盛世叩阍:清前期的皇权政治与诉讼实践

Grievance Complaints to the Imperial Court in an Era of Prosperity:Imperial Power Politics and Litigation Practice in the Early Qing Dynasty

在传统中国,叩阍被视为申雪冤狱的终极手段。清前期,顺治、康熙、雍正均在一定程度上把叩阍作为对官员的监督手段之一,建立了某种意义上具有清初特色的督察体系。但由于政治凌驾于法律,官僚集团并非坚定公正的法律执行者,而是通权达变的政治追随者,叩阍的监督作用有着较大的局限性。乾隆中后期,统治者强化对平民叩阍的打击,弱化了对官僚利益集团的监督,削弱了统治阶层的执政能力。叩阍的变化体现了清前期执政前后脱节、政治与法律错位、民情与君意背离等一系列错综复杂的矛盾和冲突。

In traditional China,lodging a complaint with the imperial court(kòuhūn叩阍) was regarded as the ultimate means to right a miscarriage of justice.During the early Qing Dynasty,Emperors Shunzi,Kangxi and Yongzheng to some extent used kòuhūn as a means of supervising officials,in a sense establishing an inspection system with early Qing features.But this supervisory role was quite limited because of the supremacy of political power over the law,so that bureaucrats,rather than being resolute and just upholders of the law,were political followers who cut their cloth to suit the times.In the later years of Emperor Qianlong's reign,the rulers intensified their attacks on ordinary people's kòuhūn,thus weakening their oversight over bureaucratic interest groups and undermining the governing capacity of the ruling class.The changes in kòuhūn reflect the complex contradictions and conflicts of the early Qing period,including inconsistent policies,political and legal dislocation,the incompatibility of the will of the rulers versus the wishes of the people,and so on.