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Text | Jiang Xiubai
Edit | Jiang Xiubai
preface
Punishment is a sharp weapon for rulers to firmly control power, and it is also a means to maintain social order in ancient times.
How was one of the most jaw-dropping punishments in history, the use of animal organs to kill prisoners in extreme "joy" and make people feel so painful?
The origin of punishment
As a means of maintaining social order, punishment is inseparable from the development of human society, as early as the primitive society, there was a certain kind of punishment within the clan, which can be regarded as the prototype of punishment.
With the development of society, the clan gradually evolved into the state, and the punishment also developed from the initial simple customary punishment to a part of the state power.
In the period of slave society and feudal society, punishment became an important means for a small number of ruling classes to reflect their will and punish crimes, and the formulation and implementation of criminal punishment became more and more standardized, and a written criminal law appeared.
But at the same time, criminal punishment was also used to safeguard the interests of the ruling class and serve class oppression, such as the Qin Dynasty set up a variety of cruel tortures, such as "cooking, pumping, peeling, decaying, and beheading", and the Ming Dynasty also had "Ling Chi execution" and other means, these punishments were too brutal and completely contrary to humanitarianism.
There are three main theoretical explanations of the origin of punishment: "Heavenly Theory", "Soldier Theory" and "Contract Theory".
The "Heavenly Theory" holds that punishment comes from divine mandate and the ruler fulfills the divine will, the "Bing Theory" believes that punishment originates from war and is the punishment of the victorious side against the defeated side, and the "Contract Theory" believes that punishment is based on the social contract and is an agreed means of punishment.
From a historical point of view, this has a certain degree of rationality, and the criminal law in ancient China has gone through three stages, the number of punishments used in each dynasty, and the specifications of torture instruments are also different, among which the "laughing type" can be said to be a kind of "cruelty" in another direction.
Gentle torture - laughing torture
Ancient punishments were known for their cruelty, such as flogging, mutilation, and death, but there is one punishment known as "gentle" torture – laughter.
Laughing at the seemingly merciful punishment was actually cruel, in the case of a prisoner who was smeared with honey on his feet and then let a goat lick it, and the barbs of the goat's tongue brushed the soles of the feet, causing unbearable itching.
The goat's tongue was rough and wet, which made the prisoner very unbearable, and his face was also distorted because of itchy laughter, and over time laughter turned into a wail, and some people even died of anger in laughter.
This kind of punishment is generally used for the concubines of the emperor's harem, because the means are sharp and ingenious, not only will not leave scars on the tortured, but also indirectly punish the criminal, which can be regarded as maintaining the dignity and face of the royal family.
At that time, the punishment gradually became standardized and restricted, abandoning the cruelty of corporal punishment and turning to beheading and hanging. And laughter is precisely a kind of "light punishment".
In fact, any punishment that results in the death of a person should not be regarded as "light", which is just a misconception of the ancients, which was disputed by later generations as a distortion of human nature.
For example, Hu Weiyong rebelled in the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang once considered executing him with laughter, which is not clearly recorded, but it is conceivable that if this kind of punishment is really used, what kind of pain and humiliation Hu Weiyong will experience.
A laughing person may be happy on his face, but his heart is already desperate, and this kind of frivolous death actually tortures people's minds.
In fact, there were other forms of torture in ancient times that were carried out in the form of "gentleness", such as pecking at prisoners with chickens, scratching prisoners with cats, and even gently sweeping their feathers over sensitive parts of prisoners.
These so-called "mild" punishments are equally terrible and cruel, because they cover up the inner cruelty with a gentle appearance, and they prolong the suffering of the tortured, which is neither like the immediate effect of beheading, nor like the painful dripping of Ling Chi, but the psychological limit of torment.
The difference between ancient and modern punishments
There are great differences between ancient and modern punishments in terms of legal principles, judicial procedures, types of punishments, and enforcement methods, and this difference reflects the changes in the thinking of social governance.
Ancient criminal punishment focused on substantive fairness and ignored procedural fairness, and criminal law mainly aimed at punishing criminals, and the punishment was extremely cruel, such as Ling Chi execution, corpse killing, and live burial.
The torture instruments were also very cruel, such as shackles, wooden donkeys, cages, etc., the shackles weighed up to 150 catties, and the prisoners were often crushed to death, and some prisoners were forced to carry such huge shackles to walk around the street market to show everyone.
At that time, the wooden donkey was even more cruel, the prisoner was tied to the wooden donkey, his hands and feet were tightly bound, the whole person was hung in the air in the shape of a "person", his feet were off the ground, and he suffered great pain for a long time.
Modern criminal law, on the other hand, emphasizes both procedural and substantive fairness, and the death penalty is also carried out in more humane ways such as lethal injection, and the punishment has become more mild, focusing on the correction of prisoners.
Modern society pays more attention to the protection of human rights and the care of human nature, and through the signing of various international human rights conventions, modern society has formed a relatively mature human rights protection system.
Criminal law has also changed from a mere means of punishment to a means of correcting offenders and protecting society. This kind of change is not easy to come by, and it is based on the understanding and importance of the value of life and human dignity.
Now that the punishment has been banned, it means that society is progressing all the time, but it does not mean that you can commit crimes at will, the law still exists, and you must not defy the law, otherwise you will be severely punished by the law.
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