In costume TV dramas, when involving some criminal trial plots, the term "ask for beheading after autumn" often appears, and asking for beheading after autumn naturally refers to the pronouncement of judgment in spring and summer and execution after autumn. Many people will find it difficult to understand, were the ancient people really so exquisite? Even the execution of prisoners had to choose the season. In fact, it is true, and the autumn queen asks for a slash that is far less simple than we think.
Let's first take a general look at the changes in the history of the next autumn.
First, in fact, the autumn queen will be a little different in each dynasty and generation, after all, it will more or less carry some characteristics of its own era, but this difference is not particularly much. Therefore, we adjust the difference in focus, such as the difference in time - for example, the legal texts of the Han Dynasty stipulate that the execution of the head can only be selected in autumn and winter, and once the spring has passed, it is resolutely not allowed to be implemented. The laws of the Tang and Song dynasties were basically the same, stipulating the period from spring to autumn equinox, except for any felony of plotting against the king, rebelling against the father, and killing the master by slaves, all other crimes could not be carried out in the spring and summer.
For example, the Western Han Dynasty was stipulated to be a month of autumn and winter, that is, the four months from September to December of the lunar calendar. This situation changed in the Tang Dynasty, and since the Tang Dynasty began, the implementation time began to be condensed, that is, the time range of implementation was reduced, and the time was set at the three months of October, November and December, and then until the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was no major change.
Seeing that some people here will ask, why is it called Autumn Queen? These months are obviously in the autumn, it should be more of an autumn question, right? However, what we need to explain here is that the "autumn queen" in "Autumn After Asking" does not refer to after autumn, but is calculated from the time node of the autumn equinox (September 23).
Second, in addition to the main nuance of time, the details of the autumn question will also be improved in some dynasties, such as the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, a new item was added to the steps- that is, the court trial, and the prisoners who were sentenced to death in the trial system of the court trial were also executed after the autumn; and in the Qing Dynasty, the "dynasty trial" was again optimized and improved, and it was divided into the court trial and the autumn trial. For the Qing dynasty, a clear and detailed division of labor between the court and the autumn trial could help the Qing court to maximize the fairness of the judgment.
At the beginning, it was said that the autumn post-autumn questioning is more complicated - in fact, this complexity is not only the complexity of the details process, but also the factors involved in it are more complex - it is the result of the combination of beliefs, human feelings, and legal principles.
I. The Implementation of "Theology" and Faith
Due to the ancient agrarian civilization society, the means of human livelihood mainly rely on farming, and the level of understanding nature, transforming nature, and improving nature is very limited, so human understanding of nature is limited to the level of appealing to the gods.
Since the beginning of the ancient period, the Five Elements Theory has been perfected and developed in the pre-Qin period, and has become the natural science of human primitive and feudal society. It is no exaggeration to say that all the means of human production and life before the entire feudal society were based on the primitive natural science based on the Theory of The Five Elements of Yin and Yang, including the "Autumn Question and Chop" that we are discussing today.
Ancient people due to the lack of powerful scientific explanation of various phenomena in the natural world, once encountered with natural phenomena beyond the scope of manpower, the first thing that came to mind was the dominance behind the divine power, and the deification of natural phenomena was the best explanation, so natural disasters, man-made disasters, comets, rare animals, etc. All originated from the gift of god, and then extended the saying that "humanity conforms to the heavenly path".
It is precisely in this way that when the princes of the pre-feudal society were established, they must include the so-called "Heavenly Dao" as the primary consideration. As the chief of all things, man's punishment and killing naturally must also conform to the will of the "Heavenly Dao".
According to the theory of the Five Elements, everything arises in the spring, the branches and leaves flourish in the summer, and autumn and winter are the seasons of rest and collection. We usually say that "there is a killing breath in autumn" and "cold winds are biting" is also the truth, the grass and trees in nature are ripe harvested and autumn, and human punishment and killing must also conform to the four seasons, so they choose to perform after autumn - this is the best embodiment in the "Book of Rites", which has been clearly mentioned in the "Book of Rites": "Cool winds, white dew, can be used for killing." ”
In addition, the Confucianism of the Han Dynasty had a profound impact on later generations, and its theory of heavenly induction was advocated by successive rulers. And Dong Zhongshu also said in his book "Spring and Autumn Dew", "Celebration is spring, reward is summer, punishment is autumn, punishment is winter", and the ruler naturally obeys. In this way, some of the emperor's reward and punishment behaviors are combined with the change of the four seasons, and in layman's terms, the emperor's reward should be selected in the spring and summer, and the punishment and killing can only be carried out in autumn and winter, and gradually evolved into "asking for beheading after autumn".
Second, it is necessary to meet the needs of agricultural labor
As the saying goes, the people take food as the sky. As mentioned earlier, feudal society is dominated by agricultural agriculture, and in an agricultural society where the means of production and production methods are extremely backward, labor is the rarest and most precious means of production, including the attack between the separatist forces, which revolves around population and land.
Since labor is so precious and important, the land needs human race, the bookmaker needs to be taken care of, the grain needs to be harvested, and the porcelain needs to be fired, then the feudal society with land and labor force as the core, the fundamental solution to the grain problem is to solve the problem of the autumn harvest, since human beings learned to cultivate, society has entered the stage of agricultural civilization and patriarchal clan society, and men have undertaken the heavy responsibility of grain cultivation and military service to defend the family and defend the country.
Under normal circumstances, most of the criminals who commit crimes are men, and it is even more so that they are able to commit such a serious crime of killing their heads, unless they are like Pan Jinlian and Wang Bao in "Water Margin", such a woman who commits a major crime of murder must not think about beheading.
Since men are the mainstream labor force of the agricultural society and the civilized society of farming, before the autumn harvest, they must undertake the heavy responsibility of "spring planting and summer management and autumn harvest" at home, and men must go to the fields to work day and night in order to ensure that the family and society can have a harvest, the people have a harvest, and the corresponding can pay taxes and imperial grain to the imperial court, that is to say, after autumn, the beheading is so that the society can have a more adequate labor force.
At this point, many dynasties in ancient China were more enlightened, and when the autumn harvest season came, they would allow the convicts who were convicted of crimes to go home and collect the land, and then come back to implement all the arrangements at home after the autumn harvest was over. It was recorded in the "History of Tang" that Tang Taizong had a story of pardoning more than 400 death row prisoners to go home for the autumn harvest - but did not expect that after the autumn harvest, more than 400 death row prisoners all consciously returned to Chang'an to listen to the execution, Emperor TangZong was deeply moved by the behavior of these death row prisoners after hearing this, so he discussed with Ting Wei Yousi to pardon these prisoners for their capital crimes, which has always been a good story in history.
summary
In fact, after the autumn, although it has a certain feudal superstition color, it is also regarded as a legal humanistic care of feudal society, reflecting the humane side of feudal society, its original intention is to protect precious labor resources to the greatest extent, it is a decision made out of comprehensive consideration of legal theory and human feelings, and it can also be seen that the feudal ruling class has also been well-intentioned in order to consolidate its rule and safeguard the people's will.