Study On The Legal Practice Of Honorable Officials In The Qing Dynasty

The concept of the honorable official was first introduced in the Records of the Grand Historian.Sima Qian referred to officials who were "dedicated to justice and law enforcement" as honorable officials,and wrote a biography of them.Since then,the tradition of listing biographies of honorable officials has been followed by later generations.In the Twenty-Five Histories,with the exception of the Three Kingdoms,the Book of Chen,the Book of Zhou,the Old Five Dynasties and the New Five Dynasties,all the others have biographies of honorable officials(or biographies of good officials and good government),recording the remarkable achievements of more than five hundred honorable officials who were loyal to their sovereign and to the people at the bottom.As prominent representatives of the traditional bureaucracy,they are officials of integrity who are certified by the emperor,recognised by their peers and approved by the people.The biographies of honorable officials also evolved into a culture of officials that the emperor used to rectify the rule of officials,officials followed the example of the emperor and the people expressed their expectations.In traditional Chinese society,officials followed their legal duties and governed their places of work within the limits of the law,in the sense of ’following the law’.In addition,the officials held the power given to them by the ruler and had absolute authority over all matters under their rule.Even though traditional China repeatedly preached ’ruling the world by virtue’,the continuous improvement of laws over the ages still showed that feudal society valued the ’rule of law’.It was a distinctive feature of the era of ritual and law that the state’s affairs,both large and small,were placed under the ’rule of law’,supplemented by moral instruction,with rewards and punishments being given in tandem with grace and authority.The rulers incorporated the daily education and discipline of officials into the legal system of office,interpreted and summarised the virtues of exemplary officials,combined them with the people’s psychological portrait of an honorable official,and eventually included those who met the criteria in the ’biographies of honorable officials’,which were widely publicised.Slowly,the criteria for defining an honorable official existed in both the legal system of the state,the rulers’ methods of governing and the people’s expectations.This standard was both morally binding and legally guaranteed.In this article,we have chosen to look at the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty.A total of 116 honorable officials are included in the Ching History Manuscript,accounting for nearly one-fifth of the number of honorable officials in all of the official histories,making the sample size large enough to facilitate the study.In addition,the special feature of the Qing dynasty’s honorable officials is that the biographers are all state and county governors.Local governors of the Qing dynasty were responsible for all matters large and small under their administration,and were truly pro-people officials.The study of these officials can help to clarify the operation of the rule of law in the Qing dynasty.The Japanese scholar Nakamura Masato has said: "When discussing the law and the concept of law in the past,we often use the method of comparative examination by drawing on concepts similar to them in modern law.The advantage of this approach is that it is easier to understand past legal concepts because they are discussed using concepts that are familiar to us.But this is only one aspect;on the other hand it is undeniably the case that legal concepts are subject to various degrees to the social,cultural,economic institutions,legal systems and other factors of their respective times." In this article,the concepts of ’law enforcement’,’justice’ and’popular law’ in modern law are used in the process of examining the honorable officials and local legal practices in the Qing dynasty,and the article is written in this vein.In fact,although there was no "law enforcement" or "justice" in the Qing dynasty.The essay is divided into seven parts,including an introduction,five chapters in the main body of the thesis and the rest of the essay.Introduction.This part introduces the issue,showing the purpose and value of the study of honorable officials in the Qing dynasty in the context of the new era,and outlines the four implications of the topic at the theoretical level and the three implications at the practical level.The research findings on honorable officials,the local legal practice of honorable officials in the Qing dynasty,and the particular type of honorable officials-the Qing officials and the culture of Qing officials-are briefly reviewed.The author believes that there are three shortcomings in the previousthe Qing dynasty",and "insufficient attention to the abandonment of the culture of Qing officials(honorable officials)".The paper also explains the three shortcomings of this work.It also gives an account of the research ideas,the research methodology and the innovations of the study.Chapter One: The honorable official and the honorable official in the Qing dynasty.This chapter opens with a discussion of the culture of the honorable official(a biography of an honorable official)as a traditional legal culture,which is then argued for,and the significance of this culture is summarised in the context of feudal politics and society in three ways: to guarantee the stability of the ruling government,to ensure the clarity of the official’s rule,and to meet the expectations of the people.Then,the number and rank of honorable officials in the history of the Qing dynasty are examined,and the percentage of honorable officials in the total number of officials of the dynasty is calculated to reflect the scarcity and preciousness of honorable officials;the record that "the number of officials up to the rank of superintendent was limited in the history of the Ming dynasty,but this is now the case" is examined in the Qing Historical Manuscript-Biography of Honorable Officials.By examining the record of the "Ming history",which states that "the officials were limited to the level of supervisors,but nowadays this is the case",the identity of the honorable officials in the Qing dynasty is once again clarified.The next point is that the "obedience to reason" and "adherence to the law" were the internal and external characteristics of the honorable officials,respectively.Inwardly,they follow the principles of heaven andthe rule of ethics;outwardly,they abide by the legal system and act in strict accordance with the provisions of the law.",and their actions in government are summarised as "wealth","teaching","breaking" and "protecting ".Finally,it provides an overview of the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty,traces the paths of honorable officials in the Qing dynasty,and concludes through analysis that honorable officials had "multiple paths of entry","greater difficulty in entry",and "higher education"."In this way,he argues that the rulers of the Qing dynasty sent honorable officials from the right path(the imperial examination)to the prefectures and counties because they had a rich knowledge base and a solid theoretical background,and could lay a solid foundation for educating the villagers.In addition,the teaching and baptism of the ways of the sages,the officials understood what to do and what not to do,and this could to a certain extent promote self-discipline among the officials,thus providing a guarantee for a clear and clear officialdom.Chapter Two: The law enforcement practices of honorable officials in the Qing dynasty.The first thing that is clear is that the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty were in charge of the territory’s "large,money and grain,punishment and name,education and customs,and the small,establishment,cultivation,and discipline of common affairs",and their work was essentially in line with modern jurisprudence on law enforcement,which is "the exercise of administrative authority by the state administrative organs in accordance with their statutory powers and legal procedures,and the It is a definition of law enforcement in modern jurisprudence.After defining thenature of law enforcement as an honorable official’s work in government,it is divided into four areas: the control of the people’s property,the love of the people as a person,the taking of the people’s control,and the protection of the people’s peace.In the section on the production of the people,the acts of the honorable officials in the Qing dynasty are discussed in relation to the construction of water conservancy,the promotion of agriculture and mulberry,and the reclamation of barren fields;in the section on the love of the people as a body,the acts of the honorable officials in the Qing dynasty are discussed in relation to the relief of disaster victims and the resettlement of exiles;in the section on the taking of the people as a system,the acts of the honorable officials in relation to the lightness of the tax and the skill of the persuasion;and in the section on the protection of the people as a territory,the acts of the honorable officials in the Qing dynasty in relation to the expulsion of pirates and the maintenance of law and order are discussed.The section on protecting the people and safeguarding the territory is devoted to the expulsion of pirates and the maintenance of law and order.Chapter Three: Focuses on the judicial practices of honorable officials in the Qing Dynasty.The chief executive was a feature of the traditional Chinese legal system.It was only natural that one of the many functions of an honorable official was to administer justice.This chapter focuses on the judicial practices of honorable officials in the Qing Dynasty,analysing the attitudes,principles and results achieved by honorable officials in the process of adjudicating injustice and resolving prisons."Theline "to settle lawsuits and stop disputes and to focus on conciliation" demonstrates the virtue of an honorable official’s "to hold his heart like a balance".The virtue of "honorableness as a rope" is demonstrated by the act of "applying the law to the situation,and the law to the situation",and the virtue of "bending the law to reason" is demonstrated by the act of "applying the law to the situation".Chapter Four: The Legal Practice of Honorable Officials in the Qing Dynasty.From the perspective of the duties of the officials in the Qing dynasty,educating the villagers was a task that had to be completed during their term of office,and was also one of the tasks to which the ruler attached great importance.The Shunzhi emperor had solemnly stated that "edification is the first task of the court." The ruler’s supreme directive and the clear requirements of state law undoubtedly provided fundamental guidelines for officials to practise edification.This chapter boils down the actions of the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty to three areas: firstly,the establishment of schools to improve literacy;secondly,the promotion of virtue and propriety to change customs;and finally,the establishment of village rules to enforce prohibitions.In fact,for the task of educating the people,the Qing court prescribed many "necessary actions",such as organising schools,setting up academies,promoting moral and rituals,etc.In addition,state and county officials in office could also carry out "optional actions" for educating the people according to their own ability level and the actual situation of the area."For example,Zhang Mu,an honorable official,wrote the Six Instructions for Shibiyan,which the villagers recited day and night and explained tothem the truths contained therein.With the combined effect of multiple approaches,the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty fulfilled their mission of education and probation,political and educational moralisation and the transformation of the state law,resulting in the villagers being courteous and the social ethos being renewed.Chapter Five: The legal and cultural values of the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty.The biographies of honorable officials in the official histories gradually made them a special group within the bureaucracy,with their own ways of being a person,an academic and an official.The honorable officials of the Qing dynasty,on the one hand,were brought up in the Confucian school of benevolence and righteousness,loving the people and showing compassion to them;on the other hand,they were taught the official virtues of the court and were careful in their words and actions,and were modest and courteous,setting a good moral tone for the officialdom of the Qing dynasty.They were guided by the Confucian values of "benevolence,righteousness,propriety,wisdom and trust" and "warmth,goodness,respect,frugality and tolerance",and were loyal to the ruler and loved the people.They brought together the essence of moral governance in traditional Chinese culture and explored a way to combine moral governance with the rule of law in grassroots social governance,leaving a valuable spiritual treasure for future generations.This chapter argues for the value of the legal culture of the honorable officials of the Qing Dynasty from three aspects: great virtue,public virtue and private virtue.The author believes that the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty had "loyalty and devotion to duty,the family sentiment ofserving the country with one’s body" and "love for the people and compassion for others",which were the "great virtues" that the honorable officials followed.These are the "great virtues" to which honorable officials adhere;the "righteousness of impartiality,straightforwardness and frankness" and the "diligence and dedication to duty",which are the "public virtues" to which honorable officials are strongly committed.The "public virtues";the "profound knowledge of the past and present,the knowledge of the scriptures and the rites",the "simple and frugal character of cleanliness and non-corruption" and the "excellent family style of establishing oneself with virtue and the world with learning "This is the core motivation that drives honorable officials to be virtuous and to do their duty in politics,and is a precious "private virtue".These virtues are not only synonymous with excellent official virtues,but are also the essence of traditional Chinese legal culture,which should be creatively transformed and innovatively developed in order to make use of the past for the present.The remainder of the discussion is about the "invisible performance" of following the law and reason.When it comes to the performance,merit and achievements of an official,everyone tends to think of the visible changes in the local economy,society,justice and culture that occurred when the official was in office,that is,the official’s "governance" performance,a "tangible performance",which is This is the ’tangible performance’ of the officials,which can be measured in figures and is naturally the basis of the examination of the officials.The practices and achievements of thehonorable officials of the Qing dynasty in enforcing the law,administering justice and promoting the rule of law,as described in the main body of this article,are all ’tangible achievements’.In addition to this,officials could also achieve ’human’ achievements in office,which were ’intangible achievements’ and were not examined in terms of various indicators,but rather in terms of the emperor’s approval,the recommendation of fellow officials and the love of the people.The remaining essays take the ’trophies’ and ’word of mouth’ received by the honorable officials of the Qing dynasty from the ruler,the officials and the people as a clue to sort out the ’intangible achievements’ made by the honorable officials during their tenure,so as to In this way,the political,social,legal and self-worth of the honorable officials are revealed,and the four motives for the honorable officials to pursue the "intangible achievements" in the Qing Dynasty are summarised: self-satisfaction,self-improvement,self-protection and self-fulfilment.Finally,at the end of the text,the author reiterates the purpose of writing this article.In other words,"Although history is a book of events,our search is for truth,not events." The purpose of this article is to summarise the ways,actions,achievements and virtues of an honorable official,so that the excellent legal culture embodied in an upright official,such as frugality and honesty,law enforcement,impartiality,love for the people and diligence,will once again come to life in the new era,turning the "other discipline" of party discipline and state law into the "self-discipline" of the official,so that the official will know what an official is,what he or she is for and why he or she is there,and better serve the people.