Legal Thought In Ming Mingxing

Since the1920s, taking the History of Legal Thoughts in China written byMr. Yang Honglie as the earliest sign, our legal historians has began to study theChinese traditional legal thoughts. In recent years, along with the debates of the localtheory of legal resources and the theory of legal transplants, the study of the history ofChina’s legal thoughts is once again widely aroused in the academic circle,particularly with the study of “the relationship between the rites and criminal law” themost striking.From Xia dynasty to the end of Qing dynasty, China’s traditional legal thoughtswent through the development from “curse” thought in Xia and Shang dynasty to the“integrating punishment with education" thought in Ming and Qing dynasty. For thestudy of the relationship between the rites and criminal law, the author thinks that theacademic circle’s study of the traditional legal thoughts was too much focused on“relying mainly on morality supplemented by punishment”, whereas the study of“integrating punishment with education” thought was a little inadequate, which, in theauthor’s opinion, is a regret. Therefore, entitled "the study of ‘integrating punishmentwith education’thought in Ming dynasty", the paper analyzes “the integratingpunishment with education” thought in the perspective of the traditional legalthoughts, and expects to make some shallow contributions to the study of the historyof Chinese traditional legal thoughts.The paper is divided into three parts. The first section briefly describes theevolution of Chinese legal thoughts from “curse” thought in Xia and Shang dynasty tothe “integrating punishment with education" thought in Ming and Qing dynasty, so asto master the historical development of Chinese traditional legal thoughts in theoverall, thus to lay a solid theoretical foundation for the correlation discussion of the“integrating punishment with education" thought. The second part is to understandand explore the ideological connotation of the “integrating punishment witheducation" thought, mainly related to the change of the ideological connotation of the“integrating punishment with education" thought at different stages among the time before Song Dynasty, Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. Based on theunderstanding of the “integrating punishment with education" thought, the third partof the paper aims to explore the legal practices in Ming dynasty under the guidance ofthe “integrating punishment with education" thought. With the code of the Great MingEmpire, copy of the law, Question of Penalties Act and general amnesties within thecriminal field in Ming Dynasty as the research objects, the paper expects to analyzethe development and change of the “integrating punishment with education" thoughtin Ming dynasty from application.