"Leave people under the knife" This is a line often heard in TV dramas, and as soon as these four words are said, the executioner will stop, which means that things have taken a turn, and the person who was killed may be released, or the case may be retried. Only then can the truth surface.
Is it not that the four words "leave people under the knife" are just to increase the dramatic effect and create the tension of the TV series, in fact, it is not, because in ancient times, the four words "leave people under the knife" have a source, according to historical records, the earliest appeared in the Great Song Dynasty, and it was clearly stipulated by law, if the people killed on the court shouted out the four words "leave people under the knife" before the execution, the executioners must stop, otherwise they can't afford it.
The legal origin of the "thirteen characters" of the Song Dynasty
"Song Law" is a collection of laws of the entire Song Dynasty, Song Law imitates the Tang Law, if there are any mistakes and omissions must be compiled, the most important and most famous "Song Law" is the "Song Penal System" Song Dynasty wind prevailing text, so the compilation of Song Law is a common thing, in ancient times it was not as convenient as the current compilation, although the productivity was low, but in the Great Song Dynasty the lives of the people are very valuable.
In the Song Dynasty court did not kill civilian officials, in the folk is not the most heinous people generally will not be easily killed, but the first article of the law is "the murderer dies", but in ancient times there was no higher criminal investigation technology in that era when hearing is not necessarily false, seeing is not necessarily true, in addition to the witness is a trick, the autopsy report convicts people of the crime, such unjust, false and wrongly decided cases do not know how many, only by the subjective consciousness of the judge to judge the case is very irresponsible, and after signing the drawing, it is indeed very difficult to retry the case. Those who were asked to be beheaded after the autumn are like being sentenced to a suspended death sentence, and because of the longer time, even if the investigation is wrong, there is no chance of retrial.
Therefore, in the process of compiling the law, Emperor Taizong of Song and Zhao Guangyi ordered people to add a thirteen-character text to the law: "Any person who is on death row who is about to be sentenced to death will be interrogated again, and Then interrogate Chen Song" This sentence means that if a prisoner on death row shouts injustice before the execution, such a person can report it for review again. The emergence of this law can also be regarded as an opportunity to correct those cases that have been wrongly tried, and the people are different from the officials, because if the officials are killed, they are usually beheaded at noon, and the people are basically killed in the lively vegetable market.
There are so many people in the vegetable market, there are so many people watching, the officials who are executing, in full view of the public, do not dare to openly violate the law, when there are really death row inmates shouting injustice, everyone is a witness, the executioner must stop when he hears it, and the case can enter the "second-instance trial" stage.
The laws of the Song Dynasty not only stipulate that death row prisoners can shout unjust retrial, but also stipulate in the law that the executioner must stop when he hears the four words "leave people under the knife", if he does not stop cutting his hand directly, he will bear the consequences of serious consequences and will be punished as "homicide", so in ancient times, being an executioner was also a technical job, both to have a strong heart and skills when he started, otherwise his future and life could not be saved, so the executioner would repeatedly determine the situation of the executed person before the execution to avoid the situation of unjust, false and wrong cases. This makes us often see the drama of "leaving people under the knife" in TV dramas.
Real cases explain the application of thirteen characters in criminal law
The "knife under the knife" in the TV series is to increase the effect, but after the promulgation of this law in the Song Dynasty, there were real cases, and because this law saved an innocent and wronged person, this person's name is Wang Yuanji.
Wang Yuanji was originally a reader, young and lost his mother, the father was lonely and bitter, so he married his wife after his coming-of-age ceremony and continued the string, for the stepmother Wang Yuanji asked himself to do his son's duty, the cold helped his mother to add clothes, sick in front of the bed to serve soup medicine is also filial piety, but the son is a big problem in life to establish a family is the only way to go in life, the father to the son to handle lifelong affairs married a beautiful woman in the same village, a family of four can also be considered happy and harmonious, but living at home where there is a spoon does not touch the side of the pot, since the relationship between the ancient mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is a major problem in history.
The daughter who married over is not a daughter, the daughter-in-law and the stepmother have a contradiction because of some small things, no one obeys who quarrels, for Wang Yuanji, he is not willing to mix these things, how far can he hide, his wife sees the situation and cries in front of him, always feel that men want to stand up to the sky, I am your ming media is marrying back, you don't even hurt your wife, how many men are you counting? Wang Yuanji looked at the daughter-in-law who was crying with tears and was distressed, so he found his stepmother Liu Shi to preach, and the stepmother felt sad that she had been married into the Wang family for decades, and although she was not a mother-in-law, she had no merit and hard work, but I asked which thing was not as good as her mother-in-law, and you a junior said to me what kind of system, and the more Liu Yuanji and his wife left, the more they wanted to go, the more aggrieved Liu Shi couldn't stop crying.
So Liu Shi could not swallow this breath with a complaint to wang Yuanji and his wife to yamen saying that they both abused themselves, this accusation does not matter the government attaches great importance to immediately let the servants lock Wang Yuanji, since ancient times are hundred good filial piety first, the Song Dynasty has done more comprehensive in this regard, their parents must be filial piety, at home must listen to their mother's words.
In the face of the old mother of the vulnerable groups, the county order did not specifically inquire about Wang Yuanji and took Wang Yuanji into custody, the great Song customs have always been based on "filial piety", even if even the selection of the "filial piety" of the officials of the Great Song Dynasty is the standard of assessment, the "Song Penal System" clearly stipulates that those who do not filial piety to their parents in the life are sentenced to hanging, those who do not worship after their parents die are exiled for three thousand miles, and those who are depressed and play with their parents are punished with a hundred staffs. Such a harsh law was engraved in the bones of filial piety in the Song Dynasty, and those jailers in the prison saw Wang Yuanji coming in because of "filial piety", and they looked down on him very much, so they beat Wang Yuanji all over his body during the interrogation, and Wang Yuanji, who wanted to cry without tears, did not ease up, his stepmother suddenly died of illness, and Wang Yuanji was completely desperate, and the biggest witness did not have the undoubted death of himself, and he could not bear this torment and confessed to the crime, and he completely fixed his own type of confession and was bound to be executed.
The execution was scheduled to be a few days later, Wang Yuanji, a reader, how to think and feel that he wanted to live a dignified life, so he kept shouting wrongs before the execution, this person is also lucky, this remark was just heard by Song Taizong, who came down to serve and went on tour, Taizong heard about the matter and suspended the execution, to personally investigate the matter, so he immediately sent someone to Wang Yuanji's hometown to investigate the beginning and end of the matter, it turned out that there was a problem with the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, Wang Yuanji did not abuse his stepmother from beginning to end, after finding out, Emperor Taizong ordered someone to release Wang Yuanji, From this matter, Emperor Taizong also discovered the imperfection of the law, so he ordered people to add these thirteen words to the "Song Punishment System".
In fact, in ancient times, which dynasty and which generation will have such a situation, why was this matter determined and implemented in the Song Dynasty?
The implementation and application of the thirteen-character legal documents of the Great Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a dynasty with highly developed culture and economy, in the eyes of the people, the Tang Dynasty was called strong, and in the Song Dynasty, people called him weak, why? Because the Song Dynasty military to the outside world whether win or lose is righteous and give money, win to give money to lose also give money in short, the Song Dynasty pays money, in addition to the weakness of the most fundamental reason is that the Song Dynasty has money, because its economy and culture are quite developed, the Song Dynasty from the founding emperor Zhao Kuangyin began to pay great attention to the development of people's livelihood, because only the people's livelihood developed well, in order to continuously replenish the military strength,
Therefore, in the brilliant stage of the development of people's livelihood, economy and culture in history, the Song Dynasty was also known as the "Wen Song" and "Fan Song" representative office of the Song Dynasty's economic prosperity at that time. The founding emperor of the Song Dynasty was born as a military general because of Chen Qiaoyi's mutiny before he became the emperor, which created his vigilance against the military generals, and Bao Buqi came to a "yellow robe plus body" that day because of this reason, the literati of the Song Dynasty were reused, the literati were responsible for compiling a lot of work, and there were more people who studied the compilation of laws, so there were many times of legal changes in the Song Dynasty, the most famous of which was the Great Song Dynasty criminal officer Song Ci, who was a forensic expert of the Song Dynasty, and he was quite accomplished in jurisprudence and medicine.
And the most familiar is Bao Zheng, who is equivalent to the mayor of Kaifeng Province, and when he was in office, Kaifeng was politically clear and the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, which represented the implementation of the laws of the Great Song Dynasty.
The appearance of these thirteen words also shows that the status of the common people in the Song Dynasty era has been improved, if it is really beaten into a confession, then the phrase "leave people under the knife" will really save your life, here "leave people under the knife" is not only in the beheading can be shouted, as long as you feel innocent like waist beheading, car cracking, hanging can use this clear law to save themselves, more importantly, if it is the Zhulian Nine Tribes, it is the lives of hundreds of people.
The legal provisions of the Great Song Dynasty had a far-reaching impact on the later dynasties, which led to the picture of "leaving people under the knife" that we said at the beginning, and as society slowly developed into the Republic of China period, some bloody pictures like beheading were canceled, and the law was always constantly improving and repairing.
Growing up under the red flag, today's criminal investigation methods and legal system continue to improve, the case solving process is more professional and concise, the law believes in evidence with sufficient human and physical evidence, so as to minimize the error rate of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, and we are also saving ourselves for the second time without the phrase "leave people under the knife", if there is a direct appeal, the first instance, the second trial to meet your requirements, and the criminal must also be justified and convincing.
The Song Dynasty has been more than a thousand years away from us, but its culture has always deeply affected the development of future generations, because these thirteen words saved a life, which is responsible for the people of the world for the politicians, and now whenever we have to do it, we must abide by discipline and law, and assume the responsibility and obligation of serving the motherland.