The three legal divisions of the Ming Dynasty were not located in front of the palace gates where civil and military yamen gathered, around the Thousand Steps Corridor, or even within the capital.
It is outside Taipingmen, the north gate of Nanjing City, on the bank of Xuanwu Lake.
This is an ancient system that adheres to the emperor's virtues and punishments far away, so the Ministry of Punishment, Dali Temple, and Yushitai, which are responsible for punishments, are all located in the northern suburbs.
The second is Liu Bowen's "examination of Kun's rituals and examination of Qian's phenomena", and he believed that the construction of the Three Laws Department here was "substantially second to the Tianshi Yuan Guansuo"... "Guansuo" is the place where the Emperor of Heaven imprisoned prisoners, and is located in the northeast of the Heavenly Palace, so
The judicial department and the prison should also be built in the northeast of the Forbidden City.
Third, Boss Zhu personally inspected the terrain and saw that the peninsula protruding into Xuanwu Lake was surrounded by water on three sides and had only one channel connected to the land. It was really a good place to detain prisoners. So he built a city wall here to make it a prison.
The prison of the Ministry of Punishment was located in the city.
The prison is built here, which is indeed easy to guard, but the prisoners inside are suffering from old crimes. Because the surrounding area is full of water, the tide is terrible all year round, the walls of the cell are covered with colorful mildew spots, and the straw where the prisoners sleep is constantly on the
The child grows mushrooms.
Even though it's late autumn, the ground is still wet, and the straw seems to be able to squeeze out water. Even a strong man with steel and iron bones sleeping on this kind of ground will be sick all over his body for a few months, and he will lose his appearance.
In addition, the drinking water and food are dirty, and ventilation is poor. The prisoners do not see any sunlight all day long, and they urinate and defecate in the cells. Therefore, infectious diseases can be found in the prison all year round, and patients fall ill almost every day.
If the family has money and has something to do with it, they can take care of it and hire a doctor. Those who have no money and nothing to do with it can only live and wait for death. When they are about to die, the prisoners wail day and night, asking their fellow prisoners to
The prisoners were tortured so much that as time passed, they became numb.
Everyone's body and soul were destroyed, and they suffered every day. It was truly a hell on earth, and life was worse than death.
But in September, when the Autumn Judgment began, they became frightened again. Anyone who saw the prison boss serving them a decapitated meal would burst into tears.
Some fellow prisoners asked, Brother, didn’t you say that it is better to die early and be reincarnated than to suffer the consequences in prison?
Prisoners who are about to go on their way will cry: 'Who knows what kind of thing he will be reborn in the next life...'
Most of those who can enter the prison of the Ministry of Punishment are those who have committed many evil deeds. According to the monk, they will basically become beasts in their next life.
~~
Mr. Hu was imprisoned for two months in this kind of environment. Besides living in a single cell and not being beaten or blackmailed by the cell boss, he ate, drank, and slept like ordinary prisoners and did not enjoy any privileges.
After two months, Mr. Hu, who used to have a shiny face and a body full of fat, has become unkempt, skinny, covered in fleas and lice, and his limbs and face are covered with abscesses. He has completely lost his appearance.
He also had mental problems. If you asked him anything, his eyes would stare blankly and he would be stunned for a while before he could react.
"Hu Tianci, are you still going to eat?!" The prisoner knocked on the fence several times with a big iron spoon. Then he slowly raised his head and realized that it was time to put out the meal.
Mr. Hu quickly picked up the broken porcelain bowl, climbed to the door of the cell gate, held the bowl with his black chicken claws, and handed it out through the crack in the fence.
"What a fool, if you keep whining like this, you'll starve!" The jailer cursed and gave him a bowl of rice soup that was as clear as a mirror, and then threw him a steamed bun that could kill someone.
This is the prison meal Mr. Hu eats, and there are only two meals a day...
This kind of stuff that even his pigs don't eat, Mr. Hu now eats it very deliciously. He holds the porridge bowl in one hand and holds the steamed bun in the other. He takes a bite of the steamed bun and gets a mouthful of porridge, and he eats it with hunger and thirst.
After eating and drinking it all in a short while, he licked the rice bowl until it was all visible, and slurped the crumbs between his fingers. Then he fell down on the straw with unsatisfied content, and told himself to go to sleep quickly, so as to reduce consumption.
You won’t be so hungry when you turn around.
And only in dreams can we relive the beautiful life of living in debauchery, bullying men and dominating women...
Lying on the damp and hard ground, he gradually fell into a deep sleep, completely unconscious.
~~
In the middle of the night, moans and grunts came one after another in the prison.
At this time, there was a knock on the door of the prison, and the prison head, who was sleeping, quickly got up and unlocked the door. With a creak, he opened the door and put in an old man pushing a cart.
There was a big smelly wooden barrel on top of the wheelbarrow. The old man was here to collect the night fragrance.
"Get up, Lao Xu is here to collect your feces and urine." The cell leader personally led the old man and knocked on the cell doors one by one.
The prisoners who were woken up were a little confused, why did they feel that the night scent collector came so early today?
But in front of the fierce cell leader, they did not dare to say anything. They quickly lifted the smelly toilet to the door of the cell, then they all rolled to the corner and knelt facing the wall with their heads in their hands.
The cell boss opened the cell door one by one and asked the old man to go in, lift out the toilet, empty it, and then put it back in.
While Lao Xu, who was pouring the night incense, was doing this, the cell leader put his hand on the handle of the knife and watched the prisoners vigilantly, not allowing anyone to move, let alone look back. The prisoners could not continue to sleep until the cell door was locked again.
In this way, I received Mr. Hu's cell from cell to cell.
"Get up and pour the night fragrance." The cell leader called several times, but Mr. Hu inside still couldn't wake up.
"Damn it, I think your skin is itchy!" The prison boss cursed angrily, opened the cell door and went in.
The prisoners in the adjacent cells all poked their heads here, wanting to see the excitement.
"Kneel facing the wall. If you turn around, you won't be allowed to eat for three days!" The prison boss had plenty of ways to deal with them.
The prisoners were so frightened that they quickly knelt down as instructed. No one dared to look back and peek.
I could only hear the prison boss scolding and punching and kicking me.
"Get up, you lazy bitch! If you don't get up, I'll kick you to death!"
After beating Mr. Hu hard for a while, the cell leader finally got angry, slammed the cell door shut and said, "Next one!"
After the cell leader and Lao Xu pushing the dung cart passed by, the prisoners in the adjacent cell dared to look back. They saw Mr. Hu being beaten to the ground, groaning and murmuring:
"Oh, oh. My name is Hu Tianci, and my father is Hu Weiyong. Oh, my father is Hu Weiyong..."
"Stop yelling. If your father had taken care of you, how could he still let you suffer these crimes?" A prisoner reminded him: "If you talk too much, you will be beaten again."
But the boy still groaned, repeating those two sentences over and over again:
"My name is Hu Tianci, and my father is Hu Weiyong..."
"Oh, everyone was beaten stupid." The prisoner shook his head and sighed, and stopped talking nonsense to him.
Besides, after collecting the night incense, Old Xu slowly pushed the heavy dung cart out to the prison door.
There was a stone step at the door, and he couldn't get up no matter how hard he pushed it.
"Damn it, these prisoners are really good at pulling, but they still eat too much." The cell leader cursed, not afraid of getting dirty, and went up to help Lao Xu push the dung truck over the steps.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Niu." Lao Xu thanked him and pushed the dung cart out of the prison.
The cell leader locked the iron door again, looked in the distance in the direction where the dung truck disappeared, and let out a sigh of relief.
