With the passage of time, feudal society is more and more distant from today, undoubtedly draped in a veil of mystery, and to understand the history of ancient times, in addition to the stack of thick history books, the most influential for the public is those costume dramas.
In many costume dramas, such as the scene of the law or the direct sentence of death, it is not uncommon, and many people are influenced by martial arts novels, believing that the rule of law in ancient society is not perfect at all, just like the martial arts society, you can kill a person in ten steps and leave no line for thousands of miles.
So what is the judicial system of ancient society, really like in film and television dramas?
Today, Song Anzhi will talk about the rule of law in feudal society with the issue of death penalty review under the judicial system of the Qing Dynasty.
As the last feudal unified dynasty in China, although the Qing Dynasty was deeply influenced by the Ming Dynasty, it also drew on the gains and losses of previous dynasties, and it can be said that it belongs to the great masters in the dynasties.
In terms of judicial system, the judicial system of the Qing Dynasty was not as playful as many people think, but had a strict review system. In the case of criminal cases, in general, except for minor cases, all larger cases must be reported step by step, and sentences such as the death penalty will be up to the front of the Heavenly Son.
So how about this specific process, the following Song Anzhi to talk about in detail.
First of all, let's talk about the most basic places, and the investigation and preliminary trial of ordinary cases are presided over by the state and county yamen. However, the penalties that can be presided over and enforced by the state and county governments are limited to flogging and cane punishments, and they must be reported on a regular basis.
As for criminal cases that are heavier than flogging and cane punishments, the state and county governments can only be convicted after preliminary examination, submitted to the higher level or layer of review, and then made the final decision at a certain level.
For example, in cases of imprisonment, the final decision can only be made by turning over to the level of supervisor. Exile and imprisonment for murder shall be finally decided by the Ministry of Justice. In the case of the death penalty, although it is finally decided by the three law divisions, it requires the emperor's approval, which is equivalent to the judgment of the supreme ruler before it can take effect and can be finally decided.
In the case of the death penalty, the first step is the preliminary examination and conviction of the state and county yamen. The second step is to report to the government or directly subordinate department of the same knowledge or general judgment. The third step is to be reported by the government to the highest judicial department in the province according to the Department of Inspection, which will try it. The fourth step is that although the Inspection and Envoy Department can report directly to the higher-level Criminal Investigation Department, it must be approved by the Superintendent. The fifth step is to report to the Criminal Investigation Department after the supervisor receives the opinion on the handling of the case. The sixth step is to be re-examined by the Ministry of Punishment, just in case, and then a verdict is rendered. The seventh step is that after the Criminal Investigation Department makes the judgment, it is reported to the Three Law Divisions to make a final judgment. The eighth and final step was presented to the Emperor by the Three Laws Division, and the Emperor himself gave instructions, at which point the death sentence officially took effect.
Of course, the specific circumstances of this are more complicated than the procedures for reviewing and reviewing layers, such as the Criminal Investigation Department is one of the three legal divisions and can jointly exercise the final judgment power. At the same time, the Criminal Investigation Department is also an independent trial level and has the right to review.
It can be seen that in terms of the death penalty, the Qing Dynasty was cautious and cautious, which can be described as a layer of review, and even went straight to the front of the Tianzi Emperor.
So why did the Qing Dynasty have such a strict and complex system of "step-by-step review and review"?
The reason is that the rulers want to use this system of multiple audits to avoid the occurrence of unjust cases to the greatest extent possible, so as to ensure judicial fairness. After all, the of a thousand miles collapsed in the ant nest, if a country's judiciary is unfair and the rule of law is not clear, it will cause various unstable factors in the long run, and once the underlying order collapses, then it is not a good thing for the rule of this dynasty, and it will even affect the rule of the imperial court.
Of course, there is also a reason that this complex review procedure actually belongs to the centralized power of the feudal dynasty, which is to put the power of life and death in the hands of the emperor, so as to make the emperor's authority even greater.
In fact, from the perspective of centralized power, if the central court can firmly grasp the power of the trial of the death penalty in ancient times, it means that the judicial power still lies in the central government. However, if the central imperial court declines, it will be the judicial power that will be moved downward, so that the local governments can grasp the judicial power by rectifying the law on the spot.
Why does Song Anzhi say this, we will take the Taiping Rebellion of the Qing Dynasty as the dividing line to talk about the judicial power struggle between the central and local governments.
Friends who are familiar with a little history know that after the Suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing Court was seriously injured, and at the beginning, in order to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it was even more delegating power to the bottom and allowing local regimental training to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was pacified, the Qing Dynasty not only supervised most of the feudal officials who were Han Chinese, but also the local governors became more and more powerful, and even when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, they all engaged in the southeast mutual protection incident, completely ignoring the moderation of the central imperial court.
Behind the decline of the central imperial court and the weight of local governors, there are many power struggles, such as judicial power.
Not long after the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, with the tension and chaos of the situation, coupled with the gradual trial and review, it was necessary to deport prisoners layer by layer to facilitate the interrogation of prisoners by officials, but the war spread to the southeastern half of the country, and many places did not say that they fell into the hands of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, that is, they did not fall into, and it was undoubtedly unrealistic to deport prisoners in a period of war and chaos.
Therefore, in this context, the Qing Dynasty began to allow localities to correct the law on the spot, that is to say, there is no need for so many complicated procedures, and after conviction, the law can be corrected on the spot, to put it bluntly, the central imperial court handed over the judicial power to the locality, and the act of rectifying the law on the spot began to spread on a large scale.
After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is pacified, the act of rectifying the law on the spot will obviously create many unjust cases, so the Qing court, whether out of judicial justice or centralized power to recover judicial power, must cancel the local power to rectify the law on the spot.
But local governors are inevitable, and decentralization is not easy to recycle. In the eighth year of Guangxu, the imperial court had a huge controversy over the existence and abolition of the law on the spot, some people thought that it should be abolished, some people thought it should be preserved, and finally the imperial court further restricted the charter of the Punishment Department on the basis of the "Statute of The Law on the Spot" promulgated by Guangxu in the fifth year.
To put it bluntly, the Qing court wanted to make a transition for a period of time, and then completely abolish the fa-rectification on the spot. However, most of the local governors delayed for reasons, and according to the historical records of the implementation of the local law every year, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was pacified, the phenomenon of local law correction in place was not fundamentally suppressed, and until the qing dynasty fell, this judicial power was not recovered.
It can be said that the struggle for judicial power is a microcosm of the political situation in the late Qing Dynasty, which was "heavy inside (the central court) and less external (local governors)." At the beginning, in order to pacify the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the power represented by the judicial power began to move downwards, and when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was pacified, these powers were never recovered with the decline of the central court, and the power of the local governors was growing day by day.
It can be seen that the rule of law in feudal society is actually not the fragility that many people think of today, but has its own uniqueness. Judging from the judicial system of the Qing Dynasty, the ancient feudal dynasty was to avoid the occurrence of unjust cases to the greatest extent in terms of system, and it was to strive to prevent microaggressions. Whether the judicial system can be implemented all the time is closely related to the strength and decline of the central court.
Thank you for watching Song Anzhi's exclusive original article, focusing on the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties and its great history of China, like to talk about those immutable histories from a different perspective, I think friends can remember to like and pay attention to Ha.