What would be expected in an ancient Chinese prison/dungeon?

[Delicious Taffy]

I'm wanting to start off a D&D campaign in which the players start off in prison. It's going to be set in a region inspired by ancient China, so I'd like it to be at least somewhat close to the historical conditions and punishments. I've tried looking it up on Google, but all I get is pictures of modern jail cells and articles about how brutal modern Chinese prisons are.

If anyone has any knowledge of this, I'd love to learn it.

[Iruka]

My knowledge in this area is rather limited, but I can give you some pointers towards torture/execution stuff. The only authentic ancient chinese technique I know is the "Death by a thousand cuts" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi). Stuff like the infamous "Chinese water torture", where you have a slow, steady drop of water on the the shaved head of the prisoner, the Bamboo torture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_torture) or the "rat prison" are most likely not traditional chinese techniques.
For the purposes of your game, their "asian flavour" might however be enough.

I also found this list http://asiaobscura.com/2011/11/classic-chinese-torture-methods-and-their-cute-names.html. Just have some jailer drop some of the names and waggle his eyebrows suggestively. The imagination of your players will do the rest. :smallbiggrin:

edit: Have you tried searching for "ancient chinese prison"? The results look promising at a first glance.

[LuckyStrike]

Maybe some sort of hardcore labour-prison? Mines or something.

[Brother Oni]

I'm finding it hard to find details on Ancient China, but there's plenty of records on crime and punishment from the Qing Dynasty from visiting westerners at the time: link (https://www.flickr.com/photos/hopkinsarchives/sets/72157626347982302/).
There are some period photographs that can be found, but I can't link or post them here due to board rules on violence.

Some methods of execution include boiling the accused in either oil or water (Romance of the Three Kingdoms mentions Guan Yu and his son, Guan Ping, were executed by being boiled alive).

[Peelee]

I would absolutely include some ancient Chinese people.

[Hoosigander]

It depends on the period, but I'll take my inspiration from the Han Dynasty (206 BC–220 AD).

Like most pre-modern societies the Han did not actually imprison people as a punishment (suspects/convicts could be temporarily jailed to prevent flight, of course). The reason becomes apparent when you imagine the expense of the government maintaining jails, paying guards, and feeding prisoners. The Han generally punished criminals with:
1) Fines
2) Forced Labor
3) Corporeal Punishment
4) Execution/Banishment

So your adventurers are either awaiting prosecution or punishment, if the trial has already taken place. They are probably cooling their heels in the local country magistrate's Yamen. Ancient Chinese justice was not an adversarial system, like modern America or ancient Rome, but an inquisitorial system (i.e. the legal court itself investigates the case and makes a judgment, rather than being an impartial arbiter between prosecution and defence). The local county magistrate was the person empowered to decide which cases to accept, direct the gathering of evidence, interrogate the witnesses/suspects (torture was allowed within constraints), and conduct the trial. The Yamen was the center of local Chinese governance and where the magistrate was based. The prison cells, which were only meant to hold people temporarily until punishment, were part of the Yamen complex along with public halls, offices, storerooms and the residences of the magistrate and his family, servants, and staff.

[Knaight]

A lot of this varied even within broad trends by dynasty, emperor, and region - particularly during the numerous periods when China wasn't even remotely unified. Local authorities also had a surprising amount of autonomy at times. With that said, there are certain broad trends, some of which have been covered upthread. Prisons qua prisons tended not to really exist, with things actually like prisons being temporary holding cells and the people in long term storage generally being important political figures who couldn't really be killed directly because of their support - they also usually couldn't be kept in a proper prison. Being shipped out to the middle of the country or a sequestered estate in a city that they don't leave because their "guards" are "protecting" them? Much more doable.

Going back to the first case, an important part of the Chinese legal system in certain areas and certain times was that a confession was required. Absent a confession there were often limits against administering any punishment. However to get a confession torture was generally considered just fine, so for more minor things people would usually confess pretty easily. It wasn't great for determining guilt; it tended to work quite well to impose the authority of the central state in far away provinces and to a large extent that's what it was actually for. During the Qin legalism phase that was even outright admitted, although later philosophies usually tried to hide it.

As for looking it up on google - try google scholar, and specify dynasties. You tend to find very focused stuff (for instance I came across an article a while ago on the use of extravagant punishment by Song officials in distant provinces as a mechanism of attracting the attention of the central bureaucracy and try to rise within it*), but you'll at least find stuff for the right period.

*That might have been JSTOR, but there's a lot of overlap.

[Talanic]

Echoing what others have said, imprisonment as a punishment is a new thing - with the exception of noblemen (the man in the iron mask, as a notable-if-western-example) people were only imprisoned while their other punishments were to be sorted out.

My knowledge of ancient Chinese custom is limited, but in general, I'd think it reasonably likely that the party would be held in a forced labor camp, working either on a specific project as lighter sentence or as permanent slaves for more serious transgressions. They could be building a road, perhaps - a task that requires massive amounts of manpower but only a few engineers to direct things. From there, you could have any number of plot hooks, ranging from an escape attempt to brigands, rebels or monsters disrupting the project.