Why was it cut in the autumn in ancient times? In ancient times, why did the queen ask for beheading

The meaning of "asking and beheading after the autumn" first comes from the record of "Rites and Monthly Orders":"The cool breeze arrives, the white dew falls, the cicadas chirp, the eagle is a sacrifice bird, and it is killed with the beginning. "

Dong Zhongshu, a Han Confucian (who advocated the idea of "the unity of heaven and man"), raised this meaning to a theoretical level in "Spring and Autumn Dew"."The king is worthy of the sky, which is called his way. There are four times in the sky, and the king has four governments, and if the four governments are four, the general class is also. Heaven and man have the same.

Celebration is spring, reward is summer, punishment is autumn, and punishment is winter. "The ancients believed that celebration, reward, punishment, and punishment were the four governing behaviors of the emperor, which should adapt to the changes of the four seasons. Dong Zhongshu believed that rewards should be given in spring and summer, and punishments should be carried out in autumn and winter, which is what he said later"The autumn queen asked to chop"。

In other words, for the sake of government, it is necessary to "conform to the time of the day", spring and summer are full of vitality, in the eyes of the ancients is naturally a symbol of joy and high-spiritedness, and autumn and winter are slightly bleak, is the season of dormancy. This difference is equivalent to the "day" giving people a hint of what people do in what season.

In addition, it is also related to the customs of ancient agrarian society. It is important to note here that:"The autumn queen asked to chop"One said"After the fall"It refers to after the autumn equinox, not after the beginning of autumn. After the autumn harvest, it is time to start farming.

At this time, the execution can attract more people to go **, coupled with the killing atmosphere brought by autumn and winter, it can achieve a better deterrent effect and make an example of a hundred. Moreover, after autumn and winter, the weather is colder and easier to dispose of corpses.

However, in fact, "asking and cutting after the autumn" is only in a general sense. Most of the heinous criminals are "cut off". Since the Han Dynasty, there have been regulations that criminals such as rebellion and rebellion are immediately executed. (Li Wanting).

"Autumn Queen" is just a general statement, from the beginning of its birth until the Qing Dynasty, it has been constantly making corresponding adjustments. During the Zhou Dynasty, there was a record of "the moon of mid-spring, do not plunder, stop prison lawsuits". However, in the early and middle stages of primitive society, the law was still in a situation where "the punishment is unknowable, and the power is unpredictable".

What are the penalties for violating which law? These are covered to death by the scholar class, and they just won't tell you anyway. Even if there were already "five punishments" (five types of punishment), after ordinary criminals are caught, they may still be staged "guess, guess, guess......and so on to promote the nerve strips.

At the end of the primitive society, due to the promulgation and implementation of written laws, the formulation of a perfect legal system and provisions became indispensable. The emergence of "no intimacy, no distinction between the noble and the low, and a break from the law" has contributed to the institutionalization of the implementation of criminal killings. What season and hour was the execution?

Naturally, an explanation has to be given.

As a result, a large group of ancient "legal experts" and well-educated people began to rummage around in the classics for suitable explanations. This was discovered, "Zhou Li· In "Autumn Official", there is "and torture and killing, punish the king, serve the courtiers, add Ming Xuan, and punish and kill them in accordance with the city." ".

It is said that the "Autumn Queen" rose to a theoretical level, and it was Dong Zhongshu, a great Confucian in the Western Han Dynasty. Such a conclusion seems to be elevated, and what Dong Zhongshu has done is at best to sort out the theories of his predecessors, combine them with the etiquette system, and then wrap them in the so-called "heaven and man induction" and package it.

That is, there are four times in the sky, and the king has four governments; Celebration, reward, punishment, and punishment correspond to spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was further clarified that "the life and death of the king should be in accordance with the times". The ancients believed that autumn was the season of slaughter, and the "Autumn Queen" conformed to the bleak scene of autumn and winter.

The choice to ask for a cut after the autumn is based on at least three considerations. First, it plays a deterrent role; The second is that spring and summer are busy farming periods, and the people do not have that idle time, and the people will lose the significance of education and law popularization. The third is that the execution at three o'clock in the afternoon of the autumn is not only to deprive the criminals of their lives, but to leave a "way to live", that is, to uphold the virtue of God's good life.

During the Western Han Dynasty, executions were scheduled from September to December of the lunar calendar. In the Tang Dynasty, it was changed to October to December, which was shortened by one month, and this change was carried over to the Qing Dynasty. The "Tang Liudian Criminal Department" stipulates that from the beginning of spring to the autumn equinox at every year, except for the crime of rebellion and the killing of the master, the death penalty shall not be executed.

The Ming and Qing dynasties stipulated that prisoners who should be executed after a court trial must also be executed in the autumn.

In the Tang and Song dynasties, the execution time was after the end of the day. Corresponding to the modern time, it is roughly from 13 o'clock to 15 o'clock; In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, that is, from 11 o'clock to 13 o'clock.

Because autumn is a more solemn season, it has a more awe-inspiring meaning for people, so in ancient times, it was often asked to be beheaded after autumn.

The ancients believed that torture and killing could only be carried out in autumn and winter, not in spring and summer, otherwise it would be contrary to the principles of heaven.

In the history of our country, the ancients believed that autumn was the time when the yang energy was the most vigorous and the yin energy was the weakest, so killing people at this time would not cause you trouble after death.

This has to do with the ancient theocratic concept of nature. Everything grows in spring and summer, while trees wither in autumn and winter, symbolizing slaughter. Human behavior, including political activities, must conform to the times.

The emperor is the Son of Heaven, and he must act according to the time of day, and the same is true for the execution of prisoners.

After the autumn equinox, the days are getting shorter and shorter, and the nights are getting longer and longer. In ancient times, because of the imperfection of science, everything in people had to conform to the will of heaven, and the establishment of a government system should not only be combined with the will of heaven, but also the forgiveness could not be contrary to the will of heaven.

Because in ancient times, in order to comply with the will of heaven, in the eyes of the ancients, in the autumn and winter, all the trees withered, and everywhere was gloomy, giving people the feeling that it symbolized the slaughter, so they chose to kill the prisoners at this time.

Because at that time, the ancients were more superstitious, they believed that the worldThere are ghosts and gods in the world, and as long as they don't do well in one place, the gods in the sky will come to punish them, so they are very afraid. Even the emperor cannot go against the will of the ghosts, so he must act according to the will of heaven or he will be punished.

So they feel that the same is true for the killing of criminals, spring and summer are the seasons when everything grows, and at this time everything is a positive omen, very energetic, in such a beautiful wayIt was unreasonable to kill people during the season, so the emperor moved the time back to autumn, which he felt was following the will of heaven. In ancient times, the trial of ** cases also began in the autumn, and every year after the frost fell, all the cases would be turned over, and the prisoners would be arraigned.

The saying "Autumn Queen" has been around since the Western Han Dynasty, when the time of their execution was in the lunar calendar.

Nine, ten, ten.

January, December; In the Tang Dynasty, the death penalty was executedThe time is set.

October, November and December, the same is true of the Qing Dynasty. Autumn can be used in our word descriptions to meet the time of day. In addition, after autumn is the season of rest, after all, the previous seasons are relatively busy, and they have to be busy planting and harvesting grain.

The time of the ancients was very precious, and there was basically no time to care about the life or death of a prisoner in the previous seasons.

In addition, the weather gradually turns to winter after autumn, and the climatic factors do not lead to plague after the execution of prisoners, which greatly reduces the possibility of infectious disease outbreaks.

The ancients believed that the two seasons of spring and summer are the conditions when the sky is going to sprout all things, and the two seasons of autumn and winter, especially in winter, are the conditions when the sky wants to kill some creatures. And people, especially the sons of heaven, of course, must conform to the beliefs of heaven and fulfill this kind of trademark authorization. Therefore, in the Qin Dynasty, there was already a practice of not executing criminals in spring and summer, not only not execution, but also amnesty in spring, which was in line with the law of heaven and earth and all things, and naturally some felons were not within the scope of forgiveness if they rebelled.

Spring sprouts, summer blossoms, harvests, winter storage. This is also the ancient people according to the phenological characteristics of the four seasons of the year, summarized out the characteristics, autumn is a harvest season, but also a harvest related to the harvest, life and death related to the "Xiao killing" season. In addition, after the harvest of crops in autumn, the farmhouse is relatively idle, and the situation of "May is busy" passes early.

And the temperature at this time is not very cold, and it is just right to go out, and the autumn colors are pleasant. Therefore, there is a traditional way of trying criminals and executing criminals in autumn.

In ancient times, ordinary people would not be punished for capital crimes, the ancients attached great importance to life, and when someone committed a bloody crime, they would pass the heavy examination and approval, and it was clear that the person was really hateful before the death penalty could be executed immediately, except for some crimes of rebellion that would be executed immediately, and the rest was all beheading. In ancient times, the exploiting class only needed to behead criminals, and it was never possible to secretly behead them, but they expected that the more adults understood, the better, and the more adults came to watch, the better.

Han Dong Zhongshu paid attention to the "induction of heaven and man", and felt that "celebrating torture corresponds to the four seasons of the year". In autumn and winter, Xintiandi is full of bad spirits, which happens to be the right time to "follow the heavens". Autumn and winter are often selected for implementation, and it is the rulers who take into account the agricultural time.

In the busy farming season in spring and summer, we should not disturb the masses to do business. In autumn, winter and winter, holding a legal and discipline exchange meeting at this time will not delay the work, but also have a warning effect, killing two birds with one stone. Since the Han Dynasty implemented the rules and regulations on executions in autumn and winter, later generations probably inherited this rule and exhumation system, such as the Tang Dynasty's requirement that "no capital crime be decided after the beginning of spring", and the Qing Dynasty's requirement that criminals who should be executed also need to be executed in the autumn.

It is lukewarm to ask the autumn queen to cut Mu Qin, after all, the executioner must show his big shoulders if he wants to cut people, and Xunhui Bi Qiuhou will not let the executioner's hands tremble, and some say that it is to be able to let the dead find the underworld, and it is not to avoid the ban on killing day.

Because the ancients were more superstitious than the rock stove, they felt that if the old man was prosperous after the autumn, there was a feeling of falling leaves returning to the roots, and if the prisoners were punished after the autumn, this time belonged to the time when the yang energy was the most vigorous.

It is because they feel that the Autumn Queen can make the other party go to hell, and they will not be able to reincarnate for eternity, which is a very harsh moral punishment.

In ancient times, why was the beheading chosen after autumn? "This also includes ghosts and spirits. In ancient times, the science and technology of spring hunger ants were backward, and many natural phenomena were unexplained, such as lunar eclipses, ** and other limb oranges, all of which were strange and chaotic.

At that time, it was believed that the most yang energy of the day must be the autumn queen, but they had to choose the autumn queen when beheading. Sunlight is like the sun, once lost, it is easy to affect the lifespan and the brightness of one's own life. Once there is no yang energy, it is like the old roots of a dead tree, which may affect health.

Therefore, as long as they did not commit a great crime, they were all beheaded at three o'clock in the afternoon. In this way, there may be a little ghost to do it, and if it is a vicious and tyrannical prisoner, it is usually decapitated at noon. Generally, after being killed, the ghost immediately loses consciousness and cannot become a ghost.

In addition to the superstitions above, there will be some more realistic statements. Not only are there many criminal provisions, but they are all avoided with money. For example, autumn is the time when everyone is richer, which helps everyone to use money to ransom people, reduce crime, and also help the treasury increase some income.

In the fall, we need to collect these accounts one by one, and then prepare us for the winter. In ancient times, the expenditure in winter was not large, so before winter, you also need to take care of everything, and then leave enough money to survive the winter, and there is also a problem to leave a lot of time, so that you can effectively get more time to avoid unjust cases or false witnesses. In fact, this is also a mechanism to help prisoners, and it is also a benevolent measure, but if we go back to modern life, you will find that everything is nonsense and there is nothing to say.

In ancient China, it was very important to attach great importance to the cycle of heavenly principles, especially in the matter of life and death, even if it was a prisoner who committed adultery, it is generally believed that in the summer and spring is the period of recovery of all blessings and a new life, and it is not suitable to take people's lives at this time, and the educational significance produced by the implementation at this time is not as good as the "desolation" that comes when the cold wind is in the autumn and winter, and the atmosphere of slaughter is also more sufficient. God will not blame the execution during this period, it can be regarded as doing the right thing for heaven. According to history, the formation of the execution after the autumn was customized in the Ming and Qing dynasties, especially during the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the autumn trial became a system, from the perspective of the trial of the case, this can also avoid the occurrence of unjust cases and wrongful cases to the greatest extent, and give the prisoner more vitality than the trial in court, after all, some cases can be lightly dealt with through other channels, such as in the Yongzheng Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor directly issued a decree called "retention and inheritance", that is, if the prisoner is an only child in the family, And his parents or grandparents are still alive, so the death sentence can be approved by the emperor, and the sentence can be changed to a heavy cane and then flailed for three months, so that the capital crime can be waived.

In the second, after the autumn to ask the beheading for the masses of "killing chickens and monkeys" effect is better, because in the autumn is the time when the people are slack, it is convenient for them to gather the people to come to the execution ground to watch, which can play a deterrent role, better maintain social stability and law and order, and play the role of preventive injections.