haixing 醢刑, pickling the corpse of a criminal

Pickling the corpse (haixing 醢刑, zu 菹, zuhai 菹醢) was a historic capital punishment allegedly applied by King Zhou 紂 of the Shang dynasty 商 (17th-11th cent. BCE) to one of the kingdom's dignitaries, the Marquis of Jiu 九侯 (or "one marquis of the Nine Regions"?). The story is mentioned in the universal history Shiji 史記. The Marquis' daughter, married into the harem of King Zhou, refused to participate in his frivolous pleasures, whereupon the King was so enraged that he had her father executed in a very cruel way. The Marquis was killed, his body cut into pieces, and these were made part of a meat sauce (hai 醢), an early form of non-vegetable soy sauce. This story is referred to in Qu Yuan's 屈原 famous poem Lisao 離騷 (see Chuci 楚辭).

Historically, the punishment is mentioned for several other cases, namely Confucius' disciple Zilu 子路, whose corpse was humiliated in this way by Duke Zhuang of Wey 衛莊公. In the law codes of the Qin 秦 (221-206 BCE) and Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) dynasties, the humiliating punishment ranked as the most serious of death penalties. In the very early Han period, the rebels Han Xin 韓信 (d. 197 BCE) and Peng Yue 彭越 (d. 196 BCE) were posthumously shamed by this mode of desecration (see Hanshu 漢書, 23 Xingfa zhi 刑法志). The sauce was presented in turn to the regional lords (bian ci zhuhou 徧賜諸侯) as a signal of warning. Law codes of later times do not mention the punishment.

A similar corporal punishment used by the king of Shang was called "dry-meat" (fu 脯). While the Marquis of Jiu was "pickled", the body of the Marquis of E 鄂侯 was allegedly sliced into pieces and these were dried in the sun. Both together are called hai-fu 醢脯.