Chinese history has a punishment with a beautiful name but is one of the most cruel.

Since the feudal period, China has been a country that has paid great attention to the legal system. Although the Han Dynasty introduced the "abolition of the Hundred Schools of Thought and the sole promotion of Confucianism", behind this benevolent rule was a series of severe punishments to suppress the behavior of the people.

Even later, a cruel form of punishment was invented, called slicing and cutting, or dismembering. Slicing and cutting is to torture criminals with hundreds of thousands of cuts, making them suffer double the physical and mental pain before death.

Among the punishments of the feudal court at that time, there was a type with a very elegant sounding name - pipa (playing the pipa), but no one could endure it for even one song.

"Pipa" carving

The pipa is a form of torture invented during the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang himself came up with the idea , and it was applied by the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot. It is said that this punishment was thought up by the Jinyiwei, but without Zhu Yuanzhang's permission, the organization would not dare to apply it. Once a prisoner is subjected to this punishment, he can only live a life worse than death, and it is even more painful than being executed by slicing.

When mentioning the Ming Dynasty's Jinyiwei and Dongchang, you probably think of the shadowy figures that appear and disappear. We only know that they belonged to the imperial court and carried out secret missions. According to history books, the Jinyiwei and Dongchang were established by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.

Imperial Guard.

After founding the country, Zhu Yuanzhang should have enjoyed the glory and splendor that peace brought, but he could not live in peace. Zhu Yuanzhang always suspected that those close to him wanted to rebel, especially the loyal ministers who had conquered the world with him. So he established the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot.

The function of the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot was to secretly probe the people's hearts and investigate everything Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to know. The power of the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot was extremely great, they could arbitrarily judge the high-ranking officials in the court, arrest high-ranking officials, and even without going through the responsible department in the palace, they could arbitrarily investigate.

The motto of the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot was to obey the Emperor's supreme command and 'rather kill by mistake than let go'. Accordingly, torture and punishment were indispensable. Every time these two organizations were mentioned, even high-ranking officials in the court would be terrified and their faces would change color. From this, it could be seen that the level of torture used by the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot had reached a level beyond human imagination.

The Cruelty of "Pipa"

The 'pipa' punishment of the Jinyiwei and Dongxuong is that before the execution, the prisoner's clothes are stripped or pulled up, exposing the ribs. The executioner takes a small knife and cuts the ribs one by one, until the skin peels off the flesh . The reason for this name is because the execution process is very similar to the act of plucking the pipa strings. The executioner treats the prisoner's ribs as pipa strings, causing the prisoner to suffer waves of pain, almost no one can bear it for the duration of a song. The solution is to compromise with the Jinyiwei and reveal any information so that they do not continue the execution.

"Pipa" was once considered the most cruel punishment at that time. (Illustration photo).

At that time, there was a corrupt official named Wang Wenyan. He was executed by 'pipa' . His clothes were stripped off. The Jinyiwei used a hook to insert into his ribs and pull them up. Wang Wenyan immediately fainted from the pain. The Jinyiwei washed the hook with salt water and inserted it into his ribs to wake him up. After a few times, Wang Wenyan confessed his crime.

The 'pipa' was the ultimate form of punishment in feudal China. The person being punished would faint just by hearing the name. Although it was cruel, the Jinyiwei and the Eastern Depot were able to achieve their goal: to subdue a person without needing a retrial. However, during the course of their activities, countless innocent people were unjustly killed.

Then, with the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the application of this punishment also gradually decreased over the years. By the Qing Dynasty, the "pipa" punishment completely disappeared.