Title: Deng Haishan, China's last executioner! In his lifetime, he cut off more than 300 human heads and earned a lot of money, but why was his old age miserable, and no one collected the corpses until he died? Did he really fulfill the prophecy left by his master?
Looking at the present than the past, cultivating Wende, hello everyone, I am Xiaode. When you watch TV dramas, you can often see the criminals who committed the death penalty being pushed out of the noon gate and beheaded, and then as the executioner's hand rises and falls, the prisoner's sinful body will be ended, but why when people say the word executioner, they often do not represent justice, but are accused of brutal murderers? Today we will walk into the life of the last executioner in China to see if they are the demons we imagine, killing people without blinking.
Subtitle "The Executioner"
Executioner is one of the oldest professions in ancient China, but he is by no means the life-making person we see in the TV series, or imagine, with a large knife to cut off people's heads in exchange for money, in the feudal period of folk, there is often a saying to describe some mysterious professions, "the executioner's knife, the eyes made of the servant (wǔ), the paper man's craft, the needle and thread of the second cobbler", this first is the executioner's knife, the legend that the knife killed hundreds, is the big murderer, if there is a family ancestors are executioners, The knife handed down from the family will be quite popular, and people in ancient times believed that this knife could ward off evil spirits in the house, and would even be regarded as a rare magic weapon.
Of course, these are the ancient feudal superstitions of that set of words, but it can also be seen that the profession of executioner in the eyes of people, or and the ordinary profession is very different, in fact, in ancient times, no one is willing to do beheading this thing, the first is that the mutilation of human limbs to harm people's lives is really harmful to yin morality, the second is that this industry is really unpopular, often attract everyone's rejection, so the earliest executioners are forced by the government to name, let you do you have to do, do not dry to die, there is no way, Many people had to start this industry in order to save their lives, until later, there were more and more poor people at the bottom, and many people could not eat, so they took the initiative to become executioners to earn some money.
Any industry has a grandfather, the executioner is no exception, the grandfather of this industry is "Fan Duo, Zhang Fei, Wei Zheng", why these three people who seem to have nothing to do with each other? In fact, because the general executioners are from butchers, so the executioners will be the butcher-born Zhang Fei and Fan Duo listed as the grandfather, as for Wei Zheng is because of the allusion to the dragon, and the executioner industry, because of the superstition of feudal society, so the rules are particularly cumbersome, not simply beheaded.
Before the executioner wants to go to the execution ground, to drink, worship the heavens and the earth, worship the ghosts, for example, everyone can often see a drinking spray knife action in the film and television drama, in fact, this action has a meaning, in ancient times, the executioner believed that wine can block resentment, so spraying wine on the knife can prevent the tortured and dead, and the resentment generated is wrapped around the executioner. To worship heaven and earth before execution is because the ancients believed that the number of human life and death was determined by the heavens, so the executioner's behavior of deciding the life and death of others violated the heavenly way, so the purpose of worshiping heaven and earth was to pray for forgiveness from heaven and earth and reduce their psychological burden.
Worshiping ghosts and gods is easier to understand, because executioners often deal with dead people, so it is inevitable that they will be more superstitious, afraid that ghosts and gods will retaliate against him, so it seems that it is not easy to be an executioner, so it is still relatively empty, compared to the ancient executioners we have not seen, and then we will talk about the nearest to us, the last executioner in China? Remember to give XiaoDe a little attention and like before talking, let's continue to look down.
Subtitle "Deng Haishan"
China's last executioner "Deng Haishan", was born in a small mountain village in Hunan in the late Qing Dynasty and early Min, due to the years of war and chaos at that time, Deng Haishan's family was very poor, and the misfortune was that Deng Haishan's family was infected with infectious diseases at that time, the children of the family died one by one, and eventually their parents also died, and finally only the young Deng Haishan was left. Orphaned Deng Haishan is upside down, can only rely on begging to make a living, the ancients often said that the heart is born, all kinds of painful experiences have caused great harm to Deng Haishan's soul, so his appearance is also extremely ugly, even can be said to be vicious and terrifying, ordinary people will be frightened when they see him.
You can imagine how bitter Deng Haishan's life is, no one dares to give food, but such a life did not last long, one day when Deng Haishan was begging, he met a noble man of his life, this person was called "Tong Shaoji (ji)", a famous executioner in Hunan, after he saw Deng Haishan's fierce and evil appearance, he felt that this person could inherit his mantle, so he decided to take Deng Haishan as an apprentice and pass on all the skills he had practiced for many years to Deng Haishan.
At that time, Deng Haishan saw that he was about to run out of food, so when he learned that Tong Shaoji was going to take him as an apprentice, he was ecstatic, and he agreed without thinking about it, at the beginning, Deng Haishan did not know what kind of job the executioner really was, he only knew that if he did not follow Tong Shaoji, would he starve to death on the street one day, just like that, Tong Shaoji gave Deng Haishan an unblasticed large knife and let him wield the practice power every day, because the large knives used by the executioners were generally particularly heavy. Ordinary people want to pick it up very hard, not to mention that deng Haishan was hungry at that time, only the skin and bones were left, so Deng Haishan had a long and arduous training to have enough arm strength to wield a large knife, but this was only the beginning.
After that, Tong Shaoji also found a bunch of large winter melons for Deng Haishan, drew a straight line on it, let Deng Haishan cut in a straight line, at the beginning, Deng Haishan always did not get the point, cut the winter melon to pieces, but after a period of diligent study and hard training, Deng Haishan's knife technique became better and better, a knife down can split the winter melon in half, and the incision is very smooth, every time can be cut on the line, the master Tong Shaoji saw that he learned so well, he began to lead Deng Haishan and him to the execution ground, as an executioner to learn work. Deng Haishan, who first went to the execution site, watched as the master Tong Shaoji took the knife in his hand and cut off the heads of the prisoners one by one, his heart was greatly impacted, but as time went on, Deng Haishan also got used to this scene and began to try to execute the prisoners.
With the head of one by one landing, Deng Haishan also gradually adapted to this job, whenever he wants to go to the execution ground, Deng Haishan will sharpen the knife in advance, so as to reduce the pain of the prisoners, and to do this kind of work, you must learn to choose the place to cut, find the connection between the two joints, this requires real skills, in order to keep his craft not behind, deng Haishan has not fallen to cut winter melons to exercise himself, and at night he will also use a large knife to practice cutting incense, looking at the place where the incense shines, A knife can cut down Mars impartially.
When executing death row inmates everywhere, the prisoners will be verified in court, and the governor will use a zhu pen to draw a red bar on the name of the prisoner, and then insert the 'spirit card' on the back of the death row prisoner, and then go to the execution ground with a roar. At the same time, Deng Haishan and other executioners have drunk zhuangjiu in advance and waited for the prisoners at the execution ground, and when the death row inmate kneels at the execution ground, he will arrange for an executioner with a knife to stand in front of the death row prisoner, one is to prevent any accident, and the other is to distract the death row prisoner's attention and make him beheaded without preparation. But Deng Haishan's master had once told him that an executioner could not kill more than a hundred people, and if he exceeded this number, he would be punished. Whenever Deng Haishan heard such advice from his master, he would scoff at it, he was already poor, how could he easily give up a money-making job, but he did not expect that Deng Haishan, who did not listen to the advice, really had a tragedy in his later years.
Subtitle "Abolishing the Executioner"
Deng Haishan's years as an executioner, saved a lot of money, because doing this business is actually quite rewarding, in addition to the normal distribution of the imperial court, every time the beheaded prisoner's family will also give Deng Haishan some money, let Deng Haishan use his hands to make some money, or let the prisoners have less pain, and Deng Haishan, who tasted the sweetness, in order to make his life more prosperous, began to take the initiative to take the task, leaving all the words of the master behind, and soon the number of people who died in the hands of Deng Haishan exceeded 100. After that, he not only did not stop but also intensified, and the number of people who died at the hands of Deng Haishan in the end even exceeded 300.
Watching the days get better and better, Deng Haishan was very happy, but he did not expect the transformation to come so quickly, but with the complete collapse of the Qing government, this cruel and backward punishment was abolished, and at this time, Deng Haishan completely lost his job, but this was only the beginning of the tragedy, because Deng Haishan was still an executioner who killed people without blinking in the hearts of the people, so no one wanted to associate with him, Deng Haishan also wanted to find a wife with a rich bride price, but no one was willing to marry this former executioner. The wealth accumulated over the years was also slowly eaten by the mountain, and it was seen that Deng Haishan, who could not eat, wanted to go to the temple to become a monk, but the monks of the temple also felt that he had killed too much, so they rejected him, and in this way, Deng Haishan in his later years began to live on the streets again, wandering around like a beggar.
In 1925, Deng Haishan died in an unknown thatched hut on the outskirts, and his old age was extremely desolate, and even after his death, no one was willing to deal with the aftermath for him, and many people believe that the reason why Deng Haishan fell into such a fate was because he did not follow the rules of his master and was punished. Some people also believe that Deng Haishan was born in that turbulent era, although he cut off hundreds of heads, but also so that he could survive, and the people he killed were all criminals ordered to be executed by the imperial court, so Deng Haishan lived so miserably in his later years, only because of the backwardness of that era.
Well, do you think Deng Haishan is right or wrong to cut off so many heads? Welcome to discuss with Xiaode in the comment area, and finally let's take a look at what Erha said.
Erha said, "Really, the mountains and rivers are broken and the wind is fluttering, and the life is floating and raining!" Meeting! ”