Ming Dynasty, The Hot Trial System

The Summer Assizes were systems of commutation in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. They originated from the judicial idea in YueLing of the Book of Rites, which indicated deciding cases for misdemeanors, making short work of small crimes and liberating those who were in prison for slight offences in the first month of summer. Summer Assizes were often held before the Ming Dynasty, but it was not until the Ming Dynasty that they became systems. In the years of HongWu, summer assizes were implemented for many times. In the summer of the second year of YongLe, the criminals of misdemeanors lighter than imprisonment and exile were ordered to wait for their verdicts or to be set free, which were as rules to be executed afterwards. In the years of Chenghua, there were differences in summer assizes, such as choosing the cases of serious crimes which deserved sympathy or seemed suspicious, decreasing the misdemeanors and setting free those who wore shackles. In the years of Jiajing, summer assizes were held once a year. Summer assizes were first implemented in Beijing, then in Nangjing and other provinces. They began from Grain Full to the end of June, which lasted two months each year. As special judicial systems, summer assizes should be permitted by the emperor before they were implemented. And the results of the important cases must be given the emperor's approval.The formation and development of summer assizes systems were dynamic. Chapter one of the papers included the formation, development, decline and restoration of the summer assizes systems to show the dynamic process.Chapter Two researched on the procedure of summer assizes in the Ming Dynasty, including the bureaus and the officers, the summer assizes in Nanjing and other provinces.Chapter Three mainly gave the causes and background of the start of summer assizes in the Ming Dynasty. It also showed the practice of summer assizes by concrete cases and elaborated the effect of the summer assizes systems to the politics, judicature and society of the Ming Dynasty.