Research On The Grave Dispute Of Huizhou In Qing Dynasty

The grave is a special estate for the Chinese especially those in Huizhou, itbrings economic benefits and carries the people’s spiritual sustenance. Over70percent of the land litigations are about grave disputes in Huizhou, which shows theposition of grave for the native. The Tandingrumu policy in Qing dynasty has causeda population boom which has intensified the land disputes and helped thedevelopment of the local grave disputes. This paper set the background at the Huizhouin Qing dynasty to explain the characteristics in the disputes of grave by goingthrough the profile of The Huizhou Deeds and Contracts for a Thousand Years.This article starts from the definition of grave. This definition is widely used.The Kangxi dictionary has mentioned that the properties of the people is estate, manymodern scholars think the estate equals to immovables in tradition laws. In addition,the word grave exists in the legal terms and daily life. Taking all above intoconsideration, this article gives the definition of grave to target the object of tombdisputes, which means the tomb property and all the other rights attaching to it, suchas the trees on the tomb, the tombstone, and the implied Fengshui interests.Grave is one of the important estates of Huizhou and is the proud of the native, so,the Huizhouese pays much attention to it. The common ways of getting grave are home separation, donation, buying and reclamation. And the Huizhouese manage thegrave by setting administrator, plating trees, making clan regulations and formulatingthe township conventions. If necessary, they also ask the government for help.Grave is one of the most important means of production in ancient China. It canfeed the farmers as farm, and feed the whole country by tax. Meanwhile, theprotection to the grave is a way to show the traditional virtue Xiao. Therefore, theQing government pays much attention to the regulation and protection to the grave.The Qing government regulates the protection to it from three aspects, limiting thelevel and standard of grave and defining the property of the grave, the punishment ofinfringement of the grave, and restricting the Fucuo action. This regulation also worksin Huizhou.In Huizhou, the grave dispute is the most acute one among all the civil disputesbecause of the large population and small land. By analyzing50disputes in TheHuizhou Deeds and Contracts for a Thousand Years, we could found that the disputescan be divided into two kinds, one is the invasion of the grave industry property andthe other is the damage to the Fengshui of the grave. Once these disputes occurred,the civil and the government would pay much attention and try to solve it. Thegovernment usually judges the disputes according to the customs, but confirms thegrave property strictly base on the law.Due to the frequency of land transfer in Qing dynasty, the contradiction betweenthe population and the land, the drive of the money and Fengshui, the disputes ofgrave happens quite often, which shows the characteristics of the grave in Huizhou.