In ancient history, there was a very special way of punishing prisoners called exile, which was usually used to treat some big people such as wrong korean ministers or princes and nobles, and once they were exiled, they needed to travel long distances to remote areas thousands of miles away.
In the process of going to the destination, there will always be some servants who are responsible for escorting these exiled prisoners, and many people are more curious, such a long road, and still walking, can these servants refuse such a chore? Are they also guilty of returning after sending the prisoners back, thousands of miles back and forth?
The history of exile in ancient times
Presumably, when many people watch costume dramas, they will see things about exile, for example, in "Water Margin", there are many scenes of exiled prisoners, liangshan good hanzhong, whether it is Song Jiang, Wu Song or Lu Junyi, these people have a black history of exile, but the treatment of several people on the way to exile is completely different.
In addition to seeing exile in film and television drama works, in ancient historical materials, there are also many records about exile, such as Liu Bang's choice of uprising, that is, in the process of escorting exiled prisoners, the prisoners escaped, Liu Bang was worried that he would not be able to hand over the errands and would be cleaned up, so he chose to call on the entourage and the prisoners to rise up together.
There were also many princes during the Tang Dynasty who were exiled, Li Chengqian, the crown prince of Li Shimin's period, because he intended to rebel, was discovered by Li Shimin, and then Li Xian, the son of Li Zhi, became emperor for a period of time, because he did not listen to Wu Zetian's command arrangements, he was exiled to remote areas, and later Li Ju and others had records of being exiled, you must know that these people are all princes, they are all exiled, for the ministers, it is even more impossible for his subordinates to be merciful.
The most famous exiled minister in history should be regarded as Wang Yangming during the Ming Dynasty, when he was exiled to the Qianzhou area, which was very remote and the conditions were very poor, and it was in that extremely harsh environment that Wang Yangming finally realized so many classic ideas and philosophies.
During the Qing Dynasty, exile was even more serious, generally exiled to the Ningguta area, during the Qing Dynasty, many princes and nobles or ministers, as long as they heard the three words of Ningguta, they were extremely afraid, enough to see how much everyone was afraid of exile, but in fact, exile was actually not as bad as imagined, especially these ministers or princes and nobles, it was even more different.
They were originally important figures in the imperial court, the reason why they chose to exile, is equivalent to letting them reflect on it for a period of time, maybe one day the emperor will reactivate you as soon as he is happy, if it were not for these factors, the emperor would not be willing to spend a lot of effort to exile a person thousands of miles away, for ordinary people, unless they were exiled to build remote areas in the past, they would basically not use exile as a punishment method.
Of course, there are also some female prisoners in history who have been exiled to remote areas, the main purpose is to solve the problem of the singleness of those staff in remote areas, otherwise they will rarely use such punishments, for the exiles, the most bitter is the road of exile, once you arrive at the destination, in most cases, people there will be because of your former identity and knowledge, you will be impressed, such as the kind of vicious treatment of prisoners in the movie, the real history is still relatively rare, After all, those who are exiled are all big people, and how terrible the forces behind them are, everyone knows it, but it is not easy to say it.
To say that the reason why many people are afraid of Ninguta, mainly because of the psychological gap, once exiled, it means that your future is basically ruined, for a big person who has been in the storm, calling the wind and rain, this psychological gap is the main reason for his most despair, the local living environment and bad weather are secondary.
From the historical exile records, the general place of exile is Lingnan (Tang Dynasty), Qianzhou (Ming Dynasty) and Ninggu Pagoda (Qing Dynasty) these places, from the geographical point of view, Lingnan is equivalent to today's Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan remote areas, from the Tang Dynasty capital Chang'an thousand miles away, not too far, and Qianzhou refers to Guizhou, Hunan, Hubei and other parts of the remote areas, these places are still relatively far from the Capital of the Ming Dynasty Nanjing, the farthest is the Qing Dynasty Period of Ninggu Pagoda, It was a remote area in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, nearly 6,000 miles from Beijing, and the road was so long that Qing prisoners were terrified of the difficult road.
In fact, not only the prisoners were afraid of these difficult journeys, but the servants who escorted the prisoners were also very afraid, after all, there was no high-speed rail or plane at that time, they could only walk, thousands of miles, a round trip a year passed, the road was very difficult, the servants also had words of suffering, so could they refuse this errand? Or why are so many people doing this job?
Why are the servants still willing to escort the prisoners?
As mentioned earlier, these historically exiled areas are not only far from the capital of each dynasty, but also the environment is very harsh, and on this road the prisoners and servants have to walk away, of course, they are very afraid and afraid, and after the servants go, they have to return to the same way, and they are even more miserable, so can these servants refuse this errand?
The answer to this question is more interesting, on the one hand, these servants can not refuse this errand, on the other hand, these servants are unwilling to refuse this errand, why do they say so? Let's continue our analysis in detail.
It is said that the servants did not dare to refuse this errand because at that time the servants were also organized, belonging to the "public servants" of the imperial court, and the errands assigned to them by the imperial court had no reason, nor could they pick and choose the fat and thin, otherwise it was very likely that this errand would be yellow, and if they were unlucky enough to meet an emperor with a bad temper, maybe there would be no small life, so these servants did not dare to refuse this chore at all.
Such a hard job, and can not refuse, is the salary is relatively high? In fact, the answer is also no, these escort prisoners only have a maximum of a dozen or two salaries a year, such an income to fill the stomach is a problem, to say that the salary is high, it is completely nonsense.
Since the wages are so low, they can't pick the fat and pick the thin, so how can these servants survive? This is more interesting, those servants in ancient times can be described as a true portrayal of the lowest level of an era, they interpret the ugliness and greed of human nature of an era to the extreme, and we will expand on it below.
These low-paid, hard-working servants were so clever that they looted money in three main ways, the first of which was through the withholding of food expenses given by the imperial court and various expenses in the process of escorting prisoners.
Generally speaking, the ancient imperial court will give a certain amount of food fees to those who escort prisoners and prisoners, but these food expenses are handed over to the servants, and the uniform arrangements for the use of the servants, so that these servants can squeeze the prisoners by lowering the standard of food, or directly withholding, and finally put these money into their own pockets, although this part of the money is very small, but it is also not to be underestimated.
The second way is the fee, many dynasties in ancient times for the service to collect illegal fees, are directly acquiesced, the so-called fee, that is, the ancient servant to the prisoner or the victim's family fees such as car fare, tea fees and other fees, this money can be as much as tens of thousands of dollars, it is conceivable that this is one of the biggest sources of income for the servants.
This is still true for ordinary prisoners, let alone for those exiled dignitaries or members of the royal family, the amount of fees charged is breathtaking, so these servants seem to have small official positions, but the oil and water are quite good, and many people are scrambling to become servants.
The third important source of income is the benefit fees of the prisoners' families, the amount of this fee varies from person to person, for those exiled dignitaries, the family is relatively rich, there are many powerful friends, these people in order to ensure that the prisoners eat well and drink well on the way to exile, they will specially give the prisoners some benefit fees, the amount of this kind of benefit fee is immeasurable, and even sometimes a prisoner has many people to find the servants, so that the servants can collect a lot of benefit fees and earn a lot of money. Even if they encounter ordinary or poor prisoners, they will find ways to find fun, not to mention female prisoners.
epilogue
All in all, although the ancient escort of exiled prisoners did need to wade with the prisoners and suffer a lot, but through this errand, they could get too much welfare, whether it was a fee or a benefit fee for the prisoner's family, it was enough to make these servants return with a full load, and what is more interesting is that many dynasties in ancient history acquiesced to this behavior, so that the service was more unscrupulous!
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