Under the Atonement Silver system established by He Shen and Heshen, aside from offenses personally deemed unforgivable by the Emperor, certain crimes could be commuted through fines, including capital punishment. Depending on the condemned person's family circumstances, a death sentence could be redeemed for 1,200 to 12,000 taels of silver, while a three-year exile could be commuted for 480 to 4,800 taels.
However, in the thirty-third year of Qianlong's reign, He Shen had only just consummated his marriage and was still preparing for the following year's imperial examinations, so the system did not yet exist.
For those exiled for a fixed number of years, the authorities sent them to mines and saltworks as laborers. But those sentenced to lifelong exile were dispatched to the frontier, usually the northeast or northwest, where they were enslaved by garrison soldiers.
Slavery was legal under the Qing Dynasty. In the northeast, one armored bannerman could own ten to twelve servants. These soldiers could rent them out like livestock to landlords short of hands. Often, those unable to bear such enslavement would suddenly rise up in rebellion and kill their oppressors.
In the northwest, they built fortifications and dug irrigation canals. The uninhabited Gobi Desert stretching for thousands of miles was the finest prison cage. Unless escapees had exceptional wilderness survival skills, anyone who rashly ran into the Gobi Desert without knowing the way would soon collapse and die of thirst amid the yellow sands, becoming white bones like the camels, horses, and people before them.
After the Peacock River changed course, many ancient cities along its banks were successively abandoned and left to ruin, becoming so-called "ghost cities." But the disappearance of surface water did not mean the groundwater had dried up as well. Wells could still be found among some abandoned ruins. Another