In ancient feudal society, the rulers of feudal dynasties invented many cruel punishments to punish prisoners in order to consolidate their royal power.
At the same time, due to the great environmental influence of the time, the frequent wars led to the production of many prisoners, who were inferior to the prisoners in the eyes of the victors.
Thus, while torture in ancient times was much the same, the purpose was different. The former is to torture prisoners, make them confess to the law, and experience pain and rehabilitation.
On the one hand, the latter is to pry open the mouths of the captives and force them to tell the information, and on the other hand, it is also to humiliate the defeated side in a victorious posture, to show their powerful force, and to inspire people.
It is worth mentioning that during the Northern Song Dynasty, the Jin state had a punitive measure called "sheep leading ceremony", which was invented by the Jin people in order to humiliate the captives of the Northern Song dynasty.
In today's terms, this punishment is not very harmful, but it is extremely insulting. After the leading ceremony, many women chose to commit suicide, but men survived. So, what kind of punishment is the "sheep-leading ceremony"? Why do women end so much worse than men?
Zhao Kuangyin's heavy literature is light and martial
Speaking of the "leading sheep ceremony", it is necessary to start from the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. It is said that because Song Taizu was born as a military general, and he was also the emperor who launched a mutiny. Therefore, after he established the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to prevent military generals from repeating his history, he began to reuse civilian subjects and alienate military generals.
This policy also directly led to the late Northern Song Dynasty, the use of less and less military generals, the Northern Song Military strength seriously declined. At the same time, because of the long war between the Song and Liao, and the two defeats in the Western Xia War, the economic and military strength of the Northern Song Dynasty regressed rapidly.
In addition, the bureaucracy at that time was corrupt, and many military generals were framed by civilian subjects, and there were no available military generals in the war. As a result, in the late period of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was no ability to fight back against the invasion of foreign enemies, so the Northern Song Dynasty became the end of the crossbow and gradually showed a trend of extinction.
In contrast, in the same period, in order to develop economic and military strength, the Jin State first allied with the Northern Song Dynasty to oppose the Western Xia and Liao States, and the Northern Song Dynasty at that time agreed in order to recover Yanyun.
As a result, when the Jin Dynasty destroyed the Liao State and its economic and military strength developed to a certain extent, it began to gradually invade and occupy the territory of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the military strategy of "long-distance and close-range attack" was used to the fullest.
In the seventh year of Xuanhe (1125), the Jin State, which was well aware of the military strength of the Northern Song Dynasty, launched an attack on the Northern Song Dynasty in two ways. It is conceivable that the Northern Song Dynasty, whose military strength was weakening, could not stop the Jin State at all.
At that time, Jin Bing went all the way south, and it seemed that he was about to enter the capital city, and at this time, Song Huizong, who had been studying art all his life, directly "shouldered the burden", passed the throne to his son Song Qinzong, and took refuge in the south himself.
Song Jin vs. Song Jin
In the first month of the first year of Jing Kang (1126), the Jin army besieged Fenjing, but because Li Gang, the defender of Beijing, was able to resist strongly and failed to break the city, Zhao Shidao led reinforcements to arrive, and the Jin army had to retreat.
The generals of the main war faction suggested leading the army to the rear and waiting for an opportunity to attack, but they were stopped by the surrender faction, and then the main war faction suggested that a large army be stationed in the Yellow River to prevent the Jin army from invading again, and was once again blocked by the surrender faction.
Ironically, Emperor Qinzong of Song listened to the rumors of the surrender faction and seized the military power of the general Li Gang in the First Battle of Kaifeng, laying the groundwork for the defeat of the Second Battle of Kaifeng.
In August of the first year of Jing Kang (1126), the Jin State once again gathered its army to re-attack the Song Dynasty, and at this time the Northern Song Dynasty no longer had li gang and Zhongshi Dao and other main war generals.
Under a series of operations by the surrender faction, the Jin army received no resistance, and Jing Kang attacked the gate of the capital in the second year. At that time, Emperor Qinzong of Song and the surrender faction offered their surrenders and suppressed the spontaneously organized people in the capital who were ready to resist.
In this way, the Jin army invaded the capital city and plundered the gold and silver coins of the Song Dynasty. Under the weakness of the corrupt rulers and capitulationists of the Song Dynasty, the people of Kaifeng suffered an unspeakable disaster.
Jing Kang's shame and leading the sheep
In 1127, the Northern Song Dynasty fell. The Jin army looted the treasures of the palace and withdrew to the Jin Kingdom with the captive Emperor Huizong of Song, Emperor Qinzong of Song, and his concubines from the harem.
After these people were abducted, they were also doomed to a tragic fate, many men never had the opportunity to return to Beijing, and the fate of women was even more bumpy.
On the way north, many young and beautiful women were teased by the Jin people one after another, including many clan women, and Wang Wanrong, the favorite concubine of Song Qinzong at the time, was one of them.
In the end, she committed suicide because she could not bear the insult, and on the way to the capital of the Golden Kingdom, the Jin people performed the famous "leading ceremony" on these women.
The so-called sheep-bearing ceremony is a way of surrendering captives, both men and women, are required to take off their clothes, topless, draped in sheep's clothing, tied with ropes around their necks, and led like sheep, indicating that captives can be slaughtered at will by the victors.
In the process, some young and beautiful women will also be directly abducted by the Jin people, and after the sheep leading ceremony is performed, they will bathe and change their clothes, and then be wantonly humiliated.
At that time, Emperor Hui and Emperor Qin were taken care of, and only let them take off their coats and go topless. This kind of action, for the degree of conservatism of the society at that time, can be said to be a very serious insult, not to mention the "leading sheep ceremony".
Generally speaking, on the night after the end of the sheep-leading ceremony, Northern Song women would be "given a bath", the so-called "bath" is to serve others after taking a bath, and many women committed suicide without receiving some humiliation.
Because at that time, women regarded their own honor as extremely important, and when they could not bear the humiliation, they chose to commit suicide, because this was the last thing they could do to resist.
From a certain point of view, although the leading ceremony is also an insult, it is within their psychological endurance that they will not choose this extreme way of suicide.
The result of these two different results has a lot to do with the social atmosphere of the time, and now we often say that "living is more important than anything", but in the feudal society period at that time, "machismo" was still there, and the status of women was low.
The rise of science in the Northern Song Dynasty further standardized women's thinking and behavior, and even put forward the "three from four virtues", and women's behavior and thought were seriously bound.
It is because of these constraints that they regard personal honor and innocence as incomparably important, even above life. For them, their innocence and honor can be guarded with their lives.
It can be seen that after receiving the "sheep-leading ceremony", it is also understandable that the woman committed suicide. At that time, the men came differently, they claimed to read only the books of the sages, even if they were psychologically and physically humiliated, as long as they survived and had faith in their hearts, they had the opportunity to restore the country.
In addition, ancient women often behaved very strongly on the issue of their own chastity, and even put life and death out of the matter in order to protect their chastity.
And the best praise for the women at that time was tantamount to setting up a "chastity arch" for them, and this was the biggest constraint on them, which was tantamount to a kind of sadness.
In the final analysis, it was because of the incompetence and cowardice of the Northern Song court, which was in power at that time, that the Jin people insulted them and allowed them to be slaughtered. The "sheep rite" was an endless torture for women who were already vulnerable at that time.