从数据统计再论清代的抄家

Re-investigating Household and Property Confiscation in the Qing dynasty

抄家是清代政治的一个特有现象;中国历史上不乏抄家事例,唯在清代将之作为惩罚官员的手段广泛推行。借助今天的电子检索手段对清代中央档案进行全面搜索并逐一加以确认,已发现了超过两千起抄家案例。它们在时间分布上高度不均,而以18世纪雍正、乾隆两朝和19世纪光绪朝发生频次最高。对这些案例进行事由统计发现,亏空、逆叛和贪腐是最多见的罪名,因各种渎职、军事失利、文字狱、包括被连带抄家者数量亦不少。另外,抄家的发生与清代律例规定关系并不密切,特别关于官员的抄家,更多是皇帝个人意志、偏好与抉择的结果。

As a punitive measure, the confiscation of household property did not originate in Qing times. But it was not until the Qing that property confiscation was extensively imposed on guilty officials and became a hallmark of Qing politics. Investigations of confiscation in Qing have already been done, yet these studies have lacked precision in numerical terms and the subject requires more accurate description. The growth of digitalized archival materials has resulted in an increase of text-searchable literature and the work of examining large amounts of documents has become more feasible and efficient than ever before. For the first time a statistical analysis of the topic has become possible. This paper is an initial effort to provide a systematic statistical account of property confiscation employing a thorough examination of Qing Palace Archives that addresses the scale, frequency, and incidence of Qing property confiscations. For the whole Qing dynasty more than two thousands records have been captured but they were unevenly distributed in the Yongzheng （1723- 1735）, Qianlong （1736-1795）, and Guangxu （1875- 1908） reigns, both of which showed a high frequency of confiscation. This study has also found that property confiscation involved a great number of officials＇ subordinates, servants, relatives, and other individuals of various social statuses such as merchants, lower gentry, and commoners. As for the reasons for confiscation, although Qing statutes listed about a dozen grounds, the reality was not always in accord with the law; statistical results show that deficits, treason, and corruption were the three most common offenses, whereas malfeasance, poor military performances, and literary inquisition cases accounted for the many other confiscations. In the Qing, whether to confiscate or not depended much on the emperor＇ s will, and the punishment was enforced to varied degrees in different times.