Variant of the more common 肢解 (zhījiě). 肢 (limb) is the modern, anatomically explicit form; 支 here is its older standin and survives mostly in fixed phrases and figurative uses ('to dismember a country/company').
history
Historically 支解 named one of the gruesome capital punishments used in pre-imperial and early imperial China — pulling the four limbs apart with chariots or axes — abolished as the legal system Confucianized over the Han dynasty.
