Since ancient times, rulers of past dynasties have had to come up with corresponding means and methods in order to consolidate their rule, and the best deterrent method is criminal law.
In ancient times, there were countless criminal laws against prisoners. The addition of any number of torture instruments could make the prisoner unable to survive or die. However, the criminal laws against female prisoners were very cruel.
Generally speaking, most corporal punishments will cause prisoners to suffer physical pain, but the reason why criminal laws are so scary is not only the pain of the skin, but more importantly, the mental torture and humiliation. Some criminal laws bring The prisoners would rather commit suicide than endure the pain.
Why did many female prisoners in ancient times prefer death to torture? What were the tortures used against women in ancient times?
is here today to tell you about some torture methods that frightened prisoners in ancient times.
(The pictures in this article are all from the Internet)
1. Torture
Torture is commonly known as finger clamping. As the name suggests, it is to clamp the fingers with a torture instrument. The specific torture method is: A torture instrument called a torture instrument is placed on the prisoner's body. fingers, and then the torturer pulls hard on the instrument of torture.
The punishment of pinching fingers sounds ordinary. Some people may think that just pinching fingers, how painful can it be? But in fact, this kind of torture brings no less pain to the prisoner than using a stick.
Due to the squeezing of the torture instruments, the prisoners' fingers will suffer huge pressure, and then feel the excruciating pain, which may even lead to the loss of their hands. Therefore, when ancient prisoners faced torture, they often cried and screamed. fear.
Torture was very common in the Tang, Song, Ming and Qing dynasties, and was often used by officials to extract confessions, and the targets of this punishment were usually female prisoners.
Because generally speaking, women's hands are more delicate than men's hands. Using this "cruel" punishment will cause more obvious physical harm and mental torture to women.
Moreover, many women in ancient times had to rely on their hands for washing and cooking. If they were tortured, their hands might become useless, and their future lives would naturally be insecure.
There is another kind of punishment for the hands, and the other kind of punishment will also make the prisoner more frightened.
2. Pricking the seams under the nails
You may have seen some costume TV dramas. In the drama, if any maids and slaves make a big mistake and become guilty, the interrogators will use needles to prick the seams between their nails. .
This kind of punishment, which involves nail piercing, is more "brutal" than torture: Normally, when interrogators want to impose this kind of punishment on a prisoner, they will forcibly immobilize the prisoner's body so that he cannot struggle and resist. Then use a sharp bamboo stick or needle to insert it into the prisoner's fingernails.
As the saying goes, "ten fingers are connected to the heart". In ancient times, many women would protect their hands, no matter whether they worked or not. If their delicate hands were pierced by bamboo sticks or needles, you can imagine the sharp pain. .
Moreover, in order to ensure that the prisoner will not die from this punishment, the nails are usually not pierced too deep, so after suffering this kind of punishment, they can only bear it forcefully.
Such torture is inflicted, and the prisoners cannot survive or die. No wonder many people would rather die than suffer the consequences alive. Such torture is really not something that ordinary people can bear.
3. Cane punishment
Cane punishment is one of the five punishments . As a type of punishment, it can be traced back to Eastern Han Dynasty . In short, is to make the prisoner take off his clothes, and then use bamboo sticks, wooden boards, thorns and other objects to repeatedly Hit his butt.
Regarding the punishment of the rod, there were regulations in the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. Any woman who was found to be unruly and unruly would be punished with the rod.
Due to the thick flesh on the buttocks, unless the attack is particularly severe, cane punishment usually only causes physical pain to the prisoner.
However, the cane punishment requires the prisoner to take off his clothes, which is actually an insult to the prisoner, and for those female prisoners, it is even more mental torture.
In history, Zhenfei once suffered this kind of torture of "stripping her clothes off and hitting her buttocks", and she was also the first concubine in history to be stripped of her clothes and tortured with a cane.
Concubine Zhen was open-minded and liked new things. In the palace with strict discipline at that time, Concubine Zhen was like a beam of warm light to the emperor, but this light caught the eye of Cixi . Over time, Cixi became more and more interested in Zhen. The concubine became more and more unhappy.
At that time, due to various comprehensive factors, Concubine Zhen was involved in an incident of selling her official position and accepting bribes, and later contradicted Cixi. Cixi originally wanted to punish Concubine Zhen, but this incident of selling her official position allowed Cixi to seize the opportunity, so she ordered her to Concubine Zhen was punished with a cane.
Her clothes were stripped off in public and her buttocks were hit hard with a wooden board. As a woman, Concubine Zhen's body was not as strong as a man's. After receiving this severe beating, she was already half dead. This shows how harmful and powerful the cane punishment is.
However, compared to suffering physical pain, what is even more unacceptable is the mental insult and shame.
4. Iron Skirt Punishment
Iron Skirt Punishment, the name sounds interesting, but in fact this punishment is quite cruel.
Iron skirt punishment is a punishment specifically used for women: The prisoner is put on a fire to roast, but before that, the prisoner is made to wear a "skirt" made of iron sheets. Because the metal torture instrument has passed through the fire It will become hot after being roasted, and the prisoner's skin will be burned by the iron pieces.
After the fire breaks out, the temperature of the iron skirt will rise rapidly. At this time, the prisoner will feel the pain as if being burned with a soldering iron. The scene is naturally terrible.
This kind of punishment will make the prisoner feel that life is worse than death, and it is seriously humiliating, so it is usually used on women who have committed serious crimes.
5. Dip in a pig cage
Many of my friends must have heard of the criminal law of immersion in a pig cage. Now many TV dramas will talk about it. If a woman in the village gets into trouble and does not observe the rules of women, the village chief will take her to prison. The women were arrested and immersed in pig cages.
The specific execution method of pig cage immersion is to put the prisoner into a cage made of bamboo strips, and then throw the prisoner into the river.
In the old society, when both men and women were caught cheating, the man would be beaten to death with sticks, and the woman would be dipped in a pig cage - so, the pig cage dip was usually used to target people. A kind of lynching for those women who do not keep their wives.
In fact, pig cage immersion is actually a very feudal folk lynching, and its essence is to drown people alive, which can be described as extremely cruel. Many women encounter this situation and would rather hang themselves than suffer immersion. Pig cage punishment.
6. "Red embroidered shoes"
Red embroidered shoes are also one of the tortures in the old days. As you can imagine from the name, this kind of punishment tortures the feet of the prisoner.
The specific execution process is as follows: A pair of special iron shoes are burned in the fire. After the iron shoes are burned red and shiny, the iron shoes are taken out with pliers and let the prisoner wear them barefoot.
Because the temperature of the iron shoes is extremely high at this time, a layer of skin will be burned off the prisoner's feet as soon as he steps on them. However, the criminal law does not stop there: after the prisoner's feet are blistered, the interrogator will ask him to The prisoner repeats this criminal process and the blisters on the soles of his feet will be burned.
Repeatedly, the prisoner's soles are easily infected after being burned many times. Medical conditions in ancient times were not as good as today. When encountering this kind of situation, prisoners usually have no choice but to ask for their own blessings.
In short, because the pain caused by criminal law will make prisoners unable to survive or die, so "red embroidered shoes" can be regarded as an inhumane form of many criminal laws.
7. Tiger and leopard enjoying spring
Tiger and leopard enjoying spring is a kind of torture for women in ancient times. The name may sound "poetic", but this kind of punishment can be described as heartbreaking.
The specific torture method of Tiger and Leopard Xichun is: take off the clothes of the female prisoner, and then throw her into a sack. Also in the sack are mice and cats, as well as newly lit firecrackers.
Because the explosion of firecrackers will scare mice and cats, the frightened cats and mice will run around in the sacks. After a period of scratching and biting, the victims will often have scars on their bodies.
However, the implementation of the criminal law has not yet ended. The interrogators will take out the injured prisoners and let them soak in salt water.
This kind of criminal law sounds shocking, not to mention the impact and destruction of the prisoner's mental will by taking off his clothes. Just being scratched and bitten by mice and cats in a sack, and unable to break free from the shackles of the sack, is enough. It's already painful.
More importantly, after the prisoner was tortured, the prisoner's wounds were exposed to salt water. This fatal blow to add insult to injury would undoubtedly drive the prisoner to death.
Therefore, under such devastation, very few people can survive.
Objectively speaking, this criminal law is indeed inhumane. No matter how serious the mistake the prisoner has made, he should not be treated in such an inhumane way. It is really against human nature to torture people in this way.
8. Kun punishment
Kun punishment It is a humiliating criminal law against women, which involves shaving all the hair on the prisoner's body. It is one of the five punishments.
The essence of this kind of punishment is a kind of personal insult to the prisoner.
How can a woman not love beauty? But shaving all the hair, including the head, and walking down the street with a bald head will make anyone feel ashamed and humiliated.
Moreover, the ancients emphasized that the body is protected by its parents. Although it does not cause actual harm to the body, the insult and destruction of personality caused by this criminal law will hang over the prisoner like a shadow.
I have to say that even today, the criminal laws in ancient times are more cruel than the last.
9. Castration
For men, the execution and operation of castration are useless. For women, castration will deprive them of their fertility.
According to "Shang Shu Lu Xing", female prisoners were subjected to castration by hitting their abdomens with wooden sticks for a long time, which caused damage to their organs and resulted in loss of fertility.
If a childless woman experiences this kind of criminal law, then she will surely lose the opportunity to become a mother.
10. Tattoo punishment
Tattoo punishment is one of the five punishments in ancient times, also known as ink punishment . The specific operation method of this criminal method is: Use a needle with ink to pierce the prisoner's skin, thereby in Patterns or marks are left on the prisoner's skin, and of course there are also tattoos.
Under normal circumstances, tattooing will be performed on the more obvious parts of the prisoner's body, such as the face or forehead.
In fact, compared with other criminal laws, the physical harm and pain caused by tattooing is not very serious, but the purpose of tattooing is not to hurt people, but to hurt people's hearts.
Everyone has a love for beauty. In ancient times, women valued their appearance the most, and when it came to female prisoners, tattooing was undoubtedly a terrifying punishment: once a word was tattooed on the face, it could be said that this woman This life is ruined.
Because if tattooing is applied to the face, it will not only damage the appearance, leading to loss of face and the inability to see others, but more importantly, this thing will follow you for the rest of your life and become a black spot that cannot be erased for the rest of your life.
The ancients paid attention to the physical damage of the body to the parents, and the harm caused by tattooing can also make the prisoner fall into a state of rebellion against filial piety. Therefore, the terrible thing about tattooing is not that it hurts the body, but that it hurts the heart.
As one of the five punishments, tattoo punishment has existed for a long time in history. If you want to delve deeper, it can be traced back to thousands of years ago.
It is recorded in "Shang Shu Lu Xing" that the original ink punishment was to directly cut the person's skin with a knife, and then apply ink on the scratched mark. After the wound was scarred, the ink trace was retained. Come down.
However, during the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, after the " Qing Dynasty Laws and Regulations " was revised, tattoo punishment was completely abolished.
However, the original tattoo has gradually evolved into a fashion trend nowadays: many men and women now try tattoos for various reasons, and the tattoo industry has also emerged as the times require. Perhaps this is also a natural phenomenon of history. Bar.
Conclusion:
Throughout the dynasties, there were countless criminal laws of various kinds. These criminal laws deeply persecuted women at that time.
Even if they become prisoners, these women have dignity and personality and should not be treated like this. After experiencing torture, many of them were tortured to death or committed suicide because they could not bear the mental torture and blow. The impact is bad both personally and socially.
It can be seen from this that the shock and persecution these criminal laws have brought to the common people are indeed considerable, but the historical process has its own trajectory. Feudal society has passed, and today's society is peaceful and tranquil. Naturally, these criminal laws no longer need to continue to exist. .
