Speaking of beheading, we all think of the scene in the TV series, in the noisy vegetable market, a very fierce-looking, athletic man holding a large knife, as long as the supervisor next to him gives an order, the person holding the large knife will spray a mouthful of wine at the big knife, and then raise the knife, ready to cut the prisoner.
However, in scenes such as film and television dramas, the average prisoner will not die, because someone will rush over on horseback and shout that the knife will be left behind, and the person who raises the knife will generally stop at this time. When the executioner with the knife really stops after hearing that there is a person under the knife, why is this?
In the Song Dynasty law, there was such a sentence: Anyone who is on death row who is about to be sentenced to death and is wronged, then interrogate Chen Song. The thing about this law is that if someone shouts that he has been wronged when he is about to be executed on the execution ground, then the executioner will not dare to do it, and the case will be appealed again and again, until the truth of the case is revealed, if someone says that he has been wronged and killed, it is contempt of the king's law, and the consequences you can imagine.
So the Song Dynasty gave the death penalty two chances, much like the current appeal, with the opportunity to sue in court. As long as the death penalty does not approve of the outcome of the sentence and claims another grievance, the government must conduct a second review. With such a strict legal system, the executioner naturally stopped when he heard "leaving people under the knife".