History’s Most Terrifying Ways of Punishing People

8. Lingchi

Lingchi was a long-standing form of torture, execution, and post-mortem humiliation prevalent in China and Vietnam. This was a methodical process designed with the intent of inducing a slow death or lingering pain.

Those subject to Lingchi committed serious offenses like; mass murder, the murder of one’s employee or master, as well as high treason.

The offender would be placed on a wooden frame in public and their flesh would be cut from the body with a knife; though the process varied, the end result would normally be the amputation of limbs, a stab in the heart, and decapitation.