Ningguta, a "hell on earth", is a place where female prisoners were exiled in ancient times. Why is it so terrible?

On the one hand, the environment of Ningguta is hard. On the other hand, the descendants of these immigrants should be slaves for generations, not leaving home for the people and not returning after death.

In the TV series "Qing Palace", I often hear a classic line when the emperor is angry: send someone to Ningguta, never enter the customs!

So what is Ningguta? Where is Ningguta?

In fact, Ningguta is not a "tower", but a place name. It was the place where criminals were exiled from the customs in the Qing Dynasty, in today's Gucheng Village, Changting Town, hailin city, Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province.

At that time, Ningguta belonged to a remote area, which was not only abnormal in climate and harsh in environment, but also short of food and grass, which was very suitable for criminals to reform.

According to legend, the distant ancestor of the Qing royal family once had six brothers living here. In Manchu, six are "Gu Ning" and one is "Tower".

Exiling criminals here has two meanings: the first is to punish evil and promote good. Let criminals leave their homes and suffer hardships, let them think, regret and accept reform. The second is to let criminals come here to change the hometown of the Qing royal family. Criminals come here, not only to reclaim land, build bridges and roads, but also to starve, to work as cattle and horses for Manchu and local officials, and to be slaves to show the infinite glory of Manchu ancestors.

In the Qing Dynasty, exiles once described Gu Ning Baota as follows: "The city is two miles away, and the walls are paved with stones." "There are only a few residents in the city, and the main office is among them." "There are very few farmers, and there is no house to look at. No one looks at it for a few days."

"Gu Ning is bitter and cold, and there is nothing in the world ... Snow becomes solid ice when it reaches the ground, and it is covered with snow thousands of miles away."

As a place of exile, as long as the emperor is furious, anyone can be exiled here, regardless of men, women and children. Because of the long journey, many people died before they reached Ningguta.

Ningguta prisoner

When they arrived in exile, these refugees had to serve hard labor and were not allowed to go home after death. According to the severity of crime, labor is divided into two types:

First, be a slave.

Slavery existed before the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, and it was legalized and institutionalized after entering the customs. A fugitive who is considered by the court to have committed a very serious crime will be reduced to a slave. For example: rebellion, rebellion, murder and arson.

After becoming slaves, they will be handed over to local officials or garrison soldiers. In order to make these slaves "bear hardships and stand hard work", the Qing court specially formulated laws to govern their descendants.

First of all, the law stipulates that slave owners have the right to execute prisoners who are slaves without any legal sanctions and investigation.

Secondly, not only the personal freedom and safety of slaves can not be guaranteed, but also prisoners who are slaves can not be redeemed or commuted. Their descendants should also be slaves from generation to generation and should not leave home for the people.

Second, the police

Another way to punish people is to be a policeman, whose job varies according to his status.

There are probably two kinds of hooligans: formal criminals and habitual criminals. Officials and criminals are people with official backgrounds, who are generally taken care of and assigned to post offices, government agencies and other places to do some chores. People who often commit crimes are ordinary people, and they usually do some hard work.

The Manchu people in Ningguta are mainly nomadic. It was the immigrants who brought the advanced farming techniques from the mainland here, established a ginseng fur trading place here, and began to practice medicine in the local area, bringing the Central Plains culture here and making it take root.

There were about 6.5438+0.5 million refugees in Northeast China in Qing Dynasty. Countless refugees have stayed here forever. They silently gave themselves and even the whole family for Ningguta. At present, Zheng, Lu, Zhu and Chen in hailin city and Ning 'an are descendants of different exiles in Qing Dynasty.

19 10, the Qing government promulgated the Criminal Law of the Qing Dynasty, completely abolishing exile, and the exile system for thousands of years completely disappeared. Unfortunately, before this law could be implemented, the Revolution of 1911 broke out the following year, and the Qing Dynasty also perished.