A Study Of Wine-contained Crimes In The Shengjing Region In The Early Qing Dynasty

This article discusses three broad types of wine-contained cirmes committed by people in the Shengjing region from the Kangxi to Qianlong periods contained in Hetu Dangse.The three types of offences are: eating wine and committing murder,drunken and troublemaking,and stealing wine.The term "eating wine and committing crimes"(Manchu: arki nure omire ehe facuhūn yabuha)was a term unique to the Qing Dynasty.According to The Great Qing Legal Code,the crime can only be found in the examples of some codes,which are applicable to bannerman’s slaves.Through the interpretation of Manchu documents based on Hetu Dangse,we can see that this law can be applied to the bannerman regardless of the master and slave class.This kind of mixed use shows that the consistency between the bannerman and the bannerman’s slaves is higher than that between the bannerman’s slaves and the Han people’s slaves to some extent in judicial practice.The process analysis of the "drunken and troublemaking" cases shows the interactive state of different administrative agencies in the Shengjing,and discusses the interactive relationship between the ministry of punishment in the Shengjing and Shengjing Imperial Household Department in judicial practice.On the premise of no clear provision of law,Shengjing Imperial Household Department has retained considerable decision-making power,whether it is the misdemeanor of flogging or caning,or the felony of banishment.The explanation of this decision-making power should come from itself as a whole of the three banners,that is,it controls the people in charge as assistant leader.And the theft of brewed wine was a prohibited act,that sheds new light on the prohibitionist policies of the Kangxi period and the direction of the reasons behind it,through an interpretation of the documents relating to the prohibitionist policy of wine preserved in Hetu Dangse of the Kang and Yong dynasties.The common feature of all three of these crimes is that none of them can be found with a corresponding entry in The Great Qing Legal Code,but crimes were committed around them from time to time.A consideration of the three crimes above leads to a consideration of the nature of the law,which was a product of passive adaptation to society.