Do you know how many types of torture there were in ancient times on the mainland? According to relevant literature and statistics, there were more than 20 kinds of torture in ancient times, including extremely cruel punishments such as cannon burning, waist beheading, and lingchi.
Filial Piety Culture and Punishment
In ancient times on the mainland, the culture of filial piety was highly respected by rulers, and successive emperors regarded filial piety as one of the criteria for assessing whether their successors were qualified. Li Shimin, who was cold-blooded and launched the "Xuanwumen Revolution", also attached great importance to the culture of filial piety, and once ordered people to carve the "Filial Piety Sutra" on stone tablets to teach the subjects of the world to abide by filial piety and be filial to their parents.
There is a saying in the "Filial Piety Classic": "The skin of the body, the parents, do not dare to destroy, the beginning of filial piety", from this sentence, we can know how important hair and beard were in the cognition of the ancients. If someone shaves their hair and cuts their beards, they are not filial to their parents and violate filial piety, and they will be criticized by everyone.
The main content of the punishment is to shave the prisoner's hair and beard, so as to achieve the purpose of mental punishment of the prisoner. Of course, shaving and cutting hair is a very common thing today, and it does not feel so embarrassing, but for the ancients, it was a highly insulting punishment, and they even thought that it was more difficult to accept than the death penalty.
Chen Shou, the author of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, whose father was Ma Mo(谡) joined the army, was implicated and sentenced to death after Ma Mo was beheaded by Zhuge Liang in tears. There is also such a plot in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", in order to solemnize military discipline, Cao Cao once strictly ordered his subordinates not to allow soldiers to trample on farmland, and those who violated the order were beheaded, and as a result, Cao Cao's mount accidentally ran into the farmland, so how did Cao Cao deal with it?
Cao Cao, as the commander-in-chief, naturally could not say anything without faith, but he could not really behead, so what to do? So Cao Cao came up with a way to replace the head with hair, cutting a strand of hair as a decapitation, which is comparable to beheading, which shows how important hair is to the ancients.
Even during the Qing Dynasty, Dorgon issued an order to cut his hair and change his clothes, and the Han people who were deeply influenced by Confucian filial piety did not want to cut their hair, so Dorgon was greatly annoyed and ordered that if they kept their hair, they should not keep their heads on their necks, and even so, there were many Han Chinese who would rather be beheaded than cut their hair.
Zhu Yuanzhang was sentenced to death for his own son
Zhu Yuanzhang was an emperor who protected his calves and was tolerant of his son, but he was originally from a cloth background and was well aware of the sufferings of the people, so he attached great importance to the lives of the people, and he hated the corrupt officials who squeezed the people extremely, and did not hesitate to punish them with heavy punishment. Zhu Yuanzhang's sons would all be crowned kings of the domain, so he also paid close attention to the education of his sons.
Among Zhu Yuanzhang's many sons, in addition to Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, and Zhu Quan, Zhu Yuanzhang's favorite is the tenth son, Zhu Tan, the King of Lu. When King Lu was a teenager, he was diligent and studious, and his personality was gentle and elegant, Zhu Yuanzhang valued him very much, and also gave him the daughter of the general Tang He, but the children who were favored by their fathers would naturally do things more openly.
After King Lu got married, the husband and wife had a good relationship, but one of them was a pampered and proud prince, and the other was a tiger woman, how could the two of them live together without making some waves. 16 years old is the most rebellious age in a person's life, and it is at this age that King Lu became a vassal, and Zhu Tan lost patience with the affairs of the fief shortly after coming to the fiefdom, and always wanted to do something new.
As a result, "immortality" aroused Zhu Tan's interest, and he and Princess Tang immediately hit it off, and recruited many Daoist monks to refine elixirs for them in the palace. However, the elixir that can make people immortal is naturally not so simple, not only the material is precious, but also needs a special medicinal introduction, that is, the lower body of a hundred boys under the age of eight.
This matter made Zhu Tan feel very embarrassed, because no one would be willing to sell their children, and it was difficult to do this matter with money, but at this time, Princess Tang of Lu came up with a good idea, since she could not buy it with money, she would secretly "steal" it. Tang's words made King Lu's heart move, which was a good idea, so there were often incidents of children lost in King Lu's fiefdom, so that everyone in the fiefdom had children in danger.
This matter soon reached Zhu Yuanzhang's ears, and he ordered Jin Yiwei to secretly investigate the matter, and the result was found to Lu Wang and his wife, and Zhu Yuanzhang understood the original commission and Long Yan was furious and summoned Lu Wang and his wife back to Nanjing. Zhu Yuanzhang beheaded Tang on the grounds that the princess had instigated King Lu to commit a felony, but Zhu Yuanzhang could not do anything to his own son, but he could not punish him lightly, so he decided to sentence Zhu Tan to death.
From this point of view, Zhu Yuanzhang deliberately let Princess Tang of Lu carry the pot and let King Lu shave his hair, although shaving his hair made Tang Tangwang very faceless, but compared with his life, it was really worthless. After all, Zhu Yuanzhang had not read many books and had also been a monk, so he did not care too much about these false rituals, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who had worked hard from the chaotic world, understood very well that saving his life was the most important thing.
brief summary
Haircuts have become a normal thing today, and many Tony teachers are already at the forefront of fashion. Some ancient filial piety practices have now been abandoned, and some elements of traditional filial piety culture have changed, such as shaving hair is no longer regarded as filial piety. In fact, with the development of society, many old ideas have undergone earth-shaking changes, but it is undeniable that many traditional ideas are still applicable in today's society and cannot be completely denied.