A Research On Robbery Problem In The Metropolitan Area And Provinces During Kangxi Yongzheng And Qianlong’s Periods In Qing Dynasty

Nothing is more important than eradicating robbery for government. In order to maintain social stability, emperors in every dynasty have taken a lot of measures to eliminate the robbers. However, it was very hard to obtain good effects in spite of so many methods.This paper mainly takes laws, decrees and admonishments for officials of Qing dynasty as historical materials. It discusses judicial problems and the corresponding measures in the process of judging the robbery cases during Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong periods. The whole thesis is sectioned into three parts as follows.The first part inquires into the causes for robbery and the fundamental steps of the crime. Although there were many causes for robbery, the paper mainly analyzes them from four aspects, the social poverty and disasters and famines, gamble, military discipline chaos and soldiers’ becoming robbers, the complexity of geographical environment. It will discuss the criminal steps from five aspects, the target, the time, the participants number, the methods and tools of committing the crime and also the booties.The second part probes into the judicial trials of robbery cases. This part will discuss it from two aspects. The first one is the justice process of robbery cases, which includes acceptance, inquest, reporting, arrest, interrogation, detention, tracking down and recovering stolen goods, sending away under escort. The second aspect is about two shortcomings:malfeasance of Buyi, concealment of robber case in the judicial trials of robbery cases and judiciary control to them.The third part discusses the corresponding measures while judging the robbery cases. These measures are taking strict legal sanctions and making the government and common people play a role in dealing with robberies. A lot of wisdom have been accumulated during this process such as prevention of robbery, understanding and sympathizing with robbery, transforming robbery, etc.Through expounding the basic situation of robbery cases during Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong periods in Qing Dynasty, this paper thinks that regulations in laws and decrees have been basically implemented. But there existed much abuse in the actual operation, which resulted in a problem that the robbery couldn’t be completely solved.