The development process of that year.

"Zainian" has become the most typical penalty in China's penalty system. However, the fact is just the opposite: the year number is very different from the ancient punishment. Although the word "nian" first appeared in the tenth century, it was not formally incorporated into the criminal law until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In addition, in 1905, Shen Jiaben, a legal historian, asked for permission to delete capital punishment such as the year of death, which was also one of the arguments. After all, "in that year" did not conform to the legal spirit, penalty characteristics and application methods of our country, and looked more like the punishment type of "special law". Of course, this special law belongs to the emperor's judicial system and is recorded in the Yuan Law. But after careful observation, it is against the normal legal spirit to set up an incorrect penalty. Scholars have always called it cruel and inhuman punishment from its establishment to its abolition.

In, it was a punishment of dismemberment, which included cutting off and separating limbs. Photographs taken in the late Qing Dynasty show the real "eight knives" execution. Eight knives, the executioner used a basket of numbered sharp knives: the first knife, cutting the chest (all from the left and other parts below); The second knife, cut the biceps; The third knife, thigh; The fourth knife and the fifth knife cut the arm to the elbow; The sixth knife and the seventh knife cut the calf to the knee; Eighth knife, first knife. After dismemberment, the remains of the body were put into a basket, and the head was publicly displayed indefinitely. This is the practice in the late Qing dynasty, commonly known as "sixteen knives", "thirty-two knives" and "three hundred and sixty knives" ... but we don't know if these figures really exist or are just imaginary numbers. The "knife" in the Ming Dynasty means cutting and "excessive", and the number is accumulated, and the execution time is prolonged.

For example, in the annals of ancient criminal law, we can find many cases in which the hands and feet of generals and officials were cut off in history, and the scariest details can be associated with the kitchen menu. After reading these historical episodes, I am confused about the origin of "Year". Of course, there are two ways to behead a corpse: when the so-called "death penalty" is used, the corpse is completely cut off, the prisoner becomes the meat of a cannibal, and the enemy can have a big meal in his own hall; On the other hand, the "mid-year" punishment is the opposite. After the body is dismembered, the human body shape can still be recognized and displayed in the market afterwards. In addition, there is a basic difference: the case of "Guo" punishment is extremely rare and unique, and historians carefully keep it as a cruel and terrible tyrant example. Although these cases are horrible, they are all anecdotes, and may even be just rumors. On the contrary, from the end of 1 1, "mid-year" is a widely known and frequently executed punishment, not just anecdotes or legends, but a truly shocking historical fact. We can find almost the same nouns in the past dynasties, but the first word most often appears next to the word "fu" as "spirit"; "Ling" means hill; The word "late" cannot be interpreted as "late" in modern Chinese, but a verb of "spreading" or "scraping". Specifically, "Lingchi" can refer to a gradually flattened or flattened mound, which means a mound and the collective burial of a clan. However, the historical records of some dynasties are symbolic: "Mausoleum", earth dikes along slopes or canals, represent systems and laws, and delimit national boundaries; "Late" means the sinking and collapse of the border. So "the year of the year" means the beginning of decline, and effective measures must be taken to prevent the system from crashing. Therefore, this term is not directly related to the penalty system, and it was not used until the Liao Dynasty to refer to a kind of corporal punishment. There are some differences in writing (people find that writing is "lasting" rather than "late"), and the word "ling" next to the word ice becomes more commonly used than the word "ling" next to the character. There are also two ways to write The History of Song Dynasty.

What the hell happened? Certainly, it was originally a noun in the Khitan language, and its pronunciation is very close to the Chinese character "Niannian". It was a kind of corporal punishment used under the regime of the Khitan Liao Dynasty, which may be to cut a bound prisoner with a knife. After much consideration, the term was fixed to refer to this kind of corporal punishment in Liao Dynasty, which ruled China.

For China scholars who study the reform of the penalty system, this kind of penalty is savage and its terminology is obscure. Although it does not belong to the "five punishments" system, it obviously has Chinese characters. However, it is not only a way of execution in barbarian areas or foreign dynasties, but also an increasingly frequent, systematic and irregular method, which spread from Song Dynasty to Yuan Dynasty and from Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. China in these dynasties, like the dynasties established by prairie people, has been passed down continuously. Zhu Yuanzhang, who was the first to fight against the Great Khan of Mongolia and later became Ming Taizu, promulgated the Great Gao, and punished all kinds of crimes, especially the corruption of officials, with the penalty of "annual revenue", even if the number of property is no exception.

Literature general examination pointed out that ministers used these punishments to deter officials who wanted to seek the throne. During the Southern Song Dynasty, there were more and more punishments for Ling Chi, but some officials objected, such as Lu You playing Chen Qing. In my opinion, it is possible to punish treason and conspiracy only. We have also found many similar "years of imprisonment" to punish rebellion and rebellion. For example, in June13, Emperor Yang Di sentenced the rebels to dismember, pierce an arrow and exterminate the nation. Similarly, the Sui Dynasty also deleted corporal punishment from the Sui Law. This kind of punishment is not only used in judicial trials, but also in wartime, and it is real. Almost every dynasty can see similar punishment, which is usually called "punishment" or "solution", so it is often associated with: the word "year of the year" does not apply to a dismembered corporal punishment, but is only used in court legal decisions. All the key issues are to understand: how to use extreme methods in special cases and occupy a place in the code, so it becomes a perfect "crime" in law, and judges can often use it to sentence.

The word "Ling Chi" first appeared in Criminal Records of Liao History and was named as a kind of corporal punishment. This noun is very mysterious. Undoubtedly, it is a combination of Chinese characters and Qidan language. In the Song Dynasty, the penalty of "Ling Chi" continued to expand, but similarly, the kingship refused to change the criminal law, so the title of "Ling Chi" was still missing in the criminal series of the Song Dynasty. First of all, following the sacrificial teachings of human religion is an emergency measure to resist bloody rebellion. Song Zhenzong's imperial edict forbade Minister Yang Shouzhen to help the rebels. In Song Shenzong, a partisan struggle broke out in Wang Anshi's political reform. In addition to the year of death, waist cutting also became a common punishment at that time. Here comes the horse.

This practice of slashing the living with a knife has long existed. After the Song Dynasty, the deposed emperor Liu Yu personally hacked people. Gao Yang in Wen Xuandi, Northern Qi often kills people by chopping people. During the Anshi Rebellion in the Middle Tang Dynasty, Yan Gaoqing was defeated and captured in the anti-Anshi Rebellion, and was beheaded with Yuan and others at the same time. However, most people think that Nianguan started in the Five Dynasties as a formal punishment. Lu You said: "There are many reasons for the five seasons, and the regular law is insufficient, so it began in a special year outside the law. Exhausted, exhausted, liver and heart connected, audio-visual still exists. " But in the Five Dynasties, some people realized that Ling Chi's punishment was too cruel and advocated that it should be abandoned. For example, in the third year of the Jin Dynasty (946), Yan said that there were only two ways to keep the death penalty, and it was forbidden to "cut people's skin with a short knife". Later, Emperor Shi Zhonggui was allowed to take part in the competition, and the year-end punishment was no longer used.

At the beginning of the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, the punishment of year number was still prohibited. The criminal law promulgated by Song Taizu stipulates that beheading or strangulation should be adopted for felony, and there is no year. In Song Zhenzong, Yang Shouzhen, an official, toured Shaanxi, supervised the arrest of thieves and arrested the first batch of thieves. He asked the court to execute them later to punish these evil people. Zhenzong issued a letter and ordered the prisoner to be transferred to the yamen for punishment according to law, and the year was not allowed. It was not until Zong Xining and Yuan Feng that Ling Chi was officially listed as one of the death sentences. "A General Examination of Criminal System" said: "Before Zhaoling (Song Renzong Mausoleum), although killing thieves was fierce and powerful, it was never used lightly. Those who are busy in prison and say crazy things have all received this punishment. " In the eighth year of Ru Xining (1075), Zhu Tang, a native of Yizhou, sued Yuyao County of Yuezhou for rebellion. When Li Feng was arrested and tried, his confession also implicated Liu Yu, the ambassador and medical officer of Xiuzhou Yong Tuan, and the court ordered a department to hear the case. As a result, Li Feng and Xu Ge, the observation and promotion officer of Liu Yuhe Hezhongfu, were both executed by Ling Chi. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the cases of Qingyuan Law more clearly listed the death penalty names of year in, beheading and strangulation, which lasted until the Ming and Qing Dynasties. However, since the Yuan Dynasty, we can only find the second way of writing, that is, the word "Ling" beside the word "Bing", which will always only be used as an explanation of punishment. Ancient Chinese characters only appeared in ancient books, and later people no longer adopted them. From then on, "revenue" is only the name of corporal punishment, and a few knowledgeable people will remember its meaning.

From the codification of the Yuan Dynasty to the abolition of the Qing Dynasty in 1905, it was mainly used to punish three kinds of crimes:

Crimes against the monarch: riots, treason, and seeking the throne.

Ethical crimes: children murder their parents, brothers murder their brothers, wives murder their husbands, and slaves murder their masters.

Cruel and inhuman crime: cutting off the limbs of others alive (witchcraft); Killing more than three people in the same family; Organize gangs to create terror.

The Yuan Dynasty officially designated "year of age" as a kind of death penalty in the criminal law. The second point is that they regard it as a tool for barbarians to publicize their authority to the Han people. However, we can also see that the laws of the Yuan Dynasty, like those of the late Southern Song Dynasty, legalized the title of the year. In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the title of the year was no longer an extreme means to suppress riots and dangerous sects, but an ordinary punishment for special crimes.

The first and third categories only legalize the punishment of dismemberment in ancient times, which, by the way, is quite close to the criminal punishment in Europe: in France, the murder of a monarch is punishable by death by dismembering four horses, and gang leaders must be punished by rotation; In Britain, they used the punishment of dismemberment, and like China, they were executed in public and dismembered in public until18th century.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the death penalty was beheaded without hanging, and it was also stipulated that people who committed the most heinous crimes could be executed in a hurry. In the Yuan Dynasty, the execution in the year of death was similar to that in the Song Dynasty. For example, in the Yuan drama "The Earthquakes Shake the Mountain to Report Wrongful Cases", his father Dou reviewed the unjust cases and sentenced Zhang Lver to "poison his grandfather, rape a widow, agree on the year of death, take him to the city, nail him to a donkey, and execute him with one knife and one hundred and twenty." This is the same as how Wang Po was killed in the Water Margin, and they all had to be crucified with wooden donkeys. This donkey is probably a wooden shelf, on which the prisoner can be fixed, so that the prisoner can't move when cutting. It is different from the ancient punishment for female prisoners who colluded with adulterers to harm their husbands to ride wooden donkeys (see Miscellaneous Punishment in this book). The zaju "Dou Eyuan" points out the number of knives that should be cut more clearly than "Water Margin". Imagine that 120 is fatal to a person, and its cruelty cannot but make people shudder.

The Yuan Dynasty chopped the prisoners into ten thousand pieces, and the number of knives in the Ming Dynasty was far more than that in the previous generation, which was shocking enough. There were two famous cases of execution in Ming dynasty, and the number of knives was clearly recorded. One is Liu Jin, the eunuch of Zheng De, and the other is Zheng Zhi, a scholar during the Chongzhen period. Zhicheng Deng's "Gu Xu Dong Ji" Volume II "Inch" said: "According to the custom, the punishment of burning an inch in the Ming Dynasty was 4,200 yuan for Liu Jin and 3,600 yuan for Zheng Zhi. Li Ciming also said in his diary. " The number of knives that Liu Jin was chopped here may be misinformation. In fact, Liu Jin was chopped 3357 times. Such a large number is really amazing. Folk women often say "you get a thousand knives" when swearing. It doesn't seem to be a function word to chop down more than 1000 knives in ancient times. The laws of the Ming dynasty also clearly stipulated that 2008 was one of the death sentences. "Daming Law Criminal Law" contains: "Rebellion: anyone who conspires against the country is called seeking danger; Treason refers to the destruction of ancestral temples, mountain tombs and palaces. But the conspirators, regardless of their first offense, were all executed in the middle of the year. " The establishment of the annual punishment reflects the cruelty of feudal autocracy. In order to suppress the people's resistance and various uprisings, the rulers did not hesitate to use all sinister means.

Let's start with Liu Jin. In the fifth year of Zheng De (15 10), Liu Jin was sentenced to death for treason, and the imperial edict granted him "three days within the year", and then his body was filed. At the time of execution, Zhang Wenlin, who was in prison at that time, explained in detail:

On the same day, Hu Yuan, the then director of Shaanxi Department, was arrested and stunned. He told the above-mentioned Mr. Liu Jing, "How can I do it?" Liu Huiyan: "I'll let undergraduates help you." Respond. After the official breakfast, I asked the official to follow the company to Lang Zheng in the west corner. Liu Jin had already had an operation. The number of knives in a year, for example, 3357 knives, take a break every ten knives and shout. On the first day, you should cut 357 knives from the left and right sides of the chest, such as large nail pieces. There will be blood in the first operation, but there will be no blood in the second operation. It is said that the prisoner was frightened and blood entered his lower abdomen and calf. After the incision, the blood came out, so I think it should be Send the gold to Tianfu wanping county at the latest and let it go. Kim still ate two bowls of porridge. That's the way to prevent thieves. The next day, he was taken to the east corner. On the first day, Kim was punished, and he said a word. He gagged his mouth with hemp walnuts and died after dozens of knives. At sunrise, Liu Jin played the imperial edict with the supervisor, several feet late, filing the corpse to avoid beheading. The victim's family tried to sacrifice its meat to the dead. Filing a corpse is a big axe in the chest, and the chest counts. It's a pity to repay a thief.

Although Liu Jin did some bad things when he was alive, Lingchi is still a way of fighting poison with blood. Years, is inhuman.

Look at Zheng Zhi. Zheng Zhi, a native of Henglin, Changzhou, was a scholar in the second year of the apocalypse (1622). His literary talent and reputation were once famous. In the early years of Chongzhen, Zheng Zhi was involved in political disputes caused by party struggles within the imperial court. He was accused of two heinous crimes: "beating his mother" and "raping his sister". After the crime, Emperor Zhu Youjian personally instructed him to execute the death penalty that year.

In the Ming Dynasty, leaders of peasant uprisings and other captured rebels were sentenced to death. For example, in the thirty-fourth year of Wanli (1606), Liu Tianxu and others rebelled, were defeated and captured, and the first seven people were killed. The "crack" here is the year of the year. In the twenty-first year of Jiajing (1542), maid-in-waiting Yang and others attempted to murder Ming Shizong and were arrested. Yang, Yang Lianxiang and other 16 maids were all executed that year and their remains were filed. In May of the seventh year of Wanli (1579), Dong Chuance, assistant minister of the Ministry of Rites, was killed by domestic slaves in the government. A company caught murderers and put them in prison for trial. The next year, they were all cut down in the city. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, in order to suppress the national resistance of the Han people, the punishment of the year in the middle of the year was widely implemented, which was far more cruel than that of the Ming Dynasty. For example, the number of knives and the duration of execution have been changed. It should be noted that there is no fixed method for Ling Chi's execution. Different dynasties and different periods have different methods, from "chopping limbs" to "cutting into pieces" in severe cases. A series of brutal ruling policies such as "enclosure", "charging", "fleeing" and "shaving and changing clothes" in the early Qing Dynasty aroused strong resistance from the Han people. At this time, the cruelty of Ling Chi's execution was increased to play a deterrent role. In addition, the title of the year is often combined with other punishments, so frequently that in the Kanggan period when the literary inquisition was serious, the literati were sentenced to "great disobedience" and the title of the year was sentenced, and the descendants were sent to slaves, even the unborn children and grandchildren were hereditary slaves!

After the Reform Movement of 1898, the Qing court was impacted by various internal and external contradictions and had to follow the trend and carry out some reforms on traditional disadvantages. Thirty-one years of Guangxu (1905)

Shen Jiaben, the minister of law revision, requested to delete the severe punishments such as Ling Chi, which was allowed by the Qing court, and ordered the laws such as Ling Chi, decapitation and corpse slaughter to be "deleted forever and all sentences will be changed". From then on, the inhuman torture of Ling Chi disappeared from the code and was replaced by beheading.