"Through the ages, how many, unjust souls sigh." Empty hope, infinite people, and full of grievances. The weeping blood fly laughed at the sky, and the lone sail was stacked with a white chain. The moon rises and the wind blows away. ”
This tragic and cold word comes from "Man Jiang Hong" in "The Great Song Ti Criminal Officer", which is broadcast at the beginning and end of this work.
The cold pronunciation, coupled with the solemn style of Xiao Killing and the dark background, left a terrifying memory in the hearts of the young writers at that time.
Now that I am an adult, looking back on this hot drama of that year, a new insight has surged into the author's heart.
"The Great Song Ti Criminal Officer" mainly tells the experience of the ancient "forensic doctor" Song Ci, which is an early Chinese forensic tv work with an ancient background.
After carefully tasting it, we can't help but find that it is really unfair to judge it as a forensic work, and the scope it contains has been expanded to the entire Song Dynasty law.
Whenever Song Ci loudly stated the rules and regulations in the Song Criminal System to the suspect when solving the case, the author would have such a question: "In ancient times, could the murderer really be punished according to law?" The detection of unsolved cases in the play seems to give the author a clear answer: yes.
But at the end, the plot gives the author another blow: the emperor burns all the evidence collected by Song Ci of the court officials.
The crimes committed by these officials can be described as heinous, but they were pardoned by the emperor, the ruler of the feudal empire, which is really regrettable.
A similar plot appears in the Yongzheng Dynasty: the Yongzheng Emperor, who was still the fourth brother at the time, did not give it to his father after slaughtering Jiangxia Town and obtaining a hundred official deeds, but burned it in front of the emperor.
The most puzzling thing is that the Kangxi Emperor also acquiesced to the practice of the four brothers after learning about it.
Can the punishment really not be on the doctor's body? The plot of these two TELEVISION works makes the author have such a question. After reviewing the information, the author came up with the answer: no.
The basis is not to question the plot of the two TV works themselves, although "The Great Song Ti Criminal Officer" and "Yongzheng Dynasty" are TV works, they are both main dramas, and the plot has a certain historical support.
The conclusion of the negation comes from the analysis of the ancient Chinese legal system, which also leads to the theme discussed in this article- talking about the concept of emperors ruling the country according to law.
I. The Development of the Ancient Chinese Legal System
1. The System of Ritual Punishment - The Beginning of the Ancient Legal System
The development of the ancient Chinese legal system is very similar to that of other parts of the world, that is, gradual "codification". In the early days, people summed up the conventions of life and formed customary law.
With the development of society, specific laws in various fields began to appear, such as the "Theft Law" and the "Thief Law", and then with the further development of society.
People summarized and summarized various specific legal texts, with corresponding legal interpretations, which formed an early legal code, and the idea of governing the country according to law has continued to this day.
"And Yu, Tang, Pan Geng, and Wu Ding, each legislates at that time, and the ceremonies are made according to the events, and the ritual laws are determined by the time, and the orders are made according to their own needs." —— This record from the Book of Shangjun And the Law of Change intuitively shows us the process of establishing the ritual punishment system.
The so-called ritual system is that in ancient times, the higher-ranking rulers defined the norms of daily life according to the classics of the time, and eventually formed a legal system.
Unlike later specific legal provisions, the supreme power of interpretation of all punishments for the formulation and implementation of punishment lies in the ruler's interpretation of the texts.
"If the punishment is unknowable, then the mighty is unpredictable" was the legal guiding ideology of the rulers at that time, and the general public could not predict their fate in customary law.
This was the era of Li Le shengping in the eyes of Confucius, and this historical period was extremely cruel to the general public.
"Libong Le Bad" is the evaluation of the ritual system in the Spring and Autumn Period by the literati at that time and later generations, with the decline of the traditional liturgical music system.
The customary etiquette based on the classics also began to be gradually eliminated, and the "casting of punishments" incident in Zheng Guo and Jin Guo was a sign of this phenomenon.
In this event, the rulers of the two countries carved specific legal provisions on top of the copper and made it known to the public. This marks the end of the era of "criminal unknowability".
At this time, the law developed from unwritten customary law to the period of statutory law, and written laws such as the Book of Law and the Qin Law began to mushroom.
Even so, the legal system at this time was still not separated from the ritual system, because the Spring and Autumn Warring States period was in the transition period from slavery to feudalism, and all kinds of laws at this time had not yet been freed from the restrictions of etiquette.
As for the reasons for the legal changes in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the author believes that it is mainly the desire to improve productivity. First of all, from the analysis of the social environment at this time.
Countless princely states were lined up on a narrow land, and in order to develop, they had to harm the interests of other countries, so war broke out.
As the frequency of war increases, so does the brutality of war. From the initial Spring and Autumn Period hundred multiplier confrontation, to the end of the gentleman's friendship to the Warring States period of the first field battle, and then slaughter the city of animals and animals.
In order to survive, countries can only jump out of the shackles of traditional rituals and develop their own productive forces, which must be supplemented by corresponding laws, so the legal system has also been updated.
2. The "legal system" to the "canonical system" - the gradual improvement of the ancient Chinese legal system
As mentioned above, the development of the ancient Chinese legal system was basically related to the development of social feudalization. During the Spring and Autumn period.
With the quiet change of the nature of society, customary law was gradually replaced by statutory law, but there was no qualitative change, and the real mutation occurred during the Qin and Han dynasties.
As the Qin army's battle axe broke through the armor of various countries, an unprecedented empire appeared on the land of China.
The glory of the empire sprinkled on the land of the former seven kingdoms, making people can't help but look up, but behind this glory lurks a huge crisis.
In terms of geographical disparities, to this day, most of us marvel at the huge disparities between different regions; in the Qin Dynasty more than two thousand years ago, the gap between the peoples of the various regions was only even greater.
At the level of economic exchanges, the EUROPEAN Union, which now has such a perfect system, is also like a clown in the face of interests, and in the Qin Dynasty, the differences will only be more.
In addition, there were a series of challenges facing the emerging empire, and trivial things such as binggu money and food troubled the officials of the empire. In this social context, the rule of etiquette has been unable to adapt to the development of society, and the rule of law has become the only way.
In this context, a large number of statutory laws in various fields began to appear, and the corresponding laws also developed considerably.
The process was long, and the hardships and obstacles in between were innumerable, and finally in the Wei and Jin dynasties, a perfect legal system was established.
After that, the development of the legal system became slow or even stagnant, because at this time the land of China entered a dark period - the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
As a result of successive years of war, the development of all spheres of society was very slow, and feudal culture was seriously damaged.
The original local forces had to compromise with the forces of foreign nations, and in some places even retreated to slavery, everything seemed extremely dark, but the times created heroes.
The pioneers of the Northern Wei Dynasty, such as Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty and Emperor Wu of the Zhou Dynasty, split this darkness, and the identity of the foreign peoples allowed them to see the shortcomings of the traditional Chinese etiquette and change it without regard to the constraints of traditional forces.
The Chinese educational environment allows them to obtain the essence of traditional rituals and develop them, all of which lay a solid foundation for the upcoming "canonical system".
The development of the "canonical system" was perfected in the Tang and Song dynasties, and the emergence of the Tang Law Discussion was a landmark event, and since then, all generations except the Yuan Dynasty have basically followed this legal system.
Second, the analysis of the doctor on the punishment
Before discussing this issue, we must clarify a concept that the rule of law of ancient emperors and the rule of law of modern society are fundamentally two concepts.
Ruling the country according to law in the modern sense reflects more social fairness and justice, maintaining social stability, and all people are part of society, and there is no distinction between high and low.
For the feudal emperor, the law was nothing more than a tool of his centralization, and the only criterion for punishment was whether it would damage his dominance.
The status of doctors and common people in them is different, which is why there is a saying that "the punishment cannot be a doctor, and the courtesy cannot be a commoner".
The nature of feudal law determines that the only criterion for the selection of the object of punishment is whether the object poses a threat to feudal centralized rule.
A typical example of the "criminal doctor" is that Emperor Gaozong of Tang forbade intermarriage between large clans. The Hedong Liu clan, the Qinghe Cui clan, the Fanyang Lu clan and other large clans originated during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the long period of frequent dynastic changes made their attitude towards feudal rulers very delicate.
On the one hand, they were obedient to the emperor, and the emperor must unite with them to maintain his rule over the locality.
On the other hand, countless short-lived dynasties made them despise feudal rulers, and even absurd things happened when they refused to marry princesses because they disliked the low rank of the Li clan.
At least the author does not understand, but this also reflects the prosperity of the door valve wind at that time.
This was naturally not tolerated by the feudal rulers, so Emperor Gaozong of Tang commanded: "Later Wei Longxi Li Bao, Taiyuan Wang Qiong, Xingyang Zhengwen, Fanyang Lu Ziqian, Lu Hun, Lu Fu, Qinghe Cui Zongbo, Cui Yuansun, Former Yan Boling Cui Yi, Jin Zhao County Li Kai, all seven surnames and ten families, must not be faint." ”
However, later generations proved that this was entirely the incompetence and fury of Emperor Gaozong, and there was no significant restriction on intermarriage between the great clans.
Most of the "criminal doctors" appeared in collective criminal activities, and the participants were mostly important courtiers, punishing them for being detrimental to the emperor's rule.
Therefore, the phenomenon of "not being able to punish the doctor" can only be allowed to appear, and the "law does not blame the public" that is left today is also the evolution of this behavior.
summary
The analysis of the "punishment can not be a doctor" reveals the essence of the law in feudal society - whether it affects the emperor's rule as the criterion for punishment, and grasping its essence can help people better understand the historical events in the history books.
bibliography:
The Codex Tradition and the Composition of the Ancient Chinese Legal System