Over the time, cruelty and inhumane treatment have been associated with different of Kings and Emperors in the history. Killing, sexual assault, harassment, war crimes, extreme torture and different kinds of inhumane treatment including slavery have been experienced at different times in human history by people mostly orchestrated by Kings, emperors, aristocrats, warlords, amongst others.
Most of these kings, Emperors, and other powerful people in human history tend to care for their people and enforced most of these inhumane treatment and punishment on defaulters, captives, conquered citizens, and slaves for their wrong doings.
However, there are some exceptions to this in which the kings,or Emperors deliberately dished out inhumane treatment to his/her people. Such attitude is one of the basis of dictatorship and tyranny. Dictator regime is mostly associated with inhumane treatment upon the innocent citizens, Lost of freedom of speech, violations of human rights, and others.
In line with the above scenario, Liu Ziye, Former Deposed Emperor of Liu Song (449-466 CE) fell in the category of tyranny, dictator and wicked Emperor that was so cruel to his people. Liu Ziye has been said to rivaled Caligula in the acts of cruelty against his own people, who was assassinated by his own attendants just one year into his bloody, dictatorial and tyrannical reign.
During the reign of Liu Ziye as the emperor of Liu Song, he commited extreme familicide. That is, the murder of his brothers, uncles, relatives, and some family members. Just like some of the ancient kings, the extreme killing of his family members and relatives is unconnected to the fact that he was afraid of power struggle between himself and his brothers.
In addition to the extreme familicide he orchestrated, he also murdered most of his late father's officials and attendants in a violent ways, including the noble statesman Liu Yigong, who had his limbs chopped off, his abdomen opened, and entrails pulled out to be cut into pieces. Moreso he had another nobleman eyeballs gouged out and placed in honey which the emperor himself described and called 'pickled ghost eyes.'
Furthermore, Liu was also a sexual monster who committed an incest. He had an incestuous relationship with his aunt. In his sexual exploits, he ordered all the princesses to be raped by his attendants to his amusement. Ladies were forced to have sexual encounter with animals in front of him. Whoever refuses were whipped and had her kids beheaded.
One day, in his dream, Ziye saw a woman cursing him. He beheaded the woman that resembled the person cursing him in his dream the next morning.
In conclusion, Liu Ziye reign as the Emperor of Liu Song can be purely described as the reign of terror and monster, in which people were subjected to the various kinds of inhumane treatment and punishment for merely existing.
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