Ti Qian's father, also has a sense of knowledge, pushes sincerity to write, is very elegant, and the little girl's words are grateful for the holy will, and finally remove corporal punishment, so as to avoid the father's affairs." ”