| The first leap month in the first year of Hongzhi in Ming Dynasty,Cui Pu,a Korean Confucian minister who held a post in Jeju,suffered a storm on his way home from crossing the sea.After more than ten days and nights on the sea,he finally drifted to Linhai County,Taizhou Prefecture,Zhejiang Province in China.Cui Pu and his entourage,who were mistaken as Japanese pirates at first,finally cleared the suspicion and confirmed their identity after going through the level-by-level review from the primary security stations,prefectures and even the central government.They were eventually repatriated to North Korea under the escort of the authorities.After returning to Korea,Cui Pu wrote a record of his journey in the form of Chinese diary:A Record of Drifting Across the Sea.It covers the frontier defense,political system,diplomacy,post delivery,geography,customs and other fields in the early years of Hongzhi.The rich records about the legal system and judicature of Ming Dynasty left precious first-hand information for the study of the legal history of Ming Dynasty.As the first drifting work in Korea,Cui Pu's drifting record is also the only one written by Korean people in Ming Dynasty.It is known as "a great pen to describe China",which has very valuable historical value and academic value.Therefore,this paper intends to collect and sort out the legal elements of Ming Dynasty in piaohai Lu,focusing on the records that can reflect the legislation,judicial practice,legal culture and legal concept of Ming Dynasty,and combining with official history,legal classics,local chronicles and other historical notes to make a comprehensive comparison and mutual confirmation,in order to try to describe the legal image of Ming Dynasty in the eyes of Korean people.To this end,this paper will be divided into the following parts to explain specifically:In the introduction part,the author and the background of the book are introduced.It is because Cui Pu is good at writing articles since he was a child and has a profound knowledge of Chinese culture that it is possible for him to leave his drifting works handed down after drifting in China.The research of A Record of Drifting Across the Sea started late in China.After investigating the current research situation,it is found that in the past 10 years,with the increasing attention of Yan Xing literature,the research in various academic fields has gradually blossomed.However,so far,there are few works on the legal system of Ming Dynasty from the perspective of law,based on the historical data of A Record of Drifting Across the Sea.This situation is not consistent with the extraordinary academic status of A Record of Drifting Across the Sea.The legal material of Ming Dynasty contained in it is rare in all Yanxing documents and even overseas Chinese books,which also constitutes the reason why this paper makes a comprehensive interpretation of A Record of Drifting Across the Sea,a blank text in the field of legal history.The main part of this paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter will introduce the whole story of Cui Pu's "drifting crime" in detail.This chapter introduces the whole process of the case transfer step by step based on Cui Pu's review at all levels,from the county(security station),province(provincial government)to central(Ministry of war,Ministry of rites),and analyzes the functions and roles of the officials at all levels involved in the case.From this we can observe the respective roles of various official roles in the local judicial system,such as the chief of security station,the chief of guarding against pirates,the chief of Provincial officials,the eunuch,and the imperial itinerant inspector,and their positions in the local judicial pattern.Cui Pu's trial experience not only truly reflects the whole process of the actual operation of local justice in Ming Dynasty,but also can be regarded as a typical case of hierarchical trial in Ming Dynasty.The second chapter will elaborate the laws of Ming Dynasty that Cui Pu experienced.As an experiencer and participant of the Ming Dynasty law,Cui Pu's personal experience related to the system of repatriation of drifters,post system and food supply system.After Cui Pu drifted to China,the local government immediately started the trial procedure and submitted it to the higher authorities layer by layer.Finally,the central government decided the case.This process includes identity examination,food and clothing reward and repatriation,thus outlining the general picture of the repatriation system of drifters formed in the long-term practice of Ming Dynasty.In order to verify his identity,Cui Pu trudged more than 8000 Li from south to North in China.Along the way,he mainly relied on the post delivery network of the Ming Dynasty.Therefore,Cui Pu's works are concerned with the qualification of post delivery,the setting,management,function and operation of post delivery institutions,and the punishment of post delivery violations.Food supply is closely related to post delivery,which is a system in which the post delivery system provides meals for customers.The records of food supply system in A Record of Drifting Across the Sea involve the certificate of food supply,food appellation,food supply standard,content,subject,time limit,food supply audit and so on.The three legal systems collected in this chapter are quite rich in A Record of Drifting Across the Sea.The author compares and collates each other in combination with Chinese laws and regulations in order to vividly show the legal system of Ming Dynasty from the perspective of overseas Chinese books.The third chapter will interpret the laws of Ming Dynasty that Cui Pu saw and heard.Different from the personal experience of the previous chapter,the legal system selected in this chapter is what Cui Pu saw and heard along the way.The three legal systems,namely,the reward system for Japanese pirates,the tariff system and the system of hanging robbers' beheads,are unique to the Ming Dynasty.First of all,the Ming Dynasty stipulated different levels of material rewards and promotion according to the number of captured Japanese pirates and Japanese ships and the difficulty of fighting occasions(sea or land).After drifting to the east of Zhejiang Province,Cui Pu and his entourage were nearly killed by the border guards.In order to seek for merit and reward,the guards framed Cui Pu as Japanese pirates,and led the troops to arrest and kill them.Behind this,we can see a glimpse of the reward system of the Ming Dynasty.Secondly,Cui Pu observed a Ming Dynasty tax system when he passed through Hushu town of Suzhou along the Grand Canal.Chaoguan was a checkpoint set up by the Ming government along the canal to levy transit tax on passing ships.It was the most important tax in the Ming Dynasty,and constituted the main source of financial revenue in the Ming Dynasty.The establishment of this system reflects the Ming government's control of non-governmental commercial activities and the implementation of its commercial policy.Thirdly,in the middle of Ming Dynasty,all kinds of complicated social contradictions gradually appeared.With the frequent occurrence of robber cases in various places,the beheading of robbers became a common phenomenon in Ming society,which was observed and recorded in A Record of Drifting Across the Sea by Cui Pu.This is also an important penalty system which embodies the concept of "governing the country with severe punishment" in Ming Dynasty.The fourth chapter will show the alternative prospect of the Ming Dynasty justice.The strict laws and regulations in Ming Dynasty led local officials to take the blame easily in the process of controlling and arresting robbers.Meanwhile,the operation of trial transfer system tried to put the trial of all serious and important cases in the perspective of the emperor's judicial supervision of his officials,so as to achieve the purpose of autocratic monarchy.This situation led local officials to set up laws and regulations to avoid legal punishment,so as to get rid of the judicial control of the superior and the monarch.In the process of drifting,Cui Pu and his entourage encountered pirates on Xiashan island of Ningbo mansion.All the property on the ship was looted and nearly killed by thieves.After that,when Cui Pu was interrogated by the local government of Zhejiang Province,both the officer defending Japanese pirates of the security station and the provincial officer of Shaoxing Prefecture asked Cui Pu to delete the story of Ningbo theft from his confession.The monarch and the bureaucratic group began a game of information about the concealment of the theft in Cui Pu case.Based on a comprehensive study of the legal images of Ming Dynasty in A Record of Drifting Across the Sea,the paper concludes with the following points.First of all,The trial of Cui Pu's "drifting crime" reflects the judicial situation in Ming Dynasty.Through this case,it can be seen that joint trial is a very common form in local trial in Ming Dynasty,it also brings benefits and risks while embodying the scientificity and advanced nature.The decentralization of the three departments in the local area makes local judiciary lack of strong leadership core.Secondly,Cui Pu's experience reflect the implementation of the law in Ming Dynasty.In the early years of Hongzhi,the law was strict,and the law enforcement was generally good,while the law was generally perverted for personal gain in the lower level officials and service.Thirdly,the social reality of frequent robberies exposed the problems of legislation in Ming Dynasty.Under the guidance of the concept of "using heavy punishment in troubled times" in the early Ming Dynasty,the penalty structure of the Ming Law has already exposed the serious disadvantages of improper weight and lack of intermediate transitional punishment.Fourthly,local officials' concealment of theft reveals the stubborn diseases of officialdom in Ming Dynasty.The existence of laws and regulations and trial transfer system in Ming Dynasty provided conditions for the recurrence of taboo theft.Therefore,the concealment of local officials in Cui Pu case is not an independent case,it is more like a miniature of the actual operation of Ming Dynasty(or ancient)officialdom.Finally,in the eyes of Korean intellectuals,the Ming Empire,which used to have the same track,the same writing and the same behavior,has shown signs of civilization decline,and also deviated from the etiquette and law system maintained by Confucianism.The development of Confucianism,the spiritual belief on which the Chinese legal system relies for survival,has been gradually separated in the two countries,thus opening the prelude to the collapse of the Chinese legal system. |
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