The origin of death penalty

The death penalty is a social and cultural phenomenon as well as a historical phenomenon. It is not inherent in human society, but evolved from revenge custom with the disintegration of public ownership in primitive society and the intensification of class struggle. However, the ancients had different understandings and different opinions on the origin of the death penalty. As we all know, punishment begins with the theory of war, punishment begins with heaven and punishment begins with Miao people, which all contain people's understanding of the origin of the death penalty. Generally speaking, it is reasonable to punish from the theory of soldiers. War itself has the nature of extinction and slaughter, and it has something in common with the death penalty. This statement reveals that frequent wars between tribes in ancient China had a great influence on the death penalty, emphasizing that the death penalty was used to meet the needs of war, and its earliest use was in the battlefield of Kingoma Iron Mine. In other words, the death penalty first moved from the military field to the whole society. The theory that punishment originates from heaven reflects the ancient view of heaven, emphasizing that the death penalty is the embodiment of providence, and the emperor on earth is the punishment representing heaven, thus giving the death penalty a sacredness. Obviously, it is an excuse set by ancient kings to deify the rationality of their rule. As a penalty idea, it has considerable historical value, but it can't really explain the origin of the death penalty. Punishment originated from the Miao theory, and it is believed that the right to invent punishment is given to the Miao people only to criticize the tyrannical rule of the Miao people and beautify the sages of China, but this only answers the question of which nation first created the death penalty.

The death penalty is one of the oldest punishments and the one that has been used for the longest time in human society. The death penalty existed long before the application of freedom penalty and fine penalty. Shuowen Jiezi interprets "death" as "death, people go"; Hey, water rope is also. Dialect interprets Zhuo as Ye Jing. "Zhuo" is interpreted as "ice flow when thawing, and things are broken and scattered, also known as Zhuo" in Ci Yuan. The death penalty deprives the offender of his life and its function is to destroy his ability to commit crimes again forever. For a single criminal, the death penalty is the most thorough and extreme solution. The first inventor of the death penalty may have been inspired by shooting wild animals in hunting or slashing enemies in war. The death penalty may be related to primitive activities such as sacrifice to the living and revenge by blood relatives. It may be used to punish sinners who violate traditional taboos to calm the anger of the gods. Or used as revenge to stabilize social order and so on. In ancient China, the penalty system was once called "five punishments", and the death penalty was the most severe punishment whether it was slavery or feudalism.

Punishment and crime are a pair of corresponding categories. Punishment is a kind of sanction for criminals. Punishment stems from crime. If there is no capital crime, there is no death penalty. From the perspective of penalty theory, the appearance of death penalty is the product of social progress, which avoids uncontrolled indiscriminate killing and is conducive to protecting social productive forces. The ancients also had a hazy understanding of this. Legalists, especially in the Warring States period, have been able to explain the relationship between crime and punishment from economic reasons. For example, it is emphasized that the function of punishment is to "punish evil and promote good" and "make peace", and it is regarded as a just force to eradicate rape, eliminate evil and promote good. They are not keen to preach that punishment comes from heaven, but are more willing to believe that punishment is the creation of the monarch, and so is the death penalty. However, the legalist theory is only a flash in the pan in history. After the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements and the theory of induction between heaven and man prevailed, the death penalty was painted with mysterious paint. Dong Zhongshu, the founder of feudal orthodoxy, explained: "Great monarch, fire and water go out." Of course, due to historical limitations, it is impossible for the ancients to understand the origin of the death penalty from the aspects of private ownership, class generation and opposition.

It is worth mentioning that China's unique theory of "elephant punishment" in ancient times added a lot of romance to the origin of the death penalty. The word "elephant punishment" first appeared in "elephant punishment" in Shangshu Shundian and "Fang Shixiang's punishment is only bright" in Shangshu Yiji. Because of its brevity, there have been different opinions on the meaning of object punishment in history. To sum up, there are mainly: the theory that elephants are symbols, that is, elephant punishment is symbolic punishment. In the ancient Yao and Shun era, there was no corporal punishment, and punishment was only symbolized by giving criminals special clothes and costumes. Image is image, that is, image punishment is a portrait of punishment, which means that the crime scene punished by various penalties is portrayed as an image on the object, and it is announced to the public so that the people can know and accept the punishment; The elephant is the law, and "the elephant is punished by law" is punished by law; Like imitation, that is, like punishment, refers to imitating heaven to punish. Among the four theories of elephant punishment, the first one is the most popular. It is believed that the punishment method of death penalty in Yao and Shun period, as recorded in Taiping Magnolia, is to wear collarless cloth instead of beheading, so as to make people feel ashamed and turn over a new leaf. This kind of understanding embodies the virtues of the ruler, such as kindness, unbearable punishment and killing, and attaching importance to enlightenment, which is consistent with the Confucian thought of "ruling by virtue" and is highly respected. The book "White Tiger Tong" is known as the outline of the national constitution of the Han Dynasty, which also includes "the crime of a great monarch is that he has no clothes", which shows that this statement has been affirmed by feudal orthodoxy. Due to the limitation of historical materials, it is still difficult to draw a conclusion on the theory of object punishment at present. However, from the eulogy of later generations, "When someone is in danger, painting clothes and wiping clothes is considered as slaughter, while people commit crimes, what is the best way to cure them", we can draw the conclusion that the function of the death penalty is not only for punishment, but more importantly for education. This thought came into being very early in ancient China, and it has been in a dominant position for a long time.

Two. Types of death penalty

The end of life is death, but there are too many ways to kill people. Because criminals are under the control and mastery of rulers, people with the power of punishment can give full play to their imagination and come up with various ways of death penalty. The cruelty, cruelty and ruthlessness in human nature are fully demonstrated in various death penalty methods. How many kinds of death penalty existed in ancient China, I'm afraid no one can tell. All kinds of ancient books have different calibers and many repetitions, and we can only get a glimpse of them from historical materials. In ancient times, the types of death penalty were officially recorded in the law, mainly including beheading, strangulation, beheading, abandoning the city, smashing cars, licking, slaughtering, burning to death, and celebrating the New Year. As far as the duration and influence are concerned, the legal execution methods of death penalty in ancient China can be summarized as beheading, strangulation and year-end.

(1) seal

There is a difference between beheading and beheading. Since the Spring and Autumn Period, the penalty of waist cutting has been frequently used. There was no penalty of execution by cutting off the waist in the laws after the Tang Dynasty. Although the history books keep recording examples of execution by cutting waist, it is already extrajudicial torture. From the Sui Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, beheading was listed as one of the five major death sentences, and it was not replaced by shooting until after the Qing Dynasty. As far as the pain of the deceased is concerned, beheading is the lightest and the criminal is killed with one knife. But in ancient times, beheading was more important than wringing. This is because the beheading of the dead, the executioner still left the whole body. According to the traditional idea that "the body is a skin injury and parents can't hurt it", the shame of beheading is naturally on the ground. Cutting the waist is more painful than beheading. Because cutting your waist may not kill you immediately, prisoners often remain conscious after being punished, and they will inevitably die after a painful struggle. During the Yongzheng period, when Inspector Yu Hongtu was beheaded, he was "chopped into two parts, rolled in the ground, and his hands were stained with blood, even with the word" miserable ". It is unbearable to turn around and not die. "Yong Zhengdi" was saddened by it and ordered the knife to be sealed. Since then, except for the punishment of waist cutting, it has been covered by you. "

(2) Stranding

That is, strangling prisoners with silk and rope. Jin Law officially listed this as one of the death sentences, and Sui defined the death sentence as beheading and strangulation. Since then, except for the Yuan Dynasty without strangulation and beheading, other dynasties have been included in the regular punishment until the end of the Qing Dynasty. Strangulation was regarded as the lightest death penalty in ancient China, because it kept people intact and the pain was less than the penalty of the year.

It is worth noting that "twisting" in ancient Chinese refers to gradually tightening the rope by reverse action, while hanging refers to putting the rope around the criminal's neck and wringing the rope ring with a short stick to suffocate him. Like western countries, the method of using criminals' weight to tighten ropes to make people die was called "hanging" in ancient China, which was generally not the type of death penalty. It is said that in the Western Zhou Dynasty, in order to be polite to princes and nobles, they were allowed to commit capital crimes and committed suicide in this way. In history, only Northern Qi adopted this punishment, which was called "Qing". China hanging was introduced to Japan in the Middle Ages, but it was abolished in the shogunate era. When studying western law in modern Japan, scholars translated the popular hanging in the west into the word "hanging". When the new criminal law was drafted in the late Qing Dynasty, the "unique theory of death penalty" was adopted, and the death penalty was hanged in the west as the only means of death penalty. However, the word "hanging" in Japanese characters has been transplanted into legal terms, which is confused with China's inherent concept of hanging, leading many people to mistakenly think that hanging in ancient China is the death penalty and needs to be clarified. Moreover, in ancient Europe, hanging was more important than beheading. This is because decapitation is not only less painful, but also a punishment suitable for nobles. Hanging is painful, and the body is not allowed to be collected. The criminal's body is hung on the gallows, often on a rope or rotted, which is a punishment suitable for civilians. This is quite different from the understanding of ancient China people, and it also reflects the differences between the eastern and western concepts of punishment.

(3) All the year round

Among all kinds of cruel punishments in ancient China, the most inhuman one was AD. Lingchi, formerly known as Lingchi, originally meant the gentle slope of the hill. Later generations took Ling Chi as the name of punishment, only taking its slow meaning, which means killing people at a very slow speed. To reflect this "slow" intention, it is necessary to cut off the human flesh one by one until the meat is almost cut, and then cut off the head by caesarean section, thus killing the prisoner. So the year is also called cut, cut and inch. The so-called "thousand pieces" refers to the year in. It is generally believed that its source is "five punishments". According to the criminal law of Hanshu, the five punishments are corporal punishment on the victim, such as rubbing the face, licking the nose, cutting off the left and right toes, then beheading with rattan, and then chopping the bones into meat sauce for public display; For those who slander and abuse, their tongues should be cut off. Li Si, the prime minister of Qin Dynasty, died after five punishments. Most people think that the year-end customs as a formal punishment began in the Five Dynasties. Lu You said: "There are many reasons for the five seasons, but the regular law is insufficient, which began with the special tombs outside the law. Exhausted, the breath is not exhausted, the liver and the heart are connected, and the audio-visual still exists. " Ling Chi was publicly brought into criminal law from Liao Dynasty. After the Song Dynasty crossed to the south, Ling Chi was impressively included in the Shi Lei of Yuan Tiao in Qing Dynasty, which was the same as the death penalty of beheading and strangulation.