After Emperor Wen of Han ascended the throne, he governed the realm with benevolence and filial piety, promoting a simple lifestyle, winning over the people through virtue, and managing his household with filial devotion. He set an example by often wearing coarse, dark-colored clothes, and the concubines in the imperial harem also dressed plainly without any lavish adornments. For a time, the praises of the common people could be heard everywhere in Chang'an.
In 167 BCE, a physician named Chunyu Yi from Linzi was arrested by the county magistrate and sent to Chang'an for punishment after a patient died under his care. Chunyu Yi had previously served as the Grand Granary Official, where he was known for his incorruptibility and fairness, never oppressing the common people, earning him a fine reputation. He had always loved reading, especially medical texts, and during his years in office, unwilling to collude with corrupt officials or act against his conscience, he left officialdom to become a doctor dedicated to healing the sick.
One day, a wealthy merchant brought his wife to see Chunyu Yi for medical treatment. Chunyu Yi examined her condition and prescribed some medicine, but after taking it, the patient showed no improvement for several days and eventually died. The merchant, seeing that his wife had died under medical care, immediately seized Chunyu Yi and dragged him to the authorities, demanding punishment. Upon investigation, the officials found that the patient had indeed died after taking Chunyu Yi's medicine, so they hastily convicted him and sentenced him to "corporal punishment," which involved cutting off his nose, amputating one of his feet, and branding his face with black charcoal ink. Since this punishment could not be carried out in Linzi, Chunyu Yi had to be escorted to Chang'an for execution.
Chunyu Yi had no sons, only five daughters. As he was being loaded onto the prison cart, he looked at his daughters gathered around and said sorrowfully, "How pitiful that I have spent my life serving the people, yet Heaven has not granted me a single son! Now in this dire situation, I have no son to rush about and fight for me—Heaven truly intends to destroy me!" Upon hearing their father's words, the daughters wept even more bitterly, but the youngest daughter felt indignant instead. Her name was Chunyu Tiying, and from a young age she had thought differently from others. After hearing her father lament his lack of a son, Tiying told her father and family that she would follow him to Chang'an to plead his case. Everyone urged her not to go, saying that a young girl traveling alone would face countless difficulties, and even if she reached Chang'an, she might not find a way to save her father. But Tiying was stubborn and insisted on following the prison cart.
After arriving in Chang'an, her father was taken to prison, so Tiying found someone to write a letter on her behalf, went to the palace gate, and asked the gatekeeper to deliver the letter to the emperor.
Emperor Wen of Han received Tiying's letter and, learning that the messenger was a young girl, felt curious. The letter read:
My name is Chunyu Tiying, and my father is Chunyu Yi, who once served as the Grand Granary Prefect. Because a patient died, my father was convicted and sentenced to corporal punishment. When my father held office, he was incorruptible and deeply loved by the people; he could not have intentionally caused the patient's death. Moreover, corporal punishment is far too cruel for those who receive it. When a person makes a mistake, they may genuinely wish to reform, but if their nose is cut off, it can never grow back, and others will know at a glance that they have committed a crime, treating them without kindness. Similarly, if a foot is chopped off, a second foot cannot grow back, and the characters tattooed on the face cannot be washed away. The punished person lives their entire life trapped in the shadow of their past mistakes—how cruel this is. I feel deep sorrow for them, and I am willing to enter the government as a servant, hoping only to give my father a chance to atone, so he does not live with lifelong regret.
After reading the letter, Emperor Wen of Han was deeply moved, never expecting that Chunyu Yi's young daughter could possess such profound foresight. The emperor summoned his ministers and said to them, "When a person commits a crime, they should accept punishment, but the purpose of punishment is to reform them. However, if their nose and limbs are mutilated and their face is branded, it only breeds resentment—how can there be any repentance? Let us devise a better method of punishment."
The ministers gathered together to discuss the matter, and eventually they decided to replace corporal punishment with flogging: those sentenced to nose-cutting would instead receive three hundred lashes, and those sentenced to foot amputation would receive five hundred lashes. Emperor Wen of Han adopted the ministers' proposal, abolished corporal punishment, and substituted it with flogging. Taking advantage of this reform, Emperor Wen also abolished the law of collective punishment. Ti Ying's filial piety not only secured her father's safety but also brought about a reform in the legal system of the Han Dynasty—a remarkable achievement for a young girl.
Later, during the implementation of flogging as a punishment, it was discovered that while Emperor Wen of Han's abolition of mutilation penalties was certainly a good thing, administering three hundred or five hundred strikes often resulted in beating a person to death, making it even more cruel instead. His son, Emperor Jing of Han, then reduced the number of strikes, which truly benefited the common people.