The “Five Punishments” of Ancient China

Punishment called Yue was practiced in ancient China beginning in the Xia dynasty (2100 to 1600 B.C.) and was abolished by the Han dynasty in the second century B.C.

The “Five Punishments” (wuxing) system, referred to punishments in the ancient Chinese legal system.

Details first appeared in the 4th century B.C. Shangshu 尚書 (Exalted Writings; also known as Book of Documents), one of the foundational texts in Chinese history, recorded as mo (tattooing), bi (cutting off the nose), fei (cutting off the feet), gong (castration) and da bi (killing),

The Shang Dynasty, wu xing, the first ancient Chinese dynasty to leave historical records (1600-1046 BC), could kill a criminal by hai (mincing up into meat), fu (drying the criminal), fen (burning), pou xin (digging out the heart), ku (cutting open) and ti (scraping flesh off bones),

Ancient Chinese art shows many depictions of people whose foot, feet, or leg have been amputated.

In 2022, scientists in Beijing announced the discovery of an almost 3,000-year-old skeleton of a young woman whose foot had been amputated. The researchers said that the skeleton showed the practice of yue, with her foot amputated as punishment for a crime.

In 2024, anthropologists found the remains of two men near the Yellow River in central China’s Henan Province. The burial-style of the men indicates that they were low-level officials from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, between 2,300 and 2,500 years ago.

One foot and about one-fifth of a leg had been removed from each of the men probably as punishment for criminal activity.

The practice was abolished by Emperor Wen of the Han dynasty in 167 B.C.

Around the world, in many cultures and over time periods, corporal punishment, torture and death sentences, were once accepted as a legitimate judicial practice. In some places, theses practices are still legal.