Exile, as the name suggests, is to be sent to a remote and savage place as a guilty person to defend the border or build fortifications.
The road to exile was very long, and the transportation was not developed in ancient times, and besides, he was guilty of sin, so he could only carry the shackles on his back and walk step by step to the frontier with his own feet.
Many people were reluctant to go on such a hard journey, but the escort officials had to go, and they were very happy to escort the female prisoners, not afraid of the difficulties and hardships on the road. So, what are the underlying reasons for this?
At all times, the ruling class needs laws to maintain its rule. However, the sentencing of the law must be severe, because everyone commits a different crime. In ancient times, as a feudal society, the emperor's family was very cruel about the regulations and types of punishment.
In Sima Qian's "Book of Reporting to Ren'an", it is said that although "Sun Tzu's patella" is actually not a punishment, it is far more terrifying than this, such as Ling Chi's execution, beheading, and so on.
Relatively speaking, exile is a relatively light punishment, it is not too physically torturous, but it is very terrible for mental torture.
In ancient times, the prisoners had to go all the way from the land of Jingshi, with shackles in the middle, to the distant border, and those with great fate could come back alive, but they also had to take off a layer of skin, referring to "The Legend of Zhen Huan", the protagonist Zhen Huan's parents and family were exiled, and when they came back, her parents were gray-haired and haggard. If their lives are not hard, many of them died directly on the frontier.
Even worse is dying on the road to exile, because the road to exile is too far, and he walks on his feet.
It stands to reason that such a journey to escort prisoners should be very difficult, and many people do not want to go, but if you refer to the real history, you will find that many officials are very willing to escort exiled prisoners, and are very enthusiastic about escorting female prisoners.
So what's going on?
In fact, the biggest reason is that there are benefits. The first benefit is that they can receive a lot of money.
Watching some ancient TV dramas, you can know that those prisoners who were able to set off from Jingshi to the place of exile were punished by the emperor because of their families or because they did wrong things in the court.
Since they are from the imperial court, they must still have a certain amount of money, and even if they don't have money, they still have so-called colleagues.
Therefore, before the trip, those people will give a large amount of money in order to let the officials take good care of the prisoners. The female prisoners are even different.
In ancient times, the crime rate of women was very low, and most of those who could be exiled were implicated by their families. was originally an official woman, but once she was reduced to a prisoner, there must still be someone to take care of her, so she gave more money.
Moreover, women in ancient times had higher requirements for chastity and status, so they must be taken care of by officials, so they will inevitably have to give more money. In this way, escorting a female prisoner can earn a lot of money.
Moreover, female prisoners will not abscond, because their various physical restrictions and requirements will definitely not be able to escape compared to a powerful man like the official cha, so the responsibility pressure of the official cha will be lighter, because the matter is not big.
In addition to money, it is to be able to save life. In Beijing, if you work in the yamen, then you have to go out to perform official duties from time to time.
But in the place where the princes and nobles of the capital gathered, there were high-ranking officials and nobles everywhere, and if you didn't pay attention to it, you might offend people, and then you would lose your life.
In addition, when you go out to perform official duties, you may encounter some murders and the like, which may be mixed with fights, and if you don't pay attention to it, you will be injured or lose your life directly.
But escorting exiled prisoners is different, except for the longer and harder journey, there is basically no other threat to life.
Some people may say that if he encounters a robber on the way, or robs a prisoner, he will still face punishment if he loses the prisoner.
In fact, they only have a very small chance of encountering robbers, unless it is the end of a turbulent society, otherwise they walk on the official road, and those robbers will not provoke the officials of the imperial court without a long eye.
There is no need to worry about robbing prisoners, in ancient times, "generals are outside, and military orders are not subject to them", in the same way, these officials do not need to bear much responsibility for the loss of prisoners, they only need to be responsible for finding them.
The third advantage is that it can satisfy the selfish desires of those officials. There is a sin hidden in human nature, that is, bullying the weak and fearing the hard.
When they were in Beijing, they were just ordinary officials at the feet of the Son of Heaven, except for ordinary people, anyone else could bully them, so many of them lived a very depressed life.
But escorting prisoners is different, in this group, they are the most powerful existence, and prisoners are subject to their constraints, so they finally don't have to be oppressed by others, and can enjoy the taste of bullying others. In this way, the evil desires in their hearts are satisfied.
In addition to this selfish desire, there is also their personal selfish desire. No matter how noble the female prisoner was before, it was all in the past, and now she is a subordinate prisoner, and she is under her own control.
And those women used to be in the capital division, they were unworthy of their existence, but now they have become prisoners, they can trample on them wantonly, so some officials may be able to vent their selfish desires and satisfy their perverted needs.
The officials who escorted the prisoners were not saints who were bent on demanding their own noble temperament, on the contrary to the saints, they were just a group of ants in the feudal society, and their first pursuit was naturally how to make their lives more comfortable.
Most of those exiled people in ancient times were noble people in the past, even if the family door was destroyed, the emaciated camel was bigger than the horse, and it was naturally profitable, not to mention that in the ancient society, women committed very few crimes, if they were exiled, it must have been the home of the eunuch in the past, and there were many benefits to themselves.
If you don't take the benefits, you're stupid. Everyone has to live for themselves, and if the officials have not read a few words of the sages, they will naturally not understand benevolence and righteousness, so it is understandable from their point of view.
However, this is the requirement of strict laws in the past, and now although we have violated the law, we also have to pay the corresponding legal responsibility, but there is far from the term exile, criminals are exempt from crime, and the same is more impartial law enforcement, and the so-called petty profits cannot overshadow the justice of the law.