Ming Taizu’s “Placards” on Harsh Regulations and ...

13

ming taizu’s placards

hok-lam chan

Ming Taizu’s “Placards” on Harsh Regulations and

Punishments Revealed in Gu Qiyuan’s Kezuo zhuiyu

Z.hu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 (1328–1398), who founded the Ming and .reigned under the temple name Taizu 太祖 (r. 1368–1398), was

well known as an authoritarian. He rose from humble origin and won the throne after a decade of incessant combat against regional warlords and the Mongol-Yuan rulers. He labored tirelessly as well on legisla-tion and the setting out of legal codes to stabilize and remold the pol-ity and society, in the process establishing his own ruling legitimacy. By and large, these efforts were based on his political whims and an ideology that craved monopolistic control and ultimate power after a century of alien domination. The new ruler was haunted by the chaos in Chinese society due to the political discrimination and legal lax-ity of the Mongol administration; thus he sought to achieve his goals through law codes and legal precedents amid many internal and exter-nal challenges. He succeeded in producing a large body of law backed by both a judicial bureaucracy and harsh regulations and punishments. The laws and their backing produced a framework that accorded with his own self-perception and experiences; ultimately he hoped that he would eliminate crime and corruption through condign punishments that would improve social morals. He wanted standard rules and regu-lations to apply to both the imperial clan and all other social classes in the country and in that way bring about a sociopolitical order submis-sive to his authority.1

1 For historical background, see Wu Han 吳晗, Zhu Yuanzhang zhuan 朱元璋傳 rev. edn. (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1965), chaps. 5, 7; John D. Langlois, Jr., “The Hongwu Reign, 1368–1398,” in vol. 7 of The Cambridge History of China, F. W. Mote and Denis Twitchett, eds., The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1988), pp. 107–81; Edward L. Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang and Early Ming Legislation: The Reordering of Chinese So-ciety following the Era of Mongol Rule (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), chap. 5; and John D. Lang-lois, Jr., “Ming Law,” in The Cambridge History of China 8, Mote and Twitchett, eds., The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1998), pp. 172–80.

14

hok-lam chan

M i n G T a i Z U ’ s C o D i F i C a T i o n

There are several distinct stages in the compilation of legal codes under the Ming founder and each had its own characteristics. as dy-nastic founder, the only legitimate law-giver and supreme judge in the empire, Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated the first codified laws in 1368, at the inauguration of the founding Hongwu 洪武 era (1368–1398), un-der the rubric lü ling 律令, that is, the code and commands, in the form of decrees or edicts. although an integrated version of the text is lost, the 1368 version of only the ling or “commands/ ordinances” is extant. Known as the Great Ming Commandment (Da Ming ling 大明令), it consisted of 145 separate articles.2 The nonextant lü or “statutory code” that had once been part of the 1368 version is known to have had 285 articles. The commands and articles were divided under six subheadings cor-responding to the six ministries of the central government: Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Public Works. These two legal works took the organizational format and juridical principles from the Tang code of 653 ad, the Tanglü shuyi 唐律疏義 (Commentary and Explanation of the Tang Code). Before the compilation of the Ming code, the emperor had asked court scholars to select each day some twenty articles from the Tang code for detailed analysis in his presence. He then selected those he felt appropriate for his own dynasty, but the nature and degree of the punishments the legal scholars prescribed were much changed as deemed necessary.3

in conjunction, Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated a series of meticulous laws and regulations governing the rites and protocols of the imperial princes and the court’s relations with royal family members. in his de-sire to expand power and perpetuate family fortune, taking the lessons

2 see Yao Guangxiao 姚廣孝 et al., eds., Ming Taizu shilu 明太祖實錄 (1418; hereafter, MT ZSL) (Taibei: academia sinica, 1962), 28 shang 上, pp. 422–23; Zhang Tingyu 張廷玉 et al., eds., Mingshi 明史 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974; hereafter, MS ) 93, p. 2280. Da Ming ling is contained in Huang Ming zhishu 皇明制書, Zhang Lu 張鹵 (1523–1598), ed. (1579 edn.), no. 1. There is a reprint of a Japanese edn. of 1747 edited by T±y±shi kenkyˆkai, Kyoto, 1937. For discussion of the text and full English translation, see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 69–73; appendix 2. For a survey of the early Ming codification efforts, see nait± Kenkichi 内藤乾吉, “Dai Min ry± kaisetsu” 大明令解説, rpt. in idem, ed., Chˆgoku h±seishi k±sh± 中囯法制史考索 (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1963), pp. 90–116; and more recently, Yang Yifan 楊一帆, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng 洪武法律典籍考証 (Beijing: Falu chubanshe, 1984), pp. 176–93.

3 Da Ming lü and several other editions with commentaries are contained in Huang Ming zhishu. on the Tang code, see The T’ang Code, vol. 1: General Principles, trans. with an in-troduction by Wallace Johnson (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 1979). on the compilation of the Ming code, see, among others, Huang Zhangjian 黃彰健, “Da Ming lü gao kao” 大明律誥考, rpt. in Huang Zhangjian, Ming Qing shi yanjiu conggao 明清史研究叢稿 (Taibei: Taiwan shang-wu yinshuguan, 1977), pp. 155–207. For details, see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 75–80; ap-pendix 4; Yang, Hongwu falü, pp. 1–69; Jiang Yonglin, trans. and intro., The Great Ming Code (Da Ming lü) (seattle: U. Washington P., 2005), pp. li-lv.

15


of past dynasties, the Ming founder revived the ancient feudalistic insti-tution of enfeoffed princedoms to invest his sons with substantial power and responsibilities in order that they might share the dynastic fortune in a familial order and provide military defense. shortly before his ap-pointment in May, 1370, of nine of his elder sons born respectively to empress Ma 馬 (1332–1382) and several of his consorts, the emperor ordered the Central secretariat to draw up the laws and regulations for the enfeoffment system, which was eventually extended to all of his twenty-four surviving sons. The eldest, Zhu Biao 朱標 (1355–1392), who was appointed heir-apparent immediately after the dynastic founding in January, 1368, was not included in this system.4

These imperial “family” laws constituted the main clauses of Zuxun lu 祖訓錄 (Ancestral Injunctions), which was completed in 1373 and revised in 1376 and 1381. in a nutshell, they defined the princes’ privileges and responsibilities to the sovereign and their princedoms, and laid down a code of conduct and judicial liabilities, including the principles and provisions of succession in their domains as well as succession to the throne, and punishments for abuses and transgressions. The injunctions are divided into thirteen sections under rubrics such as zhenjie 箴戒 (ad-monition and warning), chishou 持守 (observance), yanjisi 嚴祭祀 (proper sacrifice), jin churu 謹出入 (precautions on coming and going), shen guo-zheng 慎國政 (prudence in affairs of state), liyi 禮儀 (ceremony), falü 法律 (law), neiling 內令 (palace regulations), neiguan 内官 (eunuchs), zhizhi 職制 (rules of office), bingwei 兵衛 (military guards), yingshan 營繕 (con-struction), and gongyong 供用 (provisions). Updated and renamed Huang Ming zuxun 皇明祖訓 (August Ming Ancestral Injunctions) in 1395, Zuxun lu was widely disseminated among members of the imperial clan and posted in public places in the capitals with unmistakable legal authority.5

4 on the establishment of the enfeoffment system and the appointment of Zhu Yuanzhang’s first nine sons to princedoms, see MT ZSL 51, pp. 1000–01; and MS 2 , p. 24; 116, pp. 3559, 3560, 3562, 3565, 3570, 3573–75; 118, p. 3613. For a case study, see Hok-lam Chan, “Ming Taizu’s Problem with his sons: Prince Qin’s Criminality and Early-Ming Politics,” AM 3d ser., 20.1 (2007), pp. 1–59.

5 see MT ZSL 41, pp. 818–19; 82, pp. 1470–72; 242, pp. 3517–18. The 1381 edn. of Zuxun lu and 1395 edn. of Huang Ming Zuxun 皇明祖訓 have been reproduced in Mingchao kaiguo wenxian 明朝開國文獻, ed. Wu Xiangxiang 吳湘湘 (Taibei: Taiwan Xuesheng shuju, 1966), vol. 3. see also Hongwu yuzhi quanshu 洪武御制全書, ed. Zhang Dexin 張德信 and Mao Peiqi 毛佩琦 (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1995), pp. 362–86, 387–410. For modern studies, see Huang Zhangjian, “Lun Zuxun lu banxing niandai bing lun Mingchu fengjian zhuwang zhidu” 論祖訓錄頒行年代並論明初封建諸王制度, in Ming Qingshi yanjiu conggao, chap. 2; and Zhang De-xin, “Zuxun lu yu Huang Ming Zuxun bijiao yanjiu” 祖訓錄與皇明祖訓比較研究, Wenshi 文史 45 (1998), pp. 139–62. see also Tan Jiaqi 譚家齊, “Cong Taizu huangdi qinlu kan Ming Taizu xiu ding Zuxun lu de yuanyin” 從太祖皇帝欽錄看明太祖修訂祖訓錄的原因, Journal of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 香港中文大學中國文化研究所學報 44 (2004), pp. 83–102. For English translation, see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, appendix 1.

16

hok-lam chan

This initial effort at a Ming code underwent a process of review, amendment, and revision throughout the entire reign of the first em-peror. in 1373, Zhu Yuanzhang commanded officials to revise the code (lü). The Commandment was not included in this revision since as time wore on the role of the ling as supporting legislation was overtaken by the emperor’s Grand Pronouncements (Dagao 大誥) issued in 1385–1387, and his judicial Placards (bangwen 榜文), which were on display in pub-lic since the early 1370s. The Placards, as enumerated more fully later on in this essay, pronounced from time to time the emperor’s personal decisions of harsh punishment for various crimes and transgressions, as well as legal enactments dealing with the moral and social order of villages with special circumstances.6 The revised code, completed in the following year and known as Da Ming lü 大明律, or Great Ming Code, was entirely different from the first version. The text followed the twelve categories of the Tang code (general provisions, imperial guard and prohibitions, administrative regulations, household and marriage, pub-lic stables and granaries, unauthorized levy, violence and robbery, as-saults and accusations, arrest and flight, and judgment and prison), and contained 606 articles, as compared with only 502 in the Tang code. of the 606, some of the first code had been carried over; others were former commands now incorporated as statutes; while still others were either alterations of old statutes or completely new inventions. But it was not yet the final code, and more revisions were undertaken in 1376, 1383, and again in 1389, which produced the final version.7

Meanwhile, in his persistent campaign to eliminate government abuses and corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang frequently promulgated his own ad hoc judicial findings and rules. For this he produced a group of four Grand Pronouncements (Dagao), first issued in 1385, three years after the trial and execution of the alleged high treason of chief of the Central secretariat Hu Weiyong 胡惟庸 (?–1380) and his accomplices for con-spiring to overthrow the throne, and the compilation was continued in 1386, and again twice in 1387. in these four texts, written in simple and comprehensible language, the emperor personally recorded his trials of notorious corrupt officials, lower functionaries, military personnel, and ordinary subjects. The main culprit was Hu Weiyong and his co-horts, and the sequels of the Pronouncements were devoted to enumerat-

6 see MT ZSL 86, pp. 1534–35; MS 93, pp. 2280–81. see also Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 75–80; Langlois, “Ming Law,” pp. 172–75; Yang, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng, pp. 1–6; and Jiang, Great Ming Code, pp. lxxvii-lxxxviii.

7 see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 75–80; Langlois, “Ming Law,” pp. 172–80; Yang Yifan, Mingchu zhongdian kao 明初重典考 (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1984), pp. 3–12; idem, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng, pp. 7–8; and Jiang, Great Ming Code, pp. lii-lv. on the re-visions of code in 1376 and 1389, see MT ZSL 110, pp. 1821–22; 197, pp. 2955–56.

17


ing their alleged high crimes.8 He imposed sentences that often called for tyrannical brutal punishments that were authorized neither in the code nor his commands; they were arbitrary and whimsical, and often capricious and terrifying. nevertheless, the Grand Pronouncements were widely distributed among the officials and the commoners and took on the character of a formal legal code because they had been invoked for juridical sentencing with the weight of legal authority. it was also re-ported that an offender could have his sentence reduced by one grade if he could produce a copy of the Pronouncements in his private posses-sion at the time of his trial and sentencing.9

The Great Ming Code saw its final revision in 1389, and the revision again involved a major reorganization of the contents. During each re-vision the number of articles changed, but this time the number would be stabilized at 460. This final version of the Da Ming lü was organized according to the scheme of the original 1368 version: it comprised six main divisions corresponding to the six ministries, but added a sev-enth division, called “general principles,” which was derived from the structure of the Tang code. The additional section headed the new 1389 code, making a total of seven main divisions in the text. Within each of the six other divisions, the text was further subdivided according to basic legal categories alluded to in the Tang code. it was a prominent legal document and remained in effect throughout the dynasty, to-gether with other statutes and pronouncements. as a permanent code, it had far-reaching influence both in China and in premodern East asian countries.10

in 1389, the Ming founder promulgated another major legal docu-ment, Placards of People’s Instructions (Jiaomin bangwen 教民榜文) in the form of placards to be displayed in rural villages. in contrast to the other codes, People’s Instructions is concerned almost exclusively with

8 For Hu Weiyong’s biographies, see MT ZSL 129, pp. 2043–48; MS 308, pp. 7906–8; see also Hok-lam Chan, “Hu Wei-yung,” in L. C. Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644 (new York: Columbia U.P., 1976; hereafter DM B ) 1, pp. 638–41. on the execution of Hu Weiyong and the punishment of his accomplices, see Wu Han, “Hu Weiyong dang’an kao” 胡惟庸黨案考, Yanjing xuebao 燕京學報 15 (May 1934), pp. 63–205, and Thomas P. Massey, “Chu Yüan-chang and the Hu-Lan Cases of the Early Ming Dy-nasty,” Ph.D diss. (U. Michigan, 1983; ann arbor, UMi, 1992), parts 2–4.

9 MT ZSL 176, pp. 2665–66; 177, p. 2682; 187, pp. 2808–09; MS 93, p. 2284. Dagao is available in several traditional and modern editions; e.g., Huang Ming zhishu, no.2; Mingchao kaiguo wenxian, vol.1. it is also included in Hongwu yuzhi quanshu, pp. 745–951. For a com-mentary on their significance, see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 52–58. For a full study of their contents and political, legal significance, see Yang, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng, pp. 69–148; idem, Ming Dagao yanjiu 明大誥研究 (nanjing: Jiangxu renmin chubanshe, 1988).

10 see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 75–80, appendix 4; Langlois, “Ming Law,” pp. 172–80; and Jiang, Great Ming Code, pp. lv-lxxxviii. The full English translation follows. see also nn. 6, 7, above.

18

hok-lam chan

villagers, their moral quality, livelihood, social order, and community solidarity. The jurisdiction for enforcement was assigned to the Min-istry of Revenue, which handled the revenue-household registration, land survey, tax, and labor service assignments, and sundry rural com-munity affairs. Reflecting the populist strain of the emperor, the main purpose of the document was to identify which juridical matters were to be handled at the community level among the people themselves, and which matters were to be referred to the officials to expedite rural control. in general the village elders and lijia 里甲 elders were to judge minor disputes involving marriage, land, and brawls, while relatively more serious offenses such as adultery, robbery, fraud, and loss of life were to be reported to the authorities in the government office. The docu-ment lists forty-one items of instruction that cover all manner of affairs at the village level, from family and basic daily security to judicial and administrative matters (including taxation). Moreover, there were stipu-lations of various terms of punishments for law breakers. The People’s Instructions had a far-reaching impact on the principle and procedure of rural governance throughout the entire dynasty and beyond.11

Finally, the emperor promulgated the Code again in 1397, the year before his death, this time along with selections from the Grand Pronouncements. This promulgation, known as Da Ming lü gao 大明律誥 (Great Ming Code with Pronouncements), was comprised of the code itself, a section called the lü gao, or “statutes and pronouncements,” pertain-ing to the rules of monetary redemption for nominal capital crimes, and some thirty-sixty items chosen from the four earlier Grand Pronounce-ments. Yang Yifan 楊一帆 claims that the Code with Pronouncements was an integral part of the Great Ming Code; hence according to him, the Code exists in two versions, one containing only the 460 articles with some modifications in the contents, whereas the other also includes The Code with Pronouncements. This argument, however, is challenged by Jiang Yonglin 姜永琳, who points out that the imperial proclamation makes it clear that the Code with Pronouncements served only as an appendix to the main body of the Great Ming Code, while the latter still stood as the basic law of the dynasty. nevertheless, the inclusion of Grand Pronouncement attachments to the Code attested to the importance that the emperor attributed to the provisional regulations of harsher pun-ishments, to be implemented in special circumstances. However, ever since the Code with Pronouncements was issued, the succeeding emperors

11 For details, see Farmer, Zhu Yuanzhang, pp. 74–75. a full translation of the placard ap-pears in Farmer, pp. 195–206. it is based on the earlier work of George Jerlang Chang, “The Placard of People’s instructions (Chiao-min bang-wen),” Ming Studies 7 (1978), pp. 63–72.

19


no longer randomly used the great variety of harsh punishments pre-scribed in the Grand Pronouncements, and their legal relevance therefore was greatly diminished with the passage of time.12

in a nutshell, since Taizu often proclaimed his own ad hoc com-mands and penalties in the form seen in the Grand Pronouncements and placards, the character of law and jurisprudence in Ming times was hardly the simple product of formal codes and bureaucratic process. During his reign, he was seeking to consolidate power and resorted to many provisional means to impose his will on the country.

T H E P L a C a R D s

as a self-willed authoritarian ruler, Zhu Yuanzhang was well known for employing notorious instruments of “extralegal punishments,” which he called fa wai jia xing 法外加刑 (‘dispensing penal punishments beyond the realm of law’), to root out heinous crime and corruption, liquidate threats to his authority and institutions, and impose his standards on human behavior and social mores even as early as the dynastic found-ing.13 Many of these extralegal punishments were pronounced in the emperor’s edicts and commands promulgated in the form of placards, which, besides a few that were engraved in iron plates, known as tiebang 鐵榜, as early as 1372, were posted variably in the main hall of govern-ment offices, public markets, and specially erected pavilions known as shenming ting 申明亭 (exhibition pavilions) all over the country. First set up in the second month of 1372, these pavilions also served as loca-tions for ad hoc trials and as local points for village justice. Persons who committed errors were to have their crimes exposed in the shenming ting.14 The posting of placards in public places was very common. a placard dated 1389, for example, prescribed public execution by slicing (lingchi 淩遲) for persons who brought litigation under false pretenses.

12 on the compilation of the Da Ming lü gao, see, among others, Yang, “Hongwu sanshi nian ‘Da Ming lü’ kao” 洪武三十年大明律考, Xuexi yu sikao 學習與思考 1981.5, pp. 50–54; idem, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng, pp. 13–22; Huang,“Da Ming lü gao kao”; and Jiang, Great Ming Code, pp. lxxxi-lxxxv.

13 The late-Qing legal scholar shen Jiaben 沈家本 first brought to attention cases of Zhu Yuanzhang’s uses of “extralegal punishments” in “Ming Dagao jun faling” 明大誥峻法令, in-cluded in Shen Jiyi xiansheng yishu jiabian 沈寄簃先生遺書甲編 (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1964), vol. 2, pp. 22–41. see also Yang, Mingchu zhongdian kao, pp. 67–81. For comments, see also John Langlois, Jr., “The Code and ad hoc Legislation in Ming Law,” AM 3d ser. 6.2 (1993), p. 88; and idem, “Ming Law,” pp. 172–73.

14 an example of the iron bangwen was issued in august, 1372; it contained items of codes and commands to reprimand ranked nobles who committed unlawful activities. see Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, p. 255. on shenming ting, see MT ZSL 72, pp. 1332–33. Jiang Yonglin translates it as “exhibition pavilions”; Great Ming Code, p. 275.

20

hok-lam chan

There is no record, however, of how many such placards were issued and posted during Taizu’s reign.

Zhu Yuanzhang himself had admitted that many of the sanctions he employed in punishing criminals recorded in the Grand Pronounce-ments were “extralegal.” in 1395, when August Ming Ancestral Instructions was completed, in the first section, Zhu informed his officials why he stipulated such extralegal measures to deal with crimes: He said:

it has been more than forty years since i first took up arms. i have personally ordered the affairs of the realm. The good and bad, true and false, of human nature have all been experienced by me. Those who were wicked and crafty by nature and committed seri-ous crimes that were obvious beyond doubt have been specifically ordered to be punished by extralegal penalties with the intention of making people take heed and thus not lightly daring to break the laws. nevertheless, this is just an expedient measure to punish the wicked; it is not the permanent law (changfa) of the ruler who preserves the accomplishments. From now on, when my descen-dants become emperors they shall only enforce the Code and the Grand Pronouncements. They certainly shall not employ any pun-ishments like tattooing, cutting off the feet, cutting off the nose, and castration. Because the succeeding rulers will be born and raised in the palace, they cannot have a complete knowledge of human nature’s good and evil. i fear that in time something un-toward will transpire, harming the innocent by mistake. if there are officials who dare to memorialize requesting the use of these punishments, civil and military officials shall immediately submit accusations. The criminals shall be executed by slicing and the entire family sentenced to die.15 朕自起兵至今四十餘年, 親理天下庶

務, 人情善惡、真僞, 無不涉歷. 其中姦頑刁詐之徒, 情犯深重, 灼然無疑

者, 特另法外加刑, 意在使人知所警俱, 不敢輕易犯法. 然此特權時處置, 頓挫姦頑, 非守成之君所用常法. 以後子孫做皇帝時, 止守律與大誥, 並不

許用黥刺、剕、劓、閹割之刑. 蓋嗣君宮生内長, 人情善惡未能周知, 恐

一時所施不當, 誤傷善良. 臣下敢有奏用此刑者, 文武群臣即時劾奏, 將

犯人淩遲, 全家處死.

15 see Huang Ming zusun, first section; translated in Farmer, p. 118. The text was slightly modified when it was incorporated in MT ZSL 239, pp. 3477–78; the first underlined phrase in the original text, above, became changed to “嗣君統理天下” (“when my successor rules over the country”), in reference to the Yongle emperor. The last two phrases, also underlined above, are changed to “處以重刑 ([the criminals] are sentenced to capital punishment),” ton-ing down the specificity of the severe punishment. see the translation in Jiang, Great Ming Code, p. lxxxiii, and p. cii, n. 243.

21


This imperial instruction thus gives justification for the emperor’s usage of extralegal punishments, but Zhu Yuanzhang admitted that they should not be considered “permanent law.” Therefore, however much he required succeeding emperors to uphold both the Code and the Grand Pronouncements, he prohibited them from employing four sorts of brutal punishments: tattooing, cutting off the feet, cutting off the nose, and castration. it appears that after several years’ practice, Zhu realized the limited role of cruel punishments in achieving a great government and began to revise the contents of the Grand Pronouncements and to reconsider its position in the legal system. in any case, as Zhu himself implied, the extralegal punishments employed in the Pronouncements as “an expedient measure” in special circumstances did not challenge the Code’s nature as the fundamental law of the dynasty.

Without question, the placards clearly illustrated how Ming Taizu introduced harsh penalties and brutal measures on an ad hoc basis to suppress criminal offenses and violations of social norms at his whim, beyond the articles and statutes of the Code and Commandment. as shown by the pioneering study of Huang Zhangjian 黃彰健, many of the placards, being posted in public, were later excerpted in Taizu shilu 太祖實錄, and Da Ming huidian 大明會典, and some of them were subject to modifications post facto to soften the cruelty in order to ameliorate Taizu’s image among the official historians of the Yongle 永樂 emperor (Taizong 太宗; retitled Chengzu 成祖; r. 1403–1424). The placards also found their way to be included in various imperial compendia and even private literary miscellanies as they were hung in government offices and public places over time, as late as the Jiajing 嘉靖 reign of emperor 世宗 (1522–1566). none of them, however, was collected in a compendium until the appearance of Nanjing xingbu zhi 南京刑部志 in the thirty-fourth year of Jiajing (1555).16 This work was compiled by a government student (shengyuan 生員) in Wuxi 無錫, nanzhili, named Gao Dong 高棟 based on original documents collected by an official named Ying Tingyu 應廷育 from the Jiangxi office of the Ministry of Justice in nanjing.

a total of sixty-nine such bangwen is included in juan three of Nan-jing xingbu zhi 南京刑部志: 44 were promulgated in the Hongwu period, from the nineteenth to the thirty-first year (1386–1398); and 25 were issued in the Yongle period, from the first to the ninth year (1403–

16 see Huang Zhangjian, “Ming Hongwu Yongle chao de bangwen junling” 明洪武永樂朝的榜文峻令, rpt. in Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, pp. 279–80; see also Langlois, “Ming Law,” pp. 175–76. Huang’s work is based on Gao Dong’s Nanjing xingbu zhi; cited and discussed below, n. 18.

22

hok-lam chan

1411). of the latter, 10 were dated the thirty-fifth year of Hongwu, which was used for the first year of emperor Yongle’s reign starting in the seventh month of 1402, before the inauguration of his own formal era-name;17 15 were dated in the Yongle era from the first to the ninth year. These sixty-nine placards were distributed respectively under the purview of the government ministries that posted the documents: Punishment (25), Censorate 都察院 (14), area Command of the army of the Front 前軍都督府 (1) Personnel (1), Revenue (4), Rites (8), War (8), and Public Works (8).18

Huang Zhangjian has arranged these documents under the pur-view of the respective government ministries in consecutive numbers in his review of Nanjing xingbu zhi. The following is a digest of the 44 bangwen of the Hongwu reign posted by various ministries:

1. Punishment: indicting Buddhist monks engaged in illicit activities, officials and underlings for wrongful treatment of prisoners, ruffians for unwarranted litigations, bureaucrats for unlawful destruction of government documents, transfer of government documents to pri-vate quarters, and wrongful accusations of innocent people; harshly penalizing people for willful violation of the ban on wearing im-proper style boots and footgear; executing Lan Yu 藍玉 (?–March 1393) for high treason; indicting officials for concealment of state affairs, military battalion commanders for corrupt activities, and harshly sentencing thieves and scoundrels, individuals for unlaw-fully enslaving people, and illegal use of instruments of punishment. Penalties for these offenses varied: from beheading, death by slic-

17 Having usurped the throne of the Jianwen 建文 emperor (Zhu Yunwen 朱允炆, r. 1399–1402), Zhu Di 朱棣 (1360–1424) eradicated all records from the former emperor’s 4-yr. era-name and replaced them with an artificial extension of that of his father (i.e., an extended Hongwu era-name, from 32 to 35 [1399–1402]). The 4-yr. era-name of the Jianwen emperor was then referred to in Ming official historiography as “Gechu 革除” (expunged). it was belat-edly restored by the Wanli emperor in october, 1595, but it was not until July, 1644, that the southern Ming ruler prince Fu 福, Zhu Yousong 朱由崧 (d. 1646) assigned to the emperor the temple name Hui zong 惠宗 and the posthumous name Rang huangdi 讓皇帝 (abdicated em-peror). For details, see Wu Jihua 吳緝華, “Mingdai Jianwendi zai chuantong huangwei shang de wenti” 明代建文帝在傳統皇位上的問題, rpt. in Wu Jihua, Mingdai zhidu shi luncong 明代制度史論叢 (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1959) 2, pp. 349–63. on the historiography of the usurpation, see Hok-lam Chan, “Legitimating Usurpation: Historical Revisions under the Ming Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–1424),” in Philip Yuen-sang Leung, ed., The Legitimation of New Or-ders: Case Studies in World History (Hong Kong: The Chinese U.P., 2007), pp. 75–158.

18 Gao Dong 高棟, Nanjing xingbu zhi 南京刑部志, 4 juan (hereafter, N JXBZ ); a rare copy of the original 1555 edition is preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. it con-tains a preface by Tao shangde 陶尚德, dated the same year, and two other prefaces by con-temporary scholar-officials. For a bibliographical note, see Wang Chung-min 王重民, comp., A Descriptive Catalog of Rare Chinese Books in the Library of Congress (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 1957) 1, p. 401. For a detailed study of the bangwen collected in this work, see Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, pp. 252–86. However, Huang erred in stating that the com-piler’s name was Cao Dong 曹棟, probably misreading his surname.

23


ing, displaying the corpse in public, to exile to distant places for the whole family.

2. Censorate: Execution of imperial decrees seizing ruffians and scoun-drels hidden in suzhou 蘇州 and Zhenjiang 鎮江; arresting officials wrongly accusing innocent people; sentencing various notoriously corrupt officials as well as a county clerk who was both corrupt and unfilial to his parents to death by slicing; indicting county magis-trates and judicial clerks for willfully destroying government docu-ments and sentencing them to death by slicing and banishing the whole family to the wilderness.

3. Area Command of the Army of the Front: Pronouncement of imperial edict on various transgressions of the convicts who had been con-scripted into the army on the borderland to avoid death sentence. They were charged with making trouble in the frontier guards, en-gaging in frivolous litigation, threatening officials, dodging conscript duties, organizing gangs and others. it was decreed that offenders shall be beheaded and not allowed to submit a petition. The same sentence shall be applied to military guardsmen who used their ar-mament to commit wrongdoings in collusion with the wicked people.

4. Personnel: Pronouncement of imperial edict on criteria and qualifica-tions for admission and promotion of clerical personnel in various government offices.

5. Revenue: Posting of placard in the main hall of the office of the min-istry on the regulations for rationing grain and salt to soldiers of the military guards in the capital who died in combat duties. Pronounce-ment of decree forbidding people’s using gold and silver in trade and transactions in streets and markets to inflate their value (they could use only paper money to facilitate its circulation). Violators shall be sentenced to death and all the goods they put in sale shall be confiscated and the whole family be banished to the wilderness.

6. Rites: Presenting a total of five placards headed by a long, detailed preamble outlining the philosophy, rules and regulations and pro-cedures of governance by officials of the subprefectures and coun-ties under the respective Provincial administration Commissions all over the country. They covered a variety of legal and juridical matters over people’s livelihood, marriage, disputes over land and property, litigations, brawls and altercations, and others. Punish-ments included public reprimand, death by beheading, and banish-ment to the wilderness. The other placards pronounced prohibition and punishment on a number of items, such as inappropriate use of nomenclature for people’s personal names and professions to be pe-nalized by heavy sentence; illegal marriages outsides the relations of the “five constants” (wuchang 五常) punishable by capital sentence and banishment to the wilderness; people shaving their head be-

24

hok-lam chan

yond the norm of etiquette publishable by castration, and sending the whole family to military exile. They also pronounced regulations on the system of avoidance for officials attending formal functions; also prohibition against military and civilian personnel who engaged in illicit trade with foreign states, colluding with foreigners, and dis-posal of foreign goods brought by foreign emissaries punishable by heavy sentences.

7. War: authorizing the military inspectorate on the banks of the Yangzi River to body-search passersby to prevent smuggling of prisoners away from the army camps in the capital with promise of rewards; disciplining military officers for failure to coach their chil-dren in horse riding and archery to improve the quality of the sol-diers; harshly punishing military personnel found practiced singing, playing chess or shuanglu 雙陸 (Chinese backgammon), kick ball, or engaging in trade by cutting off their tongues; hand(s), foot (feet), or sending them off to military exile; sentencing to death individu-als who dared to put government vessels for sale and to buy the ves-sels, and sending their entire family to the borderland; beheading a battalion commander of the Longjiang Guard 龍江衛 for raising war horses for selfish profit and giving bribes to inspecting officials to cheat the government.

8. Public Works: Prohibition against officials’ misuse of artisans for their personal tasks; offenders shall be heavily punished: they should be made to pay the artisans at 1 guan 貫 per day; both military and ci-vilian population are allowed to use wild shrubs and grasses for fire-wood; if noble people and officials intervened, they could tie them up to send to the authorities; people were forbidden to push carts over the main road in order to prevent damage to the thoroughfare; disobedient people from Tiantai 天台 (Zhejiang) refusing to serve as conscripted laborers should be sentenced to serving in the military guard in ningxia 寧夏 to set an example; military guardsmen who illegally sold official war vessels to people should be sentenced to death by slicing and their family exiled to ten thousand li away, and the same penalties be applied to the buyers.

Yang Yifan has identified four outstanding features of these plac-ards. First, many of the legislated punishments were outside the realm of the code and commands, while some made specific the punishment of certain crimes which were only vaguely suggestive in the formal code and statues. second, many of the penal sentences pronounced in the placards were more harsh and cruel than those for a similar crime published in the code and statues. Third, the placards frequently cited the Grand Pronouncements as precedents for the dispensation of certain penal sentences that attested to the continued emphasis on harsh pun-

25


ishment. Fourth, in meting out harsh sentences the placards targeted not just wicked corrupt officials, but also ordinary commoners who faced similarly harsh punishments for flouting the emperor’s law.19 in addition, of the twenty-five placards issued in the Yongle era, many were similar in contents to or reiterated the commands of the Hongwu placards, but there were also exceptions that reflected the reality of the time. in all, the intent of the placards to pronounce extralegal punish-ments remained the same.20

T H E P L a C a R D s i n K E Z U O Z H U I Y U

a full inquiry into the subject would call for a translation of the extant placards collected in Nanjing Xingbu zhi with judicious textual and legal analysis, but that is outside the present scope, which is merely to give translations of a few sample placards of the Hongwu and Yong le reigns revealed in a Wanli 萬曆 era (1572- 1620) miscellany and to evaluate their significance in a broader historical context. The mis-cellany just cited is Gu Qiyuan’s 顧起元 (1565–1628) Kezuo zhuiyu 客座贅語 (Superfluous Gossip from the Guest Residence); the placards under investigation are presented in juan 10, under the caption: “Guochu bang wen” 國初榜文 (“Placards of the early years of the state”). it is a rare case of a miscellaneous work’s citing government documents such as these bangwen.21

a scholar who hailed from Jiangning 江寧, modern nanjing, Gu Qiyuan (zi Taichu 太初, or Linchu 鄰初; hao Dunyuan jushi 遯園居士) achieved his jinshi degree in 1598 under the emperor shenzong 神宗 (r. 1573–1619) and was appointed a compiler in the Hanlin academy. He served as director of studies in the national College at nanjing from 1610 to 1613, and was reappointed there as chancellor two years later. in 1616 he rose to be an assistant supervisor of instruction to the heir-apparent Zhu Changluo 朱常洛 (1582–1620, later reigning as the emperor Guangzong 光宗; r. 1620); and later he served as a vice-minister of Personnel. He then retired to his home in nanjing devoting himself to study and writing, and taking time to enjoy the simple plea-sure of nature in the garden he built, known as Dunyuan 遯園 (Garden

19 see Yang, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng, pp. 157–67.20 see Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, pp. 182–86.21 see Gu Qiyuan 顧起元, Kezuo zhuiyu 客座贅語, annot. Tan Dihua 譚棣華 and Chen

Jiahe 陳稼禾 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1987; hereafter, KZZY ) 10, pp. 346–48. For biblio-graphic information, see pp. 1–3.

26

hok-lam chan

of Escape), the source of his sobriquet. Gu was bestowed the canonized name Wenzhuang 文莊 in 1645 by prince Fu 福王, Zhu Yousong 朱由崧, the first southern Ming ruler (?-1646). an erudite scholar and gifted poet, Gu left several volumes of literary collections. The main corpus was Lanzhen caotang ji 嬾真草堂集 (Collected Works from the Lanzhen Grass Pavilion), printed in 1618, which consists of 20 juan of poetry and 30 of prose; but the best known work was his literary miscellany, Kezuo zhuiyu, in 10 juan, printed in the same year. it was a collection of epi-sodic jottings written in an elegant literary style with rich information on the events and personalities of his native nanjing in both historical times and contemporary scenarios.22

What follows are translations of the five excerpts of placards from Kezuo zhuiyu. Parts of the placards’ full texts were included in Nanjing xingbu zhi, but in fact other parts are available only in Gu Qiyuan’s miscellany.

Excerpt One: The Misconduct of Military Personnel

Hongwu 22/3/25 (april 21,1389); we received an imperial decree:23

“if in the capital there are military officers and soldiers who practice singing, cut off their tongue; for those who play chess or shuang lu (mentioned above),24 cut off their hand(s); those who play kick ball,25 remove their foot (feet?); those who engage in trade, send them to military exile in a faraway border.”

Yu Duan, son of Yu Rang, a battalion commander of a mili-tary guard in the prefecture, purposely ignored [the prohibition], blowing a [vertical bamboo] flute and chanting a lyric verse. it was ordered to cut off his upper lip and nose-tip… . also, a bat-talion commander of the Long jiang Guard Fu Yong and a “junior

22 For an account of Gu Qiyuan’s biography and his writings, see Lienche Tu Fang, “Ku Ch’i-yüan,” DMB 1, pp. 734–36.

23 see KZZY 10, pp. 346–47. This and other placards recorded by Gu are also cited in Wang Liqi 王利器, Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo shiliao 元明清三代禁毀小説戲曲史料, rev. edn. (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1981), pp. 12–14.

24 on shuanglu, see Lien-sheng Yang, “a note on the so-Called TLV Mirrors and the Game Liu-po,” H JAS 9 (1947), pp. 205, n. 26.

25 The Chinese term is yuan, which was the name for “ball” in some Ming-Qing fictions; e.g., references cited in Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng 蘭陵笑笑生 (pseudonym), Jinpingmei cihua 金瓶梅詞話, photolith. rpt. of Ming edn. (Xianggang: Taiping shuju, 1982), hui 囘 15, p. 9b; and Pu songling 蒲松齡, Liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋誌異 (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1978) 7, p. 1001. For other meanings of the term, see Hanyu da cidian 漢語大辭典, ed. Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風 et al. (shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe, 2001) 3, p. 654.

27


lieutenant of a platoon” (xiaoqi) of the same Guard Yao Yanbao (angbao in the original text) had his right leg removed for play-ing ball. The entire family was banished to Yunnan.26 洪武二十二

年三月二十五日, 奉聖旨: “在京但有軍官軍人學唱的, 割了舌頭; 下棋、打雙陸的, 斷手; 蹴圓的, 卸腳; 作買賣的, 發邊遠充軍.” 府軍衛千戶虞

讓男虞端故違, 吹簫唱曲, 將上唇連鼻尖個割了… . 又龍江衛指揮伏顒與

本衛小旗姚晏(昂)保蹴圓, 卸了右腳, 全家發放雲南.

This placard was either seen by Gu Qiyuan himself and jotted down in his Kezuo zhuiyu or was extracted from what we might term the origi-nal, which, as collected in Nanjing xingbu zhi, is item no. 42 in Huang Zhangjian’s numbering scheme of the placards. The above item was placed under the purview of the Ministry of War.27 When compared with the Nanjing xingbu zhi original, however, we see a preceding long passage on various infractions, as follows:

Hongwu 22/3/25. We received an imperial decree: “nowadays some military officers from the guards and chiliads outside the capital are reluctant to train and drill the soldiers; they are also reluctant to coach their sons in archery and horse-riding. There are such kind of people who have arrived at the post for enlist-ment. They put their children to a test, and they can neither ride the horse nor shoot an arrow. at home they indulge themselves in drinking, singing, playing chess and shuanglu, and kick ball. There are also those who go to the street to trade, competing with the commoners for a profit. in this way a noble [profession] degen-erates into meanness. That is why an injunction was issued [for indictment of such individuals.]” 洪武二十二年三月二十五日, 奉聖

旨: “如今在外衛所軍官, 不肯操練軍人, 又不肯教他兒子演習弓馬. 為這

般有來告替的, 將他孩兒比試, 馬也不會騎, 弓也不會射, 在家只是吃酒、學唱, 下棋、打雙陸、蹴圓. 又有在街上做買賣, 與民爭利. 如此高貴復

賤, 所以行出號令.”

The text at this point joins with the above-cited placard from Gu’s Ke-zuo zhuiyu and concludes with the following passage:

From now on if military officers and housemen have committed such an offense (i.e., blowing a flute and chanting a lyric verse), they shall be punished just like Yu Duan. if a father who did not

26 KZZY 10, pp. 346–47. The imperial decree was also excerpted in shen Defu 沈德符, Wan-li yehuobian 萬曆野獲編 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), “buyi” 補遺 3, p. 881. The author, however, adds: “all the offenders were to be penalized according to law 犯者必如法執行.”

27 N JXBZ 3, pp. 34b–35b; Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, pp. 279–80.

28

hok-lam chan

properly coach his son in archery and horse-riding and later came to the capital for enlistment, when his son, after having tested poorly in archery and horse-riding still went with his father to the extreme border and barren foreign land to serve in defense, they shall not be given stipends, and he shall not be allowed replace-ment until after he has acquired the skills of an adult. 今後軍官舍

人, 但犯一件, 與虞端一般治他. 若為父的不好生教子演習弓馬, 後來赴京

告替, 比騐他弓馬不慣熟, 一時連父子都發去極邊上, 生蠻地面裏守禦, 不與俸給, 直待他操練成人時, 方准他替.

Here the original text is joined to the last sentence of Gu’s text, which concerned the case of the Long jiang Guard battalion commander Fu Yong having their right legs removed for violating the prohibition against solders kicking ball.

Excerpt Two: Improper Hairdo

Hongwu 25/9/9(september 24,1392). a placard displayed by the Ministry of Rites reads:28

For an inner-court servant who shaves his forehead leaving a strand [of hair], and children from the family of officials and com-moners who shave their foreheads and leave a strand: they are to be castrated, and the entire family sent to military exile in a distant border. The head shaver (i.e., barber), no matter elderly or young, shall receive the same penalty. 二十五年九月九日(1392/9/24), 禮部榜文一款: “内使剃一搭頭, 官民之家兒童剃留一搭頭者, 閹割, 全家發

邊遠充軍. 剃頭之人, 不分老幼, 罪同.”

This item matches the Nanjing xingbu zhi placard no. 38 and is listed under the purview of the Ministry of Rites; but it carries the epithet “wei lizhi shi 為禮制事” (“concerning ritual propriety”).29 The objective seems to aim at prohibiting people from adopting a hairdo akin to the Mongol custom. according to Yuan-era sources such as Zhao Hong’s 趙垬 Mengda beilu 蒙韃備錄 (1221) and Zheng sixiao’s 鄭思肖 (1241–1318) Xinshi 心史, the Mongols shaved their heads similarly to the way Chi-nese children had three strands of forehead hair (san da tou 三搭頭), but they let the left and right ones grow into long braids.30 Here, such

28 KZZY 10, p. 347.29 N JXBZ 3, p. 34a; Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, p. 279.30 see Zhao Gong, Mengda beilu, annot. Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877–1927), in Guoxue

wenku 國學文庫 (Beijing: Wendiange shuzhuang, 1933), vol. 25, p. 10. This work was wrongly ascribed to Meng Gong 孟珙 (1195–1246) in traditional bibliography but has been corrected in modern scholarship. in describing this Mongol custom, the citation reads: “From as high as Chinggis Qan to as low as the national people, they all shave their head as pojiao 婆焦,

29


a style was regarded as a barbarian custom harmful to social behavior and needed to be eliminated. as early as June, 1370, Zhu Yuanzhang had issued a decree bemoaning the fact that Mongol clothes had been adopted extensively by the Chinese; he stated: “The people refuse to be civilized. in the villages and hamlets they still continue to follow the Yuan customs 民不見化, 市鄉里閭尚循元俗 … . Chinese hats and garments have been corrupted by barbarian customs 中國衣冠壞於胡俗.” Towards the end of his reign, the emperor made one more reference to Mongol clothes. in July, 1391, pronouncing a set of costume regulations for of-ficials, he said at one point: “They should not use barbarian garb 不得

仍用胡服.”31 The emperor’s ruling on hairdos was therefore evidently part and partial of his attempts to eliminate Mongol customs in order to return the Chinese to their traditional practices.

Excerpt Three: Misuse of Nomenclature for Personal Names

[Hongwu] 26/12/15 (January 17, 1394). We received an imperial decree announcing the following prohibitions:

it is forbidden to use nomenclature such as Taizu (Grand Pro-genitor), shengsun (imperial grandson), Longsun (Dragon [dragon alluded to an imperial grandson), Huangsun (imperial grandson; huang alluded to imperial), Wangsun (princely grandson), Taisun (great-grandson), Taishu (grand junior-uncle), Taixiong (grand elder-brother), Taidi (grand junior-brother), Taishi (grand teacher), Taifu (grand tutor), Taibao (grand protector), Tafu (grand master), Dai-zhao ([gentleman] awaiting orders), Boshi (erudite scholar), Taijian

just like the Chinese children who leave three strands of hair on their forehead. When they grow old they cut them, but the two lower strands are knotted into curls and flow over their shoulders. 上至成吉思汗, 下及國人皆剃婆焦, 如中國小兒留三搭頭在囪前門者. 在下者, 總小角垂於肩上.” it has been rendered in German, see Erich Haenisch and Yao Ts’ung-wu 姚從吾, trans., Meng-ta pei-lu und Hei-ta shih-lüeh, Chinesische gesandtenberichte über die fruhen Mon-golen 1221 und 1237 (Wiesbaden: otto Harrassowitz, 1980), pp. 69–71, esp. n. 8. Wang Guo-wei cited two additional references to this Mongolian hairdo: 1. Zheng sixiao, Xinshi; and 2. Ch´ng in-ji 鄭麟趾 (1342–98) Kory´ sa 高麗史. Zheng sixiao described the san da hairdo very much like the source mentioned above, but noted that the braids were called bulanger 不狼兒; see “Xinshi: Dayi luexu” 心史大義略敍, included in Zheng Sishao ji 鄭思肖集, ed. Chen Fukang 陳福康 (shanghai: shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991), pp. 181–82. Ch´ng gave a similar description of the Mongol hairdo, which he calls keguli 怯仇兒 (Chin: qiechouer) but did not explain the meaning; Kory´ sa (1451; Tokyo: Kokusho kankokai, 1908–09) 28, pp. 4a–b. For a recent study on ancient Chinese hairdo with reference to the northern “barbarian” customs, see Cen Dali 岑大利, Zhongguo fashi sishushi 中國髮式習俗史 (Kunming: Yunnan jiaoyu chu-banshe, 2001), pp. 29–32.

31 see MT ZSL 73, pp. 1352–53; 209, pp. 3110–19, esp. p. 3116. For comments, see Hen-ry serruys, “Remains of Mongol Customs in China during the Early Ming Period,” MS 16 (1957), pp. 158–60.

30

hok-lam chan

(grand director [during Ming a generic term for eunuch officials]), Daguan (high-ranking official), and Langzhong (gentleman of the interior) to be personal names. a healer of the sick can only be called a medical practitioner, medical man, medical professional; he is forbidden to be called palace physician, grand master, or gentleman of the interior. a hairdresser can only be called hair comber (literally, “brush hair with a bamboo comb”) or facial beautician; he is not allowed to be called [gentleman] awaiting orders. a chef of the official family can only be called doorman; he is forbidden to be called grand director.32 二十六年十二月十

五日奉旨今約: “不許將太祖、聖孫、龍孫、黃孫、王孫、太孫、太叔、太兄、太弟、太師、太傅、太保、大夫、待詔、博士、太醫、太監、大

官、郎中字樣以為名字稱呼. 一醫人止許稱醫士、醫人、醫者, 不許稱太

醫、大夫、郎中. 梳頭人止許稱梳箆人, 或整容, 不許稱待詔. 官員之家火

者, 止許稱閽者, 不許稱太監.”

This placard matches Nanjing xingbu zhi no. 35, of the placards dis-played by the Ministry of Rites, but a couple of sentences are missing. in the original, the opening lines were preceded by a statement that declared that “on the subject of the prohibition, we have observed that, in many places the military personnel and commoners have used [the nomenclature of] Grand Progenitor… to refer to themselves” 為禁約事,

照得各處軍民人等, 多有將太祖… 字樣以為名字稱呼. it continues with: “in so doing they violate the [distinction between] name and reality; it is proper to display the placard to admonish people to make corrections. if they repeat the offense, they shall be subject to heavy penalties. We have received an imperial decree that declared: ‘Positively.’”33 有乖名

分, 理合出榜曉諭改正. 敢有仍前違犯, 治以重罪. 奉聖旨: “是”. it then con-cludes with the same sentences already translated above.

The original decree on this subject was cited in Taizu shilu, under Hongwu 26/12/15 (January 17, 1394). it gave instruction to the Minis-try of Rites to reiterate the enforcement of the prohibition on the misuse of nomenclature. Being an abridgement of the original, it leaves out several categories, including that (above) dealing with hairdressers who misrepresented themselves, and only stated: “an order was given to the Ministry of Rites to reiterate the prohibition against soldiers and com-moners for using the nomenclature Taisun, Taibao, Taishi, Daizhao, Daguan, Langzhong, and others as personal names. 命禮部申禁軍民人

等, 不得用許將太孫、太保、太師、待詔、大官、郎中等字為名稱”34

32 KZZY 10, p. 347. 33 N JXBZ 3, pp. 32b–33a; Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, p. 278.34 MT ZSL 230, p. 368.

31


Excerpt Four: Rules on Proper Boot-Wear

[Hongwu]26/8(september-0ctober 1393). a playcard reads:35

on the subject of treacherous and crafty people flouting the law. We successively acted pursuant to the Warden’s office of the Five-Walled [capital] City36 that sent over prisoners Yan suo-zhu and others. They purposely had altered the original “Leather padded footgear” (pizhaweng)37 into a calf-length (banjie) boot or shorter boot that had an inner lining the length of a regular boot, and was fitted with grommets for wearing themselves, or selling to other people. [Wearing such an altered boot,] they got loose with drink, bedded with prostitutes, and went about wildly. The Warden’s office sent them over with a criminal indictment and this Ministry made a careful investigation. 為奸頑亂法事, 節次據五

城兵馬司拏送到犯人顏鎖住等, 故將原定皮剳樣制, 更改作半截靴、短

靴, 裏兒與靴一般長, 安上抹口, 俱各穿著, 或賣與人, 仍前自便於飲

酒、宿娼、行走搖擺, 該司送問罪名, 本部切詳.in earlier times both officials and commoners were allowed to

wear boots, without distinction between noble and common. That is why now the court [being aware of the shortcoming] ordered the Ministry of Rites to display a placard to admonish military and commoners, merchants, acrobats, officials’ underlings, their family members and household chefs (?)38 that they were all banned from wearing boots and were allowed to wear only the “leather padded footgear.” all those who disobey the injunction shall receive a se-vere penalty. if samples of these so-called boots are leaked to the public they will inevitably cause confusion and disruption of the ritual system and should be suppressed openly. We have received this decree: “all those who violate the law and measures shall be detained and sent to the front doors of their houses for beheading in public. The entire family shall be banished to Yunnan.” 39 先為

35 KZZY 10, p. 347.36 nanjing, site of the ancient capital city Jinling 金陵, was dubbed the Five-Walled City be-

cause in Tang times Han Kuang 韓滉 built five walled cities in what were then known as shitou cheng 石頭城 or stone Walled-City; KZZY 5, pp. 152–53 (“Jinling gucheng” 金陵古城).

37 The term pizhaweng (cf. 扎 for zha, as in MT ZSL 219, p. 3214) refers to a tubular boot-like footgear or padded cotton shoe; Hanyu dacidian 12, p. 212. Weng is Wu dialect.

38 The Chinese term is huozhe 火者, which, judging from the context, can be rendered as “household chefs.” However, huozhe was also the name of the lowest-rank palace eunuch; see Liu Ruoyu 劉若愚, Zhuozhong zhi 酌中志 (CsJC edn.; shanghai: shangwu yinshuguan, 1935) 19, pp. 161–62. Cf. He Guanbiao 何冠彪, “Huanguan tongcheng ‘Taijian’ kao” 宦官通稱太監考, Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 8.2 (December 1990), p. 205, n. 19.

39 KZZY 10, p. 347. This placard is undated; it is particularly valuable as it is not includ-ed in N JXBZ .

32

hok-lam chan

官民一概穿靴, 不分貴賤, 所以朝廷命禮部出榜曉諭軍民、商賈、技藝、官下家人、火者, 並不許穿靴, 止許穿皮剳 , 違者處以極刑. 此等靴樣

傳於外, 必致制度紊亂, 宜加顯戳. 奉旨: “這等亂法度的, 都押去本家門

首梟令了, 全家遷入雲南.”

The second paragraph in the placard actually referred to a decree issued in Hongwu 3/2/5 (March 2, 1970), when the emperor promul-gated the more general dress code for scholars (shi 士) and common-ers (shu 庶). Part of this was that commoners could wear “dark striped boots” (zaowen xue 皂紋靴), but this information is not included in the Shilu. it is recorded in subsequent editions of Da Ming huidian.40 How-ever, as time wore on, numerous instances of violations of boot-wear rules were ignored.

Therefore, on Hongwu 25/7/3 (July 22, 1392), the emperor issued a long decree reiterating the prohibition:

The renwu date. Prohibition on boot wearing was reiterated. Ear-lier, [His Majesty] had banned commoners from making boots with flowery designs and golden thread decorations. However, wealthy merchants and tycoons, treacherous people and crafty petty offi-cials, as well as juvenile hooligans from the military families often broke the law and flaunted luxury and artfulness. They made flow-ery patterns fitted with golden thread and blue twigs; in so doing they slighted the modest social custom and transgressed the dis-tinction between the upper and lower classes. in worst cases, some feigned to be the siblings of the dukes, marquises, and grand min-isters and roamed the markets [selling these boots] for a notorious profit. now the cases were reported and a decree was issued to the Ministry of Rites to take stern action. [Under this ruling,] only civil and military officials as well as their fathers, elder brothers, elder and junior uncles, junior brothers, nephews, sons and sons-in-law belonging to the same household registry, as well as Confucian scholars, students from government schools, subofficial function-aries on special duty, custodians of an official seal, messengers on assignment, astronomers from the Directorate of astronomy, physicians from the imperial academy of Medicine, yoga? (yujia) monks, Daoists of the “orthodox Unity” (Zhengyi) sect, gener-als, irregular cavalry officers, housemen, those authorized to carry swords, regular cavalrymen, commanders of the platoon unit, as well as teachers and students coaching and studying the Grand Pro-

40 Li Dongyang 李東陽 et al., eds., Da Ming huidian 大明會典 (Taibei: Dongnan shubaoshe, 1963) 61: “shi shu jin fu” 士庶巾服, p. 35b: The 1393 prohibition decree contained in the bangwen was included in the passage.

33


nouncement are permitted to bear boots. But they are not permitted to wear boots with “crimson fan” instep and dark lower-heel like those of the eunuchs and inner-court servants. as to the regions of Beiping, shanxi, shandong, shaanxi, Henan and Xuzhou of the [northern] Metropolitan area where the weather is cold, people there are permitted to wear ox-skin vertically stitched boots. Com-mandants and weight-lifters on assignment and musicians attend-ing palace ceremonies are permitted to wear boots but not when they appear in public. as to commoners, merchants and traders, skilled artisans (or acrobats), foot soldiers, miscellaneous military retainers, chief “junior lieutenants of a platoon” in charge of the cavalry, subordinate members of the official family, chefs, slaves, attendants, public physicians and diviners, and geomancers — they are all not permitted. They are only permitted to wear “leather padded footgear” and offenders shall be penalized.41 壬午. 申明靴

禁. 先是, 嘗禁民間製靴, 不許栽為花樣及以金線裝飾, 而富商大賈、姦民

猾胥、末技賤民, 及軍中無賴少年, 往往冒犯, 恣為淫巧, 栽制花樣, 嵌以

金線藍條, 篾敦朴之風, 亂貴賤之等, 甚者詐為公侯大臣家子姪, 出入市中

為奸利. 至是, 事聞, 詔禮部嚴禁之. 唯文武百官並同籍父兄、伯叔、弟姪

子婿, 及儒士生員、吏典、知印、承差、欽天監天文生、太醫院醫士、瑜珈僧、正一道士, 將軍、散騎、舍人、帶刀之人、正伍軍馬、幷馬軍

總小旗, 教讀 “大誥” 師生許穿靴, 然不許用紅扇面黑下椿, 與内官内使

靴同. 其北平、山西、山東、陝西、河南幷直隸徐州地寒, 人民許穿牛皮

直縫靴. 校尉力士遇上直, 樂工當承應許穿, 出外不許. 其庶民、商賈、技

藝、步軍、及軍士餘丁、管步軍總小旗, 官下家人、火者、皂隷伴當、在外醫卜、陰陽人皆不許, 止許穿皮扎 , 違者罪之.

apparently the placard made an excerpt of the imperial decree in or-der to drive home to the judicial authorities and the local officials the seriousness in enforcing the boot code with severe punishments.

Excerpt Five: Taboo on Theatrical Performances

Yongle 9/7/1 ( July 21, 1411). acting supervising secretary of the of-fice of scrutiny for Justice Cao Run and others memorialized:42

[Your servant] begs that a decree be issued to the judicial au-thorities that from now on, for people who profanely dress up as actors in various theatrical performances, only those who by ap-proval of the Code (see below) act as immortals, righteous hus-bands, chaste wives, filial sons, obedient sons’ sons with the aim of motivating others to be good and celebrating great peace shall

41 MT ZSL 219, pp. 3213–14. 42 KZZY 10, pp. 347–48.

34

hok-lam chan

not be prohibited. But for lyrical poems (ci) and lyrical verses (qu), jiatou43 plays portraying emperors, theatrical performances (zaju) profaning the emperors, sages, and worthies that are disapproved by the Code, people who dare to collect and transmit them orally or print them for sale shall be immediately detained and sent to the judicial authorities for prosecution.

We have received the decree: “For all these lyrical poems and verses, after the placards [announcing the prohibition] have been hung, five days of grace shall be given. after this period they should be sent to the authorities for burning and destruction. as to those who dare to collect them: their entire families shall be exterminated.” on these things, the legal measures during the early years of the dynasty were already so severe, they were what the Ancestral Injunctions declared as “sternly punishing those who were wicked and crafty.”44

(This would be Gu’s comment:) after this date, all the measures followed the Code and Pronouncements, and the net of indictment was widespread. 該刑科署都給事中曹潤等奏: “乞勑下法司, 今後人民

有褻瀆唱優扮雜劇, 除依律神仙道扮, 義夫節婦, 孝子順孫. 勸人爲善, 及歡樂太平者不禁外, 但有褻瀆帝王聖賢之詞曲、駕頭、雜劇, 非律所該載

者, 敢有收藏傳誦、印賣, 一時挐送法司究治.” 奉旨: “但這等詞曲, 出榜

後, 限他五日, 都要乾淨將赴官燒毀了, 敢有收藏的, 全家殺了.” 此等事, 國初法度之嚴如此, 祖訓所謂頓挫頑奸者. 後一切遵行律誥, 湯網恢恢矣.

This placard, the only item in Kezuo zhuiyu that belongs to the reign-era of the Yongle emperor, corresponds to no. 59 of the placards under the purview of the Censorate collected in Nanjing xingbu zhi.45 However, at the end of the citation the remarks on the severity of the law and refer-ence to Ming Taizu’s Ancestral Injunctions seemed to have been added by Gu Qiyuan himself as an afterthought.

in effect, the decree apparently transmitted part of the ruling of Taizu, as we read an imperial edict in Taizu shilu on Hongwu 6/2/10 (March 4, 1373) with the following instruction to the Ministry of Rites 詔禮部:46

43 The term jiatou originally refers to the insignia of the emperor for display in ceremo-nies. it is explained in detail in shen Kuo 沈括, Mengqi bitan 夢溪筆談, s.v. “gushi 故事”; Hu Daojing 胡道靜, Mengqi bitan jiaozheng 校證 (shanghai: shanghai chuban gongsi, 1956) 1, p. 3. see also Lu You 陸游, Laoxue’an biji 老學庵筆記 (CsJC edn.) 2, p. 13. For references to jiatou plays, see Hanyu da cician 12, p. 829.

44 see Huang Ming zuxun, first section, p. 389. Cf. translation in Farmer, Zhu Yuangzhang, p. 118.

45 N JXBZ 3, pp. 40a–40b; Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, pp. 283–84.46 MT ZSL 79, p. 1440.

35


“announce the prohibitions to the Music office and to the country. Musicians should not act as ancient sages, enlightened emperors, loyal servants and righteous heroes in theatrical performances. of-fenders shall be penalized.” (Following is a comment by the Shilu editors:) in former times, as per the barbarian Yuan custom, actors often dressed in the headgear and costume of the ancient sages and virtuous people so that people would make fun or abuse them during feasts. it was profane and derogatory. Therefore it was or-dered that such actions be prohibited. “申禁教坊司及天下, 樂人毋

得以古先聖帝明王、忠臣義士為優戯. 違者罪之.” 先是, 胡元之俗, 往往

以先聖賢衣冠為伶人笑侮之飾以侑燕樂, 甚爲凟慢, 故命禁之.

This prohibition, while blaming the Mongols’ permitting of actors to indulge in inappropriate mimicking of ancient sages, in effect ex-pressed the Ming ruler’s disdain of theatrical performances in market-places and temple festivals, which had become increasingly popular in urban and rural centers since song times. The ban had its origin in a historical tradition of interdictions against temple activities known as yinsi 淫祀 (licentious sacrifice), something condemned by the state since antiquity and continuing down to song and Yuan.47 The edict provided the basis of a statue in the Great Ming Code. Under Laws on Penal affairs, article 408 on Theatrical Performances (“Banzuo zaju”) reads: “in all cases of theatrical performances, musicians shall not be permitted to dress up as former emperors, empresses, or other imperial consorts, loyal ministers, martyrs, sages, or worthies. any violations shall be punished by 100 strokes of beating with the heavy stick. if the households of officials or commoners allow dressing up this way for performances, the penalty shall be the same. as for acting as immor-tals, righteous husbands, chaste wives, filial sons, or obedient sons’ sons with the aim of motivating others to be good, it shall not be prohibited. [搬做雜劇] 凡樂人搬做雜劇戯文, 不許粧辦歷代帝王、后妃、忠臣、烈士、先

聖、先賢神項. 違者仗一百. 官民之家, 容令粧辦者, 與同罪. 其神仙道扮, 及義

夫、節婦, 孝子、順孫, 勸人爲善者, 不在限禁. The impact of the ancestral law on the imperial successor was too obvious.”48

The Code, however, made no mention of the placard’s unprece-dented prohibition and severe punishment for transmitting, possessing, and selling lyrical verses or theatrical plays that profaned the imperial rulers, sages, and virtuous people.

47 For a study of this historical tradition, see Fan Pen Chen, “Ritual Roots of the Theatrical Prohibitions of Late imperial China,” AM 3d ser. 22.1 (2008), pp. 25–44.

48 Jiang, Great Ming Code, p. 220.

36

hok-lam chan

“ P L a C a R D s ” a n a L Y Z E D

an appraisal of Taizu’s placards, as excerpted in Kezuo zhuiyu and coming under the purview of the extant corpus in Nanjing xingbu zhi and other Ming legal codes and pronouncements, will shed light on the significance of these raw documents. an a priori question, however, is whether Gu Qiyuan recorded them at random or had a special focus or target in mind. Judging from the nature of the contents, though concen-trated in a three-year period (1389, 1392–1393), they appear to have been either jotted down by Gu as he saw them in public or taken at random by him from materials collected in Nanjing xingbu zhi. Viewing the corpus as a whole, these samples present some outstanding cases, but they were also quite representative of the tenor of the placards in terms of the harsh criminal indictment and severe penal sentences.

The first placard reveals how deeply Ming Taizu was concerned with the deteriorating spiritual and physical qualities of military officers and soldiers of the guards, as well as chiliads in and outside the capi-tal; thus he promulgated harsh regulations and penalties as remedies. But the extreme corporal punishment (and banishment of families of offenders into military exile) for singing, chess, and kick ball were far too cruel and inhuman. it was beyond the military-exile punishment applied to criminals found in the Code and Commandments, and was not mentioned in any Ming legal statues. The intention of the placard seems to have been maximization of a reign of fear in order to attain imperial objectives.49

The second placard on hairdos is quite bizarre. it applied to eu-nuchs as well as to children of official families and commoners; and the penalty, that of castration to the latter offenders, was extremely cruel, again made worse with family exile. Even a guilty barber would receive such penalty! Even though the Ministry of Rites, in displaying the placard, added a note to the effect that it aimed at regulating ritual norms and helping the emperor to discourage what he regarded as barbarian customs, it definitely went too far. it is bizarre because the Mongol hairdo was quite similar to the Chinese, except that the former allowed the left and right strands to grow into side-braids.

The third placard is an interesting case of Taizu’s attempt to enforce a taboo on nomenclature — quite a long list with various implications —

49 This information, for example, is not found in the legal references on military exile in the Hongwu reign cited in Wu Yanhong 吳艷紅, Mingdai chongjun yanjiu 明代充軍研究 (Bei-jing: shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2003), pp. 20–51, 248–54.

37


for the purpose of maintaining hierarchical distinctions between social and professional classes. it is striking that such a prohibition was not pronounced either in the imperial decrees nor the Code or Command-ments; it perhaps suggests that the rules on nomenclature in earlier times were rather lax, and had led to various undesirable actions that the emperor disapproved of as society became increasingly complex.

The fourth placard on improper boot-wear, under the rubric of en-forcing proper ritual norms and social conformity, appears idiosyncratic and abusive to us. The original imperial decree gave some justifications for the imposition of the restrictions, such as discouraging luxury and maintaining hierarchical distinctions, but they not only meddled in the details of popular dress codes, but also subjected offenders to severe penalties that did not match the crimes. The imperial decree did not reveal the terms of the punishment, but the placard made clear that of-fenders were liable to beheading and the entire family to banishment in Yunnan. it must have placed heavy burden on local officials to make the criminal indictment and execute the sentence.

The fifth placard, issued in the ninth year of the Yongle reign on the initiation of a memorial from a judicial official, in effect upheld the prohibitions first announced by Taizu on punishment for unauthorized theatrical performances as part and parcel of the attempts to regulate so-cial behavior according to historical tradition. The penalty was unspeci-fied, which, according to the Code, was 100 strokes of the heavy stick. But the placard went further by proposing prohibition and punishments concerning lyric verse and plays that profaned rulers and worthies. it ended with a citation of the Yongle emperor’s decree that commanded the total destruction and execution of entire families, blatantly reflecting the severe punishment imposed by the first emperor on such offences.

in conclusion, Zhu Yuanzhang’s (Taizu’s) placards can shed sig-nificant light on one person’s method by which he attempted to keep a regulated social hierarchy and a frugal and properly behaved society closely monitored by ad hoc harsh rules and regulations. These would require draconic penalties beyond those stipulated in the criminal codes and legal pronouncements. apart from laying down an authoritarian judicial system based on concrete legal legislation and the support of a professional bureaucracy, Ming Taizu’s dispensation of justice was known to have been joined to his personal idiosyncrasies and outbursts of capricious behavior under political or family distress. The alleged high treason of Hu Weiyong and Lan Yu, causing the execution of

38

hok-lam chan

tens and thousands of innocent victims in a reign of terror,50 and the untimely death of the heir-apparent Zhu Biao, which traumatized his spirit and aggravated the problem of dynastic succession, undoubt-edly accounted for much of his irrational outbursts with undesirable consequences. These are but a few examples.51 scholars of Ming legal history have pointed out that Zhu Yuanzhang, as a paternal, despotic ruler, had often resorted to “extralegal punishments” to regulate be-havior and social norms according to his own perception and that he required cruel, tyrannical measures to do this. They have drawn evi-dence from the Grand Pronouncements and to some extent the Great Ming Code and other legal documents, but have not formed a consensus on how persistently they were applied, or how such punishments should be defined in the context of the evolution of the Great Ming Code to qualify as “outside the realm of the Code and Commandment.”52 The presence of the placards of the Hongwu reign that were displayed even in the Yongle reign and through the mid-Ming attest clearly that such harsh rules and regulations with severe punishments did exist. They provide concrete cases for assessment.

Gu Qiyuan’s sampling of the placards in Kezuo zhuiyu, whatever his intended message to his readers at a time when history was far re-moved from the dynastic founding, vividly exposed the dark side of Zhu Yuanzhang’s complex character, as well as his social engineering and remolding of the criminal justice system to satisfy his whims at horrendous human costs. The extant placards of the Hongwu reign as-sembled in Nanjing xingbu zhi provided the first-hand evidence, and Gu’s random records served to increase the public’s awareness of tyrannical atrocities on a broader basis. a full-scale analysis of the placards with a comparative study of information from Taizu shilu, and the evolution

50 on Hu Weiyong’s alleged high treason and execution, see Wu, “Hu Weiyong.” Lan Yu’s biographies are in MT ZSL 225, pp. 3296–97; MS 132, pp. 3863–66; see also Edward L. Dreyer and Hok-lam Chan, “Lan Yü,” DMB 1, pp. 788–91. on his alleged rebellion, see also Zhu Yuanzhang, Nichen lu 逆臣錄 (Ming ms.; rpt. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1991); and Massey, “Chu Yüan-chang and the Hu-Lan Cases,” pp. 419–44.

51 Zhu Biao’s biographies are in MT ZSL 217, pp. 3194–95; MS 115, pp. 3547–50; see also F. W. Mote, “Chu Piao,” DMB 1, pp. 123–25. on his death and its effect on the selection of imperial successor and attendant political crises, see Chan, “Legitimating Usurpation,” pp. 79–87; also Chan, “Ming Taizu’s Problem with His sons,” pp. 88–93.

52 E.g., Huang, Ming Qing shi yanjiu, chap. 2; Yang, Hongwu falü dianji kaozheng, chap. 3; idem, Mingchu zhongdian kao, chaps. 3, 6; and idem, Ming Dagao yanjiu,, chaps. 4, 7. on the changing attitudes of Ming Taizu towards punishment and a proper definition of the “ex-tralegal punishments ” in the context of the evolution of the Great Ming Code, see Tan Jiaqi, “Ming Taizu dui xingfa qingzhong de taidu. (Shang pian): Taizu yongxing taidu de yanbian guiji” 明太祖對刑法輕重的態度 (上篇): 太祖用刑態度的演變軌跡, Journal of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong ns 10 (2001), pp. 87–108.

39


of the codification based on extant legal codes and measures, would undoubtedly enhance our knowledge of Ming Taizu’s authoritarian rule and complex personality.

LIST OF ABBREvIATIONS

DMB L. C. Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644

KZZY Gu Qiyuan 顧起元, Kezuo zhuiyu 客座贅語

M S Zhang Tingyu 張廷玉 et al., eds., Mingshi 明史

MT ZSL Yao Guangxiao 姚廣孝 et al., eds., Ming Taizu shilu 明太祖實錄

N JXB Z Gao Dong 高棟, Nanjing xingbu zhi 南京刑部志

Ming Taizu’s “Placards” on Harsh Regulations and ...

Documents

Transcript of Ming Taizu’s “Placards” on Harsh Regulations and ...