Exile is the ancient punishment of exile. Among the many punishments in ancient times, exile was a special one. It is somewhere between the death penalty and ordinary punishment, and was a punishment of ancient kings for those who committed serious crimes. Let the criminals who could have been executed get a chance to survive. Such an approach undoubtedly reflects the benevolent heart of the ancient kings. The Confucian scholar Qiu Jun also said in the Constitution of Prudent Punishment:
"Punishment is based on the teachings of the PenalCost." The greatest of the teachings, the ethics also. ”
The main core is also to point out that punishment should be intended to be indoctrinated, so as to conform to the code of ethics. The birth of exile precisely reflects the tolerance and adaptation of ancient kings to Confucianism. Having said that, the blow of exile to prisoners is still very large. Today, from the origin and development of exile, we will talk about the concept of combining ancient criminal law and Confucianism.
How did exile occur?
The earliest background of popularity is almost dating back to ancient times. We all know that in the matriarchal society of ancient times, there was a special group called "clans". Such a group of people who are related by blood live somewhere together. In such a big environment, the ancients combined the unexplained phenomenon with the ghosts and gods. People in the clan make big mistakes, such as causing food shortages or the death of relatives. The clan leader will expel the person who has made a mistake and leave him to live alone away from the group. In those days, once you were out of the group, it was difficult to survive. Thus those who are expelled from the group are no different from exile. This should be regarded as the earliest predecessor of exile in history.
The real history of exile should be recorded and implemented during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The "Elephant Punishment, Five Punishments for Exile" in the Book of Shang is the earliest exile in Chinese history. The Book of Shang records:
"Flowing together in Youzhou, letting go of joy in Chongshan, channeling three seedlings in Three Dangers, and destroying carp in Yushan." Four sins and the world is salty. ”
The "exile", "release", "channeling", and "death" mentioned in it are all exiles in the "Five Punishments of Exile", which means expulsion and exile. Regarding the place of exile, the "History Book" records this:
"Five-rate house, five houses and three residences." The four descendants of the great sin are exiled overseas, outside the sub-Kyushu and outside of China. Gai began with Tang Yu. The third stream of the present, that is, its righteousness. ”
Criminals were exiled in different dynasties, but they had one thing in common, that is, they were exiled overseas away from their homeland. The places of exile throughout the ages were the result of the careful consideration of the kings, most of which were deserted and cold places and deserted islands. For example, during the Yellow Emperor's period, it was said:
"The Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan's courtier Yue Jiafeng, guilty of the crime, let him go, helped him to go, and then went to the Jade Gate to open twenty-five thousand miles to help the people",
Another example is Li Deyu, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, who was sent to Hainan Island and once left a poem that said:
"A thousand miles away, a thousand will not return."
For the ancients, the wanderer who left his hometown would still send out a homesickness sigh of "I hope that people will be long-lasting, and thousands of miles will be cherished together". For exiled prisoners, this feeling is even deeper. Moreover, the road is long, the resources are scarce, and there are not a few prisoners who die of illness on the road. Therefore, exile seems to be a temporary escape from death. But for criminals, it is a double blow between physical and psychological.
The development and reform of exile
Before the Qin Dynasty, "exile" was recorded, but most of them were practiced in colloquialism. The real evolution of the exile system into a special system was actually after the Qin Dynasty. The laws of the Qin Dynasty were strict, and there were also relevant provisions for exile. In the "Yunmeng Qinjian ● Legal Q&A", it is recorded:
"Five thieves, Zang (stolen) - money above, cut off the left, there is (again) Tuo thought that chengdan; Not less than two hundred twenty dollars to one dollar, (move) it. ”
It can be seen that the exile in the Qin Dynasty was a punishment for thieves. The Qin Dynasty law clearly stated that if five people stole something in total, and the value of the stolen goods was between two hundred and one dollar, they would be "relocated", that is, exiled. In addition to the exile of thieves, there is also a kind of "punishment for harm" of major criminals.
For example, at that time, the powerful Concubine Yi, after the strategic deployment of Qin Shi Huang, finally took Yan Yi. He was ripped apart, but his men did not die, so he was exiled. The Chronicle of History records:
"The chariot is cracked, and its sect is destroyed; And its sacrifice, the light for the ghost salary. and the conquest of more than 4,000 homes in Shu, and the family houses and tombs."
And the place of exile is Fang Ling. Most of the exile sites of the Qin Dynasty were in Fangling, except for the door of Concubine Yi, when Qin Shi Huang broke the Zhao state, the King of Zhao was also exiled to Fangling. Since ancient times, Fangling has been the best place for the exile of kings in the past, because of its special geographical location:
"South to Sichuan and Shaanxi, north to Yun Han, east to Xiangdeng, west to Jinshang."
And it is not far from the ruler's capital, and if there is any wind, the king can react in time. Therefore, most of the exile sites after the Qin Dynasty were also in Fangling.
The original intention of exile is to "reduce the crime by one degree" in the death penalty, which plays a manifestation of the monarch's benevolence. The Han Dynasty, on the other hand, "deposed hundreds of families and respected Confucianism alone", and when sentencing all kinds of punishments, it also considered confucius's benevolent idea of "punishment without teaching is for abuse". Punishment serves as an auxiliary role and is intended to educate prisoners. Therefore, exile during this period was a manifestation of the monarch's practice and respect for Confucianism. Similarly, the exiled criminals of the Han Dynasty were not just exiled. The monarch's extrajudicial grace is not to allow the criminals to enjoy the blessings, but to work hard. For example, in the Book of Han , Gao Zu Ji , it is recorded that:
"Guanzhong, the prince of migration, ruled changle palace".
Criminals were exiled to Guanzhong and used to build the Changle Palace. Another example is the Book of Han , The Chronicle of The Cheng Emperor " , which records:
"Ten thousand years before will be a master... Evil and unfaithful, poisonous and resentful, and still unrelenting, although pardoned, it is not suitable for the Beijing master. It migrates to Dunhuang County. ”
The exile of criminals, reflecting the benevolent heart of the monarch, allows them to build a large number of civil engineering, first, they can serve as laborers and reduce the labor of the people, and second, they are also given a chance to atone for their sins and pay the due price for the crimes committed at that time. The implementation of this practice not only punished criminals, but also embodied the Confucian thought of the monarch, and won the confidence of the people.
In the middle and late period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it has been in a turbulent situation. The law of the imperial court, which had long lost the glory of humanity in the Han Dynasty, gradually evolved into a punishment that was merely intended to punish criminals. And because of the special period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, wars and chaos broke out, and these people who committed the death penalty were extrajudicial as appropriate, which meant that they were exiled to the army, served as soldiers, and fought for the monarch. The Book of Qi records:
"If a criminal is to die, the original situation may be lowered, and the whip and flogging shall be a hundred each, and the beard shall be thrown at the border people, and they shall be regarded as pawns."
Such exile is also a means of weighing in times of war. The continued subdivision of the exile system became a typical one of the explicit orders, which was actually in the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty continued the exile system handed down during the Qin and Han dynasties, and improved and differentiated it. There are provisions for the time and place of exile of different prisoners. For example, during Li Yuan's reign, he opened a net to death row prisoners and exiled them:
"Therefore, in addition to the method of cutting off the toe, he flowed three thousand miles for the sake of service, and lived for two years."
The Tang Dynasty law stipulates that the punishment of exile is counted as "thousands of miles", superimposed from one thousand miles and two thousand miles upwards. The heavier the sin, the farther away the place of distribution. But the criminals exiled in the Tang Dynasty did not have to stay away from their homeland all their lives. In the Tang Laws and Regulations, it is recorded:
"After one or three years of service, or less than the time of pardon, that is, in the case of household registration in the matching house, the service is from the people."
Criminals are generally released after one to three years of exile, and the order of this release depends on the seriousness of the criminal's circumstances.
In the Song Dynasty, exile gradually derived other punishments, such as stabbing and charging the army. On the basis of its original exile, it added "stabbing matching", that is, tattooing words on the faces of prisoners, similar to the "ink punishment" handed down from the Spring and Autumn Warring States. Lin Chong, Song Jiang and others in "Water Margin" have all been tortured by stabbing and exiled. This is a great shame for the ancients, even if the identity is restored, the tattoo on the face makes it difficult for prisoners to be human. The Song Dynasty law had this provision, which was intended to improve the strictness of the law and make future generations take it as a warning, but it was very different from Confucianism. Later, many people joined Liangshan Po, but also because their punishment was too heavy, they were forced to join Liangshan. The punishment of stabbing is complementary to exile, or rather, the punishment of stabbing is a kind of exile. The History of the Song Dynasty and the Chronicle of the Criminal Law iii records that:
"There are more than two hundred methods of stabbing, and those who are reasonable and light in the meantime can also retrospectively use the method of moving to their hometowns, so that they can re-offend, and then decide to stab the army."
If the crime is committed, it should be "stabbed", if the circumstances are light, it can only be exiled, but there is no need to stab, which is also a rare extra-legal grace for mortals.
At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the institutional system of exile basically continued the methods of the Tang and Song dynasties. The only reform, the implementation of the policy of "southern people official north, northern people official south" for exiled criminals, Yuan Shi. The Criminal Law Chronicle records that:
"The southerners moved to the land of Liaoyang and the north, and the northerners moved to the southern huguang township."
The meaning is obvious, the ancients have a deep affection for the plot of their hometown, the prisoners of southern origin go to the north to be exiled, and the prisoners of northern origin go to the south to be exiled. It is to keep them away from their homeland and exile in desolate places as a punishment. Exiled to the Ming and Qing dynasties, he often discussed and punished with the Chong army, but it was very different. In general, if prisoners could be chosen, they would all want to be exiled, rather than to fill the army, for the simple reason that it is recorded in the Qing Dynasty Continuing Literature General Examination:
"Although military crimes are still in the interior of the country, although they are still in the interior, the crimes are sent to extremely bitter places outside the border.
It can be seen that although exile is bitter, it is much happier than the army.
How to evaluate the punishment of exile?
Exile has been in the bud since the Shang Zhou Dynasty, with the intention of punishing those who have committed felonies. As punishment is to stay away from the homeland and exile to a desolate place. In fact, there was no humanitarian meaning at the beginning, because the hometown complex of the ancients was serious, and the pain of exile in a different place was even worse than death. Therefore, it is not uncommon for prisoners to be exiled in the early days to end their lives on their own. From the beginning of the Han Dynasty, because of the respect for Confucian culture, and the core of Confucian thought lies in this "benevolence" word, forgiveness of others, there is no class. Only then did there be tolerance for prisoners who had committed the death penalty, and the so-called "extrajudicial grace" was said to have arisen from this time. The method of reducing the death penalty crime by one degree and exiling as a coolie to atone for sins is undoubtedly in line with Confucian culture to a large extent, and the ancient kings who wanted to win the hearts of the people must treat the people with benevolence, so the reform and development of exile was in line with the purpose of Confucian culture.
Especially in the later Ming and Qing dynasties, the emperor gave great tolerance to exiled criminals. Exile does not mean that political life ends here, the Ming Dynasty introduced the "lost" policy, is tailor-made for exiled criminals, as long as they work as coolies or assume part of the responsibilities of the imperial court, you can use this to reduce the time of exile and obtain the right to freedom. This reform was not only a great gift to the people of ancient times, but also reflected the monarch's benevolent heart for the people.
summary:
The birth of exile is, on the surface, just an ordinary punishment. But in fact, it exists as a system used to appease people's hearts. Imagine why the violent Qin and Sui dynasties collapsed so quickly, in addition to the arrogance and lasciviousness of the rulers, the punishment of criminals by the imperial court was also too heavy. At the beginning, Liu Bang was only the chief of the Ten Mile Pavilion, and where there was the courage to overthrow the violent Qin, it was nothing more than because he missed the time to escort the people's husbands, and considering the consequences, he had to expose the uprising. Therefore, the result of too heavy punishment is that the officials force the people to rebel. The emergence of the punishment of exile just makes up for the harshness of the punishment, gives the people a stable life, and embodies the Confucian thought of the monarch's benevolence.