Ming And Qing Criminal Law And Cultural Studies

The traditional cultures of China's laws, which other ancient nations are lacking of, are not only of long history, but also passing, being inherited clearly as well as lasting in the past several thousand years. The specific features of the idea of the criminal law and penalty in China's ancient time came into being gradually in its long forming, evolving and developing procedure.In ancient China, the ideology of criminal law is evolved from "Ming De Shen Fa"(MDSF) which required the governors' running state with moralities while being prudent on penalties, to "Ming Xing Bi Jiao "(MXBJ) which required to enlighten those who would like to obey the laws by education while governing those who violated the running laws and regulations with cruel punishment. As Zhou Gong's making moralities, a specific social structure, in which "MDSF" was the guidance in preliminary state & society government, under moralities' government came into being. In the middle of West Han Dynasty, the idea of "governing with moralities as first and penalties as supplementary" became an orthodox thought of China's feudal laws which opened the door of China's law going forward to the Confucianism which lasted several hundred years so as to produce a typical traditional culture of Chinese law by mixing "the God's principles with the state's laws and social moralities". As strengthening of feudal autocracy, penalty's going up while morality's going down, the governors of Dynasty Ming and Qing rebuilt a stable authority by using the combination of "suppressing with penalties and instructing with moralities". The typical ideology of "MXBJ" was formed.As for the policy of criminal law, the governors of Ming and Qing sometimes made fundamental adjustment according to the current governing situation, which focus on the principle of "making laws and regulations for punish those who destroy normal feudal government" and "putting cruel penalty on a unstable state in disorder" during some special period in carrying on the general principle that the state shall be governed by use of moralities, rules, penalties and policies. In the early of Qianlong's,two storms of demoting & slaughtering great bureaucrats and cruel penalties incurred as a result of the case of the Queen's funeral arrangement and Jinchuan's defeat. The reasons are 1) the governor was only able to administrate and control the society by means of suppressing with penalties on the weak economic basis of the agricultural society in tradition; 2) the People's resistance was more and more with the social contradictions intensifying further; 3) the problems on corrupt bureaucrats and gang for selfish purposes came up. Putting up and practicing "cruel penalty" in Ming and Qing dynasty complied with the necessity of running the state when feudal society developed to the last stage.About the penalty system, the typical points are the change of measurement of punishment principle, penalty system as well as establishment of some cruel tortures out of laws, etc. In Ming Dynasty, measurement of punishment principle, including the new laws being effective for the past crimes, severe punishment and also putting more severe penalty on serious crimes while more lenient penalty on light crimes, is established. "The Five Chief Forms of Punishment" became crueler than Dynasty Tang and Song in general and penalties out of the laws were abused. "Ting Zhang", a special penalty for officers in the Forbidden Palace, and "Chong Jun", a penalty to force criminals to be a soldier far away from the capital, are produced. Various penalties out of laws were listed in "Ming Dα Gao" which was a kind of special criminal regulations in the early of Ming. In Qing Dynasty, some new crimes were punished by comparison with "Ten serious crimes" so that the privileges of the bureaucrats were reduced but the punished scope of some serious crimes, such as "High treason", "Rebellion", "Greatest outrage" was broadened.As the guidance of the criminal policy in which the state and society were both ran by cruel penalty, the criminal legal actions were of their own characters. Ming succeeded in bringing "spy authority" to criminal sentence initially in order to interfere with the criminal justice effectively as extension of the Emperor's authorities. Qing's governors focused on regulating people's thoughts and speeches with punishment, especially practiced "Wen Zi Yu" in the field of ideology and culture toeradicated "unorthodox thoughts" so as to punish those who didn't follow the Qing's authority cruelly.