"Do you know what the most cruel punishment was in the Qing Dynasty? "When it comes to torture in the Qing Dynasty, many people first think of the ten major tortures of the Manchu Dynasty, such as grooming, riding a wooden donkey, blood eagle, and intestine draining. But in the penal system of the Qing Dynasty, there are not only these ten kinds of torture, there is also a kind called the standing cage, which is not like the ten tortures that will cause physical harm to the tortured, but the harm to the tortured person is no less than the ten tortures, so how terrifying is it?
Compared with the ten tortures mentioned above, which can cause extremely serious physical injury to the victim, the torture process of the standing cage is much more civilized, but it is only civilized on the surface. The horror of the cage is not the physical torture of the tortured, but the mental blow.
The station cage is also known as the flail, is one of the most common punishments in the Ming and Qing dynasties, its prototype can be traced back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties, "Zhou Yi Swallowing Chapter" in the "He School Extinguishing Ear", the school inside, is the meaning of the flail. By the Northern Wei Dynasty of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the flail became one of the official punishments of the imperial court, and it was not gradually abolished after the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
The station cage was once restricted in the Song Dynasty Zhao Guangyi and the Jin Dynasty Jin Zhangzong period, but it was revived again in the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhu Yuanzhang carried out a unified plan for the model of the flail and the identity of the torturer, and in order to prevent the station cage from being abused by other illegal **, Zhu Yuanzhang also stipulated that the relevant torture instruments of the flail can only be responsible for the designated government agencies.
However, with the establishment of secret agencies such as the East Factory, the West Factory and Jinyiwei in the later period, the atmosphere of abuse of the station cage flourished again, these institutions all used the power to independently make the flail, and due to the laissez-faire of the imperial power, the weight of the flail became heavier and heavier, and the punishment methods became more and more cruel, and in the Ming Shizong period, the Jiajing Emperor also had to limit and adjust the punishment of the flail, but still could not prevent the abuse of the cage.
In the Qing Dynasty, the station cage was also listed as one of the official punishments, why the station cage is also called the standing shackle, because its torture instrument is a combination of the two, the shackle refers to the shackles that bind the neck of the tortured, and the cage refers to the cage that traps the tortured.
The standing cage is also one of the death sentences, but compared with Ling Chi and beheading, if the victim himself feels that he has a choice, he will definitely feel that the beheading is much more comfortable than the standing cage, after all, the beheading is fatal, but it is only a matter of a knife, and the horror of the standing cage is to make people face the threat of death for a long time, and the feeling of dying soon and not dying is more uncomfortable than dying immediately.
The height of the cage will be lower than when the tortured person is standing, and the aforementioned flail is on the top of the cage to trap the criminal's neck and keep the criminal in a state of suffocation at all times.
When the offender is put into the cage, the torturer will put several bricks under the criminal's feet, and remove one brick every day until the bricks are completely drawn, and the torturer's feet have no foothold, and the only force point is the shackle that binds the neck.
Modern medical research has found that if a person does not sleep or rest for three days, there is a possibility of sudden death, which is the result of a relatively stable life, if it is like a cage, in the pain to maintain a high degree of consciousness for a long time, the tortured person does not say three days, as long as 11 hours will immediately collapse, even if it is hanging, or Ling Chi and other punishments, the time of death will not exceed 3 days, so such a cruel punishment, will the cage tortured person be hanged in the process of torture?
The answer is no, the biggest difference between the cage and the hanging is that the hanging can only be killed after the tortured person is unable to breathe by compressing the muscles of the neck, and although the flail of the standing cage also binds the neck, the suffocation caused by it is far less severe than the hanging, and the reason for the death of the standing cage is sudden death after the nerves are highly tense to the limit.
With the development of time, the station cage handed down from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty extended other punishment tricks, such as bricks used to pad feet, the torturer will sometimes change to lime, when the torture person steps on the lime, when exposed to the scorching sun, the high temperature produced by the lime will make the torturer's ** gradually rot, so that the torturer feels double the pain.
However, what is surprising is that such a cruel punishment, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, was a part of the tortured people who could not ask for treatment, some families with more economic conditions, will not be exempted from punishment, with money bribe**, let the cage replace Ling Chi and the like, that is, the death penalty, why is this?
This involves some traditional ethical ideas in ancient China, in Chinese tomb culture, it is believed that after death, the whole body is the most auspicious fate, and if the corpse is ruined, it is an unlucky thing for the family. Therefore, even if it is cruel to stand in a cage, it is still the most appropriate punishment for the family of the victim.
The station cage is generally used to deal with petty thieves, or habitual criminals such as homeless thieves, and the main purpose is to deter criminals in chaotic places. For example, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, when Manchu ** Yuxian was serving in Shandong, in order to punish the local traitors in Shandong, he executed 370 people in two months with a station cage punishment, thus stabilizing the law and order in Shandong in a short period of time.
China's cage is certainly very terrifying, but if it is considered to be the most cruel punishment in the world, it is inevitable to think too highly of the civilization of the West and other countries in which era. In fact, in modern times, the West has also developed a punishment similar to the station cage, which Westerners used to deal with trafficked blacks, and the cruelty was no less than that of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Compared with the East, the Western station cage is not only narrower in size than the East, but the cage used is still made of iron, and the cage is also equipped with iron spikes, and the victim can be injured by the thorn as long as he moves his body slightly, and it is even worse if he is more obese.
The size of the black man is already larger than that of the yellow race and the white race, once he is placed in such a cage, the pain will be greater, their life and death are all decided by the white boss, if you think that the black man can still sell for a price, then it should be all deterred, if there is no value at all, then let him die in the cage, it can be seen that no matter the East or the West, in that era when civilization has not yet developed, any barbarism is not uncommon, but with the development of the times, It is just disappearing in the long history of mankind.