Ming Dynasty Crime Prisoners Expiation And Its Socio-economic Impact

Getting a bird's eye view of the legal history of China, every Dynasty carried out the atonement policy on the prisoners before the amendment of law in last years of the Qing and legal modernization of Chinese law .Its form was either toil penalty as the principal and the ransomes the subsidiary or on the contrary. And its scope was also varied. After he had established the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang had some renovation while inheriting legal tradition of all the former Dynasties. On one hand, he controlled his people with severe law so as to defend the new-established political power, on the other hand, he practiced atonement policy that "more elaborate than all the former Dynasties". In the whole Ming Dynasty, atonement policies were used by every Emperor, furthermore, they gradually reeled through the old forms to new ones. It was so perfect that neither their ancestors nor their descendents could compare with them in this respect either in the depth or in the width.In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, the new political power was confronted with many problems that should be solved urgently. In politics, there were many unstable factors in Eastern Liao and "nine boundaries" except for Eastern Liao and Yungui area that threatened the new power. In economy, lots of land was overgrown with weeds and there were so little people, the economy was depressing. In order to stabilize the national situation, the Grand Emperor of Ming took many measures. In the respect of law, he made the policy of "governing the country with severe law". The bitter law brought about plenty of prisoners. That was inconsistent with the goal of reviving and developing economy of the Government.The atonement policy put into practice by Ming Government took in forms: toil penalty and ransom. In the initial stage of the Ming Dynasty, in order to revive and develop economy, except for emigrant on a large scale, the prisoners suffer toil penaltypersonally and they were forced to more to the vast areas where sparsely populated. They were assigned limited land so as to associated labor with means of production. In addition, prisoners had to do many other work such as working substitute for peasants to alleviate the latter's burden, working in the handicraft industry run by the Government; relaying the message, working as cook for Guozijian, etc. In middle and late days of the Ming Dynasty, there came forward crisis in finance. In the process of handling this problem, ransom played a positive role. The form of ransom altered with the need of the rulers, and its standard was also varied from time to time in different places. It consisted of originator and conversion. The former included rice, silver, etc. However, after Longqing, most of the materials and money were mainly exchanged to silver.In the long period of practice, atonement institution formed its own characters. The method generally underwent the following transform: in early days, toil penalty was dominant while in middle and late it was mostly the ransom. The atonement policy of the Ming Dynasty had positive effect on the recovery and development of its economy. This policy offered plenty of labor in the beginning when toil penalty was primary and had a supplementary role to Ming's finance in the later years when ransom was dominant .In the whole Ming Dynasty, it made prisoners work as peasants and meantime to some extend cut down peasants' workload.