Envisioning a well-ordered society composed of filial subjects who obeyed the law,avoided disputes,shunned religious heresy,paid their taxes,and peacefully engaged in agriculture,the Kangxi emperor’s“Sacred Edict of...Envisioning a well-ordered society composed of filial subjects who obeyed the law,avoided disputes,shunned religious heresy,paid their taxes,and peacefully engaged in agriculture,the Kangxi emperor’s“Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims”(圣谕十六条)has often been considered a declaration of the alien Qing dynasty's Confucian bonafides.While the rhetoric of the pronouncement echoed traditional moral values,the political acumen of the Qing rulers was readily apparent in the eighth maxim,“explain the laws to warn the ignorant and obstinate.”Melding moral and legal education,the eighth maxim specifically endorsed the efficacy of the law.The importance placed on legal knowledge was abundantly clear in one of the earliest commentaries,which explained all sixteen maxims with examples of applieablc legal guidelines.Thus,the“Sacred Edict”wfas a shrew d maneuver that endorsed traditional moral values,but it also foreshadowed a“legislative turn”in the Qing rule that was discernible in the evolving ethos of criminal justice.Despite the extensive efforts to propagate the“Sacred Edict,”violent crime was on the rise in the Kangxi.Yongzheng,and Qianlong reigns.When transformation through moral “teaching and cultivation”(jiaoyang 教养) failed to alleviate social conflict,Qing rulers reconsidered and revised the established practice of criminal justice and the existing concept of criminal behavior.By the end of the eighteenth century,the effort to stem the tide of violent crime relied less on ideological exhortation and more on legislation that articulated harsh punishments.This“legislative turn”in Qing criminal justice resulted in an aggressive policy of deterrence that facilitated the greater use of capital punishment.展开更多
Fueled by access to the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing,the first wave of American scholars of Chinese legal history cut their teeth on Qing legal documents in the 1980s.Subsequently,Chinese legal studie...Fueled by access to the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing,the first wave of American scholars of Chinese legal history cut their teeth on Qing legal documents in the 1980s.Subsequently,Chinese legal studies in the United States were transformed overnight and have been growing steadily since.American scholars combined access to archival sources with theoretical insights from the social sciences to breach the fissiparous barrier between historical research and legal studies.展开更多
Zhang Shiming＇s magnum opus, Law, Resources and Time-space Constructing： China in 1644-1945 is an extraordinary scholarly endeavor that encompasses economic, legal, military, political, and ethnic history while brid...Zhang Shiming＇s magnum opus, Law, Resources and Time-space Constructing： China in 1644-1945 is an extraordinary scholarly endeavor that encompasses economic, legal, military, political, and ethnic history while bridging the cultural and disciplinary divides between Chinese and Western scholarship. Comprised of five volumes, Law, Resources and Time-space Constructing combines original research in Chinese economic, legal, military, political,展开更多
文摘Envisioning a well-ordered society composed of filial subjects who obeyed the law,avoided disputes,shunned religious heresy,paid their taxes,and peacefully engaged in agriculture,the Kangxi emperor’s“Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims”(圣谕十六条)has often been considered a declaration of the alien Qing dynasty's Confucian bonafides.While the rhetoric of the pronouncement echoed traditional moral values,the political acumen of the Qing rulers was readily apparent in the eighth maxim,“explain the laws to warn the ignorant and obstinate.”Melding moral and legal education,the eighth maxim specifically endorsed the efficacy of the law.The importance placed on legal knowledge was abundantly clear in one of the earliest commentaries,which explained all sixteen maxims with examples of applieablc legal guidelines.Thus,the“Sacred Edict”wfas a shrew d maneuver that endorsed traditional moral values,but it also foreshadowed a“legislative turn”in the Qing rule that was discernible in the evolving ethos of criminal justice.Despite the extensive efforts to propagate the“Sacred Edict,”violent crime was on the rise in the Kangxi.Yongzheng,and Qianlong reigns.When transformation through moral “teaching and cultivation”(jiaoyang 教养) failed to alleviate social conflict,Qing rulers reconsidered and revised the established practice of criminal justice and the existing concept of criminal behavior.By the end of the eighteenth century,the effort to stem the tide of violent crime relied less on ideological exhortation and more on legislation that articulated harsh punishments.This“legislative turn”in Qing criminal justice resulted in an aggressive policy of deterrence that facilitated the greater use of capital punishment.
文摘Fueled by access to the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing,the first wave of American scholars of Chinese legal history cut their teeth on Qing legal documents in the 1980s.Subsequently,Chinese legal studies in the United States were transformed overnight and have been growing steadily since.American scholars combined access to archival sources with theoretical insights from the social sciences to breach the fissiparous barrier between historical research and legal studies.
文摘Zhang Shiming＇s magnum opus, Law, Resources and Time-space Constructing： China in 1644-1945 is an extraordinary scholarly endeavor that encompasses economic, legal, military, political, and ethnic history while bridging the cultural and disciplinary divides between Chinese and Western scholarship. Comprised of five volumes, Law, Resources and Time-space Constructing combines original research in Chinese economic, legal, military, political,
