Why was torture so cruel in ancient China?

Comparing Chinese and western criminal laws, we will find that there are great differences.

China's ancient and western criminal laws were cruel, but in recent centuries, the west has changed.

For example, during the French Revolution, the guillotine was invented because beheading might be wrong and would prolong the suffering of the dead.

The guillotine can be killed with one knife, which is relatively humane.

Apart from the guillotine, the western death penalty is mainly shot and hanged.

Both criminal laws make people die quickly and the pain is not great.

Even pirates in the west use springboard execution at most. In other words, let the prisoner jump into the sea by himself and eventually drown alive because he can't swim.

On the contrary, China did the opposite.

Take the cruelest year as an example. It was rare before Yuan Dynasty. There are only 8 knives in the Song Festival, and at most there are dozens of knives.

Even in the yuan dynasty, it was stipulated that the annual festival was the highest 120 knife.

However, the years of Ming and Qing dynasties became more and more exaggerated, resulting in the so-called killing thousands of knives.

During the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Ming Dynasty, eunuch Liu Jin was sentenced to this punishment, and it is said that he was beheaded for three days and three nights.

In the Ming Dynasty, the death toll was still limited. In the Qing dynasty, especially in the late Qing dynasty, the dead became a common punishment.

There were countless Taiping generals who died that year alone.

Even Tianguifu Hong (the son of Hong Xiuquan), a child of 14 years old, was executed alive.

It is said that the Qing soldiers nailed his limbs to the ox cart first, and Tianguifu Hong screamed all the way. In the market, the executioner cut him off 15 16. Tianguifu Hong cried and cried in pain, with a loud voice.

In fact, the person who really wants to rebel is nothing more than the death penalty. Most of these people are fugitives, and they are not afraid of death. Who is afraid of punishment?

If you want to avoid being poisoned, it's easy. Suicide at the last minute.

It is not difficult for a person to commit suicide. Just carry poison with you or cut off the artery with a knife.

So this kind of torture is meaningless to real prisoners, and people in the middle of the year are actually unlucky.

In fact, such cruel punishment is used to scare people. The so-called killing a chicken to show the monkey, so as not to let the people dare to rebel.