晚清两湖地区州县“就地正法”述论

An Narrative and Comment on the Execution on the Spot in Both Provinces and Counties of Hunan and Hubei in the Late Qing Dynasty

清廷于咸丰三年(1853)起实施"就地正法"政策,藉以应对太平天国起义后全国性的大动乱。两湖地区自19世纪50年代后"盗贼会匪"充斥、社会一直动荡不安,因此,此间督抚们根据清廷的就地正法政策和两湖地区实际情形,制定相关的惩办措施,不仅明确了就地正法的范围和对象,而且使就地正法执行者下延到州县官甚至乡绅、团练,他们都可以随意就地处决"盗匪"。州县实施就地正法分为绅团直接正法、州县官直接正法和州县官审讯、道府委员复讯、督抚批饬正法三种类型。

In the third year of Xian Feng Emperor,in 1853,the Qing Coart carried out a policy of Excution on the spot in response to the upheaval caused by the Taiping Rebellion.Since the 1850s,both provinces of Hunan and Hubei had been filled with bandits and robbers so that the society was ectrenely unstable.Therefore,the civil and military governors in the two provinces framed their own punishment measures suitable to the local situations and conditions,which not only made clear the spheres and objects of being punished on the tegal bais of the execution on the spot,but also extended the enforcement power to the officials of counties and even the country gentlemen and civil corps who had the right to execute a criminal on the spot at will.Therefore there were three forms of execution on the spot in a county,that is： direct excution of the country gentlemen,the direct execution of the county magistrate and the execution soon after the county magistrate＇s trial,the prefecture＇s check and the province＇s approval.