A Study Of Land Cases In The Judicial Archives Of Ziyang In The Late Qing Dynasty

The judicial archives of Ziyang at the end of Qing Dynasty in Shanxi Provincial Archives contain about 277 volumes of more than 1900 cases from 1863 to 1911.They are mostly recorded as land dispute cases,and also include a large number of judicial documents,which provide the basic material for an objective and comprehensive study of land dispute cases in Ziyang at the end of Qing Dynasty.The research value of judicial archives is one of the academic focuses,which is also true for studying the archives of Ziyang.Located in the Daba mountain area of the Qinling Mountains in southern Shanxi,Ziyang’s archives have a distinct regional character.The number of land cases recorded in the archives is uncommon among the archives found so far.Land transactions were an important economic activity in traditional society,and the study of the Ziyang archives can reveal some new changes in the economic and social population of southern Shanxi in the late Qing Dynasty.Most importantly,on the basis of organizing and analyzing archival materials and summarizing the means and types of land case settlements,it is possible to deepen certain understanding of Qing Dynasty civil law and civil litigation activities.Finding new directions and asking new questions are the profound significance of studying the Ziyang archives.Research based on new materials must still be grounded in traditional disciplinary research paths.The research paradigm of the Ziyang Archives is still based on the disciplinary framework of legal history,with the foundation relying on objective historical facts and the method of jurisprudential normative analysis.However,it is needed to be supplemented by anthropological and sociological research methods and materials.The lawsuit itself is a human activity,as the participants of the lawsuit,the plaintiff,defendant and the government,belong to a specific historical background of individuals.Their litigation consciousness and behavior,in addition to the faint individual differences,inevitably have a strong social background.The legal code,the official book,local records,customary investigation,etc.are also indispensable for the study of the settlement of disputes in the first-hand information of land cases.Specifically,the records in the Ziyang archives include the plaintiff’s petition,the defendant’s statement,the official’s approval,the official’s ticket,the confessions of plaintiff & defendant and the third party,the official’s verdict,the closing statements of plaintiff & defendant,etc.The deeds are also often found in the archives as physical evidence of the land transactions.These judicial documents constitute the formal elements of the litigation process of a land case dispute.From the study of the judicial documents,it can be seen that the settlement of land disputes is still common in trial,official instruction and active mediation.The resolution of the dispute is marked by the judgment of the official’s ruling and the compliance of the two parties.The key to the final satisfactory result of the ruling is the balance of their rights and obligations(interests).In the mediation of disputes over land in the Ziyang archives,the identities of the mediator are mostly country official,baozhang,middleman,guide etc.,but rare for relatives and friends.As a witness of the contract,the middleman is the most common subject in the mediation,who is not only a witness of the land transaction,but also a mediator of the dispute.The most common litigation document in the Ziyang archives is the official approval,which can be seen in all stages of litigation.It builds a bridge between the investigation and trial of disputes and their final resolution,and its flexible use even determines the direction of the entire lawsuit.The civil customs of traditional society are often visible in the Ziyang archives.Based on their inherent characteristics formed over time,the government can coordinate the rights and obligations of the people within its discretionary scope and play a special social regulation function.Judicial files are records of litigation activities,which objectively record the whole process of dispute prosecution,investigation,trial and adjudication.The logical relationship followed in the study of the land cases in the judicial archives of Ziyang is,dispute generation → resolution → effect.The core element of the study is the land dispute,whose causes are the foundation of the study.How the disputes were resolved is the focus of the study,and the means based on which the government resolved the disputes show the characteristics of diversity and flexibility.For a long time,different research angles and methods have been used,and the academic community has been criticizing the traditional local judicial administration.However,through the analysis of the plaintiff’s petition and the defendant’s statement in the archives,it can be seen that the parties have been diligently defending their own interests.In the dispute resolution,the government should not ignore the core element of interest,and must achieve a higher goal,the construction of order.The order of the grass-root society is an objective and serious topic for us by the judicial archives,and the judicial administration at the grass-root level cannot be simply summarized by corruption and inefficiency.The official approval of the Ziyang archives can be commonly seen as "the presented deed" and "the examined deed".In the transaction,the procedure,elements and the binding force of contracting are the most direct and effective forms of regulation in the land transaction relations.Therefore,the government cannot ignore the basic and central role played by the construction of order in the dispute resolution process.Custom,for example,is intuitive in its normative character,but it is also inherently ambiguous.Because of its diversity,conflicts between custom and law are also common.If the government is not prudent in facing such problems,it will not be able to complete the construction of order nor achieve the goal of social governance that it has assumed.Therefore,considering factors in all aspects,in the end of the Ziyang archives study in the land cases,an objective evaluation of this litigation activity should be finalized based on the perspective of interest and order.The many research results on civil litigation in the Qing Dynasty have also laid a certain foundation for the study of the Ziyang archives,and have put forward certain thoughts.The land cases are concerned with the interests,and behind the interests is the construction of order.How to realize the interests and how to maintain the order and construct the order are what the research of Ziyang Archives always focuses on.The methodological perspective followed in the study of the Ziyang archives is also an attempt to study the judicial archives.The views derived can only represent some of land cases in the late Qing dynasty in southern Shanxi,which enrich and deepen certain understanding of civil litigation at that time.Behind this preliminary discussion,there is a greater need for deeper exploration of certain problems in land cases.