This was an ordinary day in the 26th year of the Guangxu period. There were crowds outside the Caishikou in the background, and the crowds were arranged on both sides of the road, making the already narrow streets even more cramped.
Because it is too crowded, people in the crowd make a few swear words from time to time, as if they are being stepped on their instep. Despite this, they had no intention of leaving.
A gong suddenly sounded in front of
, and the crowd suddenly became quiet. I saw a man wearing an official hat stepping on a horse, his expression was extremely serious, and people bowed their heads and dared not look directly into his eyes.
and behind him, hundreds of officers followed. The team of the officers was divided into two pieces, with the front team following the leading man closely, and a prison car was escorted between the front and rear teams.
When the prison car saw the prison car, the people on both sides smashed the rotten vegetable leaves in their hands towards the prison car. The people inside had nowhere to hide and could only bow their heads and endure it. In fact, not many people in the crowd really know what crimes the prisoners committed, most of them just follow the trend and make excuses.
It is said that the greater the crime of the criminal, the slower the speed of the execution ground. First, let the people vent their venting, and second, to create more torture for death row prisoners before death.
Fortunately, this death row prisoner is lucky, and the long team finally arrived at Caishikou . The servants quickly dispersed in the crowd, blocking the people watching the fun from the execution ground. Then an executioner with a flesh-faced face stood in the middle of the execution ground, waiting for the servants to escort the prisoner from the prison car.
The sun is scorching, but there are no fewer people watching the fun, including a foreigner. He watched the executioner throw a small piece of wood to the ground, and the executioner sprayed a sip of wine into the big knife in his hand and waved it up.
This is a relatively large-scale killing scene in the late Qing Dynasty. This foreigner traveled in China, walked through many famous mountains and rivers, and saw a lot of Chinese customs and cultures, but he was still curious about the punishment of beheading.
During his travels, whenever he heard that there was a beheading, he would come to join in the fun. However, the situation in the late Qing Dynasty was turbulent, and beheading was no longer a new thing. According to him, among the beheadings he had seen, an executioner cut 33 heads in a row, and it took less than three minutes.
This punishment of beheading makes this foreigner feel inexplicably excited every time he watches, but for the Chinese people, it is a cruel torture.
Beheading: Even if it is happy, it is even more cruel
Countries around the world generally deal with death row prisoners including strangulation, poisoning, burying alive, poisoning, etc. However, in China, it has a special liking for beheading since ancient times. Once a prisoner is convicted of death, beheading is almost the first choice.
For the ruling people, beheading is a punishment that is easier and more intimidating the masses.
Just imagine, a good person, with just a flash of sword light, his head fell to the ground and blood splattered everywhere. The visual effect was directly filled. Almost no one could face such a bloody and cruel scene without changing his face.
Another thing is that the ancient Chinese are deeply influenced by traditional filial piety and pay attention to "the body, hair, skin, and parents, and dare not hurt them." Even eunuchs who worked in the palace should try their best to spend a high price to redeem the items cut off from the treasure room from the baby room, and put them in the coffin after they die to collect the whole body.
This punishment of beheading can be seen as a psychological deterrence to prisoners and the people. What's more, without a complete body is the greatest insult to the deceased. Even after the execution of the death penalty, the relatives of the prisoner must look for brave tailors to sew the head and body to bury the whole body.
For death row prisoners, beheading is a very pleasant way to die.
Compared with other methods of death, the pain of beheading has been minimized. There is no need to endure long-term physical and psychological torture. Just use a quick knife to separate your body and head, and die immediately. To some extent, it can better reflect a person's happy life.
Therefore, the punishment of beheading is the tacit understanding between the ruling and the death row prisoner. Of course, the kind of criminal who is extremely evil and unforgivable is also a punishment called Lingchi waiting for them, which is another matter.
The punishment of beheading has occurred since the Huangdi period. According to legend, Huangdi and Chiyou fought in Zhuolu. After Chiyou was defeated, he was beheaded by Huangdi. His head fell to the ground and turned into a ferocious beast Taotie and left.
From Huangdi to the late Qing Dynasty, the punishment of beheading has been circulated for more than 6,000 years, and can be called the ancestor of death penalty .
Although there have been more and more dynasties about death penalty, the executions have never been abolished. In the late Qing Dynasty, centralization reached its peak and the oppression of the lower-class people reached a new peak.
Qing Dynasty internal and external troubles, while Qing Dynasty rulers blindly suppressed internal resistance forces. If there were any signs of rebellion, they would be sentenced to death. In addition, there were additional punishments such as implicating the nine tribes. Therefore, it was common to execute dozens or even hundreds of people at a time.
Beheading: No one is born to be an executioner
In feudal society, the person who executes the execution of the execution is called the executioner, and this term has also become synonymous with people who directly persecute or cause vicious events.
Stills
No matter in any era, the executioner is not a person who is welcomed by the people, and he is even extremely disgusted with this group.
In film and television dramas, the image of the executioner is often a burly man with big and thick faces, which is almost a true portrayal of the image of the executioner in the hearts of the people.
As the executioner beheads increase, he always has a fierce and murderous aura on his body, which makes people feel fear at first sight.
This murderous aura is completely different from the soldiers who fight to kill the enemy on the battlefield. The soldiers fought on the battlefield with weapons and resisted the enemy to the death, while the executioner killed all prisoners who were tied up and strong like lambs to be slaughtered. The murderous aura was even more domineering with the strong and bullying the weak, giving people a great sense of oppression.
But for professional executioners, it is actually a torment to lose so many people in their own hands.
God has the virtue of living a life, but the profession of executioner is naturally contrary to it. Killing is an extremely evil act, which is incompatible with human nature, ethics, and morality. Even if the person who kills a person with great sin and evil is a person who is extremely guilty, the executioner himself has committed the murder.
In the late Qing Dynasty, not all the people killed were traitors and evil, but also those kind people who were wrongly accused by corrupt officials, as well as patriotic righteous men who were brave enough to sacrifice themselves for the righteousness of the nation. Although the executioner was just the executor, killing them was no different from the accomplices of the feudal forces.
An executioner may have a hint of compassion when he first entered the industry, but killing is their task, and it is not their final say on the execution ground. Therefore, no matter how hard he cannot bear it, he must decisively swing his butcher knife.
As the executioner industry has been in the executioner industry for many years, the executioner's compassion for the death row prisoners will eventually disappear. They will become a murder machine that will only kill people. No matter how the prisoners complain about injustice and how the prisoners' relatives suffer on the spot, they will only kill the prisoners expressionlessly.
Watching one's human nature disappear little by little is a compulsory course for every executioner.
The numbness and ruthlessness in the heart is the biggest tragedy of the executioner, which gave birth to a shocking scene of cutting off thirty-three heads in less than three minutes.
The executioner's life is extremely tragic. He was majestic on the execution ground and held the power of life and death by a man. Everyone avoided him and seemed to have a high status.
But the real executioner is an existence that everyone despises, and his status is even worse than that of street beggars.
They are people who fear on weekdays, and those in power just use executioners as tool people, almost the lowest class in feudal society.
A popular word now: Social death is the most appropriate description of executioner.
Although they don’t want everyone to beat them when they go out to the streets, no one will take the initiative to talk to them; they are often lonely all their lives because no one will marry their daughter to someone who kills people; their later years are miserable, because they will be abandoned by the government when they are old.
Since that's the case, why are there still people going to be executioners? Probably just to survive.
Although the executioner has so many inherent numb diseases, he is a government official and has a fixed monthly salary. Although it is not much, it is enough to support his family.
If you encounter someone with a deceased family with a death row prisoner, you will also give them a red envelope before execution so that they can start with it quickly.
In the late Qing Dynasty when people were cannibalized, the so-called human blood steamed buns were not fabricated out of thin air by Mr. Lu Xun, and the executioner could also make a small profit on this.
Even though the executioner is lonely for life, he can still make a small fortune. This can be regarded as a little comfort to their lives.
Beheading: Indifference and cruelty under torture
Beheading is cruelty that deprives life for prisoners, cruelty that is dehumanized for executioners, and cruelty that is also inhumane to the onlookers, and isn’t it another kind of cruelty for the onlookers? This cruelty is called indifference.
The oppression of human nature by feudal society not only exists in the Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues, but also the destruction of sincerity and compassion in people's hearts.
Feudal rulers used various means to manipulate people's thoughts, so that the people dare not commit rebellion, and that their rule can be continued to the greatest extent. Among the many means, beheading is one of them.
Think about those people who are watching the beheading. In addition to being able to breathe and see things, they are clearly walking corpses.
Stills
Beheading was a desperate punishment in the feudal era, representing that a life was forcibly gone, and what about the people who watched beheading in the late Qing Dynasty? They looked dull and looked at the death row prisoner who was about to fall to the ground with a cold look. Even the moment they were butchers under their command, they could not feel any turmoil in their hearts. Why is
here? Why is it here! When the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, the Eight Banners soldiers fought in the north and south, and countless people were killed, including the three days of Yangzhou and the three slaughter of Jiading. This dynasty stood on the sea of corpses and blood from the beginning.
The Qing Dynasty lasted for more than 200 years, and rebellion across the country has never been cut off. From the anti-Qing Dynasty and restoration of Ming Dynasty , the people's struggle has been too many, and every time it has been bloody suppressed by the Qing government.
For more than two hundred years, there have been different parts of human body and head every day.
Beheading was originally just a means for rulers to warn the people, but as more and more beheadings were beheading, the people gradually became numb.
The one who kneels on the execution stage is not his relatives and friends, so whether this person is killed or cut has nothing to do with him. Just take a performance after a meal, and it is exciting to watch it, and then you will quickly forget it afterwards.
This does not have nothing to do with me, it’s just that the butcher’s knife has not fallen on me yet.
As the feudal reactionary rule gradually deepened, more and more political prisoners were killed in the late Qing Dynasty, and the insensitive people also reached their peak.
They watched the beheading once, as easy as watching a movie now. Some people even watched this bloody and cruel scene while drinking tea and eating snacks in the distance.
The coldest thing at this time is the heart of the people. This indifference was created by the Qing government, and this numbness also affected the people for decades.
In Mr. Lu Xun's article "Medicine", the cold people rush to see the scene of revolutionary Xia Yu being beheaded, not from sympathy and respect for revolutionaries.
instead scrambled to cure the blood buns freshly released after he was executed. The ruthless, numb and ignorant people were tortured by the punishment of beheading and almost lost.
As for resistance, of course, we have to resist. But this kind of resistance is not to rush up to the court with a shout, but to storm this cruel punishment together with this dark old society.
905, the Qing government changed the beheading to a firing, officially ending this cruel punishment, but the beheading was not truly abolished until the founding of New China .
It is even more difficult to save the people who have been poisoned by beheading for thousands of years.Although the word beheading was gone in the laws of the old society, the word beheading remained in people's hearts for a long time.
Only truth can save our people. With the progress of society, the execution of the death penalty is only two ways: firing and injection, and injection, which is almost painless, is gradually replacing firing. This is the progress of a civilized society and awe of life.
In the old feudal society, no matter what kind of death penalty is a trampling on life, behind it is the lack of the legal system and the extinction of human nature.
Death penalty, executioner, and the people are all victims of the beheading punishment. This cruel punishment not only causes extreme physical discomfort to people, but also psychologically brings irreparable trauma to people.
Compared with beheading, what is really cruel is the indifference it causes to most people. When everyone in a society despises life, it is destined to be a deformed society. It does not explode in silence, but will perish in silence.
The extremely dark late Qing society has gone forever. Now we are in a new era of people-oriented, and everyone's human rights are fully protected and respected.
We should be glad that we live in this beautiful era, where ordinary people will not be exposed to the execution process of the death penalty, nor will they treat the people around us coldly. We cherish everything in front of us and will welcome a brighter future with a confident and proud attitude.
The punishment of beheading is forever lying in the garbage dump of history
