The death penalty, also known as death penalty and execution, is one of the oldest punishments in the world, which means that the executioner ends a prisoner's life based on the power given by law. Prisoners subjected to this method of deprivation of life usually commit serious crimes in the local area. Although the definition of "serious crime" is often controversial, generally speaking, "intentional homicide" is one of the important reasons why prisoners are sentenced to death in countries that currently retain the death penalty.

As one of the oldest punishment methods, the history of death penalty can be almost as long as the legal history of human beings. In the history of China, there are so many names of death penalty, complete execution methods, wide application scope of death penalty and so many prisoners, which are rare in the world. From ancient times to the present, there are more than 30 names and methods of death penalty, such as: punishment, clan, slaughter, barbarism, burning, boiling, branding, beheading, burial, killing, sinking into the abyss, beheading, abandoning the city, dying in the middle of the year, five punishments, strangulation and shooting.

Although the rulers of all previous dynasties flaunted the Confucian "benevolence, righteousness and morality" and sang the hymn of "virtue dominates punishment", they practiced bloody tyranny. Under the autocratic rule of tyranny, trampling on human rights, suffocating truth and stifling democracy, the role of death penalty has been strengthened again and again, so that it has played a very disgraceful role. A history of the death penalty in China is an unforgettable historical picture for everyone in China today. This painting not only shows the historical track of penalty system and penalty death penalty, but also shows the difficult course of China society from ignorance to civilization and from autocracy to democracy.