Did the ancient "grooming" refer to the grooming of women?

Of course not. In ancient times, "grooming" was as painful as "Nian". The criminal law of "persuasion" was invented by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. The specific method is to put the prisoner on the iron bed first and fix his hands and feet to prevent him from struggling violently because of excessive pain during execution.

Then water the prisoner's body with boiling water over and over again, and then brush it with an iron brush when the prisoner's body is about to be scalded. Until the blood is blurred and the bones are exposed, the prisoner is dying. This torture is extremely cruel. Most prisoners may faint in pain when they pour boiling water for the first time, but they will wake up halfway and continue to endure the pain of brushing their flesh and scraping their bones. After passing out again, they will wake up later.

This is similar to "year after year". The horror is that prisoners will not die happily once, but will experience the pain of digging meat again and again before they die. If he wants to die, he can't die happily, but he can only suffer in despair.

This punishment was inspired by Zhu Yuanzhang's childhood watching people kill pigs. When killing pigs to remove pig hair, he scalded the pig skin with boiling water and then brushed it with an iron brush over and over again. This is to punish people like pigs. I have to say that the Ming Dynasty was really the peak of torture in ancient China. Emperors of past dynasties invented many abnormal and inhuman punishments. In addition to grooming, there are skinning, bowel pumping, knee gouging, chest cutting, tendon picking, promotion and knighthood, and so on. Every kind of pain is comparable to that of that year, which surprised all prisoners.

However, these cruel punishments also bring some benefits, which can effectively suppress prisoners and reduce crimes, thus maintaining social stability, which can be regarded as more advantages than disadvantages.