Why did the ancients send felons to the frontier instead of choosing to execute them? Expert: They're not stupid
In many TV dramas, there are often some more classic lines, that is, when ancient officials tried more serious criminals, they would make such a trial, that is, "the thorn characters were distributed to the frontier", and even some more vicious murderers had to be assigned to the frontier. Why weren't they directly executed in ancient times? If you have to distribute frontiers, what does it mean to distribute frontiers? In "Water Margin", we often see such a bridge section, Lin Chong was originally sent to the frontier because of his crime. Why not just behead? Xiaobian will take you to understand these histories.
In ancient times, after committing a felony, prisoners were to be handed over to the government for trial, and after all the results of the trial came out, some people would be sentenced to death, and some people would be sent to the frontier. The frontier in ancient times was very miserable, and the people arranged by the general military department escorted the prisoners, and some prisoners could not even go to the frontier, and they died in the middle of the road, even if they reached the frontier, it was deserted, empty, and could not live at all.
Some prisoners, whose families were richer, stuffed some money into the soldiers who were escorting them, so that the soldiers would take care of the prisoner a little, send him a little closer, or put him in a place where there were people. Usually, if they did not receive money, the soldiers would find a place to release the prisoners and leave them alone. They didn't worry at all about the prisoners being able to run back, because there was a shortage of water and food along the way, and whether they could survive or not was a question, let alone go back.
Although no punishment was used against these prisoners, the effect of distributing the frontier was no less than that of the harsh criminal law. Many of those who were sent to the frontier could not find food in the wilderness, and eventually starved to death, or were hunted by some ferocious wild animals. Therefore, in the TV series, there is generally a prisoner who is exiled to the frontier, then that person is full of desperate expressions, because the frontier is difficult to survive, basically ten deaths and no life.
Of course, not every frontier is so desolate and impossible to survive, and it is still possible to survive in some frontiers. Just like the Yunnan and Guizhou areas, those two areas, in ancient times, there were some ethnic minorities living in, although it was called a barbaric land, but at least it was a place where it could live and was inhabited. However, the imperial court's management of those places was based on the autonomy of some local officials, and there were still relatively few Han Chinese.
Experts explained: The ancients were not stupid, they would exile some prisoners to those places, on the one hand, they could use the Han people to slowly get to know each other with them, not only that, but also to carry out some frontier construction, which can be said to be free labor. Even if they were exhausted from working there, the court would not be distressed, because those people were already felons, which was a kind of labor reform. It also shows the benevolence of the monarch.
For many different criminals in ancient times, some dynasties had their own unique methods of dealing with them, but it was later proved that the distribution of frontiers for labor reform was better than direct execution. Although these are quite backward today, at that time it was still a relatively advanced and benevolent way of dealing with it.