Although it doesn't hurt, it's worse than death. What was the punishment that most frightened the ancient prisoners?

I think this punishment should refer to laughing punishment. Laughing punishment, as its name implies, will not make people feel pain, even no wound, but it will make people feel that life and death are out of their control, so sometimes prisoners would rather be beheaded directly than accept this punishment, which shows their cruelty.

The earliest record of laughing punishment in Historical Records was in the Han Dynasty. Laughing punishment is produced because some princes and nobles have been punished, and the criminal law was established to preserve some images for them. Laughing punishment will not bring terrible trauma to their bodies, but give them decent aristocratic status in disguise. ?

At first, the prisoner was bound by laughter, and then he put some salt water or honey on the soles of his feet and some sensitive places, so that the goat could lick these sensitive places of the prisoner. Because there are many barbs on the goat's tongue, the licking of the goat will make people feel extremely itchy, making people unable to survive and beg for death. In the later stage, it is easier for someone to directly control the prisoner's hands and feet, and then scratch your soles or armpits with feathers or brushes, making the prisoner laugh uncontrollably. ?

The criminal law that binds hands and feet is often used to extract confessions later. Although laughing punishment seems gentle and bloodless, in fact, many prisoners and spies can't stand it. You may be able to bear it at first, but after a while you start to laugh. If you laugh wildly for a long time, your brain will die of lack of oxygen. Therefore, compared with other criminal laws, laughing punishment will not bring obvious harm to your body surface, but will make you feel fear at a deeper level. Killing people without seeing blood is a criminal law. ?

Therefore, the function of laughing punishment is not to make you die because of physical pain or excessive bleeding, but to make your brain go to hypoxia step by step through constant laughter in the case of extreme itching, and finally die. So seemingly gentle, it is actually a greater torture to people's spirit. So this is also the punishment that made the ancient prisoners most afraid.