pouxin 剖心, cutting out the heart

Cutting out the heart (pouxin 剖心, kuxin 刳心, cixin 刺心) or disemboweling (poufu 剖腹) was a very cruel punishment occasionally used in ancient China. It was, however, not a regular, legal mode of penalisation. The custom finds its origin in the famous killing of minister Bi Gan 比干 by King Zhou 紂 of the Shang Dynasty 商 (17th-11th cent. BCE) which is reported in the universal history Shiji 史記 (3 Yin benji 殷本紀). Bi Gan had attracted the anger of King Zhou after repeatedly remonstrating against his style of rulership. The King thereupon said he had told that the heart of a saint (shengren 聖人) had seven apertures (qiqiao 七竅), and would like to know if Bi Gan’s heart had seven openings as well. Another chapter in the Shiji (38 Song Weizi shijia 宋微子世家) also narrates this story, and made Bi Gan an example for fearless loyalty. The atrocity of King Zhou is repeatedly mentioned in the texts of the Classic Shangshu 尚書 "Book of Documents", and a phrase in the chapter Taishi 泰誓 mentions that the despot "cut out the heart of the worthy man" (pou xianren zhi xin 剖賢人之心).

The biographical collection Lienüzhuan 列女傳 transforms the story by narrating that it was King Zhou’s consort Da Ji 妲己 who had suggested to inspect the faithful minister's heart.

The whole story of Bi Gan became a literary allusion (diangu 典故) for extremely cruel and unfair treatment in the face of utmost loyalty. Li Yun 李雲 (d. 160 CE), for instance, expressed his fear that he might be treated in this way when criticizing the extravagant lifestyle of Emperor Huan 漢桓帝 (r. 146－167).

The Tang-period poet Li Bai 李白 (701-762, poem Gufeng 古風 51) compared Bi Gan with Qu Yuan 屈原 (c. 343-c. 278 BCE), who had both lost their lives (Qu Yuan by committing suicide) for remonstrating against their sovereign. Wang Yuanliang 汪元量 (c. 1241-1318, in Hangzhou zashi he Lin Shitian 杭州雜詩和林石田) compares (wrongly) the execution of Han Xin 韓信 (d. 197 BCE) with that of Bi Gan.

The custom to offer the heart of an enemy in sacrifices or as a tribute might go back to an ancient custom, of which the story of Bi Gan could be a reflection. The fragmentarily surviving biography Zhongli Yi biezhuan 鐘離意別傳 (preserved in the series Yuhan shanfang jiyi shu 玉函山房輯佚書) quotes from a text called Zhoushu 周書, in which a similar treatment was mentioned. King Huiwen 秦惠文王 (r. 338-311) of Qin 秦 had cut out the bowels of Wu Dansheng 吳旦生 to see if he had stolen the peaches presented in the ancestral temple. The official dynastic history Xin Wudaishi 新五代史 (67 Wu-Yue shijia 吳越世家) reports the offering of the heart of Bi Lang 薜朗 to Zhou Bao 周寶 (814-888). Another example is the presentation of Wang Shicheng's 王士誠 (d. 1362) heart to Čaγan Temür 察罕帖木兒 (c. 1292-1362) mentioned in the history book Yuanshi 元史 (38-47 Shundi ji 順帝紀). The history book Songchao shishi 宋朝事實 (ch. 16) mentions the disemboweling of the rebel Ou Xifan 歐希范 (d. 1048). This event inspired Wu Jian 吳簡 (fl. 1040s) for the title of a (lost) anatomical book, Ou Xifan wuzang tu 歐希範五臟圖. For the year 1128, the use of this cruel punishment is attested in the Song army (宋史·高帝紀). The legal treatise (93-95 Xingfa zhi 刑法志) in the history Mingshi 明史 mentions it in relation to the eunuch tyrant Wei Zhongxian 魏忠賢 (1568–1627).

A common proverb is pou xin xi gan 剖心析肝 "cut out the heart [to/and] inspect the liver".