In Chinese history, there is a type of woman known as the "Turtle Crawler", a name that sounds both mysterious and terrifying.
As long as the words "turtle crawler" are mentioned, the ancients hated it so much that they even wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible.
There is even a saying that has been handed down: "Even if a woman has a thousand poisons, the most poisonous is the turtle woman."
So, what exactly is a "turtle crawler"?
"Turtle Woman"
The history of the profession can be traced back to ancient China, especially in the Zhejiang provinces, where they mainly went out in their spare time to obtain additional income.
Initially, their actions were limited to making puppets and profiting from them, but since many felt that this method was not effective enough, they turned to bigger opportunities.
You must know that in ancient Chinese society, women had a low status and had few formal careers to choose from, and their main duty was to marry and raise children, and played an important role in the family.
However, a special occupation recorded in Qing Dynasty documents, the "turtle crawler", became a way for some middle-aged and elderly women who were poor, widowed, or had lost their spouses to earn a living.
Ancient cultures revered the virtue of chastity, and women mostly focused on fulfilling household obligations and raising children.
There are generally no job opportunities other than marital autonomy, and some elderly widows have become the nucleus of lonely families due to the death of their husbands in battle or other reasons, and have to try to make ends meet after losing their support.
"Reptilian turtles" refer to a type of person who is good at using witchcraft and has some secret knowledge.
This belief originated from people's unique perception of the stars and their belief in the mystical powers of the turtle, which eventually evolved into a symbol of the Xuanwu – a star with a head that resembles a turtle.
In the past, such beliefs were considered persuasive and many criminals used them to defraud money.
While there is no shame in this, many people resort to more dangerous methods of mutilating the lives of others.
According to Qing dynasty texts, some women would gather together to climb turtles in their spare time from farming, and such teams were organized in an orderly manner, with members working together to make the most of their talents, and a good speaker to guide them to greater profits.
Although they initially only made money by selling magic talismans to wealthy customers, they were clearly not satisfied with this and wanted to expand their business.
Over time, their incomes have increased dramatically and their lives have improved.
But their greed has also deepened, and in order to expand the scam, they have even begun to use the turtle shell as a valuable tool, pretending to be masters, and taking to the streets to calculate the fate of others.
As long as there is a business that can be made with money, they will reach into it.
They found an experienced Chinese medicine practitioner to obtain a method for treating their teeth, and combined it with the name of the turtle to form another set of "Chinese medicine to cure diseases", and this method allowed them to obtain better economic benefits.
It is said that in the early 18th century, groups similar to "turtle crawlers" appeared in the eastern and southern coastal areas of Zhejiang Province, who walked the countryside in plain clothes and attracted customers through mythological storytelling.
There are also rumors that they have found a secret method of Chinese medicine in the town, which can use injections to erode people's caries and profit from it.
In the course of the development of the "turtle woman", a variety of forms of crime naturally emerged, including the use of fictitious and fake information to trick customers into spending large sums of money, and the use of increasingly sophisticated mechanisms to induce victims to pay more again.
And the news they lie about often includes marital disasters, property damage, etc., which is enough to make people fearful and trigger further psychological panic.
Gradually, more and more poor people rely on this "signboard" to create wealth.
Greed and sin are intertwined
In the context of the feudal era, some people would go to the path of extreme greed and look for various ways to obtain wealth.
One of the most unconscionable is the profession known as the "turtle crawler".
According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, Ziheche is a precious medicinal material, and the main material is the human placenta.
When the "turtle crawlers" learned about this, they began to find a way to get some placenta.
However, placenta is not something that comes casually, it must be acquired at the time of childbirth.
As a result, there is a turtle woman who plays the role of a stable woman, mainly responsible for helping to deal with the affairs of mothers and newborns, which seems to be ordinary, but gradually embarks on the road of crime.
In pursuit of profit, they treacherously set up schemes to defraud and slaughter pregnant women, illegally obtain their belongings and placenta, and they often disguise themselves as kind old people or doctors to deceive pregnant women into trust, and take the opportunity to anesthetize and murder them, which is extremely brutal.
Gradually, as the number became insufficient, they began to use more egregious ways to enrich themselves, using medical anesthetics to confuse pregnant women, and quickly taking placenta after killing their mothers, and selling them for profit.
Another bizarre method is to induce ignorant mothers to agree to let their children go with them by claiming that they can make their children's future better, only to sell the poor children into hostile conditions.
But as the demand grows, they become more and more crazy, and even directly kill people and sell them, and they also involve human trafficking, mutilating countless innocent lives.
Some of their more nefarious tactics are more sinister, the most common of which is to deceive the trust of their owners by pretending to be a feng shui master or other identity, declaring that there is some calamity in the family that needs to be removed.
Then, they fled with the victim's belongings, and only returned for half a year or even a year to inform them, by which time the victim's body had long since disappeared.
Not only that, but there are more unbearable tactics, such as controlling girls from poor families or setting up schemes to defraud other people's families so that they can be used for self-consumption or for fun.
To make matters worse, this group of mysterious and cruel women lured other women into participating in commercial smuggling, and even sent their children to live in other people's homes, under the guise of "buddy learning", which concealed their true intentions and made it difficult to distinguish.
And the turtle woman has many secrets that no one knows, one of which is that child abduction and trafficking has become one of the ways for them to make money.
They falsely claim to be looking for talents to set up educational institutions and charge high tuition fees, but in fact they are just trying to cover up the real purpose behind them - trafficking.
It can be said that these people are also very good at understanding the psychology of ordinary people, especially the mentality of some poor parents who are eager to change their fate, and then brainwash their children into recruiting these fraud groups.
Truth
It is said that during the Qianlong period, there were frequent cases of lost and murdered pregnant women among the people, which also attracted great attention from the imperial court, so it ordered a thorough investigation.
The government launched a large-scale law enforcement operation, arresting many suspects and punishing them severely.
These turtle reptiles are ferocious and unscrupulous for money, often abducting and selling women and children, and disregarding human life.
Under torture, they confessed to dissecting the abdomen of a living person to remove the fetus and the Zihe car, and the government finally sentenced them to the brutal death penalty of Ling Chi.
It is said that the punishment at that time was very cruel, and the turtle reptiles were to be punished with a thousand knives, and the people applauded loudly when they saw this, and no one pleaded for them.
According to the interrogation confessions, the turtle women initially relied on fortune telling to make a living.
Later, in order to make huge profits, they began to design to frame other pregnant women, they would gain the trust of the pregnant women, and then beat them unconscious and tied them up.
After that, these wicked women ruthlessly disemboweled the victim alive and removed the son from the womb.
Sometimes pregnant women wake up in severe pain, and turtle women will mercilessly beat them to death, and they will even cruelly throw their newborns to wild dogs to eat in an attempt to cover up their crimes.
This heinous cruelty caused even the officials to shed tears when they heard about it.
For a time, the government and the opposition were condemning these vicious poisonous women, believing that even if they were severely punished, it would be difficult for the people to be angry.
Because of this, there is a saying that "even if a woman has a thousand poisons, the most poisonous is the 'turtle crawling woman'".
They are very good at playing with people's hearts, and then starting with a person's weaknesses until they achieve their goals.