We are not sure whether the title of the pardoned Book Deyin in the Collected Decrees of the Song Dynasty was added at the time of the compilation of the edicts, or by the compilers of the Collected Decrees of the Song Dynasty. However, it is safe to say that the titles of these pardons were formed at the latest in the Gaozong Dynasty, and at least reflect the views of the early Southern Song Dynasty on the classification of the content and specifications of the pardons. If we do not carefully distinguish between the concepts of Qu Amnesty and Deyin, we cannot understand whether these pardons belong to Deyin or Quyi, in order to distinguish between the two, we first sort out the evolution and meaning of Deyin.
I. The origin of the word German
The origin of the word Deyin is very early, and there are "Deyin" words in the Book of Poetry, such as "Deyin Mo violates, and Er dies." "Music is only a gentleman, and the sound of virtue is endless." It refers to the kind words of honoring others and good reputations. At the same time, Deyin can also refer to a certain musical system, such as "the world is determined, then the six laws, and five sounds, which is called Deyin." ”
In the Han Dynasty, edicts began to appear to address the emperor in deyin, such as Zhongshu once said to Emperor Wu of Han:
"Your Majesty's voices, his edicts, his quest for destiny and his sensuality are beyond the reach of a fool."
Deyin is the honorific title of the emperor's speech by his subjects. During the Reign of Emperor Yuan of the Eastern Han Dynasty, due to the rebellion of Zhuya County, some ministers at that time advocated crusade, and some advocated abandoning the county, and the Later Han Yuan Emperor issued an edict to abandon the place on the grounds of laboring the people and hurting their wealth, and was called by the minister "This Yuan Emperor so devotion also".
At this time, deyin should already have the meaning of the emperor's words of virtue. In the Tang Dynasty, the Right Chang Shu Supplement Que Shi Yi and the Left Province Living House were in charge of "the history of the revision of the words, recording the system of the Son of Heaven and the deyin." "Still pronounced Emperor Speech.
In the Tang Dynasty, Deyin also gradually evolved into another layer of meaning, Yu Chengmin believes: "Deyin became a new type of edict of the Tang Dynasty emperors... Some of the Deyin contain the content of 'descending', and the relatively clear concept of Deyin in the Song Dynasty was developed on this basis. Judging from his research, Deyin did have a tendency to evolve into pardon in the Tang Dynasty, and to some extent has been used as a kind of pardon. How did this trend change in the Song Dynasty and be classified by the Song people as a kind of pardon?
Second, how Deyin was classified as a pardon by the Song people
Song Minqiu in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty said:
The system of this dynasty, all the, the amnesty, the qu pardon, the deyin three kinds, self-division and so on. Zong Gong said: "Deyin is not a nameable book, but the name of the subordinates who follow the book making, and the Son of Heaven calls himself Deyin Non-also." 'According to the Tang "Chang Gun Collection" pardon order, the general term is the tode sound, and the cover is complete. ”
Although Song Minqiu also questioned whether Deyin should not be the name of the pardon type, and should refer to the fact that his subordinates pursued the name of the emperor's book, at least in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Song people had already regarded pardon as three categories.
From the evolution of the word Deyin described above, it can be seen that Deyin has the meaning of honoring the emperor's words, and changgun, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty cited above, named the pardon book after Deyin when compiling the Tang Dynasty pardon order, which was an honorific emperor's order. So did this also exist in the Song Dynasty?
The Song Dynasty also had the use of honorifics as the emperor's will in deyin. For example, the song dynasty lived in the office of the people: "Let all the smell of tomorrow's children be heard, and retreat to the book." "In the Song Dynasty, there was also a common situation in which the pardon was used side by side with the deyin, and when the imperial court compiled the edict, it often attached the pardon to the deyin and presented it together. For example, in the second year of Chunhua (991), Song Bai, a scholar of Hanlin, was on the twenty-five volumes of the "Chunhua Compilation" and also on the five volumes of the "Catalogue of Forgiveness books and Deyin".
By the time of the Zhenzong Dynasty, when the chancellor was discussing the compilation of the edicts, he talked about the thirty volumes of the Chunhua Compilation of the Taizong Dynasty, so these thirty volumes must include the five volumes of the Catalogue of The Pardons.
We know that the actual form of the revision of laws in the Song Dynasty was the compilation of edicts, and judging from the above sentence, the Song people also regarded the collation of the pardon book Deyin as a legislative form. In the process of compiling this edict of the Zhenzong Dynasty, "the Book of Forgiveness of The Continued Forgiveness of Deyin Fan was further divided into one volume, and the "Book of Forgiveness of Chunhua" was combined into four volumes. These are all examples of the pardon's direct connection with Deyin.
What is even more confusing is that qu pardon and Deyin are used together, and the two appear in the same pardon but are not directly connected, which is different from the mode of direct connection between the pardon and deyin. There are some pardon names in the Song Dynasty Edicts that often use Qu Pardon and Deyin in conjunction, making it difficult to distinguish whether it is Qu Pardon or Deyin, the following are a few examples:
"Qu Pardon Shaanxi, Hedong Deyin":
In shaanxi and Hedong road, except for the robbers, plots, deeds, and fights that have killed people, to the point of unforgivable evil, and the punishment of love and lightness, the remaining capital crimes have been reduced, reduced by one degree, and released in vain.
"Qu Pardon Zizhou Luzhou JundeYin":
Kequ pardoned the Zizhou Road Army, limiting the pardon to the day before the dawn, except for killing thieves and bending the law and not pardoning, those who perverted the law and stole the law to commit minor crimes, played the will. Fight to kill those who are less guilty, minus one class, and stab the prison city thousands of miles away. The rest are pardoned.
The material shows that the Song Dynasty named documents with Qu amnesty and Deyin is very common, these are promulgated in a certain area of Deyin, and there is no obvious difference between Qu Amnesty, which involves the use of Deyin.
Third, the difference between amnesty, qu pardon, and deyin
The Song Dynasty amnesty and qu amnesty are easier to distinguish, and from the perspective of its pardon area, the great amnesty and the world, the qu pardon and certain regions. Amnesty and Deyin are also easier to distinguish, and amnesty is more intense than Deyin.
Qu amnesty and Deyin are two confusing concepts, and there is a contradiction between the Song people's definition of the regional scope of the Deyin promulgation and the Song people's views quoted above. Wang Yinglin believes that Deyin "forgives the world more than qu, and does not exhaust the sins than the amnesty." "That is to say, Deyin is grace and the whole country in the scope of the pardon, and the intensity of the pardon is lower than that of the general amnesty.
The History of the Song dynasty holds that Deyin was "vast and narrow", and that the scope of Deyin's grace and grace could be both certain regions and the whole country, as in qu pardon. There are contradictions between the two views, but judging from the examples of the Song Dynasty pardons cited above, the author agrees with the views held by the History of the Song Dynasty.
There is also a difference in the strength of the pardon between De Yin and Qu Amnesty. Deyin is a miscellaneous offender who descends from the capital offense, who is exempt from all sins below the stream, or who is a miscellaneous offender who descends from the stream, who descends from the disciple, and who is below the disciple. Qu pardon is not "releasing miscellaneous crimes to the dead", as Ma Duanlin said, but also releasing the following sins or the following and releasing the sins. In individual cases, the amnesty that is applied in a specific region has the same pardon strength as a general amnesty. For example, in the third year of Taizu Qiande (965), the pardon of Qu Shu was even stronger than that of ordinary amnesties, which was "the sin within the jurisdiction of the false Shu is not serious, and the pardon is not forgiven, and the xian pardon is removed." In the fourth year of Kaibao (971), the pardon letter of Pingguang Nanqu was also "pardoning those who did not forgive the permanent pardon of Guangnan Guannei Prefecture".
In a certain area, the legal effect of the pardon can be compared with the pardon of the Song Dynasty, which may be a special case in the case of the imperfect system in the early Song Dynasty. Another situation is that in the eighth year of the Qing calendar (1041), King Pingqu pardoned Hebei to make a book, and there was a pardon for miscellaneous criminals and the following. Under normal circumstances, neither Deyin nor Qu amnesty is as strong as amnesty pardon.
4. Differences in the regional scope of amnesty
However, in the scope of the pardon area, Qu amnesty is a pardon for sinners in a specific area under certain circumstances, and Wang Yinglin believes that Deyin "is more gracious than Qu pardon and the world, and than amnesty, the sins are not complete." "Roughly speaking, it can summarize the scope of the release of Deyin, which can refer to grace and the world, but also to some regions or a state and a capital, and like Qu Amnesty, it can flexibly determine the pardon area.
In fact, throughout the Northern Song Dynasty, the intensity of various types of pardons was not as clear as later generations said, and the imperial court could grant pardons according to its own needs. The policy of pardon for each place at different times was different. In the third year of Qiande (965), when Pingxichuan issued a pardon, "the crime was eliminated without seriousness" in Xichuan. When Quanzhou was restored in the third year of the Taiping Revival (978), "although the descent of the German tone stopped at its place, there was no case of amnesty."
The two pardons and deyin not only had no difference in the intensity of the pardon, but also the same in the area of pardon. I think that during the Northern Song Dynasty, Qu Pardon and Deyin did not have the same regularity in the strength of pardon as later generations summarized, and in terms of region, Deyin was more flexible than Qu Pardon, which could pardon a certain region or regions like Qu Pardon, or it could be a favor and the world. During the reign of Emperor Shenzong, Zhou Biaochen sang: "The subject Fushimi country is due to astronomical differences and floods and droughts, and the big ones are virtuous in the world, and the small ones are forgiven in the four capitals." "The size and size of the imperial court's promulgation of the Deyin refers to the size of the disaster and the size of the scope of the pardon, which has nothing to do with the strength of the pardon.
In summary, there were three types of pardon forms in the Song Dynasty, but the implementation of pardon is a very complicated issue, we can only say that amnesty and qu amnesty are two well-defined types, the pardon strength and pardon area of amnesty are greater than Qu amnesty, but occasionally, Qu amnesty will play the same effect as amnesty in a certain area. As a flexible way, deyin existed between the two, satisfying the different pardon needs of rulers. In the area of pardon, deyin can be gracious to the world, or it can be specific to one or another region. In terms of the strength of the pardon, deyin is mostly lower than the general amnesty, but there is no obvious distinction between the pardon and the qu pardon.
The author believes that the Northern Song Dynasty Deyin can be defined in this way, which has a buffer significance between amnesty and qu amnesty, cooperates with the various amnesties of the Song Dynasty, and is more flexible to meet the needs of the rulers, no matter what type of pardon has not escaped the shackles of imperial power.