Noon gate has always been considered to be the place of execution for the emperor to deal with officials and criminals, but after the examination of scholars, this view has been questioned: "launching the noon gate beheading" is actually a wrong statement, so is the noon gate a place for beheading?
Since this is unreasonable, why is there such a statement as "beheading at noon"?
The first reason is that in feudal society, the imperial palace was a symbol of feudal power and the highest political center in China, and it was impossible for ordinary people to understand life and what was happening in the palace, so many stories about the palace aroused great interest, and those court anecdotes that were handed down often contained many specious elements.
The second reason is the spread of literary works such as novel legends, before the Ming Dynasty, there was never a "noon gate beheading", since the Ming Dynasty, it gradually appeared and increased, "Speaking of Tang Dynasty" is an early Chinese novel, it tells the story of Luo Tong sweeping the north and Xue Rengui's eastern crusade, of which, there are many plots about the introduction of the noon gate beheading.
In the "Fengshen Yanyi" and "The Complete Biography of Yue Yue", there are also stories of noon gate being beheaded, in the late Qing Dynasty, a large number of talented and beautiful stories, public case stories and miscellaneous dramas, people often say that "noon gate is used for beheading", which indicates that the production and spread of this plot was only in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
In fact, there is no so-called "noon gate beheading", but it does not mean that noon gate has never carried out the death penalty of beheading.
In the history of the Ming Dynasty, it is true that many officials were taken to the Noon Gate for interrogation and died outside the Noon Gate, but this was not a beheading, but a scepter to death.
In the Ming Dynasty, if the minister violated the dignity of the emperor, he was guilty of "anti-scales" and sentenced to the punishment of "court staff", which was to spank the criminal with a large stick and tie the criminal with a sackcloth so that he could not move.
He then tied his feet with a rope and had the warriors grab the rope from all sides and hold it, revealing only his hips and legs, accepting the staff. First three blows were given by the military academy, and then hundreds of soldiers took turns executing with sticks, and when they were done, they were wrapped in thick cloths, and several people threw them to the ground. After this punishment, very few people can survive, and even if they do not die, they will be disabled for life, so the "noon gate" is the place where this torture is carried out.
During Zheng De's reign, Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty served 107 ministers at the same time, and shortly thereafter, the Jiajing Emperor broke the record, and 124 people at the same time, 16 of whom died on the spot.
In the final analysis, the court staff system is still a product of the development of feudal centralism, and is a manifestation of the vanity and desire to rule the feudal emperor to eradicate dissidents and consolidate his rule.
Under the feudal concept of the time, killing people was regarded as a murder, and in general, the emperor would not let it
Such an unfortunate murder site was close to his palace, so that since ancient times, the place of the prisoners was not only at the entrance of the palace, but also outside the capital city, usually in the crowded streets.
The Book of Rites and Kings speaks of "the executioner in the city and the people abandoning him" when he says that the prisoner is beheaded on the street and then abandoned there. In the Qing Dynasty, Beijing beheaded Caishikou outside Xuanwu Gate, and chose to kill and behead places in crowded places like Caishikou because feudal rulers wanted to defend their authoritarian authority with butcher knives, but also to intimidate the people.