Why Unjust Cases Arise: Judicial Archives and Trial and Transfer System in the Qing Dynasty| Shi Zhiqiang
summary
During the Yongzheng period, Tu Rusong was falsely accused of killing his wife after his wife disappeared, and after several years of trial, tu's wife reappeared in the world when the death penalty was about to be executed. Using the newly discovered historical materials, we can see the process of constructing, modifying and perfecting the Tu Rusong wife murder case in the proposed judgment of officials at all levels. The reason is that the existence of the judicial responsibility system makes grass-roots officials tend to defend their mistakes, and upper-level officials rarely personally mention personal trials in order to avoid responsibility, but constantly order retrials. Through various information communication mechanisms, grass-roots officials will consult their superiors before making a proposed judgment, and it is inevitable that the trial and transfer will be a formality. In addition, due to the lack of historical materials on the process, the criminal section inscriptions reported to the central government by provincial officials have long been widely used as the basic material for the study of legal history. Officials at all levels below the provincial level remind people to reflect on the nature of archival materials for the processing and modification of the proposed judgment.
Keywords Qing Dynasty; Trial and Transfer System; ShumaCheng Prison; Judicial Responsibility; Judicial Archives
In the last year of Yongzheng, the wife of Tu Rusong, a villager in Macheng County, Hubei Province, disappeared, tu Rusong was accused of killing his wife, the trial of the case lasted six years, several easy judgments, two county officials were dismissed, and more than 20 officials participated in the trial. Just when tu Rusong and others' guilty verdict had been approved and they were about to be beheaded, Tu's wife was suddenly discovered to be still alive in the human world, and eventually she was wronged, during which dozens of officials and students of all sizes were questioned, and the governor was also transferred back to Beijing to report for duty, which evolved into a political storm in the Hubei officialdom, known as "the first strange case in Hubei, although the poor countryside avoided the land, huang tong Bai Soo knew everything." We can't help but ask why this bizarre injustice like "The Return of Martin Gale" happened? How did the constructed Tu Rusong wife murder case pass the review of officials at all levels? As we all know, the handling of criminal cases in the Qing Dynasty adopted a system of trial and review on a case-by-case basis, and the "serious cases of murder and theft" that were sentenced to imprisonment, exile, and capital punishment had to be reviewed by higher-level officials before they could be closed. In particular, the review of death penalty cases is the most complicated, and after the prefecture and county make a proposed judgment, it must undergo a layer-by-layer review from the local to the central government, and finally need the approval of the emperor. The strict and complicated judicial procedures of the Qing Dynasty undoubtedly embodied the idea of "prudent punishment" and the concept of pursuing justice in individual cases. Moreover, this kind of trial and transfer mechanism actually has relatively strict control over judicial documents. Although a considerable part of the Qing Dynasty's shogunate works are about how to "cut" documents and cast iron cases, many scholars have pointed out that because these documents are to enter the trial and transfer system, as a judicial document of "highly artificial manufacturing", if it is too much oil and vinegar, it is easy to be rejected by the superiors, so the "cutting" of the shogunate is more about making the case and "the provisions or interpretations of the statutory law that you want to apply, there are more connection points, which is a process of formatting the case.". So, under such strict procedures, why would this fictitious murder case be unimpeded under the multi-level review of the Government to the Ministry of Punishment? Since few judicial documents produced by officials at all levels during the trial and transfer process have been preserved, the study of the specific techniques of document production and the process of trial and transfer is still lacking. On the other hand, unjust cases emerged one after another in the Qing Dynasty, so how effective the complex and exquisite trial and transfer system and the strict provisions on judicial documents were, and whether the occurrence of unjust cases was a problem of individual officials or a system factor still needs to be further explored. The author was fortunate to find various types of materials related to Tu Rusong's case, such as private writings, sonatas, genealogies, and Fang Zhi. After meticulous text analysis and comparing the judgments of officials at all levels at the grass-roots level, we can see that in the process of trial and transfer, officials at all levels protect each other layer by layer, and the process of the fictitious Tu Rusong killing his wife is gradually processed and improved in the process of trial and transfer, until it is seamless. The author believes that the occurrence of this unjust case is not accidental, but related to the institutional design of the trial and transfer system, because of judicial responsibility and collusion between officials at higher and lower levels, the so-called layer-by-layer deportation of pro-mention and pro-interrogation often becomes a formal written review.
I. Tu Rusong's Wife Murder Case and "Self-Police Record"
Regarding the case of Tu Rusong's wife murder, the author was fortunate to find the precious historical material of Tang Yingqiu's "Self-Police Record" compiled by Tang Yingqiu in the library of Peking University. Tang Yingqiu served as the commander of Macheng County during the Yongzheng period, but was later dismissed from his post and sentenced for the case. After the truth came out, he compiled the relevant documents in the process of trial and transfer into a book called "Self-Police Record", and Tang said in the preface that "the compilation of the Macheng files was compiled into a book", hoping that "in the spare time, I would read it from time to time" thinking that it was "official proverbs". However, this book was not widely circulated later, and Yang Yaozu, a Fellow Villager of Lingchuan who was requested by Tang during the Daoguang Years, "could not ask for it all" in Guilin, but fortunately found a copy at the famous Guangdong curtain Zhu Feng, so it was republished. According to the author's "Self-Police Record", the Peking University collection is a re-engraved version of Yang Yaozu in the eighth year of Daoguang (1828). According to the records in Jiaqing's "Great Qing Unification Zhi" and Jiaqing's "Guangxi Tongzhi", Tang Yingqiu's book is "Record of Police Hearts", and the art and literature of Jiaqing's "Guangxi Tongzhi" contains two prefaces from Tang Yingqiu's "Records of Police Hearts", which have been checked by the author, and they are basically the same as the prefaces in the "Self-Police Record", which may be that there was a mistake in Lu Yufenghai in the process of copying the literature. Of course, what needs to be pointed out here is that the "Self-Police Record" is a compilation of archival documents, which cannot be equated with the archives themselves. Fortunately, the author also found more than ten pieces of relevant materials for this case from the Yongzheng Qianlong Dynasty Recital In the First Historical Archives, all of which are official documents in the later stage of the case, with detailed information, and the documents received in the "Self-Police Record" can be corroborated with each other, which shows that the "Self-Police Record" is more reliable. Regarding this case, Yuan Ming, a famous scholar of the Qing Dynasty, once wrote "Shumacheng Prison". The article was first included as a literary work in a number of Qing Dynasty anthologies, which were widely circulated, and later it was also included in the case compilation "Prison Turtle Jian Supplement" compiled by Hu Wenbing of the Qing Dynasty, and entered the judicial knowledge system. So how did Yuan Ming learn about this case, and what is the connection with this case? The book "Self-Police Record" contains a preface written by the new Macheng County Commander Chen Ding, who eventually discovered the hiding place of Tu Rusong's wife and was wronged by Tang Yingqiu and others. Chen Ding is a native of Haining, Zhejiang, and the book is prefaced by Zhu Hong, a native of Haining Township and Chen Ding's father-in-law. The "Haichang Zhu Clan Reconstruction Genealogy" contains letters written by Zhu Delin, another member of the ZhuHong clan, to Yuan Ming, perhaps Chen Ding and Zhu Hong were one of the sources of Yuan Ming's writing of the Book Macheng Prison. The truth of this case was finally revealed, and Shi Yizhi, who was the governor of Huguang at the time, also made good friends with Yuan Mei, and after Yuan Meizhong entered the Hanlin Academy, Shi Yizhi, who was then a university scholar, was his teacher, and the two had a lot of contacts, and Yuan Mei may have heard about the case from Shi Yizhi.
Second, the first strange case: before and after tu Rusong's wife murder case
This case occurred in Macheng County, Hubei Province, in the eighth year of Yongzheng (1730), and Tu Rusong and his wife had been newly married for more than a year. On the thirteenth day of the first month, his wife Tu Yang returned to his mother's home, and on the twenty-fourth day, his brother Yang Wurong sent him back to the Tu family. That night, Tu Rusong claimed that Yang was missing, invited neighbors to look around, and went to Yang Wurong's house in the middle of the night to inquire. Ru Song searched for several days in a row and found nothing. On the 29th of the first month, rusong reported the official reward to look for it. Yang Wurong accused Tu Rusong of killing his sister. Because Yang's body was not found, and Tu Rusong's mother frequently appealed, Tu Rusong was finally released. Soon after, the county ordered Yang Sipu to be removed from his post for a long time because of this case. On October 17, 1988, Tang Ying of Zhixian County was asked to go to Macheng County to perform his duties, believing that the incident was instigated by Yang Tongfan, a member of the sheng, to make a false accusation against Yang Wurong. In order to find the Yang family, Tang Ying asked for a high-priced reward. On May 24, the ninth year of Yongzheng (1731), Liu Zhaotang, Baozheng of Shajing District, Tingchuan Township, Macheng County, reported yesterday that Zhao Junian, the head of the card, said that the stray dogs on the beach of Zhao Jiahe pulled out the corpse on their backs, "there is no skin and flesh around the body, but there is still a skin and bone on the back of one hand, and there are two points of decaying white cloth on the waist." However, because of the strong wind and heavy rain, Tang Yingqiu did not lead the servants to check in time, and only went to the beach for inspection on the twenty-seventh day. Tang Yingqiu's description of the body in the general details after the inspection became "there is no skin and flesh around the body, only a tattered cloth shirt, a torn blue and white brine jacket, and a bed with a blue face and a white jacket", on the one hand, the description of the corpse has changed, and Tang Yingqiu's autopsy has been delayed by two days. Subsequently, Yang Wurong borrowed the corpse and charged it, believing that it was Yang's corpse. In this regard, the Huangzhou government instructed that it should be determined whether it was Yang's skeleton through bone drops in accordance with the "Record of Washing Injustices". And Tang Yingqiu then said above that The corpse and the hair braid should be a male corpse, in order to make Yang Wurong convinced, Tang Yingqiu also asked the Huangzhou government to agree to open the coffin and the mother of the Tu Yang family for blood testing. Huang Zhoufu further proposed to The Imperial Household that since Yang Wurong did not accept Tang's request, it was suggested that another member of the committee conduct a blood test. Soon Tang yingqiu was dismissed from his post due to failure to complete the trial on schedule. In September, the inspector vetoed the method of blood testing, and also instructed Gao Renjie of Guangji Zhi County and Macheng Zhi County to conduct a joint inspection to determine whether they were men and women, if they were not female corpses, to investigate the whereabouts of the Yang clan, "If it is the body of the Yang clan, then guangji County will be ordered to bring back the criminals, find out the truth of the death, and solve the situation according to the plan." On October 24, Gao Renjie of Guangji ZhiXian did not wait for the new Macheng Zhixian Li Zuofu to go directly to the examination, and the final conclusion was that the female corpse was found. The balance then fell to Yang Wurong's side, and Gao Renjie and Li Zuofu first passed the inspection conclusions, and then they made a proposed judgment that Tu Rusong had killed his wife and buried the body, and the former county commander Tang Yingqiu neglected the examination. Regarding this proposed judgment, Jiang Jianian, who was nursing the Huangzhou capital, pointed out that there were many doubts and rejected it four times. Under the instructions of the overseer, Jiang Jianian re-examined, overturned Gao Li's conclusion, and still identified it as a male corpse. Subsequently, Huanggang County Zhixian Chang Yuxiong and Pushui County Zhixian Wang She were assigned to be responsible for the case, and the two pointed out that Tang Yingqiu did not distinguish the gender of the skeleton, and "changed the report" and should be dismissed. On May 23, 1734, the original autopsy coffin placed by the Zhao family river was washed away by the flood, and only eight skeletons remained, making it impossible to compare. On the one hand, Chang and Wang pointed out that Tang Yingsu had changed the autopsy report, and on the other hand, they also believed that the case was quite suspicious. At this time, the emperor had the intention that "Tang should be dismissed from his post, and his play depends on human life, etc., and the inspector should examine and approve the proposed performance." Chang Yuxiong and Wang She, because they had consulted Tang Yingqiu, were inconvenient to continue interrogation, so Zou Yunhuan of Xianning Zhi County and Huang Yizhong of Huangpi Zhi County were appointed to take charge of the case. In October of the twelfth year of Yongzheng, Zou and Huang made a proposed judgment that Tu Rusong had killed his wife. In December of the same year, the trial was transferred to the acting inspector Yang Qian, and finally the emperor was played. The new Commander of Macheng County, Chen Ding, arrived in April of the twelfth year of Yongzheng. After Chen Ding arrived at his post, he could not ask for rain, and someone told him that it was caused by grievances in the county, so Chen Ding began to send people to visit secretly. On the seventh day of the first month of July in the thirteenth year of Yongzheng, the emperor issued an edict that Cai Can, who had been planning the layout for Tu Rusong behind the scenes, would be beheaded immediately, and Tang Yingqiu, Tu Rusong, and others would be hanged and executed after the autumn. When his life was hanging on the line, Chen Ding found Yang At Yang Wurong's house. Yang shi confessed that on the twenty-fourth day of the first month of the eighth year of Yongzheng, after arguing with Tu Rusong, he went to find Feng Da, who had an adulterous affair with him. Yang Wurong mistakenly believed that Tu Yang had been killed without a trace, so he accused Tu Rusong. Yang Wurong later learned the truth, but because he had already accused the murder of being difficult to withdraw, he sent Tu Yang to his cousin Yang Tongfan. In July of the twelfth year of Yongzheng, Yang Tongfan's wife Liu Shi heard that the case had been completed and sent her back to Yang Wurong's house. After that, due to the involvement in the previous trial and transfer process of the case, the governor of Huguang, Chen Maizhu, could not accept this result, did everything possible to cover up, and clashed with Wu Yingdi, the governor of Hubei who had recently taken up his post. It was not until the Qianlong Emperor ordered the two to return to Beijing and sent Shi Yizhi to deal with the case, that it was finally revealed.
Figure 2 Collection of Washed Injustices
Three. Between Fiction and Reality: The Technique of Textuality in the Judicial Process
Tu Yangshi was still alive, but the unjust case that was woven by Luo Weaving was tried by five officials, and finally transferred to the Ministry of Punishment and reported to the emperor for approval. So under such a complicated trial and transfer procedure, why was the accusation of Tu Rusong killing his wife unimpeded and approved by the emperor? Let's see how Tu Rusong's account of his wife's murder was woven and constructed. Due to the complexity of the case, in order to facilitate comparison, the author divides the contents of the document into three parts in chronological order: the occurrence of the crime , the burial of the body — and the aftermath. What needs to be explained here is that in addition to the formal proposed judgment, the author has also added a comparison to the general details of the investigation and murder cases of state and county officials. In the Case of Theft of Orders in the Qing Dynasty, the prefecture and county officials needed to report to their superiors yamen after the inquest, and then conduct the communication first, and then carry out the details. The content of the general gift is relatively simple, and the general details are more detailed, including the specific results of the investigation and the content of the confession. Although it is not a proposed judgment, the general details are still of great significance in the practice of criminal justice in the Qing Dynasty. The Qing dynasty has pointed out that "the investigation and reporting of homicide cases is heavy and detailed", and the first detail of the murder case often determines the direction of the case after the case. During the Qianlong period, Inspector Ya'ertu of Henan once pointed out that in practice there were often cases in which "all the reports were submitted by the owner of the matter" and were detailed; in this way, after the criminals arrived at the case, the prefecture and county officials would "stick to the previous report and force a confession, and the person who took the trial thought that the confession was in line with the case, and naturally the true sin was true." It can also be seen that the general details often affect the direction of the case. Therefore, although the detailed judgment here is informal, it is also a link worthy of attention and analysis in the process of trial and transfer.
First of all, the case part, the first trial of Guangji County Ling Gao Renjie and the new Macheng County Ling Li Zuo room after the investigation and trial of the case first detailed to the superiors. In the general details they state:
On the twenty-fourth day of the first month of the eighth year of Yongzheng, (Tu Yang's) returned from his mother's house to pay respects to the festival, and his sister-in-law Xu rebuked him for violating the limit and returning late, and Yang's reply was abrupt, such as loose anger, so they beat each other, and the spinning wheel injured Yang's lower abdomen, and the pregnant fetus was moderate, and he died immediately.
Subsequently, in the proposed judgment made by Yongzheng in July of the tenth year, Gao and Li wrote,
On the twelfth day of the first month of the eighth year of Yongzheng, he returned to his mother's house to pay respects to the festival, and due to the rain obstruction, he returned with his brother Yang Wurong on the twenty-fourth day of this month. It was Ri Rusong who went out, and his sister Xu scolded him for violating the limit and returning late, and Yang Shi replied that he was contradictory. When Ru Song returned home at night, Xu Shi informed him of his feelings. Ru Song scolded the clan, and the Xu clan shouted and cursed, and Ru Song slapped his left cheek with his right hand, and the spinning wheel raised his hand and beat him forward. Ru Song captured the counterattack, injuring Yang's right rear rib that was not fatal. Shi turned back and twisted the knot, such as Song Qi pushed Shi away, with the spinning wheel to hit, moderate Yang's fatal abdomen, because of the Four Months pregnancy was beaten fetal, immediately died. At night, his neighbors did not know the feeling of beating.
Compared with the general details and proposed judgment of Gao Li and Li, the first change is the explanation of Yang's late return, and the phrase "due to the value of rain obstruction" in the proposed judgment makes Yang's late return also have a justified reason, which makes Yang's innocence even more obvious. Secondly, the description of the process of the two sides beating each other is summarized in the general details as "if they are angry, they are not inferior, so they beat each other". The process of killing has been described in great detail in the formal trial, including the course of the quarrel, the location of the injury and the reason for the fatality. In addition, the former chief judge of Macheng County, Ling Tang Yingqiu, once questioned two points: First, "If the place where Song lives is adjacent to dozens of households, it is not comparable to the deep mountains, and if you want to hide the corpse, no one will see it"; second, "and the young shouzhi of the Xu clan, stop this son, his daughter-in-law is nothing less than his own birth, the son is fierce, and Imu is willing to sit idly by and not save it." Gao Renjie and others also defended this in the document, pointing out that it was night, and the neighbors did not know this situation. Tu Rusong happened to hit the pregnant Yang's lower abdomen, which also explained why the dispute between husband and wife escalated into a murder incident, emphasizing the accidental factor.
Later, the proposed judgment of Zou Yunhuan of Xianning County and Huangpi County, who was in charge of the case, was finally transferred to the emperor, and a lot of details were added to this proposed judgment. Let's first look at Zou and Huang's description of the case before the case:
There is the son of Yang Wurong, the sister of the county citizen Yang Wurong, who is not yet married, and her ex-husband has passed away and transferred Tu Rusong as his wife. On the thirteenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Yongzheng, the Yang clan returned to Ningbai Festival. Extended to the twenty-fourth day, Wurong sent his sister to the middle of the way, because the sister's foot pain was difficult to travel, that is, Yu Yiqi Li Mingji borrowed a donkey to ride, and began to return after breakfast. When Rusong went out, Song's mother Xu shi was sick in bed, and after Wurong's return, she reprimanded Yang for returning late, and Yang's reply was not inferior. And if Song returns late, Xu Shi informs him of the reasons for not being inferior.
The most important thing here is "when the pine is out, the pine mother Xu shi is sick in bed." In the previous review, it had not been clear whether Wu Rong had sent his sister to Ru Song's house. If Yang did not go home, but was abducted and fled on the way, then Ru Song's killing of his wife would become nonsense. In Tu Rusong's earliest complaint, it is also explained that although Yang Wurong said that he sent his sister to his home, Tu's mother Xu did not see Yang. Later, Jiang Jianian, who was nursing the affairs of the Huangzhou government at the time in the lawsuit, also pointed out that tu Rusong had different opinions on whether yang had ever arrived home, and "its emotional shortcomings have long wanted to cover up." In the end, in the judgment of Zou Yunhuan and others, the fact that Yang had already returned home was clarified, and Tu Rusong's mother was at home at that time, which was also a response to Tu Rusong's complaint and Jiang Jianian's questioning. In addition, at the beginning, it was also introduced that "Tu Yang's son of Wang Tingliang, who was not yet married, suddenly passed on Tu Rusong as his wife." This has not been mentioned in previous judgments, and the writing here makes the entire case file richer, making people feel that their trial is more serious and meticulous than before. Although the reason for the delay was mentioned in the previous judgment was due to the rain obstruction, it was not clear. Zou and Huang pointed out that it was late because of foot pain and difficulty in walking, not the rain as mentioned above, and we have no way of knowing the reasons for the above changes. However, the previous review was only submitted to Jiang Jianian, who nursed the government affairs, and this time Jiang no longer cared for the affairs of the government, so this change is naturally unknown. But the effect is the same, that is, to rationalize Tu Yang's late behavior and give it a reasonable advantage. Previously, it was only said that after Yang's return, Xu Shi "blamed him for violating the limit and returning late", and here he added "Xu Shi was sick in bed", and in the face of his mother-in-law who was sick in bed, Tu Yang's lack of words seemed to be more difficult to tolerate.
Zou and Huang's proposed judgment successfully entered the trial and transfer procedure, in which the government and the department did not object, and finally passed on the title of Inspector Yang. In the inspector's book, the process of the crime is described as follows:
Cai Can was accustomed to litigation, and yang shi, the wife of the county resident Tu Rusong, returned to Ningbai on the twelfth day of the first month of the eighth year of Yongzheng. Extended to the twenty-fourth day, the brother Yang Wurong sent his sister home. Tu Rusong's mother, Xu Shi, was ill in bed and blamed him for being late, and Yang Shi replied that he was not inferior.
The Criminal Investigation Department is mainly responsible for the legal trial of the case rather than the factual trial, probably because the title book has a certain format, so the language of Yang Qian's title book is more concise, and the content is also omitted a lot. For example, the reason for Yang's late return home evolved from the initial rain to foot pain, and this part was omitted from the inscription. When Yang Shi returned home, Tu Rusong was originally emphasized, and in the inscription, he used "Rusong Late Return" to explain, concise and concise, saving a lot of unnecessary pen and ink. The official proverbs of the Qing Dynasty pointed out that "one more plot, one more doubt, one more testimony, one more drag." Since the Criminal Investigation Department is only a written trial, the omission of details naturally has less to blame. Although many plots are omitted, there is still some emphasis in the title, and the fact that Tu Rusong's mother is sick in bed is still retained, which can also explain the reasons for the fight between the husband and wife and why the mother did not stop it. Since Cai Can was designated as the mastermind, and finally sentenced to a beheading sentence according to the example of "single stick as the head", Tu Rusong was also the Marquis of Hanging, so the image of "Cai Can's habitual litigation" was first created in the title of the inspector. The instigation of raw elements was strictly prohibited in ancient society. The Song Dynasty introduced the "Law on Telling Yourself not to do your own thing" to curb the litigation activities of students and others, and this provision was followed by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Therefore, although the inscription of the inspector is concise and concise, it still lays out the image of Cai Can first.
Next we look at the process of killing. The first is Zou Huang's judgment:
Xu Shi informed him of the reasons for not being inferior, such as Song entering the room and reprimanding Yang Shi. The Yang clan was not convinced, and insisted on the spinning wheel of the wood heart to fight. Ru Song grabbed the car heart, Yang Shi turned to avoid, Ru Song was about to beat the car heart to his right back rib. Yang Shi cried and scolded, and turned back to seize the heart of the car. Ru Song poked at the heart of the car again, injuring Yang's lower abdomen, Yang's original April pregnancy, was beaten and injured, immediately fell to the ground, moved to die. Ru Song was afraid of sin and went to the uncle tu Fangmu of the summoning clan to consult at home.
Compared with the previous killing process, although the length of this time is limited, it has a more detailed and reasonable writing. The most important change is that the murder weapon is no longer a spinning wheel, but a spinning wheel' wooden heart. Previously, the murder weapon was considered to be a spinning wheel, but in fact, the spinning wheel was huge in size, and it was difficult for pregnant women Yang to lift it. The new review is proposed to change the wooden heart of the spinning wheel to a much more reasonable. The narrative of the place where Tu and his wife fought, which was previously "Xu Shi informed his feelings", has now become "Xu Shi told not inferior reasons", which first stained Yang's previous behavior with a negative color. The fight process is also more tortuous and detailed. In addition, subjective statements such as fatality and non-fatality have been deleted, and this practice has been continued in the title book of later inspectors. Zou and Huang removed the sentence "When the party is dark, his neighbors do not know the feeling of beating". Jiang Jianian has left office, and the response to Jiang's questions is dispensable.
In the inspector's inscription, it is written:
If Song returned to the precepts in the evening, Yang's disobedience, and he beat him with the old spinning car heart, such as Song grabbed the car heart, rushed to beat Yang's right rear rib, Yang turned around and grabbed the car heart, Tu Rusong poked at the car heart again, injuring Yang's small belly, Yang's fetus was beaten, and he died when he moved.
Although the inscription is brief, there is a lot of ink on the killing process, and there are details and omissions, mentioning that the killing tool is the spinning car heart, the injured part is the right posterior rib, and the cause of death is the injury to the small belly and the fetus. The inscription first emphasizes that it is an "old" spinning wheel, indicating that this equipment is the original of the Tu family, and it is more natural for Yang to pick it up for many years. In addition, it is not emphasized that it is a "wooden heart" but directly says the spinning car core, the spinning wheel at that time was wooden, and there was no need to specifically explain the material. The second is to say that Rusong "chased" Yang's family, and added a word "rush" to fully explain Tu Rusong's subjective intentions. Moreover, since it is "catching up", it means that it is a process of Chasing Yang Shi like Song, and the sentence "Yang Clan turned around and avoided" mentioned in Zou and Huang's judgment is already self-evident.
Then there is the process of burying the body, which is quite brief in the detailed text of Gao and Li, and the analysis of this article begins with the initial review of Gao and Li, according to which:
Ru Song, the uncle of the Shang clan Tu Fang, invited Cai Bingqian, Cai San, and Cai Wu to gather cai Bingqian, Cai San, and Cai Wu, and Ru Song invited Li Si to his home, each of whom promised rice money, and carried the corpse to the vegetable garden of the three liters of the first door and buried it privately. Fang Mu also ordered Ru Song to say that Yang Shi was missing, and invited his neighbors Dai Jiusi, Tu Damei, and Tu Xin to find Yang Wurong's house at night, and Yun Clan did not know where he was going. Goei heard the letter and went to the Rusong family and found it everywhere.
Compared with the detailed text, the names of the people who assisted in the burial and searching have been mentioned here, and the "Promise to Rice Money" has also been mentioned, and the first burial site has also been determined as "in the vegetable garden of the first three liters of the door". After the proposed judgment entered the trial and transfer procedure, under the personal interrogation of Jiang Jianian, who was nursing the affairs of the Huangzhou government at that time, many criminals retracted their confessions one after another. Moreover, Jiang pointed out the illogical points in the criminal circumstances previously constructed in this case. The first is that "Cai Bingqian said that Yi was old and blind, and Cai San offered Yi's feet to be lame, and how could he carry the corpse at night." Secondly, after the killing, Tu Rusong begged his neighbors to go to Yang Wurong's house together to find someone, and these close neighbors must have known that Yang was dead, so why not look for them when they were buried when they were buried, but "the four people with the strange surname Cai Bingqian, who had nothing to do with the pain and itching, were buried." Third, Cai San, Cai Wu, and Tu Rusong did not have deep friends, why did they agree to carry the body, if it was for money, but the income was very limited. In the face of such doubts, Gao and Li said that they "followed the points of refutation, and collected the evidence of each crime and studied them one by one", and later they pointed out that "although Bingqian and Cai San were blind and limp, they were not diseased, and when they carried the corpse, their eyes were still clear, and they were able to walk." In Zou Yunhuan's verdict, the process of burying the body becomes:
Ru Song was afraid of sin and went to the uncle tu Fangmu of the summoning clan to consult at home. Fang Mu set up a strategy for this, and the order was to carry the body and bury it, pretending to go to the Wurong family to find someone, for the sake of Tu Lai. Ru Song then wrapped the corpse in a fold, Fang Mu summoned Cai San, Cai Wu, and Cai Bingqian, and Ru Song summoned Li Si to his home, hunked his body, and allowed Qian Gu to obey. Cai Bingqian's eyesight was not good, and He Hoe and Cai Wu went to plan the soil first. Cai San and Li Si used pine wood to carry the corpse out of the door, not far away, bumped into Zhao Dang'er, asked what they were carrying, and Fang Mu replied that it was wood. When Cai Cai's three legs fell, Fang Mu carried him and buried him on the beach of Zhao Jia River. Ru Song first pretended that yang was lost after carrying the body, and invited his neighbors Dai Jiusi, Tu Damei, Tu Xin, etc. to rush to Wurong's house by night to find it, and rusong said that he was scolded by Yimu, and Wurong was also found before and after the Song family.
Continuing the problems pointed out in Gao Litong's details, Zou Yunhuan and others made detailed explanations. Cai Bingqian's eyesight was not good, but the lotus hoe planed the soil, and the lame Cai San also fell down. Compared with before, Tu Fangmu's advice to RuSong was more specific, and the whole process was at the behest of Fangmu. Moreover, the location of the first burial of the body has also changed from the "three-liter vegetable garden at the head of the door" to the Zhao family beach where the body was found. This is undoubtedly because Jiang Jianian once questioned why Tu Rusong and others only buried near their own homes in the first place.
Then there is the issue of Zhao Dang'er's testimony. Gao and Li mentioned in the general details:
On the night of the twenty-fourth day, a man named Zhao Bishan,000, ran into Rusong and asked someone to carry the corpse, spied its plot, and sent a letter to Wu Rong. Wu Rong was close to his flesh and bones, and as soon as he heard this letter, he was sent to the official on the first day of February. However, Uncle Rusong's nephew cheated and plotted a hundred tricks, and then bought bribes to Zhao Bishan, instructed Yizi to change his confession, regurgitated Wurong and other bribes, and ordered Hao qiang to hold Bishan hostage.
In their proposed judgment, they read:
On the night of the twenty-fourth day, Zhao Dang'er encountered Bingqian and others carrying the corpse on the road, such as Song Xu with Qian Wen's instructions not to leak, when he asked for money for a thousand wen, such as Song did not cooperate. Zhao Dang'er then informed Yang Wurong and Wurong's cousin Yang Tongfan of the burial of the situation, and his cohabiting wife and father told Wusheng Liu Cunlu and Wurong's cousin Yang Zaiyou and so on. Because he did not know the place of burial, he was investigating. However, if the pine fear was exposed, he was anxious to cover up, that is, he went to the county to seek investigation. He also listened to Tu Fangmu's instigation, and in the words he pinched that "Yang Wurong stopped in the hall house, saying that he sent his sister to the house, and the ant mother did not see her daughter-in-law come in", and the blame for wanting to escape was also blamed on the mother's family, and he stood on his own in the place of no fault.
The verdict said that Zhao Dang'er had extorted Tu Rusong, so it seems logical that he would change his confession because of money afterwards. Here, Yang Tongfan, Liu Cunlu and others who were subsequently jointly controlled are mentioned together, and it is even more obvious that the subsequent upper control is not the result of a series.
And in Zou and Huang's judgment:
If Song Sui wrapped the body in a fold... Cai San and Li Si carried the corpse out of the door with pine wood, not far away, bumped into Zhao Dang'er, asked what they were carrying, and answered that it was wood... The next day, Zhao Dang'er, knowing that he had been killed and buried, went to Xiang Rusong to inquire. If loose money is not given. Zhao Dang'er immediately told Huang Kongwen on the twenty-eighth day. Huang Kongwen quoted Zhao Dang'er to report to Yang Tongfan, Zou Cunlu, and others: Yang Clan Rusong was killed, and Cai Bingqian and others were willing to testify.
Huang Kongwen was added here. Zhao Dang'er first informed Huang Kongwen, who was introduced to Yang Tongfan. Zhao Dang'er and Yang Tongfan were not familiar with each other, and it was difficult to imagine that Zhao Dang'er, as a small, ran to tell Yang Tongfan the truth out of righteous indignation. And Huang Kongwen is likely to be more familiar with both sides, compared to the previous Zhao Dang'er directly informed Yang Tongfan, the new judgment is more reasonable. In the general details, it is said that Yang Wurong sent Zhao Dang'er to the official, and Zou and Huang's judgments state that they are willing to testify, which is also for the sake of consistency. Zou and Huang added the phrase "wrap the body in a fold" to Ru Song, which corresponds to the description of Zhao Dang'er, who "asked what was being carried, and answered the wood". In gao Li's previous proposed judgment, Zhao Dang'er directly met the "carrying of corpses". The respective judgments are self-contained.
Inspector Yang Qian's inscription reads:
Tu Rusong was afraid of his sins, and listened to the abbot tu Fangmu of the Yi clan, and ordered Cai San, Cai Wu, Cai Bingqian, and Li Si to carry the body and bury it. On the way, he met Zhao Dang'er, asked what he was carrying, and Tu Fangmu replied that it was wood. Carried to the Zhaojiahe beach to be buried. Tu Rusong went to Yang Wurong's house to look for The Yang family, and Yang Wurong also went to Tu Rusong's house, and there was no trace of it. The next day, Zhao Dang'er killed Yang shi and buried him to ask Tu Rusong. If Song Xu did not give money, Zhao Dang'er followed Yang Tongfan, Liu Cunlu, and others to say that Tu Rusong had been killed, and was willing to testify. When Yang Wurong controlled the county, Tu Rusong yiyang Zhu Gongwen composed lyrics, Tu Fangmu also asked his trustee Cai Can to take care of it, and Xu Yin twenty-two. Cai Can agreed, instructing Zhao Dang'er's father, Zhao Bishan's godson, to fabricate a confession to buy a warrant for Yang Tongfan and others, and Yang Wurong's neighbor Yu Qiyuan was unfair and pleaded.
Comparing this part of the content, the main thing is that the inspector takes advantage of the fact that the punishment department is only a written trial, and removes the specific description that may bring trouble. So as not to appear branches or be blamed. For example, the description of Cai Bingqian and Cai San's physical condition was deleted, and there were details such as "jumping into the pond like a song trick, drying the pond water, and there is no trace".
Finally, the three versions of the verdict are written in very different styles. First of all, in the title book of the inspector, the names mentioned no longer use abbreviations, but all use full names. Previously, the trial proposed to mention that Tu Rusong was all Rusong, but Yang Kui's judgment was always called Tu Rusong and did not omit the surname. Compared with the "return to the mother's house", "huiyan conflict", and "immediate" in the first trial draft made by Gao Li, Zou Huang replaced it with more elegant words such as "Guining", "Hui yan is not inferior", "time shifting" and so on in the judgment, and these substitutions continued to be retained in the inscription. In addition, the reference in the inscription is also more explicit, Gao Li commonly used "his gu Xu family", Zou Huang changed to "Song Mu Xu shi", and the inscription was simply written as "Tu Rusong's mother". All this indicates that text writing is becoming more formal.
Figure 3 Scene of trial in the Qing Dynasty
Fourth, the glass screen is broken: the issue of judicial responsibility
There are two noteworthy issues in this case: First, the initiators of the unjust case--Gao Renjie, the county officials who first fabricated Tu Rusong's murder of his wife, and Li Zuofu insisted on their own views four times after the preliminary judgment was rejected by the Huangzhou government four times, so why did Gao and Li not push back and adopt Tang Yingqiu's conclusion after the first rejection, but still insisted on their own opinions and embellished the process of Tu Rusong's killing of his wife more appropriately? Second, there are many doubts in this case, why the Huangzhou government and even Hubei Province have always been tried by the committee without personally interrogating, especially the Huangzhou government's four "interrogations of criminals" four times to reject Gao Li's trial proposal but not directly change the judgment, and the process of Tu Rusong's killing of his wife was gradually constructed, modified, and perfected in the process of several retrials by the members. The author believes that both of these issues are related to the judicial responsibility system of the Qing Dynasty. The judicial responsibility of officials at all levels in the Qing Dynasty covered all stages of judicial procedures such as inquest, interrogation, trial, and enforcement, and the behavior of officials was comprehensively regulated and restricted, and any negligence was punished. Therefore, Wang Huizu said that the county officials were "blamed at every turn", "from the dynasty to the twilight" had nothing to do, "did not bear the punishment", and the official position was "like a glass screen, and the tentacles were broken". The reason why Gao Li insisted on his own opinion after the initial trial was refuted and constantly improved Tu Rusong's conclusion that he killed his wife was mainly to avoid judicial responsibility. The "Great Qing Law" stipulates that "whoever enters or leaves a person in a lawsuit for the sake of entering or leaving a person shall be considered a total crime" if he or she enters the case for the sake of entering or leaving the case. Therefore, if Gao and Li's first-instance judgments are overturned, then they will face severe sanctions. No wonder they received four rebuttals and still hold their ground. It is precisely because of the existence of this system of judge responsibility that once the judgment of the state and county officials is made and then rejected by the superior, in order to avoid the impact of the career and even the punishment, the state and county officials have the motivation to continue to insist on or even refine their own conclusions, rather than fundamentally reviewing the previous judgments. The Famous Qing Dynasty eunuch Ling Yi also had an in-depth analysis of this problem during his tenure in Jiangxi. Although the weight of life and death is not difficult to refer to, it is not difficult to refer to the fact that it is difficult to rely on reason and bend into the text, and it is obvious that the confession is sufficient and does not push for it, so that qu zhi is confused in the two qi, and it is not suspected. Repeatedly reviewed, □ there was no way out, and it had to be refuted one by one. And those who play easy to indulge, Fang and always return to the protection, such as the case of Yuan Shiyi in Yichun, the case of Fu Indoctrination in Yiyang, especially the Ming Zheng, other stubbornness does not return, repeatedly refutes, more and more false, more difficult to learn. Now that the members of the committee are trying a separate trial, there is a discrepancy and it is difficult to hide. As Ling Yi pointed out, in order to cover up their omissions in trial handling and document production, when their superiors refute it, they "stubbornly do not reply, repeatedly refute it, and become more and more false." Therefore, he demanded that grass-roots officials must be pragmatic and pragmatic, "not to return to the protection of the initial move, nor to move and accommodate." If the limits of judicial responsibility are not clarified in terms of procedures, motives, etc., it may be difficult to fundamentally change this phenomenon. It is precisely in order to avoid responsibility in the process of trial and transfer that higher-level officials often avoid personal interrogation of difficult cases, but often appoint lower-level officials to hold trials and shirk responsibility. Several macheng zhixian before and after this case were dismissed because of this case, and the superior officials always remotely controlled the command and always avoided personal interrogation, but instead assigned other Zhixian to try the case. In the "General Code of the Qing Dynasty", it is recorded that "whenever a provincial governor encounters a case that should be tried and proposed, he is often investigated by the members of the committee, and he is the most vicious habit." There is also a situation in which the cases of the prosecution are often submitted to the original trial officer. The Qianlong Emperor once pointed out in his edict that "in recent years, if a people's idle lawsuit has been judged by the prefecture and county to go back to his superiors yamen to complain, the governor of the prefecture and county often still approves it and submits it to the prefecture and county where the original trial was conducted, and in the prefecture and county of the prefecture and county, he is willing to overturn the previous case." "In the "Criminal Case Review", it is not difficult to find such examples. In response to this problem, during the Jiaqing period, the "Rules for the Punishment of Officials" specially added an article "The prefect of serious cases of human life has long been pro-heard" according to the emperor's decree. Traditional China has often used a system of shared responsibility such as sitting together to govern the country and strengthen its rule. The same is true in the judicial system, when the Qing Dynasty implemented the trial and transfer of layers, the accountability of officials also had the same strict requirements as sitting together. Officials at all levels in the chain of trial and transfer are responsible for any wrongful case. When a state or county official hears a case, if he "misses an urgent confession", "extorts a false confession by torture", or "loses his way in and out", and the superior who is transferred does not detect the rejection in time, then he will also bear joint and several liability. It is precisely because of the existence of this joint and several liability that when there is a problem in a case that has already been tried, there will be a situation in which officials and officials are hidden from each other, and officials defend their previous judgments in order to retain their official positions. This is also why the focus of the contradiction in the second half of this case is instead the dispute between Tang Yingqiu and Gao Renjie, and Mai Zhu, who is the governor of Huguang, has repeatedly insisted that the judgment of Gao Renjie and others is not wrong. For example, after Chen Ding informed the capture of the Yang clan, the governor approved that "although the Yang clan was captured according to the detailed report of Mayi, the authenticity was not confirmed" and demanded that the perpetrator be brought to Xie Province for trial. The inspector, on the other hand, believed that "Yang had been captured", and the Emperor requested that the execution of the relevant criminals be suspended. If it were not for the fact that the new inspector Wu Yingdi had not endorsed the case before, even if Tu Yang's reappearance in the human world, this case would still be like Mai Zhu and others insisted, and Yang Shi would be said to be a casually found prostitute, not himself. After Tu Rusong's wife murder case was transferred to the emperor layer by layer, the officials involved in the trial became grasshoppers tied to a rope, and they were involved in the same situation, and once the case changed, they would be implicated. Therefore, after Chen Ding discovered that Yang Clan was still in the human world, the previous officials had difficulty riding the tiger and could only make mistakes. The Zhaoxue in this case was actually accidental, and if Chen Ding of Zhixian County or Wu Yingdi, who was then the governor of Hubei, had also participated in the trial and transfer of the case, if there had been no contradiction between Wu Yingdi and Governor Mai Zhu, perhaps they would have fooled around like other officials, and would not have secretly visited and repeatedly played Chen. As Bao Shichen pointed out: "In the case of the two divisions, the trial officer is already the defendant. "The Qing Dynasty pursued the legal responsibility of those responsible for the trial and transfer procedure through a joint mechanism, which played a role in strengthening supervision, but at the same time, there was both prosperity and loss, and if the scope of the investigation lacked a reasonable definition, it was difficult to avoid the phenomenon of mutual protection and evasion of responsibility between superiors and subordinates."
V. A kind of inference: the endogenous problem of the fact determination and adjudication system
The determination of facts and the application of law are the two major themes of justice. The difficulty in this case lies in the determination of facts. Whether the skeleton found by the Zhao family river is Tu Yang's family has become the key to this case. In the ninth year of Yongzheng, the Inspector of Hubei asked for the gender to be identified, and made it clear that if it was a woman, it should be tu Yang's corpse. Since then, a series of disputes have actually revolved around the identity of the corpse, and in this case, the county magistrate has pointed out several ways to distinguish the sex of the skeleton according to the "Wash of Grievances": blood test, foot bone, tail maggot bone, skull, etc. However, the blood test was not carried out in the end, and several officials debated the gender of the skeleton for a long time. Unfortunately, when reviewing the manual of forensic identification of the officials at that time, the "Records of correction and washing of injustices in the Law Museum", judging the gender from the skeleton and even identifying the identity is tantamount to asking for fish. The distinction between the bones of men and women contained in the Book of Washed Injustices is first listed, as shown in Table 1.
Many of the conclusions in the table about the bones of men and women are influenced by the concept of the human body and the concept of yin and yang of heaven and earth in traditional Chinese medicine. According to modern forensic research, these conclusions are clearly wrong. It can be said that due to the limited level of science and technology in ancient times, it is more difficult to obtain the truth through the technical means of criminal justice. Through his research on Dou E'er, Su Li pointed out that "the evidentiary standard applied in the judiciary has never been an epistemological standard, but an epochal local standard of social construction." Under the condition of limited judicial resources and technical capacity of traditional societies, the judicial system has adopted a matching standard of evidence. It is precisely because the ability to discover facts from the judge to the technology is relatively limited, so the various rules of the law will be used to "reduce the need for facts in judgments", that is, "reduce the cost of information on judgments, and reduce the limited resources that must be consumed to discover and collect facts". As a result, the judicial system of traditional society was designed not only to allow a certain degree of torture, to implement a standard of evidence suitable for the conditions at that time (but may not be able to eliminate reasonable doubt as today), but also to develop a system of automatic retrial procedures for heavy sentence cases and a wide variety of trial levels. Looking back at this case, it was not until the case was refined and perfected by officials at all levels and the body as the only evidence of the crime was washed away by the water that this case entered the second trial level of trial and transfer, and successfully passed the layer-by-layer review. Why, then, did the retrial of higher-level officials not be effective after the body was washed away? How did Tu Rusong's verdict of killing his wife pass through the trial layer by layer? The author believes that this is related to the design of the judicial responsibility system in the trial and transfer system, which is insufficiently incentivized for higher-level officials to review the facts of the case. Economists, who have conducted research on the ancient system of joint sitting and armor protection, emphasize this shared responsibility as a sharing mechanism for the cost of information, and that the joint sitting is only to incentivize the party with the lower cost of obtaining information to carry out supervisory duties. Referring to the research of Zhang Weiying et al., the joint responsibility in the review and transfer system can be considered as "joint and several liability based on behavior". In the review and transfer system, there is obvious information asymmetry between the central and local governments. In order to motivate officials to be more active in obtaining effective information and not to engage in favoritism, a system of joint responsibility is implemented for officials at all levels in the review and transfer system. However, the joint responsibility in the trial and transfer is not the same punishment for all people as in the ordinary "sitting together", but the higher the rank, the lower the punishment. For example, in the "Regulations on the Punishment of Officials", "the truth cannot be tried" stipulates: "If the person who hangs a person has not been tried to find out the truth, the trial officer will be demoted to one level, the trial officer will be demoted to one level, and the judge will be punished for one year, and the supervisor will be punished for six months." Those who have not been tried to tell the truth shall be fined one year by the judge, six months for the judge, three months for the judge, and one month for the overseer. If a person commits a crime without being tried to tell the truth, the incumbent officer shall be fined six months, the judge shall be fined three months, and the judge shall be punished for one month, and the supervisor shall be exempted from discussion. Others are similar to "asking for lost access" and "asking for lost out". The higher the level, the wider the jurisdiction, the more and more complex the cases reviewed, but the intensity of the penalties faced is reduced, so that it is difficult for higher-level officials to generate enough motivation to seriously review the trial. For example, in a murder case, the client confessed that the priest and the inspector did not go to court twice and did not personally try it, but only asked him to repeat the previous confession. Such examples are clearly just the tip of the iceberg, and similar situations should abound. Officials in the Qing Dynasty were busy with their affairs, and it was probably difficult to seriously interrogate every case. As the Qing Dynasty Man Wan Weihan said: "All the embryos are in the prefectures and counties, and as for the situation that has been determined by the prefectural court, it is only necessary to check its circumstances, consider the laws, and fill in the leakage." "So when the focus of the controversy was washed away by the flood, the case completely turned into a case with only confessions and no evidence." Therefore, once the judicial documents have been seamlessly modified by officials at all levels, the case can be smoothly tried. The author believes that the reason for the phenomenon of the superior neglecting to verify and directly "transferring according to details" is that in addition to the failure of the trial responsibility to give sufficient incentives to the superior officials, it is also that in the trial and transfer system, there is a formal and informal information communication mechanism between the superior and subordinate officials, and the subordinate officials will seek the opinions of the superiors before making the proposed judgment, so that the opinions of the superior officials have long been reflected in the deliberations of the lower officials, on the one hand, the preconceived views of the superiors, on the other hand, the superiors have lost the motivation to seriously review the trial. For example, in this case, when Gao Li's proposed judgment during the ninth year of Yongzheng had not yet been made, the Inspector of Hubei issued a directive to "commission Guangji to order Gao Renjie to check the corpses of men and women." If it is not a female corpse, it will quickly investigate the whereabouts of the Yang clan and report it in detail. If it is the body of the Yang clan, guangji county will be ordered to bring back the criminals, investigate the truth of the death, and explain it according to the proposed recruitment. Still order the first general to detect the corpse wounds and fill in the notice.". Later, the inspector also gave instructions: "If it is a female corpse, then the men's clothes clip on that day is decorated by the Ming family, and it is undoubtedly the corpse of the Yang family." Obviously, in the inspector's opinion, as long as the gender of the corpse is female, then it is the corpse of Yang's family. Under the influence of the inspectors, the lower-level officials understood the spirit, and coupled with the erroneous record of the bones of men and women in the "Record of Washing Injustices", they also sowed the seeds of unjust cases. In addition to this kind of collusion between superiors and subordinates that appear above the documents, the author believes that there is also a "conspiracy" between the superior and subordinate officials hidden under the judicial documents. Although it is difficult to leave a written record of this "conspiracy" of higher and lower officials, the author still found some evidence, such as several letters from Daoguang thirty years in the "Rare Qing Prefect Documents". Because there were doubts about the judgment of the case, the grass-roots officials asked the shogunate's close friends through the prefect. Two of the letters are quoted as follows: To the Constitution of the Imperial Court Chen. On June 26, Your Excellency Mr. Lan Qing, on the tenth day of the first month of this month, he issued a letter and submitted the draft of the Puding Pan Yiqing drama murder case to the left and right, and he was sorry that he had already invited Qingzhao. The first is that the day has not been thrown down for a long time, and I am afraid that the deadline is too late, and I am even more troublesome, knowing that your case is complicated and complicated, and I dare to be trivial and blasphemous. However, the brothers and others will not give up, and will give the guide to the pledge, and will send a special letter to the reclamation, pray for the god of heavy labor, that is, the instructions for the review of the previous draft, or have already consulted with the honest visitors, that is, they can still pray for knowledge according to the place where the original manuscript was sent, so as to comply with the (later) re-examination of the curtain Chen On the sixth day of the first month of July, His Excellency Mr. Lan Qing was also honored to return the case of Yun Chengyun to show Pan Yiqing's case, and suddenly opened the Mao Plug, and felt the sewing, and now we can see that in the face of the complicated case, the county asked the prefect for help, and the prefect turned to the back of the prefect for help, and the prefect turned to the back of the door of the company. The opinion of the shogun eventually became the basis for Zhixian's decision. It is conceivable that in this case, the prefect's proposed judgment in the face of the zhi county is naturally impossible to overturn, after all, this reflects the opinion of the shogunate. In another piece of material, in the letter from The Anping Province to Yongning Prefecture, it is mentioned that "the case of the criminal Yang Laosi and others was heard, and since it was verified by Your Excellency's interrogation, there is no reason to discuss it, and now the brother has been transferred to the house to avoid going back and forth, this is the case", and the prefect believes that since the prefecture and county officials have already interrogated, there is no need to inquire, so they will directly follow it. If it is transferred to the trial, the so-called layer-by-layer review and review will be in vain. For example, there is also such a record in the official proverbs, "The province is also transferred according to the details, as if the province and county are the same, and the real superior is for his insults." Mo Zike once pointed out that the responsibility system of traditional society weakened the independence of officials, making them more dependent on their superiors, making them more concerned about the reactions of their direct superiors when handling official affairs. It is precisely because of a series of activities carried out by officials at higher and lower levels through the informal information communication mechanism behind the trial and transfer mechanism that the opinions of higher-level officials have actually been reflected in the first-instance judgment, and the original system of multiple trial and transfers failed to achieve the role of restraint between the upper and lower levels. In addition, it is not uncommon for superiors and subordinates to protect each other. For example, Yongning Prefecture transferred the criminals to the government after trial, and Anshun Prefecture found that there was still a lack of witnesses, so it replied to Yongning Prefecture, which mentioned that "the brother is in the same boat, slightly accommodating, not particularly difficult, and the case of honor, there are many modifiers, this case is difficult to modify, and can not be turned around, if the limit of solution is exceeded, fortunately do not take the brother as a seam." It can be seen that when the trial and transfer case reaches the level of the prefect, the prefect will "modify" or "make a seam" because he is worried that the "rate transfer" will be rejected by the superior. When it is neither possible nor retouchable, it has to be returned. Because of the accumulation of habits, the superior officials thought that it was necessary to explain it, so as not to let the state and county officials think that they were deliberately not grooming them. In another case, the Liping Government was more honest with the commander and the inspector, and his subordinate servants were eventually injured by suicide during the arrest process, because they were worried that the aggravation of the injuries of the criminals would implicate the servants, and the Le Ping Province planned to revise the detailed report to the crime and put him in prison. Because the boss had told him that "if there is a difficult case, it is necessary to report it according to the facts", The Le Ping Government specially wrote a letter to report on the matter. The object of the report of the official document and the report object of the letter are the same, first in the private letter and the superior to achieve tacit understanding, and then formally through the way of the official document to report. During the Qianlong period, local officials were commended by the Qianlong Emperor for discovering the problem of the preliminary examination, and it can also be seen from this that the problem of up and down protection has become more serious, otherwise it would be impossible to be commended for the matter where this kind of duty lies. The Qianlong Emperor pointed out: "The members of the committee investigated the incident ... There is no shortage of people who have good relations with the original inquisitor, and who are bent on favoritism and reversal of right and wrong. That is to say, it is usually indifferent to nothing to do with it, but the view of the officials protecting each other, the intention is to hold both ends, hoping to mediate the matter, and it is more than that, it is the most harmful to the people's livelihood of the officials. Shuzo Shiga summarized the Qing dynasty's criminal justice system as "as part of the administration." He stressed that the Qing Dynasty weakened the independence of officials at all levels in the trial and transfer system through a set of methods of mutual supervision and control of the ring of control. The author further believes that due to the existence of the judicial responsibility system, the judicial system of the Qing Dynasty is not only a one-way state of order and obedience, but there are more complex aspects. "Judges who listen to lawsuits and judge prisons must bear certain legal responsibilities, which is also one of the major features in the history of China's rule of law." This system of judicial responsibility makes it possible for grassroots officials to be inclined to insist on their own views after the initial trial is rejected by their superiors, and it also makes senior officials not directly change their judgments when handling cases that have been transferred to trial, but instead send them back for retrial or hand them over to other grassroots officials for retrial, so as to avoid directly changing their judgments and causing them to be responsible. The "sit-in" mechanism in the judicial responsibility system also leads to officials at higher and lower levels shielding each other. In order to avoid rejection by superiors, there is a formal or informal communication mechanism between the officials at all levels of the trial and transfer system, and the grass-roots officials may seek the opinion of their superiors before making a proposed judgment to avoid punishment, thus making the system of trial and transfer on a case-by-case basis a formality.
VI. Conclusion
Weber pointed out that the basis of the operation of modern bureaucracy is to write archives. This article combines text generation and institutional environment, and examines the generation of judicial archives in the context of the trial and transfer system, and the author believes that judicial archives are the result of continuous processing and improvement in the process of trial and transfer. This kind of processing and modification of documents, in most cases, may be the improvement of the text and the unity of style of the documents emphasized by previous research, and this case reveals that the modification of such documents may sometimes be forged out of thin air. So under the strict and complicated layer-by-layer trial and review system, how did such an unjust case arise? The author believes that the generation of judicial archives is "table", while "li" is rooted in the criminal justice system of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty imposed a relatively low burden of proof under the condition of limited judicial resources, and introduced a mechanism for pursuing wrongful cases in the trial and transfer system. Officials at all levels avoid being disciplined or tend to stick to their previous misjudgments or evade trials in person. The punishment stipulated in the wrongful case investigation mechanism is heavy at the grass-roots level and light at the upper level, so that the review officials do not have enough incentives to correct the mistakes, and the mechanism of multiple trials and multiple reviews is ultimately difficult to really play a role. In addition, the system of judicial responsibility has led to the problem of collusion between superior and subordinate officials. The communication of information between superiors and subordinates has enabled the opinions of superior officials to be incorporated into the judgment when the case enters the trial and transfer procedure. Of course, the author does not intend to completely deny the significance of the trial and transfer system, and the officials at all levels in the criminal justice system of the Qing Dynasty are not just a whole under tight control, as shown in this article, which contains a more complex and pluralistic appearance. The phenomenon of tampering with documents, the protection and protection of officials at higher and lower levels, and the frequent remand for retrial in order to avoid responsibility exposed by the trial and transfer system have actually occurred from time to time in contemporary judicial practice. How to ensure the effective operation of the judicial supervision mechanism, define the boundaries and subjects of responsibility for wrongful cases, and design a more effective review mechanism under the condition of limited judicial resources are also the topics left by the Qing Dynasty, which are also mirrors and references for contemporary judicial reform.
This article was published in Qing History Research, No. 1, 2021. In order to facilitate your reading, Xiaobian omitted footnotes when editing, if you need to cite, please refer to the original text.