From the scholars' research on the issue of "apprenticeship", it can be seen that it involves the Qin Dynasty prisoners and slaves, and a very important issue needs to be sorted out, that is, when they analyze, the two concepts of slaves and slaves are confused, some are regarded as two different concepts, and some are directly mixed.
It is necessary to study whether slaves and slaves can be mixed at all.
The word "slave" is a concept quoted from the West, and there are few records of "slave" in traditional Chinese ancient books, and there are no clear records of "slave" in the "Shang Shu", "Zuo Chuan", "Chinese", "Warring States Policy", "Shiji" and "Hanshu". In other handed down documents, there are also many records of "slave" and "servant", and their specific meaning is clearly explained in the "Shuowen Jie Zi".
According to the explanation in "Shuowen Jie Zi", slaves are a collective term for people with low status, and ancient criminals are the main source of slaves. This point has something in common with the Western concept of "slave", which is quite broad and refers to different specific content.
According to various interpretations and definitions of "slave" in the West, some researchers summarize the difference between broad and narrow senses, "Slave in the narrow sense is in the sense of class, which refers to an oppressed class in a slave society, and the slave-owning class appears relatively."
The broad term slave is much broader and can be used to represent all those who are oppressed and exploited, including slaves. Slaves and slaves in the broad sense have similarities in conceptual connotation and extension. ”
It can be seen that even Western "slaves" are not only relative to slave societies, they exist at various times, which is not difficult to understand that there will be a movement to emancipate slaves in American society in the century.
Mr. Tian Changwu also pointed out: "At all stages of human historical development, from the period of the disintegration of primitive society to modern capitalist society, slavery has existed. ...... Not any society in which slavery exists can be called a slave society. China's "slaves" also existed until liberation, so they cannot be denied as "slaves" because of their different social forms.
But there are also different views, Mr. Lin Jianming once pointed out: "Although the title 'slave' does not appear in records before the Spring and Autumn Period, there have been slaves and 'concubines' similar to 'concubines'. These people do not own any means of production, they even belong to the slave owners, and their status should be consistent with the status of "slaves" in Marx's writings, and their class status is of course that of slave. ”
That is to say, before the Spring and Autumn period in China, there were "slaves" with the same meaning as in Western slave societies, and although they were not named "slaves", they appeared under the name "concubine" or "concubine". At that time, slave meant slave. However, with the drastic changes in the social formation of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the transformation of the superstructure, and the division of the slave class.
In the Qin and Han dynasties, there were already slaves with personal property, and some "hao slaves" had long become landlord bullies, and they also participated in activities to exploit and oppress the people, which had long been different from "slaves" in the traditional sense.
At this time, 'slaves' could no longer become a class, but a concept of profession like 'scholars' and eunuchs. He deduced that the "slaves" of the Han Dynasty could no longer be called "slaves."
Mr. Lin Jianming's thesis is very valuable for research, he has seen that after the Qin and Han dynasties, the "slaves" have been divided, and some "slaves" are no longer the oppressed class, or even the exploiting class, which is completely inconsistent with the title of "slaves".
It can be seen that the class of "slaves" will also change with the continuous passage of history, so "slaves" cannot be generally equated with "slaves".
Based on the above analysis, let's look at the research objects involved in the "apprenticeship" problem. The above-mentioned people involved in the analysis of the "vain" problem are all punished and forced to serve in labor, and the official slaves or official slaves that scholars believe belong to the lowest level of society and work for the government for free, and this part of the people is no different from the "slaves" and "servants" before the Spring and Autumn Period, that is, the undifferentiated part of the "slaves" analyzed by Mr. Lin Jianming.
They do not possess any means of production, are interned for free servitude, and have no personal freedom. As Mr. Lin Jianming analyzed, "They have no means of production of their own; Second, it is necessary to carry out productive labor for others; 3. No personal freedom. Therefore, their status should be that of slaves. "They are all slaves in the broad sense".
Therefore, the "slave" and "slave" mentioned in the study here refer to the same type of people, and in order to avoid confusion in reference, the term "slave" is used uniformly when referring to "slave" and "slave".
From the interpretation of traditional historical books, it can be seen that Chengdanjiao is a kind of labor sentence as punishment for criminals, and the punished people are mainly engaged in the labor of building castles and rice scooping, so it is named "Chengdangong".
In the "Legal Q&A" of Qin Jian, the unearthed sleeping tiger land, there are provisions on how to punish the perpetrator, and there are also many criminal names such as "Tattoo for Chengdan", "Obvious Speech for Chengdan", and "Punishment for Chengdan".
Ghost pay white rice is also a kind of labor sentence to punish the perpetrator, because the punished person is mostly engaged in the labor of harvesting wages for the shrine and selecting rice, and there is the emergence of the labor sentence name "ghost salary white rice dumpling".
Subordinate concubines: found in the "Hanshu Criminal Law Record": "Ghost salary Bai Yu is one year old, and is a subordinate concubine". Shi Guyu: "Men are subordinates, women are subordinate concubines" Qi Here it is mentioned together with the ghost salary Bai Yu, and it obviously exists in the literature in the form of a criminal name. There are also many records of "subordinate concubines" and "subordinate concubines" in the Sleeping Tiger Land Qin Jian, Longgang Qin Jian, Liye Qin Jian, and Zhangjiashan Han Jian, and there are many titles of "redundant subordinate concubines", "labor subordinates", "prison subordinates, and concubines".
In Qin Jian's "Legal Answers", there are also records of punishing criminals such as "Nai Wei subordinate" and "criminal subordinate minister". These records clearly state that "subordinate concubines" are also a kind of hard labor, which is called "subordinate concubines" because the offender is punished by serving hard labor in the official government.
From the above explanation, it can be seen that Chengdan, ghost salary, and concubines are all prisoners, which is beyond doubt, they are essentially those who violated the law and were punished for hard labor, and the prisoners were the criminal class controlled by the official government and owned by the official government, so the explanation that the Qin Dynasty officials at all levels bought each other's prisoners did not work. Mr. Chen Zhi also pointed out to Han Jian: "Slaves can be bought and sold, but prisoners have no explicit text of buying and selling." ”
It is precisely because of the fact that prisoners cannot be bought and sold, and in order to clearly explain the problem of "buying disciples and subordinates", that Mr. Li Li has the aforementioned view that "apprentices can refer to slaves", and Mr. Wang Jian has the view that "private disciples are subordinate" that is, human concubines are classified as "apprentices".
Although this can make sense of the "vain" transaction, it is inevitably a bit far-fetched. What they call "slaves" and "human concubines" is usually referred to as the slave class, but the scope of slaves is very wide, not only official slaves who are "collected" because the perpetrators sit together, but also bankrupt commoners who sell themselves into slaves, are plundered and sold into slaves, prisoners of war, slave children, and so on.
Nor were all of these slaves closely related to the prisoners. If they want to belong to the "discipleship", then the "disciple" component is too complicated. In addition, slaves are originally a very complex class, there are both official slaves and private slaves, and their origins are also very complex. Just because it is necessary to explain clearly the problem of the sale and purchase of "vassals", it is too far-fetched to classify them and criminals and prisoners as "vassals".
So what part of the people does "disciple" refer to? The analysis of "discipleship" still has to start from the records of the literature, and the relevant records in the historical materials are excerpted below: "In the spring of the seventh year, the disciples were exempted from being subordinate to Yangling."
The "History of the First Emperor of Qin" contains: "In twelve years, Marquis Wen Xin died and was buried by stealing. Those who give up their people are also expelled from the Jin people; The Qin people took the knighthood above 600 stones and moved; If you do not come below five hundred stones, move, do not take the knighthood. From now on, those who do not conduct state affairs like absurdity and do not do it will take advantage of it. "Suoyin" says, "All those who do not have one are disciples, and then they regard this as a common reason." The "Hanshuhui Emperor Ji" contains: "In June, the princes and princes of Fa were subordinate to the 20,000-person city of Chang'an. ”
The "Hanshu Art Literature" contains: "It was the time when the book was created, it began with many things in the official prison, and it became easy to save it, and it was given to the disciples." The "Hanshu Jia Yi Biography" contains: "Shame is not enough, but the minister holds heavy power, the official has the heart to be shameful?" The Book of Han Sima Qian reads: "Brothers and sisters today, subject to wooden cords, violent skin, subject to judgment, hidden in the wall,
At this time, when the jailer sees the warden, he shoots his head and the disciple is relieved. What? The momentum of the covenant is also accumulated. "In the "Later Han Shu Guangwu Emperor Ji", the annotation of the division of the commander of the division contains: "Yinyi" Yun: "Inspector with the subordinate of the palm apprentice, so it is known as the subordinate of the division." The "Later Han Shu Xiaohuan Emperor Ji" contains: "Compared with the Ling Zhi, the period lasted for years, the service was extensive, and the vain was especially diligent." The rain does not stick, the dense clouds disperse, and it is in the woods. He ordered the prisoners to have their sentences commuted by six months each. ”
The "Later Han Shu Kui Instrument Series" contains: "The people sat on copper charcoal, did not enter the bell officials, accumulated hundreds of thousands of people, the craftsmen starved to death, and Chang'an smelled." From the records of "apprenticeship" in the literature, it can be seen that they are all related to prisons and government labor, and from these records, it is inferred that the scope of "apprenticeship" should be among the prisoners and the official slaves who are closely related to the prisoners.
It also makes sense to put this conclusion into the Jian Mu materials, the sentence "dissecting and attacking the zhang" in the chapter of Sleeping Tiger Land Qin Jian's "The Way of Being an Official"; Zhang Jiashan Hanjian's "Two-Year Law Decree Tian Law" contains "forbidden all civil officials to subordinate, do not dare to cut wood and mountains and forests in spring and summer"
The "Law of Gifts" states: "Those who do not have a knight, one bucket of rice, five catties of meat, half a bucket of wine, and half a liter less." Sikou and apprentices, one bucket of rice, three catties of meat, less than half a bucket of wine, and twenty pounds of salt and one promotion" is contained in the "Jin Bulu": "Zhu Nei as county officials and apprentices, eldest men, seven zhang in the table of winter cloth robe, four catties in luoxu, two zhang in xu (prayer), two jin in xu." The simple number of Liye Jian contains: "The fourth year of the prefecture June Jia Wu Shuo Yi Dong Court Ceremonial Ceremony is called Qianling Cheng" Yan Tuan Bu Tian Rest Hand".
These records also show that the "vassals" worked for the government, and the government gave the apprentices food and clothing. Therefore, it is inferred that the scope of "discipleship" should be among the prisoners and the officials and slaves who are closely related to the prisoners.
This assertion can also be confirmed by the records of the official trade in slaves in the official government. From the above analysis, we can see that the scope of "discipleship" seen in Liyejian is the general term for the prisoners "city dan gong, ghost salary, white rice and concubinage" and official slaves who sit and take their wives because of the criminal.
This conclusion seems to conflict with the identity of the laborer as seen in the "Book of Disciples", mainly because of the scope of "subordinate concubines". There are many studies on "subordinate concubines" among criminals in the Qin Dynasty, especially the research on the identity of "subordinate concubines", and there are many debates, and the current view tends to believe that the composition of "subordinate concubines" in the Qin Dynasty is complex, and it is the transformation stage from official slaves to prisoners, so there are both prisoners and official slaves.
This may explain why there are no records of official slaves in the "Book of Disciples" who are sat together with the perpetrators, they appear as "subordinate concubines". Therefore, the scope of "apprenticeship" in the "book of apprentices" should include the "city dan gong, ghost salary, and subordinate concubines" and the official slaves and slaves "subordinate concubines" who sit and collect because the offender sits together.
Before the Spring and Autumn Period, the ancients also called "slaves" as "Zang Gain", "Zang" refers to criminals who have been convicted of stolen goods, and "Gain" refers to war prisoners, so criminals and prisoners are the main source of slaves. It can be seen that the relationship between criminals and slaves is deep. Because the perpetrators were not slaves, it can be said that there was no concept of "torture" at that time.
But things are not static, and as society continues to evolve, the situation in which sinners are not enslaved will certainly change with the changing economic base and superstructure. As Mr. Chen Yuhuan said: "In the Spring and Autumn Period, due to the promulgation of the written law "Casting the Punishment Book" and "Casting the Punishment Ding", the social phenomenon of 'crime being punished as a slave' gradually changed, from more to less, and even qualitative mutation.
As a result, from a lifelong slave to a crime, it was changed to determine the severity of the sentence because of the size of the crime. "Instruments that record the law appear, and the corresponding target of punishment, the "prisoner", will also appear. The concept of "prisoner" first appeared in the history books in the "History Records of Sun Zi Lie", "Qi messengers are like Liang, and Sun Mian uses the conspiracy of prisoners to say Qi envoys." It can be seen that the title of "torturer" appeared during the Spring and Autumn Warring States period.
However, the transformation of the punished from slave to prisoner cannot be a one-position position, although there were prisoners in the Spring and Autumn Warring States, but the punished for crimes is gradually transformed from slaves to prisoners, although it has the characteristics of a prisoner, it will inevitably have the attributes of a slave.
In the Qin and Han volumes of the Encyclopedia of Chinese History, there are clear explanations of "prisoners" and "slaves", and their characteristics and differences are very obvious.
This shows that there was already a difference between prisoners and slaves in the Qin Dynasty, but it can also be seen that torturers still have the residual nature of slaves. Moreover, most of the punished people exist in the form of "apprenticeship", a name that obviously carries the meaning of a combination of prisoners and slaves.
This is also the reason why many scholars have divided "apprenticeship" into "apprentice" and "subordinate" to understand, interpreting it as a combination of prisoners and slaves or criminal slaves.
Because both prisoners and official slaves work in the official government, prisoners and official slaves are more closely connected, but there is a clear difference between them. Prisoners are criminals who have violated the law and have been punished by the judicial authorities to perform unpaid labor for the government, and although official slaves also serve unpaid labor for the government, they themselves have not violated the punishment, and they can be bought and sold.
Nevertheless, from the literal meaning of the word "disciple" and the simple materials unearthed, it can be seen that the prisoner still has the remnants of slavery.
There are many studies on "subordinate concubines", including both prisoners and official slaves who sit together because of the perpetrator, and it is precisely because "subordinate concubines" can refer to prisoners and official slaves, so the "subordinate concubines" of prisoners are also recognized as having the residual nature of slaves.
There is relatively little research on the other two, and they generally attribute "city dan and ghost salary" to prisoners. But are "city dan dan and ghost salary" just prisoners? Regarding "Chengdanjiang", Mr. Xu Qixiu once analyzed in the article "Looking at the "Subordinate Concubines" and the "Identity" of Chengdanjiang from the Changes of Ancient Sinners' Slavery Punishment", that those who were sentenced to "Chengdanjiang" and "subordinate concubines" above were criminal slaves.
However, this view did not resonate with the academic community after it was proposed. And there is also a very important issue, the issue of the length of the Qin Dynasty's sentences, of course, this issue has also caused academic debate, but now most scholars tend to think that the Qin Dynasty's sentences are more reasonable without a sentence.
It is difficult to understand that only "subordinate concubines" are prisoners with the nature of slaves, and here is based on the two paragraphs of Qin Jian's information mentioned earlier, combined with these two issues, to further analyze the indefinity of "City Danjian".
It can be seen from the example of Sleeping Tiger Di Qin Tomb Bamboo Jian's "Sealed Diagnosis Style Counselor" that here C is a slave purchased by A from the government, and after the above analysis, C should be an official slave implicated by the perpetrator.
Because he did not do anything and did not listen to his master's orders, his master asked the government to punish him as if he were a criminal as a punishment. After verification, the government withdrew A's slave C, and it was a punishment of "Finish the City" by C.
Now C has been sold to the government and has become a prisoner serving the punishment of the city. If the prisoner has a certain period of imprisonment, then it is not better for C to persuade him that he can restore his freedom after a few years of imprisonment than to be a private slave of A?
Therefore, being punished as a prison sentence is certainly also a punishment with no time limit. This is the punishment of prisoners relative to private slaves, and it can also be seen that prisoners are relative to official slaves, and it should be punished for life.
It can be seen from the example of "subordinate to the city dan and accept his foreign wife and son" in the "Sleeping Tiger Land Qin Tomb Bamboo Jane Legal Answer", it is clear here that after the criminal was sentenced to the city dan, his wife and son were confiscated, and the confiscated wife and son were all tradable, and the identity was an official slave.
The sentencing principle of Qin Law is that the main offender should be heavier, and the joint person should be lighter, and the punishment suffered by the family of the sinner is generally lighter than that of the person who committed the crime, and only if the guilt is not reported or conspired to commit the crime, it is judged as "the same crime".
Since the wives and sons who were sentenced to the punishment of Chengdan above are not even sitting as official slaves, the official slaves must have no time limit, and naturally those who are sentenced to Chengdan must also be indefinite. At the same time, from the fact that the city dan punishment is life-defending, it can also be seen that the city dan punishment also has the nature of an official slave.
Regarding the ghost salary white glory, there are few records in the literature and simple materials, and the scope of application of this punishment is relatively narrow, according to the records in the sleeping tiger land Jian, the ghost salary white rice is generally punished by people with a certain identity such as Shangzuo or Dezi. Therefore, it is more difficult to start the study of this type of identity punishment.
But according to the level of the prisoner, the ghost salary white rice is between the city dan and the subordinate concubines, which has been agreed by the academic community, and from the above analysis, it can be seen that the city dan and the subordinate concubines are both prisoners with the remnants of the nature of slaves, and the ghost salary white rice is no exception.
From the above analysis, it can be seen that the city dan gong, ghost salary white corn, and subordinate concubines are essentially prisoners, because the prisoners are constantly separated from the ancient slaves, so the prisoners of the Qin Dynasty inevitably have the residual nature of slaves.
In particular, subordinate concubines, which include both prisoners and official slaves, which is why the prisoners "chengdan, ghost salary, and subordinate concubines" can be involved in the criminal person together with the official slaves "subordinate concubines" are collectively called "apprentices".
Therefore, "apprentices" not only have the nature of prisoners but also official slaves, and they all belong to the "state-owned slaves" who have no personal freedom under the control of the state.
"Apprentice" in the "apprenticeship" is an abbreviation, it should be called "apprenticeship", here "disciple" refers to the prisoner, "subordinate" refers to the official slave, "apprentice" includes two types of people, in a general sense of the "apprenticeship" in the "apprenticeship" should be the "official slave" or called "state-owned slave" who served the state for free.