The "Constant" And "Change" Of The Legal System:A Preliminary Study Of Song Taizu’s Legal Thought

Emperor Taizu of the Song Dynasty,Zhao Kuangyin,was born in the troubled times of the five dynasties,he went through hardships,took the imperial path,took Confucianism as the basic strategy for governing the country,and changed the shortcomings of the five dynasties through laws to create a new dynasty system.His legal thinking can be summarized as the"constant" of the legal system and the"change" of the legal system,that is,legislation and the judiciary should have both the principle of universality and the principle of flexibility.Specifically,in terms of the"constant" of the legal system,Taizu inherited the traditional legal tradition of rule by virtue with "virtue" as the core of emperor politics,and proposed to take the law as the basic rule of governing the country,believing that the law needs to be"heavenly"and "caring for the people",and should take into account both circumstances and law,and pay more attention to what is important than what is light.In terms of the"change" of the legal system,Taizu believed that the law needed to change according to time and place,and in view of the harsh situation of the five dynasties,Taizu advocated that the law should be lightly punished to the people,eliminate the evil laws of the puppet country,and rule according to customs.In the implementation and implementation of the idea of "constant" and "change" of the legal system,Taizu achieved his goal of reforming shortcomings and building new ones and turning them into the world.This kind of legal thinking also reflects Taizu"s ideological characteristics of"combining Confucianism and law and focusing on Confucianism"and the color of "entity-rationality" legal thinking,which subtly formed the "ancestral family law" and "legal emperor political tradition" of the Song Dynasty,and played an important leading and promoting role in the process of transforming ancient Chinese history from the "Middle Ages" to the "Modern Era".