However, contemporary sources and photographs put it across from the Heniantang Pharmacy (Chinese: 鶴年堂藥店).

The cart stopped at a wine shop named Broken Bowl (Chinese: 破碗居) on the east side of Xuanwu Gate, where the convict would be offered a bowl of rice wine.

During the executions of infamous convicts, it was common for a large crowd to gather and watch.

[6] The Catholic bishop Alphonse Favier wrote about the execution ground in the 1890s:[7] The convicts, on their knees, are executed one after the other, their bodies carried to the dump, their heads hung in little cages on a tripod frame made of poles.

Passerby can view the bloodless heads, their huge, terrified eyes half eaten by magpies and crows that peck through the rungs; each queue trails down to the ground; dogs look on and stand on their hind legs trying to get to themMost of these executions were carried out by beheading, with only specific crimes being punished by death by a thousand cuts.