China has a history of about 5,000 years, and the feudal monarchy accounted for more than 2,000 years, in that monarchical and centralized society, the etiquette law is very strict, so it has also given birth to a lot of torture, such as the very famous Ling Chi punishment, in fact, this kind of torture is very common in ancient and modern Chinese and foreign history.
For example, the iron virgins of medieval Europe and the stone punishment in the Middle East, etc., these punishments actually contain profound political and religious significance, and now there are scholars who specialize in ancient criminal law, and in ancient times, there were also people who made a regularization of the criminal law of the past.
These are described in detail in a book called "The Family of Executioners", and what I want to introduce to you today is a punishment called "lighting the sky lantern", which is famous because Dong Zhuo once suffered such a punishment.
First, Ling Chi and car cracks
The punishment that everyone hears more about is actually beheading, but beheading is not considered torture, beheading is the most commonly used criminal law in ancient times, equivalent to our current death penalty, generally if you want to execute the death penalty for prisoners, you use beheading, and the other two Ling Chi and Che Rig can be regarded as real torture.
These two criminal laws also have very famous figures, among which Shang Martingale was split by a car, and Shang Martingale is a representative figure of China's legal family, who established relatively perfect laws for the Qin State, but in the later period, he was punished by King Hui of Qin for car splitting.
And Ling Chi is also a very cruel punishment, this punishment first appeared in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, many dynasties have such punishments, such as the Yuan Ming and Qing dynasties that everyone is very familiar with, it can be said that Ling Chi is the most painful punishment, in the very famous opera novel "Dou E'er", Zhang Donkey Er was sentenced to Ling Chi's punishment.
Second, Dong Zhuo, who was "lit by the sky lamp"
The two punishments mentioned above exist as legal punishments of the imperial court and are officially owned, while there are many kinds of punishments circulating in the folk, which are not included in the main history, such punishments are mostly found in novel works, and Dong Zhuo, whom we want to talk about today, was also executed by this kind of punishment circulated by the people.
Dong Zhuo's character believes that I don't need to say more, everyone is also very familiar with it, he is an important figure in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he is vicious and vicious and belligerent, his wind evaluation in the novel is not very good, but Dong Zhuo can also be regarded as a hero, he is not a brave and unscrupulous man, a stunned young man who will only rush forward, but a talented person with both force and strategy.
However, such a talent placed on such a person of heart, it is a disaster, the Han Dynasty at that time was already in danger, Dong Zhuo took advantage of this opportunity to rise up, after holding Emperor Xian of Han hostage, he killed the Young Emperor and poisoned the empress, after this, he still did not have the slightest restraint, enjoyed the feeling of his own power, and casually despised the lives of the court ministers.
Everything is acted according to Dong Zhuo's mood, such behavior soon caused dissatisfaction from all sides, Dong Zhuo did not have such an ability to appease the forces of all sides, so he was quickly overthrown, and the process of Dong Zhuo's overthrow was also a very wonderful story, including the participation of Lü Bu and Sable Cicada, Lü Bu is also a hero of the Three Kingdoms that everyone is very familiar with.
Dong Zhuo's rout was due to Lü Bu, Who was Dong Zhuo's righteous son, but he was persuaded by Wang Yun with a plan, so Lü Bu and Dong Zhuo were not the same heart, and after Dong Zhuo's successive defeats, Lü Bu took the opportunity to kill Dong Zhuo in the palace.
And because Dong Zhuo's reputation is really too bad, what he has done has already aroused resentment from all sides, so after Lü Bu killed Dong Zhuo, no one actually cried out for him, but instead cheered all over the city to celebrate the death of such a big traitor, even if Dong Zhuo was dead, it still failed to soothe everyone's resentment towards him, so Dong Zhuo's body was dragged to the East City, and it was also lit by the sky lantern.
Third, what is "lighting the sky lamp"
It is mentioned above that Dong Zhuo's final ending was to be lit by the sky lantern, so what is the light of the sky lantern? What kind of torture is this? First of all, the prisoner's clothes are stripped naked, the prisoner's body is wrapped in sackcloth, and then the prisoner is soaked in an oil tank, soaked for a day, and then the prisoner is fished out.
Then let the prisoner be hung up with his head down and his feet up, and then it is time to really start the punishment, after hanging the prisoner, start to ignite the fire from his feet, let the fire slowly burn from the foot to the head, such a process is incomparably long, but also very torturous, the prisoner is burned alive, and in this process, there is no possibility of breaking free, can only be boiled.
Therefore, such a punishment is also very cruel, and Dong Zhuo was given such a punishment, and this is not an order from the government, it is the people themselves, as mentioned earlier, Dong Zhuo was dragged to the East City after his death, and the resentment of the people for Dong Zhuo is very large.
Therefore, during the period when Dong Zhuo was violently killed, someone inserted the wick into Dong Zhuo's body and burned Dong Zhuo's body by lighting the sky lantern, in fact, Dong Zhuo was not counted as being lit by the sky lamp, because he was already dead at the time, and then the sky lamp was just burning his body, Dong Zhuo was the first person to suffer from the sky lamp, but he suffered after death.
And the real body of a living person to suffer this kind of punishment is a woman, this woman named Zhu Jiumei, is the last year of the Qing Dynasty, and what the situation at the end of the Qing Dynasty, everyone also knows, at that time just broke out the Jintian Uprising, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rose with the trend, the power expanded rapidly, however, the reason why the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom existed for a short time is because its internal struggle is very fierce.
And there was no good leader to lead, so there were many very extreme punishments left in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, including a bit of a heavenly lantern, and this woman named Zhu Jiumei did not have many records in history, but only recorded her name and the punishment she finally suffered.
There is no record of her specific deeds, only that she was executed by Yang Xiuqing, the Eastern King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and what happened at that time made Yang Xiuqing execute a woman with such a cruel punishment, we do not know.
IV. Conclusion
The reason why the ancient criminal law was so cruel was because the ruling class had to use such means to shock people's hearts and make the people obedient, punishment and etiquette are parallel, etiquette is used to imprison the people's thoughts, and punishment is used to frighten the people.
The continuous evolution of criminal law also represents the continuous progress of our human beings, and the punishments mentioned above have long ceased to be used in China, after all, feudal society has passed, and now it is the era of socialism, and now we all advocate the humanitarian spirit, so the criminal law like before is obviously no longer applicable.