Chapter 108
An internet sage once assessed the death penalty like this.
'Even if the death penalty is never carried out, its very existence as the maximum punishment under the law has the effect of deterring budding criminals.'
I agree with him.
Even if executions are not carried out, the death penalty definitely makes rotten bastards intent on committing crimes think twice before doing something bad, whether it is murder or theft.
Of course, I have no idea how much of a crime-prevention effect the death penalty had on the arsonists brought here...
Still, after seeing how the fellow dragged out before him gets worked over for not giving a proper answer, his thoughts will change considerably.
An enormous scream erupted from the mouth of the man I was applying the leg stocks to.
"Aaaaaaaaaagh!"
At the sound, all the composure remaining on the arsonists' faces vanished.
They say that even animals tremble when they stand before a slaughterhouse, knowing they are about to die. These men were worse than beasts, but seeing their companion tortured seemed to make them finally realize what sort of situation they were in.
Of course, that did not mean I had any intention of forgiving their crimes or making allowances for their circumstances.
"Twist the leg stocks tighter. Twist them until the bones are completely exposed!"
"Yes, Lord Jegum!"
"Do not kill them. Torture them only until they are on the verge of death. Torture them until they regret being born and curse the fact that they still have not been allowed to die!"
If these men had even the slightest mitigating circumstances, I would not torture them this severely.
But they had no mitigating circumstances whatsoever.
So what else could I do? They would have to die as miserably and painfully as possible.
It was their chance to put their utterly worthless lives to even a little use.
Let them receive a cruel punishment and become living exhibits, showing the residents of Hanyang firsthand what happens when someone sets fire to an intact house.
That should have quite an effect on crime prevention.
The man I was twisting the leg stocks around fainted.
His shinbones were exposed, and the blood he had shed pooled beneath his legs.
"Pour cold water on him right now and bring him to his senses!"
"Yes, my lord!"
When they poured cold water over him, he came to.
"S-Save me. No, please kill me. I was truly in the wrong. I will never do it again. Please, please, please, just kill me quickly."
"Why would I kill you quickly just to make things easy for you?"
I really like Japan's death penalty system.
Personally, I think Korea should import Japan's capital-punishment system.
In Japan, executions by hanging are carried out at a time the condemned prisoner 'could never have anticipated.'
They lock death-row prisoners in jail and simply leave them there for as little as two or three years, or as long as ten years or more.
Then, when a condemned prisoner begins thinking, “I guess I will not be executed, since it has not happened until now,” they carry out the execution.
The people these men murdered must also have faced sudden deaths at completely unexpected times.
What a wonderful method it was, suddenly carrying out the execution so that those death-row bastards could experience the same emotion.
I would also make these men taste fear and terror as similar as possible to what the people who died in the fire had felt.
'Realize the weight of the crimes you committed.'
"You probably set fire to Hanyang just to steal a seok of rice or a bolt of silk. Because of that, countless people burned to death. Seeing them with their bodies blackened, moaning and begging to die, was truly like watching hell. They suffered and died that way despite having committed no crime, so would it not be terribly unfair if you bastards, whose crimes are as heavy as a mountain, were allowed to die peacefully without experiencing the same pain?"
Doing this would not bring the dead back to life.
Yes, if you insist on splitting hairs, this was nothing more than me venting my anger.
However, to the families who lost loved ones in this fire and the survivors who lost their homes, this fact would provide great comfort.
Even so, knowing that those bastards did not die peacefully would make their hearts considerably lighter.
"Hey! Bring several millstones right now, and bring a washboard used for doing laundry too! Make this criminal kneel on the washboard, and place millstones on his legs!"
The tools I ordered were delivered to the Uigeumbu in no time.
They made the butcher bastard, whose shinbones were already protruding, kneel on the washboard with his arms bound.
Then the millstones were placed directly on his legs.
The sounds of shinbones, thighbones, and pelvis being crushed, along with the man's screams, rang through the Uigeumbu.
Blood from his body flowed like a river beneath the washboard.
He lost consciousness again partway through, so they splashed water on him to wake him up.
After repeating the cycle of screaming and fainting several times, half a shijin (1 hour) had passed.
"Stop for a moment. I wonder whether you are ready to speak properly now. Who else plotted this with you?"
"Dalswae, Mireuk, Bonno, Gaettong, and Makgu, who live in Baenamugol near Namchon..."
"There are quite a lot of them."
"Yes, my lord..."
When the leg-stock master and the millstone doctor teamed up, even a beast's mouth finally started producing sensible words.
I once saw a joke online claiming that even a foreigner who did not know Joseon speech could learn it in no time if you applied the leg stocks...
It made me think that might actually be a fairly credible story.
If we brought in all sorts of high-end investigative tools, we would probably get even better results, too.
"Now, is there anyone else who wants to confess before suffering this?"
"This really is everything. There is no one else besides those men..."
I may not be Gung Ye, but I could tell that this trash arsonist was speaking like he had a demon inside him.
Go on, then. I will not be sitting idle either.
"If you do not tell me everything honestly, the next ones to undergo this torture will be your wives and children."
Hearing my words, the arsonists suddenly began shouting at the top of their lungs.
"We were the ones who committed arson, so why would you bring in and torture our wives and children, who have nothing to do with this? This makes no sense."
"Because you set Hanyang ablaze, putting the palace and Jongmyo at risk of burning. More than a thousand people burned to death, and one-fifth of Hanyang was destroyed. If this is not treason, then what is?"
At the word treason, the arsonists' faces all turned deathly pale.
Only then did they realize that they were truly fucked.
But that did not mean I had any intention of sparing them.
And in this case, I would enforce collective punishment with extreme severity.
Their wives and children were innocent apart from having the misfortune of the wrong husband and father, but even so, in this case I could not stop it either.
'Even I am somewhat reluctant to torture their wives and children.'
Having their heads cut off simply because they had been born into the wrong family would already be unjust, and torturing them on top of that seemed truly wrong.
But using it to threaten these bastards was another matter.
"Unless you want to stand there with your eyes wide open and watch your wives and children undergo every kind of torture, confess right now. You must not hide a single thing."
Whether they understood me properly or not, from that point on they confessed smoothly without hiding anything.
As a result, we succeeded in rounding up every last person involved in this arson.
Every person involved was then given an extremely severe punishment.
**
A great many people gathered in Jongno's market district.
Even in ordinary times, Joseon people had few sights and diversions, so executions had long been regarded as entertainment, and applauding when a condemned man's head fell at a single stroke was considered perfectly normal. Yet now...
But now, not a single person took pleasure in seeing someone who deserved death executed for what he had done.
The suffering Hanyang's citizens had endured was simply too great for that.
Before the assembled crowd, the official in charge of the execution recited the capital crimes the condemned prisoners had committed and how they would be executed.
Then the arsonists—or rather, the arsonists' wives and children—were dragged out first.
In the original history, only the male relatives of the arsonists who had started the fire were subjected to collective punishment and executed by beheading, but because the scale of the fire had grown so serious, and because Sejong and Taejong were enraged, the scope of the punishment was expanded.
"Because of these people who committed arson, countless citizens of Hanyang lost their families and could do nothing but watch through their tears as they died. Therefore, His Majesty ordered that the arsonists suffer the same pain. Execute their children first, and their wives afterward."
More than a hundred arsonists, bound to burning stakes, were forced to watch their wives and children die first.
"No! This cannot be happening!"
Though they screamed, the beheadings were carried out in an instant.
The arsonists were now made to experience firsthand the pain of those who had lost their families because of the fire they started.
Not a single person in Hanyang felt any sympathy for the condemned prisoners' suffering.
"Light the fire!"
Neither Joseon nor Ming had any precedent for using burning alive as a method of execution.
However, the king and his officials unanimously agreed that these men must not be allowed an easy death, so they were sentenced to be burned alive.
As the fire roared and consumed their bodies, the groans and screams of those being burned echoed through the market district.
People hurled stones wildly at them.
"My mother died because of you! Mother..."
"Bring back our Makdong, you sons of bitches!"
Just as they were nearly dead from the burning, the executioner and several others stepped forward and suddenly put out the fire.
The citizens of Hanyang were briefly bewildered by the sight, then erupted into cheers all at once.
"Long live His Majesty, who refused to let those bastards die peacefully!"
"Tear their limbs apart!"
"That's more like it!"
It was an idea Kim Daebung had proposed because he thought burning them to death alone would let them die too easily.
The idea was to make them experience firsthand the pain of burning to death, then tear them limb from limb while they were still alive, thereby doubling their suffering.
Following his idea, everyone who had set fire to Hanyang, along with those who had tried to commit other crimes under cover of the blaze, paid for their crimes with their lives.