Why were ancient criminals sent to the frontier instead of being put in prison?
In fact, the sharing of stolen goods, also known as stabbing to death, is an ancient punishment system, which was formed and perfected in the Tang Dynasty and incorporated into the legal provisions. Suture is a punishment that originated in Gu Mo, that is, tattooing words on the prisoner's face and dyeing it black with ink as a punishment. Around the Five Dynasties, in order to strengthen the rule, the emperor removed the punishment of Mo Mo, which had been abolished for hundreds of years, and then combined it with the "migration" of the death penalty. When the two were combined, the punishment of exile appeared.
In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty found that this could not only keep social unrest away from the center of political power, but also station fields and defend the border and replenish military strength, so he attached importance to exile and later became one of the five punishments in Sui and Tang Dynasties.
In the Song Dynasty, the penalty system was further improved, especially the stabbing and matching system, which almost became synonymous with the criminal law of the Song Dynasty, and was often mentioned in almost all the literary works of the Song Dynasty and novels set in the Song Dynasty.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, there were constant separatist regimes and wars. After people are forced to join the army, they often run away when they can't stand it. In order to supplement the military strength, those felons who do not receive the death penalty, such as thieves, recidivists, guilty officials and soldiers, are sentenced to stab to death. First, they were whipped, then tattooed on their faces, and exiled to the border wilderness or some isolated islands overseas.
Some people may ask, won't these prisoners escape during exile? The cost of running away is actually very high. First of all, in the process of exile, prisoners will wear shackles and chains and be escorted by commercial waiters. Secondly, the traffic in ancient times was basically measured by feet, and the exile journey was long, and the prisoners were short of clothes and food. Many people died on the way to exile. Not to mention that in ancient times, all places needed road guidance, and it was impossible to escape from the main road.
At the same time, the punishment for this kind of halfway escape is also very severe. According to the Supplementary Provisions of the Qing Dynasty, those who escaped were captured on the way, exiled for 2,500 Li, those who were exiled for 2,500 Li, and those who were exiled for 3,000 Li, and then set out from their hometown. If you run home and your family doesn't report it to the authorities, you will punish your relatives and neighbors. In the late Qianlong period, it was even worse. Criminals exiled to the frontier are executed on the spot once they are caught.
In addition, the implementation of exile is the performance of the ruler's benevolent policy and cautious punishment, that is, the so-called "unbearable punishment, far away." For example, Su Dongpo, a politician in the Northern Song Dynasty, was exiled many times in his life. During his exile in Lingnan, he wrote a famous sentence, "300 lychees a day, and I will grow up to be a Lingnan person". Lin Zexu, a hero who banned smoking in Qing Dynasty, was framed by traitors in his later years and exiled to Yili, Xinjiang. Before he left, he wrote a poem "If a country is selfish, it will live and die together". Why should we avoid it because of disaster? "
This penalty system was wasteful and uneconomical, and was finally abolished with the demise of feudal society. However, in history, it can increase manpower for border defense, reclaim land for development, and play a positive role in maintaining political power and promoting border development.