If the mythical King Of Qi is the founder of torture, then the actual Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang is the true successor of torture. The two types of torture he invented are still chilling, arguably comparable to the legendary cannon burns, one of which is simple and brutal physical pain and visual intimidation, while the other is much more cruel.
This kind of punishment takes advantage of the fear in people's hearts and the sense of physical suffocation, it can be said that this method of punishment is the most cruel, because it will not only suffocate people to death, but also people can clearly feel their own death process before death, few people can bear the fear brought about by this punishment, from wetting their pants to being scared to death.
1. Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang
Many people can't understand why Zhu Yuanzhang invented such cruel torture, and if you want to pursue the reason, you have to mention Zhu Yuanzhang's hatred for corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and these punishments were first invented to punish those greedy ministers, these punishments are first to make these ministers feel real pain, and second, to play the role of killing chickens and monkeys.
Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was an emperor born in the people, he saw all the sufferings of this world when he was young, but also because of the greed of officials to live very difficult, he was the only emperor in Chinese history who was completely born in the grassroots, he was very familiar with the difficulties of people's livelihood, so his hatred for these moths was far greater than others.
His grassroots origins had a great influence on Zhu Yuanzhang, who not only hated official corruption, but he was also a very down-to-earth emperor. People who have wanted to overthrow the regime in all dynasties have more or less liked to use some metaphysics to prove that they are the chosen son, but Zhu Yuanzhang is not like this, he never pretends to be a ghost, and only relies on his own strength.
In order to control the government and better supervise his ministers, Zhu Yuanzhang also set up the JinyiWei, a department directly subordinate to the imperial power, which only obeyed the emperor's orders, and they not only shouldered the responsibility of protecting the imperial family, but also secretly engaged in the work of spying on the ministers, reporting abnormalities, and private interrogations for the imperial family.
They may be any ordinary people on the street, they may be vendors who buy breakfast, they may be butchers who chop meat, and it is more likely that they are a slave in the minister's family, they are monitoring the ministers' every move in the shadows, and then they report the news to Zhu Yuanzhang.
Once Zhu Yuanzhang discovered that a certain minister had behaved abnormally, he would order Jinyi Wei to arrest him and torture him. Therefore, during Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, the ministers really endangered themselves, of course, this also greatly reduced the possibility of the ministers committing crimes, from this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang can also be regarded as benefiting the people.
Second, peel the grass
After confirming the crimes of the ministers, Zhu Yuanzhang would drop different kinds of punishments, and for corrupt officials, Zhu Yuanzhang had never been merciful. At first, he also used the punishment created by the previous dynasty, but later he felt that this was completely insufficient, it did not have a deterrent effect at all, and the officials had become numb to this punishment method.
Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it left and right, and finally came up with a clever plan, which was later called the torture of peeling the skin and picking grass. This punishment requires tearing off the human skin alive, filling it with straw to make the shape of a scarecrow, and then placing the made scarecrow in front of the city gate so that the crowd that has come to pass can see it.
This kind of cruelty to modern people think that this is a way to abandon human nature has indeed played an exemplary role, after all, no one wants their own people to put straw in their skin and then be hung on top of the city tower to show the public, which is much more psychologically stressful than beheading or something, so many officials pay great attention to their own words and deeds, even if they are made into scarecrows one day.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang's methods are very effective, they are still too cruel in the eyes of modern people, and many people believe that this only plays a deterrent effect and does not allow officials to change their ideas of corruption from the bottom of their hearts. But there are also those who think that although cruel, it is useful, it is impossible to strip greed from human nature, torture is not necessarily correct, but it must be useful.
The Ming Dynasty was also a controversial era, after all, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants were also very cruel and attached great importance to centralized power. Although there are definitely educational reasons, it is indeed a bit strange that a large family is unified like this, and many people say that if you look at the history of the Ming Dynasty, it is really a little strange.
3. The punishment of affixing officials
Just when everyone was arguing endlessly about the history of the Ming Dynasty, historians found another kind of torture invented by Zhu Yuanzhang- Tianjiaguan, which can be said to be the most "beautiful" in history, and it is very complete without seeing bloody corpses, and the torture equipment needed to be prepared for execution is also very simple, and only a bowl of water and a few pieces of straw paper are enough.
First of all, the prisoner will be fixed to a chair, in order to prevent the struggle to tie all the hands and feet, and then the straw paper will be wet on the prisoner's face, at this time the prisoner can still breathe and see the light, the heart is not very afraid and anxious, and may even feel that this punishment is not so.
However, the real cruelty is still behind, the executioner at this time will continue to cover the prisoner's face with wet grass paper, as the paper thickens, breathing is more and more difficult, the eye perception of light is getting weaker and weaker, at this time the prisoner's nerves have begun to agitate, after all, feeling suffocated in the blurred light is an extremely irritable thing.
The timid one had already confessed by peeing his pants at this time, or had already collapsed and been scared to death by this psychological devastation. But it is inevitable that there is such a bold and patient, and the lineman will slow down the speed of the stamped paper, so that the prisoner can more clearly feel that the air is getting thinner and thinner, and the darkness in front of him is getting thicker and thicker.
If he still did not intend to confess, then the final outcome of the prisoner would only be the path of suffocation and death, and this feeling of suffocation was much more obvious and long than the suffocation of falling into the water. After the prisoner dies, the paper on his face will become a paper shell like a mask, and this thing is very similar to the mask worn by the actor who jumped the official in the drama, so this punishment is also called the punishment of the official.
summary
The punishment of the tiega official is still used in film and television dramas, and many murderers in famous reasoning dramas use this method to confuse the police, and it has to be said that this is really a cruel and simple punishment, and during zhu Yuanzhang's reign, it and Jinyiwei also became the nightmare of many officials.
Much of the history of the Ming Dynasty is still debated by scholars from all sides, and the impact of the two punishments mentioned above on the Ming Dynasty, and therefore the evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang, is also an important argument that these scholars are reluctant to let go.