Chinese empress Lü Zhi turned a living human being into what she called a human pig and displayed it as entertainment. Lü Zhi was the empress consort of Emperor Gaozu, the founder of the Han Dynasty of China. After the emperor's death in 195 BC, she became regent and held effective control over the imperial court. Her most documented act of cruelty was directed at Lady Qi, a favored concubine of the late emperor who had attempted to have her own son named as heir instead of Lü Zhi's son. Once Lü Zhi held power, she had Lady Qi seized and imprisoned. She then ordered Lady Qi's limbs to be amputated, her eyes gouged out, her ears destroyed with a chemical agent, and her vocal cords severed so she could no longer speak. The mutilated woman was then placed in a large ceramic jar and kept in a latrine area of the palace. Lü Zhi named her the Human Pig and reportedly invited her own son, the new emperor, to come and observe her. According to the Records of the Grand Historian, written by Sima Qian roughly a century later, the young emperor was so disturbed by what he saw that he fell ill and told his mother he was incapable of governing a state run by such a person. These events are among the most explicitly documented acts of royal cruelty in Chinese imperial history. #BrutalHistory #DarkHistory #AncientHistory #HiddenHistory