It's December 17th in the year 835.

We're in the Tang Dynasty capital

Changan, today known as Shian in central

China. The Imperial Chancellor, Wang Ya,

sees for the first time the instruments

that will end his life. It's a strangely

tranquil scene. Beneath a tree in one of

Changan's gardens stands a trestle, and

besides this, a saw. To the untrained

eye, they resemble the tools of an

artisan or craftsman. But Wang Ya knows

that they are not this. He knows that

there'll be no soaring of beams and

chopping of wood today. Instead, Wanga

is the one who will be sorn and chopped.

In the bitter December cold, the

70-year-old Wa is strapped face down

onto the trestle. It's a humiliating

position for a man of his years and

standing with his hands and feet on the

ground. He arches his back and raises

his rump to the sky. Then his

executioner begins. He starts at Wanga's

lower spine, moving the blade back and

forth in a soaring motion as the elderly

man wales in agony. And the executioner

does not stop there. In fact, he won't

stop until he's reached the other side.

Wa has met with the Yao Jan or the waste

chop. It is one of Imperial China's most

ruthless punishments.

We don't know how long Wyatt remained

conscious during this ordeal. The

massive amounts of blood loss and the

severed spinal column may have put him

under quickly, sparing him some of the

anguish. But he may well have been

alive, too, even after the waist chop

was complete. Records show that Wang

Ya's head was cut from his shoulders

shortly afterwards and displayed on the

city's Shingan Gate. Whether this was a

final act of mercy or just a way to

collect a trophy, we're not sure. The

waist chop has become a symbol of

judicial brutality in imperial China,

the period that stretches from the

ancient age right up to just before the

first world war. And it's easy to see

why the waste chop has become so

symbolic. It's cruel, it's humiliating,

and it inflicts unimaginable agony on

its victim. But as we shall see, some

punishments went even further, plumbing

the depths of inhumity in an effort to

make a point and send a message to

potential misgreants.

This is the story of punishments in

imperial China.

The grim end of Wangya is difficult to

rationalize. It suggests something

chaotic and random. It suggests

haphazard expressions of brutality

designed to be as horrific and blood

curdling as possible. But this is not

really the case. Right across the broad

sweep of China's imperial history, it is

true that punishments certainly were

horrific and blood curdling, but they

were not random. They were based on a

codified set of rules and prescriptions

basically right from the very beginning.

Back in the early days of the Shia

dynasty around 4,000 years ago, King Chi

of Shia sought to develop a legal code

he could use to pacify his burgeoning

kingdom. He may have taken inspiration

from the Meow people who still inhabit

southern China and Southeast Asia. The

Meow had a code of punishments that they

would met out to their own criminals.

According to legend, King Xi liked what

he saw and implemented this code in the

Shia Kingdom. Over the following

millennia, the protoChinese judicial

code developed from these early origins.

It coalesed into something very simple

but also disturbingly brutal. This was

the Wuing or the five punishments. It's

this code of wooing that brings us

around 1,500 years later to the story of

the unfortunate general and tactician

Sunbin of the state of Wei. Sunbin was a

talented young man. It was said that he

was a descendant of the legendary Sunsur

whose writings on military strategy are

still studied to this day. Back in the

4th century BC, this made Sunbin

something of a star. While studying

military strategy in the Wei Kingdom of

northeastern China, he stood out as a

gifted future general. But for his

friend and fellow student, Pang Jen, Sun

Bin was not a star and instead was a

threat to Pang's own ambitions. Pang

grew jealous of Sunn. Years later, when

the two were serving as generals in the

Wei army, Pang decided his former friend

needed to go. Pang framed Sun for

treason, and as punishment, Sunn would

be branded. so that he would forever

carry the mark of a traitor. But the

punishment did not end there. Even worse

than the branding, his kneecaps were cut

from his legs. Sunbin would describe

this grim treatment. He left the

waistate and joined the rival shei army.

In 342 BC, he would take his revenge.

Despite Sunbin's debilitating

punishment, he was able to lead the chi

forces at the battle of Maling. Here

they defeated the way. Panguen would not

survive the encounter. He was mortally

wounded in an ambush and then committed

suicide. Sunbin's treatment sounds grim

and barbaric, but it would not have been

surprising at the time. The general had

received two of the five punishments of

ancient China, namely mua, meaning ink

and y, which essentially means to cut

off the feet. With moa, tattoos and

brands would be used to mark the

prisoner out as a criminal. They would

carry this mark of shame for the rest of

their lives. With Uer, the lower limbs

would be brutalized. Essentially, this

meant one or both feet would be chopped

off. In Sunbin's case, the

interpretation was a little different.

Rather than the feet, his kneecaps were

removed. Sunbin's story may have become

shrouded in legend, but these

punishments did actually happen. In

1999, a female skeleton around 3,000

years old was discovered. One of her

feet was missing, and the ends of her

leg bones exhibited signs of soaring.

Perhaps this was an example of an early

bit of preventative surgery, maybe after

an accident or illness, but peaking

university archaeologist Lean doesn't

think so. Speaking to live science, she

said, quote, "After careful observation,

our research team ruled out other

possibilities and agreed that punitive

amputation is the best interpretation.

Surely this woman must have committed

some hideous crime to deserve such

treatment." So, what she do? Well, Lee

isn't sure. There were lots of crimes

that carried out this sort of penalty.

In fact, there were 500 [snorts]

separate infractions in total. In Lee's

words, this included rebelling,

cheating, stealing, and even clamming

over certain gates. In other words, the

woman may have had her foot chopped off

simply for trespassing or a possible 499

other crimes. So, in m and y, we have

two of the five punishments. So, what

about the other three? Well, for around

1,000 separate offenses, you could

suffer ye. In other words, you'd have

your nose chopped off. The most famous

example of Yei comes from the early Han

dynasty in the 2nd century BC. When a

concubine named Lady Chi fell foul of

Doja Empress Liier, her days were

numbered. The empress decided to teach

Lady Chi a lesson by cutting off her

nose. In other words, Lady Chi was

sentenced to Ye. But unfortunately for

Lady Chi, there was far worse to come.

The Empress also exacted several other

punishments on her rival. She cut off

Lady Cheese's arms and legs, gouged out

her eyes, slashed off her ears, poisoned

her with a concoction of potions, and

finally locked her in a pigsty, calling

her human swine. One of the few

punishments that Lady Chi did not suffer

was the next of the five punishments,

gong. Gong meant castration. The

prisoners male parts were chopped off

and the victim may then become a unic

serving the imperial haram. This was a

penalty for around 300 offenses.

Generally, these offenses were serious

sexual crimes, but the punishment was

also applied to adultery or general

promiscuity. Women could also be

sentenced to gong, although some

historians believe that the body of a

female prisoner would be unharmed. These

offenders may simply be confined to a

room as a kind of house arrest. However,

in William 9inhous's edition of Sun

Machen's Grand Scribes Records, he

states that mutilation of women's parts

did take place. So, women may not have

been spared the cruel physical suffering

of Guong either. All of that brings the

grim total of punishments up to four,

which means one more remains. Up till

now, these have all been corporal

punishments, punishments designed to

the body and condemn the

prisoner to a life of shame. The final

punishment is well final.

It's the death penalty. There were many

death penalties in Imperial China.

Prisoners might be chopped into four

pieces or they may be boiled alive. They

might also be pulled apart by a system

of five chariots, one attached to each

limb and one at the neck. Other

prisoners may simply have had their head

chopped off or be strangled. There's

also a very specific punishment known as

chi shure which involves leaving the

mutilated corpse of the victim in the

local public market as a warning to

others. And then there are other methods

of execution, one of which we've seen

already with poor old Wy, but we're

going to come back to these as we

haven't yet begun to scratch the surface

of Imperial China's corporal

punishments. Now, the eagle-eyed among

you may have spotted that some of what

we've talked about up to this point

takes place before 221 BC with the

notable exceptions of Porod Wangya and

Ladyqi. This means it took place before

Chin Sha Huang ended the waring states

period and unified China under theQin

dynasty. There are two reasons why I've

decided to cover these pre-dynastic

cases. The first reason is that there is

a continuous cultural thread throughout

Chinese history. While the dynastic

period generally covers 221 BC until the

end of theQing dynasty in 1911, the

threads of this culture extend far

beyond this. So we can take three very

different points in time such as the

Shia dynasty in 2000 BC or the Chi

Kingdom in 300 BC and the Tang dynasty

of 700 AD. And we can see similar

cultural foundations exhibited in each

one. These periods are not identical by

any means, but they do stem from the

same cultural roots. It's not quite the

same as lumping the legal codes of Roman

Britain together with the social

practices of earlier Celtic tribes or of

the later Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. The

second reason is that the five

punishments were around for over a

thousand years. This means they were

extended well into the dynastic period

itself. It wasn't until around 176 BC

that the Han dynasty abolished the five

punishments. According to legend, it was

a 14-year-old girl who brought about the

end of Wuing. This was Chunu Tiing who

traveled to the court of Emperor Wen to

petition for the release of her father

after he was accused of medical

malpractice. At the court, she addressed

the emperor directly. As a daughter, I

am willing to redeem my father's sin by

being your slave for the rest of my

life. I beg you to spare him from this

punishment and thus he will have an

opportunity to make a fresh start. In a

bit of rare leniency from the ancient

world, it seemed Emperor Wen was moved

by the girl's words. Not only did he

pardon her father, but he didn't accept

Tiings offer to be his slave

either, which was nice of him. We don't

know whether this ever actually

happened. Barbara Bennett Peterson's

book, Notable Women of China, seems to

suggest that it is a true story and that

the emperor was moved by the girl's

outstanding example of file piety. In

other words, she had honored her parents

and had therefore fulfilled her duty

under the Confucian moral code that

underpinned Han Dynasty society. But

even though Wuing was abolished during

the Han dynasty, brutal corporal and

capital punishments continued. By the

sway dynasty around 700 years later, a

staunch code of corporal punishments and

fines was in place, ensuring that anyone

who broke the law would know what was

coming to them. These corporal

punishments would be applied for seven

of the 10 abominations. The crimes

deemed to be so aborant that they

carried the highest levels of

punishment. These crimes ranged from the

murder of one's parents to committing

incest or even simply not showing the

proper respect to the emperor. The code

of punishment revolved around four

aspects. beatings, fines, imprisonment,

and exile. And each of these aspects

would be applied to a differing degree

depending on the offense. For example,

less serious offenders would be flocked

with a light bamboo cane, whereas more

serious offenders were beaten with

thick, heavy sticks. The process of

exile was known as mule, which was

applied across three different degrees.

The minimum exile was 620 mi away from

the criminal's birthplace. The worst

degree was 930 miles. Often however

prisoners were simply sent to the island

province of Hainan as this was believed

to be sufficiently remote. This system

of beatings, fines, and exile long

outlasted the relatively short-lived

Sway dynasty. A similar code was still

in use as later as theQing dynasty,

which lasted from the 17th century right

to the 20th century. But some

punishments existed outside these codes.

These punishments were tortures designed

to elicit a confession, something that

was vital for a conviction under

imperial Chinese law. In 1585, the

Spanish bishop Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza

wrote his history of China. It was one

of the first texts of its type from a

western observer. And in it, Mendoza

describes a brutal method of torture.

They take two pieces of wood with holes

bored through and put through these

holes cords. And in the middle of these

boards they do put the whole foot and

strain the cords and with a mallet they

do strike upon the cords wherewith they

do break all the bones. Mendoza is

describing the jaguan or ankle crusher.

This is a process designed to inflict

maximum pain on the victim without

putting their life in danger. It was a

legally sanctioned method of torture and

interrogation right up to the end of

theqing dynasty. But jagu was only

applied to male prisoners. Female

prisoners would not have their ankles

crushed and instead would be subjected

to jean or finger crushing. Mendoza

provides an account of this too. The

torments on the hands is given with two

sticks as big as two fingers and a span

long. The sticks are full of holes in

all places wherein are put cords and the

finger of both their hands are put into

the cords. Little and little they do

pinch them till in the end they do break

them at the joints with an incredible

pain onto them that do suffer it.

Another recorded method of torture is

the red embroidered shoe. This was an

iron hot boot that was attached to the

prisoner's foot. Once secure, it was

heated until the surface of the metal

glowed and the human flesh within the

shoe began to cook. A confession was

surely not far behind. Of course,

torture was never the endgame. It was

part of the judicial process. that

endgame would come after the confession

and often this meant capital punishment.

We've already talked about the 10

abominations of traditional Chinese law.

These were the most heinous offenses for

the dastic period, but the imperial

judicial system didn't operate on a life

for a life basis. You could commit

murder and still not be executed.

Instead, you might be flogged, fined,

and banished instead. Capital

punishments were typically reserved for

the three most serious of the 10

abominations. These three offenses were

not crimes against your fellow human

being, but instead, or you guessed it,

crimes against the state. For plotting a

rebellion, for plotting sedition, or for

plotting treason, you would likely be

executed. At various points in China's

imperial history, capital punishment was

applied pragmatically. A prisoner might

be hanged or have their head cut off.

This is certainly horrific to us from

our modern perspective, but it wasn't

designed to be cruel and spectacular. It

was designed simply to get the job done.

However, this was not always the case,

and frequently prisoners were executed

in garishly spectacular fashion. Several

records exist of people being torn apart

by chariots. The infamous fake unicay

was apparently ripped apart by this

method after he attempted to usurp the

young king ofQing in 238 BC. I've

covered his bizarre and disturbing story

in my video on Emperor Ching Xiang,

China's great unifier. What you need to

know is that Laoi's head and his four

limbs were each tied to a chariot. These

chariots were attached to horses and the

horses were then whipped and driven in

opposing directions. The idea was to

literally pull the body apart. Lao I and

other people subjected to this treatment

would experience minutes of mind and

body-wrenching pain until finally the

head was severed. In the ideal case, the

head would be severed before the limbs,

but this was certainly not guaranteed.

It seems this punishment certainly did

take place, but if you're a regular

viewer of the channel, you'll know that

it's quite hard to separate limbs from

the body with horsepower alone. The

saving grace is that it's likely this

method wasn't used that often. Although,

of course, when it was, it would have

been messy and drawn out. The yaojan or

waste chop method we saw at the

beginning of this video was probably

used more often. It would have been far

easier for the executioners to control

as they didn't have to deal with

temperamental horses and stubborn human

senuse. Chinese official histories

record numerous instances of this

spanning centuries, dynasties, even

millennia. Poor old Wangya, for example,

was cut in half during the Tang dynasty

in the 9th century. At more than 70

years old, the imperial chancellor

Wangya was already well beyond the

average life expectancy for the period.

He should have been revered as an elder.

But when he attempted to stand against

the cabal of Unix, who'd seized power in

the imperial capital, he found himself

humiliated and brutally killed along

with his fellow chancellors. Wang was

paraded through the streets and markets

of Changan one bitterly cold day in

December of 1835. Rather than showing

their respect and deference, the people

assaulted him. They held rocks and

fragments of masonry as he passed. But

it was their words that hurt most of

all. They called him a traitor, a man

who had served under four emperors and

proved himself to be a capable

politician and a skilled chancellor. Now

he was being jered and cursed by his own

people. Finally, Wanga's humiliation was

brought to an end. Beneath a tree in a

Changan garden, Wangya was sorn in half.

His head was lpped off and then hung

onto the Shiang gate as a warning to

others. If you think that the sight of

their elderly relatives head displayed

on a pole might have been disturbing for

Wong Ya's family, then you don't need to

worry because his family was slaughtered

too, young and old. The only consolation

is that their own executions were not

carried out in quite the same grim

manner. Wangya's story is disturbing,

but it's far from unique. If you'd

excuse the slightly unfortunate turn of

phrase, Wang sits somewhere at the

midpoint of the waist chops period of

usage. Court official Li Su was executed

in this way 600 years before in 208 BC.

This came during the bloody power

struggle that followed the death of

Emperor Ching Xiang in 1374 almost a

millennium and a half after Lisa and 500

years after Wanga. The poet Gchi met a

similar end. Records suggest that Gaul

was sliced into eight parts rather than

two for his role in a planned rebellion.

Legend has it this method was still

being used during theQing dynasty.

Another 350 years later, the education

administrator Yu Hong Tu was apparently

executed this way in 1734.

Supposedly, the bloody chunk of Yu

remained alive long after the chop was

complete. The wretched man scrolled the

word cruel over and over again into the

dust in his own blood. This sorry

spectacle apparently appalled the young

Yong Jeng emperor of theQing dynasty who

outright banned the process. Although

other records said that you was executed

by decapitation, not the waist chop.

I'll leave it up to you to decide which

version of the history you believe. Now,

so far I've made it sound like the waist

chop is the pinnacle of barbarity, the

most savage of all the donastic periods

punishments, but most would argue that

this was not the case. Most would say

that one form of capital punishment

stands above the rest as the most

demented of all. And this was of course

the lingure, also known as slow slicing

or death by a thousand cuts. I've

actually done an entire video on the

process of lingure. And I recommend you

take a look at that video once you

finish watching this one if you like

these kinds of topics. But I can't cover

Imperial Chinese punishments without

providing at least a brief overview of

lingure. So here we go. During lingure,

a series of slashes and amputations are

inflicted upon the victim. Each one is

designed to cause agonizing pain and to

remove a portion of the victim's flesh,

but they are not designed to kill. Under

this method, death must come as slowly

as possible. Numerous pieces of the

victim's body must first be removed

before he or she finally succumbs. The

practice was first recorded as early as

the fifth century and was deemed so

horrifying that it was abolished

numerous times over the following

thousand years. In a plea to the

imperial corps of the Song Dynasty in

the 13th century, the historian Lu Yo

provided a disturbing description of the

process. When the muscles of the flesh

are already taken away, the breath of

life is not yet cut off. Liver and heart

are still connected, seeing an earring

still exist. Luor was disgusted by the

procedure and wanted it banned. He

continued, "It affects the harmony of

nature. It is injurious to a benevolent

government and does not befit a

generation of wise men." But the

practice was still very much in use as

late as theQing dynasty at the turn of

the 20th century. Sir Henry Norman

published an eyewitness account of such

an execution in 1895.

The executioner grasps handfuls from the

fleshy parts of the body such as the

thighs and breasts and slices them away.

The limbs are cut off peacemeal at the

wrists and ankles, the elbows and knees,

shoulders and hips. Finally, the

condemned is stabbed to the heart and

the head is cut off. The Australian,

George Ernest Morrison, published a

similar account that same year and

described how the executioner used a

sharp sword to quote, "Make two quick

incisions above the eyebrows and then

draws down the portion of skin over each

eye." Mercifully, Morrison stated the

prisoner was likely deeply under the

influence of opium, but not all victims

of linger were afforded such kindness.

Linger is unusual amongst ancient

methods of executions in that it

permeated right through into the modern

age. One of the last judicial

applications of lingure occurred as late

as 1907, just 4 years before the end of

the period in 1911. Photographic

evidence even exists of lingchure.

Images of an execution carried out in

Beijing on October 31st, 1904 are still

widely available online, but obviously

they're far too graphic to show on

YouTube. They can be found easily, but

fair warning before you go looking,

they're not nice to see. Moving on,

though, from a judicial perspective,

some fates were worse even than death

and worse than a lifetime of mutilation

and shame. Which brings us to our final

story of today. The story of Fang Sha.

Fang came from Ningghai in Juyang, close

to the modern city of Ningbo on China's

eastern coast. He showed himself to be a

gifted student, excelling in his study

of Confucian philosophy and morality. In

time, he rose through the ranks to

become a trusted adviser to the Genuine

Emperor. But in 1399, disaster befell

Fang. His enviable position as imperial

adviser was suddenly threatened by the

Jing Jang rebellion as the emperor's

uncle Judi rose up to seize power. By

1402, Fang's cushy little world was

falling apart. Judi's armies were

marching on the main capital at Nanjing.

On July 13th, the city's garrison

switched sides and they opened the gates

to the city and the rebels swept inside.

The imperial palace was put to flame and

in the blaze the genuine emperor, the

empress and their eldest son perished.

Judi took the imperial throne and this

meant selecting a new title as emperor.

He decided on yongl meaning perpetual

happiness only there was no perpetual

happiness for the followers of the

deposed genuine emperor. Yong began a

purge that would essentially wipe his

predecessor from the face of history.

And this meant that Fang Shaou was now a

target. According to the official

history of Ming, penned around 300 years

later, Fang did have a chance to save

himself. He was ordered to write the

emperor's inaugural address, but he

refused. Fang, for this was sentenced to

death. But not only Fang, his entire

family would also need to be put to

death. The emperor of perpetual

happiness sentenced Fang to Miau or the

extermination of the clan. This meant

the murder not only of Fang but also a

number of his family members. The

highest degree of this punishment was

the extermination of nine generations.

This sounds insane. Nine generations is

about 270 years of family history. To go

back nine generations in your family,

you would end up in the mid 1750s. Even

Ming China wasn't going to dig up two

and a half centuries worth of corpses

and then symbolically reput them to

death. Instead, the extermination of

nine generations worked like this.

Fang's parents were put to death as well

as his own children and grandchildren.

His siblings and siblings in-law were

also executed. In the eyes of the law,

that took care of five generations. Then

Fang's uncles and aunts were executed,

followed by his cousins, his wife, and

his wife's parents. By bending the

definition of what a generation actually

is, the Young Lair Emperor managed to

find nine generations of Fang's family

to murder. According to the annals of

Ming history, published 200 years after

the event, the Yong Emperor went even

further. Apparently, when the sentence

was read out and Fang was informed that

nine generations of his family were to

die, Fang responded, "Why not 10?" This

10th generation was then interpreted as

Fang's students and peers. So, his

sudden outburst of the emperor got them

killed, too. The annals suggest that in

total, 873 people were executed. Leaving

Fang alive after getting nearly a

thousand of his relatives and friends

killed might have been a punishment in

itself, but of course he too had to die.

The sources differ as to how exactly

Fang himself was executed. It may have

been Ling Chair or he may have received

the waste chop. Neither sounds like a

particularly appealing end. Just like

with any history of Imperial China, we

do have to question the sources at least

a bit. Donastic histories tend to be

written by the official historians of

the following dynasty and these

historians tended to have an axe to

grind as they're writing about what was

basically a civil war in the Ming

dynasty. Later historians may well have

picked a side. They may have wanted to

make Jen and his supporters appear more

virtuous compared to the bloodthirsty

Yong Lur. Or they might have wanted to

make Yong Lur look like a strong and

ruthless ruler. This is actually more

likely as Yong Lair has gone down in

history as one of the great Chinese

emperors. Regardless of the details

though, familial exterminations did

happen. Fang Shahu is the only

documented example of a person sentenced

to 10 degrees of extermination and even

the nine degrees didn't happen very

often. But having your parents,

children, spouse, and other family

members put to death for a crime that

you committed definitely happened and

was considered the most severe of all

the punishments of Imperial China. The

bloodthirsty days of the waist chop and

the ankle crusher might be distant

memories now, but the lasting effects of

things like miser live on. This

punishment claimed entire families and

wiped out whole bloodlines permanently.

It was essentially an eternal

punishment, one that would last for all

time. For a society based upon familiar

honor and legacy, there was no worse

fate than this.