Coerced Confession Trap / 逼供认罪陷阱

Coerced confession trap / 逼供认罪陷阱 is the mechanism Qinji 131-1 draws from 赵高’s interrogation of 李斯. The point is not only that torture produces a false confession. It is that repeated staged review teaches the prisoner that truthful denial is punished and that survival requires repeating the confession even when a real reviewer finally appears.

In the source, Zhao Gao first beats Li Si until he admits rebellion. After intercepting Li Si’s memorial to 胡亥 / 秦二世, he sends fake censors, reception officials, and palace attendants to question him. When Li Si denies guilt to these fake officials, the torture intensifies. By the time Hu Hai sends a real reviewer, Li Si has been conditioned to repeat the false confession because he can no longer tell whether the channel is genuine.

The trap is therefore a special case of Political Show Trial and 君臣反馈失灵. A formal review still exists, but the signal it receives has already been shaped by an intermediary who controls custody, pain, paperwork, and the prisoner’s expectations. The ruler can believe he has checked the case while receiving a confession manufactured before the check began.

Key Claims

• Coerced confession can be made durable by staging repeated false opportunities for review.
• A captured process can preserve the appearance of legal review while destroying its truth-finding function.
• Torture creates evidence and fear at the same time, so the victim’s later repetition of guilt cannot be treated as independent confirmation.
• The mechanism depends on information asymmetry: the ruler does not see the coercion, and the prisoner cannot verify whether the current official is real.
• In Qinji 131-1, the trap extends 宫廷接触垄断 from court audience control into prison review control.

Connections

• 赵高 - operator who controls interrogation, memorial routing, and staged review.
• 李斯 - prisoner whose forced confession becomes evidence against himself.
• 胡亥 / 秦二世 - ruler who sends a real reviewer but receives an already-conditioned confession.
• 李由 and 三川 - family accusation surface used to make the treason case plausible.
• Political Show Trial, Coerced Denunciation, and 无程序私刑 - adjacent forced-truth and procedure-capture concepts.
• 君臣反馈失灵, 宫廷接触垄断, and Criminal Law As Power Limitation - governance and law frames weakened by the trap.