"Chronicle of the Ming Dynasty · Treatise on Criminal Law" Annotations

Author: Wang Weikai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Among the Twenty-Four Histories, the official compilation of the Ming History took a long time, lasting several decades. The Qing historian Zhao Yi praised the Ming History in Volume 31 of his Notes on the Twenty-Four Histories by saying, "Among the recent histories, apart from Ouyang Xiu's History of the Five Dynasties, the History of Liao is brief, the History of Song is verbose, the History of Yuan is rushed, while the History of Jin is elegant in writing and concise in narration, somewhat commendable. Yet none compare to the perfection of the Ming History. Since the Kangxi reign began in the seventeenth year, scholars were assigned to compile the Ming History, and it was presented to the court in the early Qianlong reign after sixty years of effort. In the history of compiling official histories, such a long duration and depth of work has never been seen before." "Because it was compiled during the Kangxi reign, which was not long after the preceding dynasty, the compilers had firsthand knowledge, and thus many details of historical events were accurately recorded." Specifically, the Ming History·Annals of Criminal Law consists of three volumes, documenting the formulation, evolution, and implementation of Ming Dynasty laws, the rules and procedures for handling cases, the eunuch and guard system, and more. It is one of the most common and authoritative sources for understanding the legal system of the Ming Dynasty. However, due to various constraints, the Annals of Criminal Law also contains some issues: (1) Anachronisms: For example, "In the second year of the Chenghua era, the eunuch was ordered to execute the bandit Song Quan" (page 2341), which should have been the twelfth year of the Chenghua era; (2) Historical inaccuracies: For instance, "(During the Zhengde era) the censors Chai Wenxiang and Wang Cheng were executed by slow slicing for minor crimes" (page 2332), but this event actually occurred in the fourteenth year of the Zhengtong era, not the Zhengde era, and had nothing to do with Liu Jin; (3) Disordered narrative sequence: For example, "In the forty-fourth year, it was not held. The next year, it was delayed by two months, and the order was not issued. It rained heavily, and many prisoners died of disease in the prison. The censors submitted three memorials, complaining about the delay in the summer trial, the failure of the court trial, and the lack of officials to handle imperial cases." (page 2309), but the correct sequence should be: "In the forty-fourth year, it was not held. The next year, it was delayed by two months, and the order was not issued. It rained heavily, and many prisoners died of disease in the prison. The censors submitted three memorials, complaining about the delay in the summer trial, the failure of the court trial, and the lack of officials to handle imperial cases." Moreover, the memorials were submitted by censors, not by the Ministry of Rites, but by He Zongyan, the left vice minister of the Ministry of Rites. (4) Errors in the recording of legal provisions: For example, "For those who commit crimes a second time after being sentenced to exile or transportation, the exiled person shall be detained at the original place of settlement according to the law for retaining laborers and musicians, and those who are exiled three times shall be punished with one hundred strokes of the heavy rod and detained for three years." (page 2282), but in reality, the detention should be four years, not three. According to the Great Ming Code·General Provisions, the article "Exile or Transportation Reoffending" states: "For those who have already been sentenced to exile or transportation and commit another crime, the heavier punishment shall be applied. For those who have been exiled or transported and commit another crime, the law shall be applied again. For those who are exiled three times and commit another crime, they shall be punished with one hundred strokes of the heavy rod and detained for four years at the place of settlement. If they commit a crime while serving a sentence of exile, they shall be punished according to the number of strokes prescribed for the crime and the duration of the exile, and the total detention shall not exceed four years." All of these issues have created obstacles and misguidance for our understanding and research on the legal system of the Ming Dynasty. To address this, the renowned Ming historian and academic predecessor, Huang Yunmei, wrote the book Annotations on the Ming History, providing detailed explanations of the Annals of Criminal Law. This undoubtedly constitutes pioneering work. As a younger scholar, I, without pretense of modesty, have absorbed and referenced some of Huang's achievements while conducting special research on the Annals of Criminal Law. For the sake of convenience in writing, this is noted here, and specific references are not listed in the text. This book attempts to adopt traditional research methods to examine and annotate the Annals of Criminal Law of the Ming History from the following aspects: (1) Investigating its historical sources, striving to identify the origins of the text or provide clues to the sources; (2) Supplementing historical facts, using relevant materials to fill in unclear statements in the Annals; (3) Correcting errors, pointing out inaccuracies in the Annals with original evidence and providing correct explanations, or appending relevant original materials for reference if sufficient evidence is not yet available. This book uses the 1974 edition of the Ming History published by Zhonghua Book Company as the base text, and all quoted passages are based on this edition. This book organizes the Annals of Criminal Law as the framework, following its original order and examining each item separately. After each quoted passage, the corresponding page number in the original text is marked with an Arabic numeral in parentheses. Regardless of the original punctuation, each quoted passage ends with a period. For easy reference, this book proposes subheadings for each volume based on the content of the Annals of Criminal Law. For example, under Volume 93 of the Ming History·Annals of Criminal Law, Part 1, the subheadings include "General Discussion," "Codification of Laws," "Pardon of Sentences," etc. The text of this book uses simplified characters, based on the Comprehensive Table of Simplified Characters compiled by the China Character Reform Committee in 1964. Variant characters are standardized according to the List of Rectified Variant Characters jointly issued by the Ministry of Culture of the People's Republic of China and the China Character Reform Committee in December 1995, but names of people, places, and some specialized terms remain in their original form.