Flogging and cane exile is a common 5 kinds of punishment in ancient society, of which the flow refers to exile, which is what we usually say about distribution, we often see in film and television dramas, a person committed a crime and was assigned to somewhere.
Some people will say that some are sent to places thousands of miles away at every turn, such a long distance, in the case of very inconvenient transportation in ancient times, why not run away halfway.
This is a misunderstanding of the ancients, we always think that modern science and technology are developed, everything is more advanced than the ancients, in fact, the ancients can not be dumber than modern people, since exile for a long time as a major means of punishment, it shows that this kind of distribution behavior, can certainly be implemented in place, otherwise it will be abolished.
Distribution must be followed by officials, and this kind of work belongs to the kind of people who watch people order food, because the road is long, it is very hard, and there is a certain danger, and the danger here includes not only the danger of escape, but also the various unknowable risks such as the illness of prisoners, delays in time, and sleeping in the wind.
Ordinary officials are not willing to take on such work, but when they encounter those who have money in the family, they will definitely stuff some money and let them take care of it, Lin Chong and Wu Song have been given preferential treatment by escorting officials.
After being escorted to the destination, handed over to the local relevant departments, the official messenger must return to his life, the ancient judicial system is also very strict, it is precisely because of the inconvenience of transportation, communication difficulties, so it is necessary to design a set of reasonable systems to ensure the realization of the purpose.
On the other hand, if the prisoner really escapes for a while, he can't escape too far, he will be caught, ancient is an acquaintance society, every village has a mayor and so on, strangers come to your village, it is easy to identify, really someone escaped, then arrest him is also a high probability that he can be caught, of course, there are flukes to escape, it is a small probability event, otherwise Song Jiang would not want to turn to the government, being a thief always has the risk of being caught, the key is that this risk has always existed, as long as you escape, the government will always arrest you until it is caught.
More importantly, in ancient times, the system of consecutive sitting was often implemented, and if it was distributed to a certain place, it was not the most severe punishment, and after the prescribed time, it could be returned to the original place.
If you escape halfway, then the monk can't run the temple, your hometown clan will be implicated, the ancient society attaches great importance to family interests, a person is involved in a family, many people can distinguish between the heavy and the heavy, so endure a can pass the thing, you let them run, they will not necessarily run.
When we look at ancient times, we always look at them from a modern perspective, and we feel that ancient times are very backward, in fact, the design of various ancient systems is very complete, and they are not what we think today.
Some are more serious is the exile of the whole family, or even the exile of the whole family, this kind of can not run, people have many goals, need food and drink, escape is more likely to be arrested back, after being arrested, it will definitely increase the punishment, more than worth the loss.
We often hear the saying that exile is three thousand miles, which is often an exaggeration, in fact, how many miles of exile, according to your crime, many literati like to use exaggerated statements, and this three thousand miles, is often used by literary scholars to describe very distant places, do not see three thousand miles and really think that it is exiled so far.