Wumen Gate is the front entrance of the Forbidden City, and it's the grandest of the 4 gates of the Forbidden City.It's said that if a minister was sentenced to death, he would be decapitated outside Wumen Gate. But this is only in stories. Actually, there is no such thing. Wumen is such an imperatorial place that the emperors can't allow anyone to decollate prisoners there. Actually, in ancient China, most of the capital prisoners would not be killed soon. They were decollated in the fall.
Although there is no such thing as "decollating at the Wumen Gate", in Ming Dynasty, the emperors did punish ministers at the Wumen Gate. This punishment was called "Tingzhang" (being beaten by a big stick). There are 2 sorts of "Tingzhang": one is called "cannily beating", the minister would be badly hurt, he need at least half a year to recover; the other one was called "indeed beating", the minister won't have any chance to survive.
