Ideology and the legislative turn in eighteenth-century chinese criminal justice

• Author: Thomas Buoye
• Position: Ph.D. in History, Department of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA; Associate Professor of History, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104, USA. Contact: thomas-buoye@utulsa.edu
• Pages: 20-37

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 15 MARCH 2020 NO. 1

DOI 10.3868/s050-009-020-0003-5

FOCUS

TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION: LAW I N LATE IMPERIAL AND

MODERN CHINA

IDEOLOGY AND THE LEGISLATIVE TURN IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHINESE

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Thomas Buoye∗

Abstract 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” (󲣪

󰐶) has often been considered a declaration of the alien Qing dynasty’s Confucian

bona fides. 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 applicable legal guidelines. Thus, the

“Sacred Edict” was a shrewd 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 󰈮) 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.

Keywords “Sacred Edict,” Qing legislative turn, capital punishment, Chinese criminal

justice

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 21

∗ Thomas Buoye, Ph.D. in History, Department of History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan,

USA; Associate Professor of History, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma

74104, USA. Contact: thomas-buoye@utulsa.edu

2020] IDEOLOGY AND THE LEGISLATIVE TURN IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHINESE CRIMINAL JUSTICE 21

I. THE “SACRED EDICT OF SIXTEEN MAXIMS” (󲣪󰐶)........................................ 22

II. DISSEMINATION OF THE “SACRED EDICT”................................................................ 23

III. YONGZHENG EMPEROR’S AMPLIFICATION OF THE SACRED EDICT (󲣪󲢂)....... 26

IV. QIANLONG EMPEROR’S PROMOTION OF THE “SACRED EDICT”.............................. 30

V. POLICY OF DETERRENCE .......................................................................................... 33

CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 34

INTRODUCTION

This article explores the evolution in Qing dynastic approaches to ensuring social

stability, beginning with the use of persuasive, ideological education to propagate

Confucian values to the masses to the eventual reliance on deterrence-focused legislation

that provided for a more definitive and certainly more harsh punishment for acts that

negatively impacted social stability. From the Kangxi emperor’s promulgation of the

“Sacred Edict of Sixteen Maxims” (󲣪󰐶) in 1670 to the Yongzheng emperor’s

issuance of the Amplification of the Sacred Edict (󲣪󲢂) in 1724, and to the Qianlong

emperor’s compilation of a comprehensive update of the legal code in 1740, one can

discern a gradual but inexorable evolution in the methods of ensuring social stability (and

governing in general). This evolution was marked by the Qing dynasty’s transition from

military conquest, when the Qing conquerors adopted softer approaches to governing by

emphasizing education of Confucian values, to political consolidation, when they resorted

to a harder, rules-based approach aimed at deterrence of behavior that would disrupt social

stability. As successive emperors increasingly relied on bureaucratic methods to control

their expanding empire, law assumed a renewed importance that was reflected in a flood of

new legislation that peaked at the end of the eighteenth century. Not surprisingly, this

transition was readily apparent in the changing ethos and conduct of criminal justice.

Although in the eighteenth century Chinese society flourished under the Qing dynasty

and experienced unprecedented population growth and economic prosperity, everyday life

had become more contentious and violent. Administratively, the concomitant increase in

capital crimes created a backlog of cases awaiting final sentencing that revealed the limits

of existing procedures of criminal justice. Qing officials who regularly reviewed capital

crimes were painfully aware of the fissures in the social and economic order and the

ineffectiveness of Confucian values in maintaining social stability, thereby prompting an

urgent search for innovative approaches to governing. Both the Kangxi (r. 1661–1722) and

Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) emperors relied on a time-tested approach to criminal justice

that favored moral exhortation and transformation through educating the masses on

Confucian values. Initially, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736–1795) followed the examples of

his grandfather and his father but, as it became apparent that these traditional methods for

maintaining social order proved ineffective, an alternative course of action — redefining

criminal behavior and subjecting blatant offenders to an aggressive policy of deterrence —