Today, the editor brings you an article about "shackles". Welcome to read
In "Water Margin", many heroes got tattoos because of killing people. After tattooing, they will be assigned to other places such as Song Jiang, Wu Song, Lin Chong, Yang Zhi and Lu Junyi. Therefore, many instruments of torture are also mentioned in the original work, the most common of which is the shackles.
In movies and TV shows, prisoners basically only wear one type of flail, which is the square flail for the neck and hands. In fact, the ancient shackles are not like this, and there are more than one. There are many types of flails in "Water Margin", including long flail, walking flail, square flail, pan-head flail, guard flail, etc.
What do these flails look like? Under what conditions are they used? Was there such a flail in the Song Dynasty? Now, let's talk about these flails individually.
History of the yoke
Before talking about the yoke, let’s briefly talk about the history of the yoke.
In fact, the shackle was not a tool used to torture people at first. It usually refers to a rack or a tool shackle.
For example, "Book of Rites" states, "Men and women sit in different positions, and their flails are also different." The flail here is a coat hanger. In the Ming Dynasty, there is a legend that "shackles, Ye Jia, add a stick to the handle, take the ears out of the grain", and there are also legends about using agricultural tools to "shackle" wheat or rice ears. Of course, the flail can also be used as a weapon.
As late as the Jin Dynasty, the "shackle" had been used as a torture instrument.
In the "Book of Jin", it is mentioned that Yang Guo and Zhang Long of the Eastern Jin Dynasty occupied many barbarians. In order to expel them, they asked these people to "grow beards and wear a pair of shackles." Schiller, only in his twenties, was one of the prisoners. This story is also mentioned in historical materials such as "Book of Wei" and "Wei Shu", and is called "Two Tigers and One Flail".
It can be seen from this that in the Jin Dynasty, the "shackle" was already a torture instrument.
The first one is the long yoke.
"Dragon Shackles" is mentioned many times in the original work. There are 13 times in 120 editions of "The Biography of the Spring and Autumn Period of the Sixteen Kingdoms". Lin Chong, Wu Song, Song Jiang, Liu Tang and others all wore long yoke. Lin Chong was framed by Gao Qiu and entered the White Tiger Hall by mistake. Later, he was put in prison while wearing a long yoke.
The prefect returned to work and asked Lin Chong to put on the yoke and chop off twenty of his spines. He asked a writer to stab him on the face and measure the distance between the two places. It should match the prison city in Cangzhou.
The long shackle is a special kind of shackle, so it is very long, so it is called "long shackle". It is said that the flail at that time was "ten feet long, three feet long, and one foot below the throat." There were three rulers in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the smallest was 27.9 cm. If you convert it, you can see that the flail at that time was 3.6 meters high, two people high and very long. Because of this, Xiao Liangzi of the Northern Qi Dynasty said in "Water Margin" that he "held a long yoke."
In the Tang Dynasty, the flail was shortened. Du You said that his "Wei" was about the size of a flail.
The flail length is more than 5 feet but less than 6 feet, the cheek length is more than 2 feet 5 inches but less than 6 inches, the overall width is more than 4 inches but less than 6 inches, and the diameter is more than 3 inches but less than 4 inches.
After conversion, it can be seen that the flail at this time is about the same length as the human body. It should be noted that the long shackle is not rectangular, square, or round, but is made of two pieces of wood of different lengths. Long wood chips are "more than 5 feet and less than 6 feet", short wood chips are "more than 2 feet, 5 inches but less than 6 inches", only half of the long wood chips.
This kind of long shackles can also be found in paintings of the Tang and Song Dynasties. For example, this kind of long shackle appears in the hand-painted scroll "Zhu Jingzi" from Dunhuang in the Tang Dynasty. In addition, this kind of long shackles is also found in the murals of Kaihua Temple in Gaoping during the Song Dynasty.
On the long flail, the protruding part of the long wood piece is called the "flail tip", which is also mentioned many times in "Tongdian".
Bai Xiuying sued the winged tiger Lei Heng. As a result, he was punished by the county magistrate and put on the yoke. Lei Heng's mother came to see her and had a quarrel with Bai Xiuying. Bai Xiuying became furious and stepped forward to scold and beat her mother. When Lei Heng saw this, he hit Bai Xiuying with the tip of his shackle. As a result, "a cannon tip caught him" and Bai Xiuying was killed.
In addition, when Jiebao came out of Dengzhou Prison, Jiebao came to see him and was "beaten with the flail head" by Jiebao; when Cai Huaqing executed Lu Junyi, he "held the tip of the flail"; when Shi Jin escaped from prison in Dongping Mansion, " "The single cane tip" knocks down the bar.
Because the flail has a long tip, it can be used as a weapon. In fact, the flail tip was mainly used to pull prisoners or tie their hair to it. Some flails have small holes in the tips, which can be used to hang prisoners and facilitate torture.
Since the Ming Dynasty, the number of long shackles has gradually decreased, and some long shackles have even ends. In the "Three Talents", the long yong is also called the "long board".
The second type: Fang flail
Fang flail is basically used in movies and TV series. This kind of flail is called "square flail" and has no flail tip.
In the early Ming Dynasty, long and square shackles coexisted. For example, in "The Sutra of Ten Kings by the Buddha", in the 26th year of Hongwu, "the Ministry of Punishment used 520 long flails, 260 square feet per year; the Procuratorate should use 120 long flails, 260 square feet per year."
In the Ming Dynasty In the last years, there were more and more square flails, and by the Qing Dynasty, they were all square flails. In "Water Margin", only the 36th poem has this sentence: "Fang flails, iron chains, arrows on the strings, many rests in prison." "Fang flail".
How big was the square flail in the Ming Dynasty? The "Three Talents Conference" also mentioned the weight of different flails.
The length of the flail is five feet and five inches, and the width is one foot. Five inches, made of dry wood, weighing twenty-five kilograms is death penalty, twenty kilograms is banishment, and fifteen kilograms is rod punishment. The length of the old building is not important, because Song Taizong started to build it, and now we must follow it.
The "flail" here refers to the square flail. It can also be seen from the picture that the long flail or square flail is just wrapped around the neck, unlike in movies and TV shows, where the hands are tied. The instrument of torture is actually the "hand".
The third type: flails
In ancient times, prisoners generally wore flails of different shapes when they were sent to prison. , The shackles worn in prison are very heavy.
For example, Bai Sheng was wearing a "20-pound death shackles" when she was in prison. Song Jiang wrote. He wrote an anti-poem and was framed by Mao Taigong, who was wearing a 25-kilogram death-row flail. He was still a 25-kilogram death-row prisoner. Worst. When he was imprisoned, he was wearing a "100-kilogram death row". However, the delivery point is usually far away, which is impossible if you wear a heavy yoke weighing dozens of kilograms. To walk far. Therefore, the shackles worn on the road are usually very light, so they are easy to walk. They are also called "walking shackles" in the Ming Dynasty Code.
Wu Song. He gave the two officials ten taels of silver and put them on the shackles, still covered with lids.
In addition, Song Jiang, Zhu Tong, Wang Qing and others also walked on the distribution road wearing shackles. /p>
The length of the flail has been fixed. How to reduce the weight? But if the thickness is too thin, the flail may not be strong, so people use iron sheets to help fix it. p>
Based on this, the hanging flail is also called the "Iron Leaf Protective Flail". In "Water Margin", Lin Chong, Wu Song and others were all wearing this kind of flail when they were assigned. It only weighed 7.5 kilograms. For example, Lin Chong was assigned to it. In Cangzhou, the class wore a "seven-pound and a half iron leaf flail"
The fourth is a flail.
There is a special walking flail called a "pan-headed flail." , which is the "pan-headed flail" mentioned in "Jie Zhen Street News"
Pan Sangui appeared in the Tang Dynasty and had no weight. By the Song Dynasty, Renzong had stipulated a weight of 10 kilograms. In the late Northern Song Dynasty, because the flail was too heavy, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty issued a special decree stipulating that "prisoners must have flails weighing 10 kilograms." The flail was made to facilitate the lives of prisoners, so it was round and had no edges. Pan, hence the name "Pan Yong". This kind of round flail can be seen in the embroidered images of "Water Margin" in the Tang Dynasty and the "Water Margin" in the late Ming Dynasty.
The flail is also very light. To stabilize it, iron leaves would be nailed to it. Therefore, this kind of flail is also called "rolling iron leaf flail".
When Wu Song assassinated Penn State University, he was wearing "a 7.5-pound piece of iron and a flail" on his head.
Lu Junyi also wore iron leaf rolls, but the prefect Cai Jiuzhi may have considered Lu Junyi's martial arts skills, so he wore "20kg iron leaf rolls."
"Song Yao Gao Gao Ji Ji" said that at that time, there was only "the whipping system that could not be ordered", so "there is a common system in the world", mainly used for "the county sends prisoners to the state, and the state sends prisoners to other places" etc. Prisoners can also be found wearing flails when assigned.
Written at the end
It also mentioned "flaail", which means wearing a flail for the public to see. The flail would also have the prisoner's name and crime written on it. This is a moral punishment that serves as a warning to everyone. When Li Kui JY was tried in court, he asked the defendant to "flaail in front of the government."
In short, it can be found that whether it is a long shackle, a square shackle or a walking shackle, it only covers the prisoner's neck, not his hands. Because prisoners need to solve problems such as eating, drinking, breaking up, etc. on the road, it will be very inconvenient if their hands are tied.
In addition, a cover will be affixed to the shackles, with the prisoner's name, crime, and location written on it. In the year of "Water Margin", the prefect Cai Jiuzhi saw Song Jiang who was sent for the first time and asked him: "Why don't the shackles cover the state?" Two officials said they were soaked by the rain. In fact, the ancients had already considered this situation. When escorting prisoners, people will carry many sets with them along the way and change them every few days.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were several types of shackles, including shackles for two, three or even five people, and shackles that allowed prisoners to stand all the time. Since it is not mentioned in "The Buddha Speaks of Ten Kings", I will not go into details here.