There are laws in any era, ancient feudal society, although people have high and low, there are officials and people, but there are also "the son of heaven breaks the law, and the common people are guilty", anyone who commits a mistake, needs to be punished, it is difficult to have exceptions, like the Han WenDi period, the story of "Ti Hao to save the father" is after all a minority situation, but making the same mistake, the punishment for officials and the people is often different.
For example, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, in order to reflect the happiness of a small number of elites, it is natural to let the broad masses suffer a little, such as officials committing crimes, only need to reflect well, sometimes hunger strike for three days, others do not have to do, in the end, the big things are small, small things, some officials with more outstanding political achievements, even do not need punishment, so during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the status of officials and civilians was very unequal.
At that time, the legal management of civilians was very strict, and once the civilians broke the law, they would be punished very seriously, for example, during the Southern Dynasty Qi period, Kong Xiu, as a county order of a county, in his jurisdiction, there was a small child who stole a handful of grass from a neighbor's house, the child was only ten years old, even if it was put into modern times, he did not have criminal capacity, not to mention that a handful of grass was not expensive, naturally no one would embarrass the child, but Kong Xiu did not think so.
According to the law, Kong Xiu wanted to sentence the child to death, and at that time, someone persuaded that the ten-year-old naughty boy did not understand anything, and asked the adults to open up and let him go, but Kong Xiu instead taught the persuaded person a lesson, saying that the child would steal things when he was so young, and after he grew up, he would steal gold, and finally ordered someone to behead the ten-year-old child and show it to the public, and everyone sighed.
From our modern point of view, for a ten-year-old child, stealing something and being beheaded seems too much, but at that time the law was so stipulated, who let the child be born a civilian, if his parents are powerful, then they will not let their children end up like this, it can be seen that the status of the poor is very low, this is an eternal truth.
In the Northern Wei Dynasty, there were similar worlds, such as when Li Hongzhi stabbed shi, he announced a law, pedestrians can not carry knives, otherwise they will be convicted of robbery, which is like not allowed to carry a gun today, once you hold a gun, regardless of whether you have robbed or not, first convict him and then say.
The Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, because the authorities formulated such strict legal coercion means, did reduce a lot of crimes, basically reached the state of not picking up the road, not closing the house at night, it can also be regarded as the "simple" folk customs, and the public security situation is very good, but after all, people can not be suppressed too much, the law should sometimes be relaxed.
Laws like the Southern and Northern Dynasties, after all, are not humane enough, so the Southern and Northern Dynasties cannot achieve the great unification of China, and the law sometimes does not need to be carried out according to its ability, such as in the early 80s of the last century, men touching women's buttocks on the street may be directly shot, which is a bit too much, do you think?