For centuries in Ancient China, there was a fate worse than death – this was an extremely harsh punishment known in Chinese as miezu, a practice going back over 3,000 years. This brutal sanction was reserved for those found guilty of treason, which could have been as simple as upsetting the king.

Miezu, sometimes known as the ‘nine kinship exterminations’, involved not just executing the individual traitor, but also their extended family. The total condemned included the guilty person’s immediate family such as parents, children, and siblings, but also uncles, aunts, cousins, and even their in-laws. The method of execution used on these unfortunates was typically death by ‘slow-slicing’.

In 338 BC, an official named Shang Yang got on the wrong side of the king of Qin and was sentenced to be executed along with his whole family. Shang Yang was dismembered and beheaded.

Even as late as the 18th century there were cases of familial execution being used against rebels and traitors, and it was not officially repealed by the Chinese government until 1905.