Cutting means artificially disabling a person in order to gain sympathy from others.
There is a record in "Laws of the Ming Dynasty": Anyone who collects raw materials, cuts or mutilates people will be put to death in Lingchi, and his property will be cut off and paid to the family of the deceased. Although his wife, son and family members did not know about it, they fled two thousand miles away and settled down. Kill for the followers. In other words, once a person is found harvesting and cutting raw materials, he will be punished by death, and his wife, son, and family will have to be exiled two thousand miles even if they are unaware of it.
First of all, let’s talk about the severity of this punishment. The punishment of beheading is actually severe enough, and the prisoners who were tortured can be said to have died in extreme pain. In the Ming Dynasty, there were three crimes for a woman to be punished by death. In addition to harvesting and harvesting, they were treason, killing three people in a family, dismembering people, killing family members, slaves, etc., killing husbands, etc. , all sentenced for murder. It can be seen from this that harvesting and cutting is equivalent to killing people, but it is actually more vicious.
The explanation in "Ciyuan" is that it is a sinful act of ancient superstition. The main method is that gangsters kill people and cut off their limbs. Taking other people's ears, eyes, organs, etc., and using them to mix medicines to deceive the patients. Because the book was written by modern people, it is not completely accurate. To be precise, it is not in the name of curing diseases. Instead, people are killed and dismembered, which is the folk superstition of harvesting souls, which may have a certain relationship with the witchcraft activities handed down from the Han Dynasty.
It means artificially creating some disabilities in order to win people's sympathy and get money from passers-by's charity. Generally speaking, because of their physical strength, the people who are harvested and cut are often the elderly, children, or women. They first use some small tricks to deceive people. After being deceived, their hands and feet would be broken alive. In order to prevent leaks, they might even be given dumb drugs so that they could not speak.