Study On The Judicial Supervision Mechanism Of Imperial History Patrol In Ming Dynasty

Institutional supervision under the traditional power structure is an eternal subject in the process of ancient political civilization.On the basis of inheriting the supervision system of the previous generations,successive rulers further developed and improved the regulation mode of their supervision system in order to consolidate the continuation of their own power and mitigate the impact of decentralization governance.As the first Taizu of Ming Dynasty,Zhu Yuanzhang,as early as in the Western Wu Longfeng regime,has begun to establish the blueprint of national supervision system.After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China,it played an extremely important role in promoting the stable transition of the regime in the early and middle periods of the Ming Dynasty through the innovation and refinement of the monarchs.In the Ming generation,the central government set up the capital court and the six departments as the first barrier to maintain the imperial power,and the local government set up the punishment and investigation department(the Bible),the general secretary(the Ministry of Finance),the capital command department(the Dusi)as the second barrier to maintain the imperial power.At the same time,through the establishment of irregular,indefinite,indefinite,indefinite duty patrol and governor system,attempts to further eliminate the central and local government operation supervision blind areas and further break the institutional barriers of "imperial power does not go beyond the county".According to the imperial history,the Ming Dynasty patrol was the department of the eyes and ears of the emperor sent to the place by the imperial power.Its supervision and treatment function involved various social categories such as judicial prison proceedings,civil taxation,salt class,agriculture and mulberry,and recommendation.Among them,judicial supervision,as one of the key work carried out by the inspection of the imperial history,plays an extremely prominent constructive supporting role in the construction of social justice and the correction of local unjust,false and wrong cases.On the one hand,the patrol according to the imperial history by brush local files and impeach organs official documents such as inspection,the local prefecture-county officials,royal people’s service,learning military officers for special supervision.In the process of verification and exploration,the patrol should follow strict in-depth forensics procedures and presented transfer mechanism,at the same time according to the investigation results and documents inspection of different situations,in accordance with the requirements of the "patrol matters","the full day" and other court policy documents,give the corresponding disposal suggestions and uphold the cut;On the other hand,for major local crimes and identity crimes of specific groups,the police were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the imperial history without the interference of local governments,states and counties.At the same time,the imperial court gave the police the right to review some decided cases of civil litigation.Through the direct intervention of the local judicial prison cases,the investigation not only unblocked the channel of "upper to lower" between the imperial power and the partial order of local division and governance,but also further balanced the class contradiction between the corruption of justice by officials and the resentment of the people.After the Emperor Taizu abolished the administrative organs of the "Xingzhongshu Province" in the old Yuan Dynasty,and retained the old functions of the local government offices,prefectures,counties,and prefectures,which combined the functions of civil affairs,finance,taxation and judicial prison litigation,he set up the department of punishment and punishment investigation in each local province as the competent organ in charge of the judicial prison litigation affairs in their own province.To manage,coordinate and organize the military and civilian litigation and criminal trial records in the province.After the system was institutionalized in Yongle period,through the continuous improvement and innovation of Chenghua,Xuande and Jiajing dynasties,a "dual-track parallel" supervision system was gradually formed in local areas,with punishment and investigation department as the regular basis and13 lines of patrol and imperial history as the supplement.Although the original intention of the two were different from the official rank and level,they were both appointed by the central government,and benefited from the "dress of eyes and ears" of the dynasty during the reign of Emperor Taizu,as well as the overlapping of their functions and rights,so they cooperated with each other in the operation of local judicial supervision.At the same time,in order to prevent the disorderly expansion of the power of Fengxian and the operation conflict of the power crossing,the imperial Court issued the General Example of Fengxian to empower the supervision function of impeaching the punishment and the patrol according to the imperial history,so as to regulate the arbitrary and imperious power erosion between them.Although the authority separation structure of the three local departments(department of Finance,Department of Justice,Department of justice)in the Ming Dynasty effectively weakened the power risk of the local forces separated from the central government,it also weakened the organizational ability of the local government and the efficiency of dealing with social conflicts.This situation further promoted the re-reorganization of the local power structure in the Ming Dynasty.In order to better coordinate the functions of the three local departments,the governor system came into being as a means of coordinating the power conflicts of all parties.Since then,local provinces have often placed governors "to control the three departments".Due to the continuous expansion of the power delegated by the central government to the governor,he gradually changed from a full-time position of military authority to a top governor commanding the local power,almost including the functions of the three original local departments,such as administrative finance and taxation,judicial prison and military command.In terms of the procurator of punishment and the various legal matters,the special power of the governor to supervise and manage the case of judicial prison was gradually suppressed by the governor,and even further lost its independence.In terms of the imperial history,faced with the governors who were also authorized and dispatched by the central government,their original structure of authority was inevitably further eroded and divided,and they had to go to the "road of cooperation".The Ming Dynasty patrol system was one of the founding achievements in the evolution process of ancient imperial power.It poured and forged the imperial power hierarchy extending to the local area under the background of centralized regime and absolute monarchy,and opened the overture of the power supervision of the Son of heaven patrolling the local area.When it comes to the completeness of the law of inspection and supervision and the separation and unification mode of supervision functions of various departments,the system of inspection and supervision in Ming Dynasty is enough to show the representative merit of the ancient supervision and governance system.Although limited by the time limitation of the autocracy of the monarch in the Ming Dynasty,its process trend from the peak to the decline and its subsequent operation derivative law still have a strong practical significance for further understanding of the power supervision subject under the modern political discourse system.