An Analysis Of Jiuyuan Law In Qin Dynasty

As the earliest known animal husbandry written law in China,Jiuyuan Law is excavated in M11 Qin Tomb,Shuihudi in Hubei Province.As legal excerpts,Jiuyuan Law has long been cited as animal husbandry law of the Qin Dynasty while it was rarely analyzed by putting it in the background of Qin's ownership.The Law deals with the lending of iron tools,the management of official farm cattle and the nomadic management of stallions and cattle.The targets of adjustment include not only animal husbandry but also agricultural content,which challenges its sole identity as livestock method.With long-held farming strategy,agriculture and animal husbandry are important foundations to support expansion and conquest of Qin Dynasty.From this perspective,iron,field cattle,stallion cattle,etc.can be worshiped as strategic resources of Qin,whereas the Law can be consequently considered as ones that govern the state control of strategic resources.The present thesis takes the research on the attributes of the Qin society land system in the Jiuyuan Law as the logical starting point.After tracing its rheological process,it is analyzed that the Qin land system is a mixed ownership system,which,as the basis of the agricultural society,determines the nature of other property rights.In accordance with the land system,the property rights of Qin Dynasty also exhibited the nature of mixed ownership of both public and private ones.As the management of the labor materials such as ironware,field cattle,stallion cattle,etc.,the Law inevitably is a reflection of the mixed ownership form of the society at that time.Taking the mixed ownership of Qin society as the background,it further analyzes and interprets the law to remove some misunderstandings and biases in the past.Through the interpretation and analysis of legal provisions,the author presents a Qin civilization which is a mixture of farming civilization and nomadic civilization.Under the guiding ideology of the "agricultural war" ? national policy,they treat agriculture and animal husbandry equally,which also explains why under the Qin Law's "one-for-one" legislative approach,Jiuyuan Law puts different types of adjustment objects such as ironware,field cattle,and stallion cattle into the same law.By analyzing Jiuyuan Law,the present thesis enhances an understanding of the legal regulation of Qin in animal husbandry and agriculture.By studying the related laws and analyzing the legal control of strategic resources by the state in special periods,the thesis explores every possibility to learn useful legislative experience from laws in Qin Dynasty.