The brutal punishment Lingchi in ancient China

Lingchi is one of the cruelest executions in ancient China. This punishment was usually given for murder, genocide, treason or any heinous crime. It was said that this punishment was so terrible that the judge's lips would be cut off while pronouncing the sentence or giving the sentence. Another name for this punishment was "Death by a Thousand Cuts".

The word Lingchi first appeared in a line from the 28th chapter of the Junji, written in the 3rd century BC. Originally, the line described the difficulties of horse-drawn carriage travel over mountainous terrain. Later, it is used to describe death by prolonging a person's suffering when a person is killed. An alternative theory also states that the word Lingchi originated from the Khitan language, as the punitive meaning of the word arose during the Khitan Liao Dynasty.

The public believed that punishment operated on three levels: first, as a form of public humiliation, second, as a slow and lingering death, and third, as a further punishment after death.

According to Confucian principles of righteousness, changing one's body or cutting one's body is considered an opprobrium. The Lingchi practice is therefore contrary to the claim of proper piety. Additionally, dismemberment means that his body will not be "whole" in the spiritual life after death. He will be forced to spend his whole life with that mutilated body after his death.

In ancient China, this practice of lingchi punishment began in the 10th century and lasted until about the 19th century. Finally in 1905 this punishment system was stopped. This lynching is one of the few gruesome punishment practices of the ancient world that lasted for centuries, and of which many images of punishment have been collected.

The lynching was a peculiar method of execution, where the criminal was tied naked to a wooden stake. After that, many small and big wounds were made on the body or the skin and flesh were cut. This was done until all the blood was drained from the criminal's body, and until he died from lack of blood. Those who administered this punishment, i.e., the executioners, were ordered to make as many wounds as possible on the body of the criminal with a small knife or sickle, and to cut off the skin or a little flesh, but care should be taken that this cut should be made in such a way that the criminal is huge. Don't die quickly due to a big wound or a lot of bleeding. It means you understand the level of severity of this punishment. Punishment was given in such a way that the criminal would have to die slowly in agony.

According to ancient Chinese custom, lingchi can be used to torture and execute a person, or be applied as a humiliating act after death.

It was imposed as punishment for major crimes such as treason, genocide, patricide/matricide (murder of parents), or murder of one's master or employer. Emperors used it to threaten people and sometimes even ordered it for minor crimes. Convicts have sometimes been forcibly convicted and executed unjustly by this practice. Some emperors inflicted this punishment on the family members of their enemies. Although exact details of how executions were carried out are difficult to come by, they usually inflicted wounds on the arms, legs and chest, or amputated limbs, followed by beheading or stabbing to the heart.

If the crime was less serious or the executioner was merciful, the throat would be cut first, so that death would be quicker, and suffering less. This Linchi method was nothing different. However, the severity of the punishment depended a lot on the skill and kind attitude of the executioners who attended the lynching. Sometimes the executioner kindly inflicted large wounds on a criminal's body to hasten his death. Again, many times the degree of crime of the criminal would determine whether his death would be quick or slow. Historians have different opinions on this matter. For example, according to some, the Ming Dynasty rulers ordered that Lingchi inflict at least 3,000 wounds on the body of criminals before their death. According to others, this lingchi punishment did not last more than 15 minutes. As far as is known, the last victim of the lingchi method was a man named Fauchouli. He killed a Mongolian prince.

Historian James Elkins argues that extant photos of executions clearly show that "death by dismemberment" (as German criminologist Robert Heindl termed it) involved the dismemberment of body parts while the condemned were still alive. The death of the punished person would happen in that. Elkins also argues that the actual process of "death by a thousand wounds" cannot last much longer. Because the victim is unlikely to be conscious or semi-conscious (even alive) due to severe pain or suffering after one or two severe wounds, the whole process cannot involve more than "several dozen" wounds. So several thousand bruises or injuries are undoubtedly excessive.

However, by the Yuan Dynasty, 100 cuts are described as being made. But by the Ming Dynasty there were records of 3,000 cuts or wounds being made. Later, it was described by Chinese historians as a rapid process that usually lasted no more than 15 to 20 minutes. Some condemned men were ordered by the emperor to be kept alive for three days, for example, historical records show that during the execution of a man named Yuan Chonghuan by Lingchi rites, Yuan was heard screaming at the stake for half a day before his death.

In this custom, the flesh of the deceased was also sold as medicine. Since it was a public punishment, not only the body was dismembered, but the bones of the dead body were dismembered, cremated in situ, and the ashes of the deceased were scattered in sewers or garbage. So that even after death that person has to be insulted and humiliated in his next life.

At times, criminals sentenced to lynching were force-fed opium. However, it is not known whether this drug was given to the criminals to cause more pain or to reduce their pain. However, according to many, this opium did not make the criminal unconscious, as a result of this intoxication, the criminal would wake up with a thousand pains in his body. There is no doubt that this lynching was one of the most terrible and painful punishments of the ancient world.

Lingchi were also popular in Vietnam, where in 1835, the practice was used as a method of executing French missionary Joseph Marchand as part of the repression following the failed Le Van Khoi Rebellion. An 1858 account in Harper's Weekly claimed that the martyr Auguste Chapdelaine was also killed by the Lingchi in China; But in reality he was beaten to death. The West strongly opposed the method of execution used in China.

In ancient China, it was believed that this punishment was so terrible that even after the death of the criminal, his soul trembled with fear of this punishment. The severity of this punishment gradually decreased over time. Only those convicted of treason and other serious crimes were prescribed this punishment by the laws of the various dynasties of the time. But the 1905 revision of the Chinese Penal Code by Shen Jiaben abolished this punishment.

References:

1. Xun, Kuang, (3rd century BCE). “Chapter 28”.

2. Shen, Jiaben (2006). 历代刑法考 [Research on Judicial Punishments over the Dynasties]. China:

3. Brook, Timothy; Bourgon, Jérome; Blue, Gregory (2008). Death by a Thousand Cuts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 74..

4. Morrison, J. M. (2000). Twentieth Century: The History of the World, 1901 to 2000