Evaluation On Zhu Yuanzhang's Legal Popularization Activities From The Perspective Of Legal Communication

The emperor who values most the dissemination of the law in the history of Chinese legal construction is called Zhu Yuanzhang.Based on the na?ve beliefs Zhu derived from his early life experience living at the bottom of the society,as well as later long-term engagement in military activities,he not only put stress on the assimilation and utilization of the dissemination of the law from the previous generations,but also developed his own distinctive communicating style.From the perspective of the study of dissemination of the law,his practice of legal communication coincided with a lot of propagation patterns summarized only nowadays.For instance,he attached importance to the concision of legal provisions and communication effects,and valued the position of the target audience in order to promote the efficiency of public acceptance.Zhu were very into mass communication.He worked out a set of mass communication media and mechanism in line with his time.For instance,Shenming Pavilions and Jingshan Pavilions widely spread among countryside are time-oriented mass communication media;the system of Moodle elderly law messengers and frequent issue of royal edicts are space-oriented mass communication media.By these means,the efficiency and coverage of the dissemination of the law were highly promoted.Zhu made the most of the invasion force of the ritual communication,he tried to imprint the core of rites and laws on his people by promoting activities like Community Drinking Ceremony and Worshipping of Town and Village Gods.Zhu had blind faith in the power of Fear Appeal.He is even readier for lawsuits and engineered the Four tragedies in the Early Ming Dynasty.Tens of thousands of officials were slaughtered in the events and more were warned by extremely horrible ways like Bopishicao(the excruciation of flaying the sinner in whole,stuffing with straws and hanging for public exposure).From today's point of view,Zhu's practice of the dissemination of the law do have lots of limitations.For law was only a tool for him to restrict his people then.Zhu's assertion of “Rule by Law” is quite different in nature from what we call and follow today— “Rule of Law”.Zhu's strategies of the dissemination of the legal communication were close to Chinese cultural mindset and social practice at that time,which to some extent could still provide some thoughts for today's study.