Study On Officials Management By Severe Laws In Early Ming Dynasty

Officials management by severe laws in the beginning of Ming Dynasty is a special phenomenon in the development of our ancient law systems. Governors in the past dynasties rarely took extreme measures to memembers in their own organization. Zhu Yuanzhang, emperor of Ming Dynasty, took this severe law management based on the experience and lessons from past dynasties. This is a demand for strengthening power centralization in Ming and a reflection of his personal characters. This paper attempts to make a study of the content of this severe law management on officials, summarizes its success and failure and focus on its significance on perfection of present-day China law. The paper is composed of the introduction part and other four parts in the main body.The first part clarifies the meaning of "officials management by serve laws" with quotations from relevant legal regulations. It concludes and analyzes the severe punishments on officials' corruption and delinquencies by using power without authority. Also introduces its corresponding surpervison system and accusation system. All these legal regulations fully characterizes the severe law management on officials in Ming Dynasty.The second part analyzes the reasons of this severe law management. At the initial stage of political power foundation, Zhu Yuanzhang replied on this method to build up the authority of imperial power and strengthen his autocracy. Meanwhile he drew the lessons from the past dynasties and would like to restrain corruption by severe punishments. His special personal experience and characters also contributed to its establishment.The third part evaluates the significance of "Officials management by severe laws".It has positive impact on restraining corruption, moderating social contradictions and stablizing society orders in the beginning of Ming Dayansty. It pushed the Ming society forward, but it, in some degree, suppressed officials' intiatives and clamped down on social vitality.The fourth part summarizes the historical experience of the severe law managemnt in Ming Dynasty and comes to an conclusion that to prevent corruption is much more important than to combat corruption. State power organziation should have mutual restriction. Strengthening supervision is an effective way to prevent corruption. And only appropriate law-governing can help to eliminate corruption.