邸报与中晚明的公开议政

Dibao and Debating Publicly in the Mid and Late Ming Dynasty

作为处理公共事务的政治治理,政治的生命与活力在于公开,公开方可赋予政治治理以理性精神。以儒家传统话语而言,则为决之"公论","公是非于天下"。然而这一点的实现,则需要相应的媒介作为载体。本文所探讨的邸报,就是"公论"与"公是非"的介质。中晚明的邸报,其承载内容之全面,覆盖范围之广,传播速度之快,不仅使明代政治呈现高度的公开透明性,而且有效促进了儒家士大夫的议政热情。晚明的"清议"风行,也与此有很大的关联。以明代历史沿革而言,邸报之从无到有,至万历臻于极致,进而延续至明亡,体现了儒家士大夫为实现自身的政治理想于政治制度建置上的努力。

Confucianism has the ideal of ＂Gonglun＂ （to debate publicly） or ＂Gong shifei yu tianxia＂ （to publicize the debates about national policies all over China）, which had been realized, though in a limited way, in Chinese ancient history. One media to realize the ideal is Dibao （court bulletin）, which could be traced back to the Song Dynasty and had been revived and reached its peak in the Ming Dynasty. This paper tests in the textual data the existence and importance of Dibao in the Ming Dynasty and argues that it had promoted the transparency of politics, especially in the mid and late Ming Dynasty. The contents of Dibao were imperial edicts and the memorials to the emperors from the scholar-officials, with the purpose to discuss national policies, under the permission of the emperors. During the mid and late Ming Dynasty, Dibao reached almost all counties of China, the lowest level of the imperial government, including remote counties in Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces, the farthest provinces from the central government. The debates were made available to all scholar-officials and they all could have a part in the debates. Moreover, Dibao played an important role in circulating those memorials held by the emperors without responding to the scholar-officials who sent them, a phenomenon called Ligzhong. This was especially the case during Wanli, one of the most inactive monarchies during Ming Dyansty. Dibao had its limit though; it was not available to all Chinese people but scholar-officials. Even the non-official students in official schools had no access to it. Despite this, the publicity mediated by Dibao could not be neglected.