5 | The Great Ming Code and Officialdom

OFFICIALS IN EARLY MING COSMOLOGY

In early Ming cosmology, government officials occupied a unique position. According to the ruling elite, Heaven, the supreme cosmic deity, had engendered the people and established the ruler. The ruler, the mediator between spiritual and human forces, received the Mandate from Heaven and was entrusted to nurture the myriad living things (HMZL, 12). In this initial cosmic-social act, only the ruler and the people were directly created by Heaven, through which they gained primary cosmic significance. The “great enterprise” of harmonizing human society, however, could not be achieved by the ruler alone. The cosmic mediator would have to select various worthies and appoint the most talented to take care of the human realm (TS, 1698, 2299). Zhu Yuanzhang once made this worldview explicit to his subjects:

Since ancient times, rulers have represented Heaven in managing human affairs by setting up separate offices to order various affairs and bring peace to the lives of the people.… Since the world was unified, I have set up cardinal principles, promulgated laws, and established offices according to ancient rules: in the capital, the six ministries and the Censorate; in the provinces, the provincial administration commissions, the provincial surveillance commissions, prefectures, subprefectures, and districts. Although the titles are different from previous dynasties, the system of government is the same. (JMBW, 1405–6; Farmer 1995, 197)

According to Zhu Yuanzhang, the appointment of government officials at various levels represented one of the ruler’s efforts to carry out the Mandate of Heaven. Therefore, officials came into existence not out of Heaven’s design, but because of the ruler’s need. It was the ruler, in other words, who defined and determined an official’s position and role in the cosmos.

The secondary cosmic status of government officials did not make them insignificant in managing human affairs. On numerous occasions, Zhu Yuanzhang pointed out their critical role in achieving an ideal society. He believed that no prosperous dynasty could be built without able officials (TS, 972), and great order could only be attained by employing worthy persons (TS, 1181).² Historically, he attributed the fall of earlier dynasties, by and large, to the evil behavior of officials. The Mongol Yuan, for example, had come to an end primarily because officials had usurped authority from the ruler and endeavored to pursue their own selfish interests. The ruler, on the other hand, only erred in failing to make resolute decisions, rather than by practicing tyranny (HMZL, 8; TS, 1215–16, 1325). To admonish his officials about the treacherous acts committed by their counterparts in the past, the Ming founder had the pamphlet Record of Warnings (Zhijie lu) compiled. Containing more than one hundred infamous crimes committed by officials during the Qin, Han, Tang, and Song dynasties, this booklet was issued to all officials and government schools (TS, 2712).

Cosmologically, the emperor saw a connection between official behavior and cosmic movements. When the moon entered the constellation of Xuanyuan, or Mars entered the constellation of Yugui, Zhu Yuanzhang would suppose that some of his high-ranking officials had violated cosmic principles and should be either dismissed or executed (TS, 1639, 1885–86). He would also conclude that many natural disasters were caused by assigning the wrong persons to government posts (TS, 2153–54). In the fourth month of 1378, an earthquake struck the area of Ningxia Military Guard, destroying city walls and leveling civilian houses. The emperor issued a written rescript to the Ningxia Guard Commander Geng Zhong (d. 1392), urging him to examine his mind-and-heart and subdue selfish desires. The son of a meritorious official, Geng Zhong had previously been demoted and sent to defend the frontier due to transgressions. This time, the emperor characterized the disaster as another heavenly warning. Only by cultivating heavenly virtues (tianjue), the emperor instructed him, could the ranks of nobility (renjue) be preserved (TS, 1926). These concerns indicate, of course, that while officials could be a source of cosmic disorder, they could also engender cosmic harmony. The connection between cosmic order and government officials defined the pivotal role of officialdom in early Ming cosmology.

Early Ming cosmology also emphasized the oneness of the ruler and officials in mediating between the deities and human beings. As early as 1366, Zhu Yuanzhang articulated the significance of the ruler and officials’ joint cultivation of virtue to achieve cosmic harmony. By sharing one principle, the future emperor said, Heaven would respond to humans according to what the ruler did. If the ruler cultivated virtue, the cosmos would be orderly and harmonious; otherwise, it would devolve into a state of chaos. The cultivation of virtue, however, was not a cosmic task assigned only to the ruler. All officials, Zhu urged, should cultivate virtue so as to assist the ruler. “The joint cultivation by both ruler and officials lays the foundation for communicating with Heaven” (TS, 298–99). For Zhu, if the ruler were a swan, the officials were its wings, making the swan fly far and high; if the ruler were a dragon, the officials were the scales and bristles, helping the dragon ascend (TS, 1465). Zhu even lowered his status to that of the officials: if the empire were a great mansion, then, the ruler was only one piece of wood, and the officials were the other necessary materials. Together, they formed one magnificent building (TS, 2040). The best metaphor, perhaps, was the traditional image of the ruling elite as one body: the ruler was the head, and the officials were the legs and arms. With one heart and one mind, the ruler and officials would jointly achieve an ideal order and nurture living beings (TS, 2257–58).

To ensure that dynastic officials fulfilled their duties, Zhu Yuanzhang either personally drafted or had his officials create a large number of moral guides and legal regulations. For instance, the Great Ming Commandment, organized according to the functional categories of the six ministries—personnel, revenue, rites, war, justice, and public works—provided officials with rules for handling government affairs (TS, 422–23; Farmer 1995, 150–94). The Collected Rituals of the Great Ming laid out rituals for all the major aspects of cosmic communications (TS, 1113–14; Ming jili); the Ancestral Instructions of the August Ming offered guidelines for imperial princes (TS, 3503–4; Farmer 1995, 114–49); and the four compilations of the Grand Pronouncements promoted dynastic principles by inflicting extremely severe penalties on guilty officials (Yang 1988; Andrew 1991). The most fundamental set of regulations was The Great Ming Code, the “constant law” of the dynasty. In its final 1397 form, the Code deals with problems exclusively related to officials in nearly 60 percent of its articles (260 out of 460). It established the basic principles, specific rules, and corresponding punishments for officials throughout the realm. The early Ming state apparatus wove a tight legal net to ensure the fulfillment of officials’ envisioned roles.

The following sections examine the specific cosmic obligations of officials as seen in The Great Ming Code. To understand the legal status of officialdom from a Ming perspective, it helps to consider what Zhu Yuanzhang required of his officials in the Comprehensive Instructions to Aid the Realm. As mentioned earlier, in that moralistic document, the emperor pointed out four categories of obligations for officials: to recompense the ruler, to recompense parents, to recompense the people, and to sacrifice to the deities. Here, “recompense” (bao) refers to the reciprocation of kindness and grace that the officials had received from the major components of the cosmos as well as human society. These “three recompenses and one sacrifice,” according to the emperor, summarized the cosmic role of officialdom. “Whoever violated any of them would come to no good end” (ZSTX, 1453–56).

RECOMPENSING THE RULER

The officials’ duty to recompense the ruler derived from their status in the cosmic order. Just as Heaven created and nurtured a myriad of things, the human ruler created and maintained officialdom to govern the human realm (TS, 801; Wang 1981, 70–71). It was the ruler, then, who decided the officials’ blessings and misfortunes, although his decisions should be based on heavenly principle and human sentiment. To be sure, the ruler and his officials were supposed to act as one ruling body, but their unity was cosmologically significant only toward the other cosmic components: deities and the people. Regarding their internal relations, the hierarchical order of ruler and minister should not be confused. As Zhu Yuanzhang explained to his officials: “The service of ministers to the ruler is like that of ruler to Heaven” (TS, 967). In essence, the status of the ruler and his ministers was exactly like that of superior Heaven and inferior Earth. If officials exceeded their boundaries and usurped authority, they would eventually bring disgrace and ruin upon both themselves and their families (TS, 1819–20). Recompense to the ruler became the cosmic obligation of the inferior, receptive yin force to the superior, generating yang force.

The Great Ming Code translates the officials’ cosmic status into a variety of special criminal responsibilities.³ One heinous offense against the throne involved forming “treacherous cliques” (jiandang). Article 60 of the Code delineates four types of acts: (1) “treacherous or evil persons” put forward calumnious whispers and tricky words to cause the throne to execute others; (2) when someone commits a crime punishable by the death penalty, high ministers or low officials put forward cunning words to the throne to petition for exemption from punishment in order to court popularity; (3) court officials form cliques to subvert the government of the court; and (4) officials or functionaries do not enforce the law but obey their superiors’ instructions to implicate the innocent or exonerate the guilty. Article 62 stipulates a fifth category: memorializing in praise of the admirable achievements, talents, or virtues of high officials. The Code thus sets forth a broad definition of “treacherous clique.” In fact, except for the third category, the other four acts only indicate the possibility of forming a clique; the requisites for engendering this crime do not necessarily comprise the existence of a disloyal group. In the case of praising high officials’ achievements, even one person could be convicted of forming a clique, regardless of whether or not the persons who are praised knew the circumstances. The broad definition attests to the court’s anxiety about possible group resistance.

The gravity of the crime is demonstrated by severe punishments and rewards. The offenders were to be decapitated, their wives and children enslaved, and their property confiscated. Meanwhile, those who disobeyed “treacherous officials” and reported criminal acts to the throne were rewarded with the criminals’ property. Moreover, if the informers were officials, they would be promoted two ranks; if they were not officials, they would be rewarded with an official position or two thousand liang of silver (Art. 60). The reward clause is particularly noteworthy: as one of only twenty-one articles (out of the total 460 in the Code) that provide rewards to accusers,⁴ it offers the highest value, that is, the criminals’ property plus two thousand liang of silver (if the accusers do not accept a government position);⁵ and it is only one of two provisions that reward both property and position.⁶ Apparently, “forming treacherous cliques” is one of the most heinous crimes in The Great Ming Code, and various commentaries on the Code condemn “forming treacherous cliques” to betray the ruler and destroy the government. The commentaries reinforce the danger of the crime by referring to historical cases such as the assemblage of three thousand retainers by Tian Wen (d. 279 B.C.E.) in the State of Qi (Lewis 1999, 635–36) and the “eight important figures and sixteen gentlemen” under Li Fengji (758–835) in the Tang dynasty (Dalby 1979, 644–45, 648). Both groups ignored their rulers and dominated court politics (JJFL, 457–58; XTFL, 1.17b–18b; LMBJ, 31a; ZPZZ, 2.27a-b). For the prohibition against praising high officials’ virtues and talents to the throne, the jurist Ying Jia (1494–1554) expounded the law by using another historical case where nearly five hundred thousand people memorialized Wang Mang’s merits and virtues at the end the Western Han, which led to the eventual “disaster of usurpation” (MLSY, 37). The Code, therefore, attempted to forestall any threat to imperial authority.

Although factionalism was “natural to politics” throughout Chinese history (Mote 1962, 176), the crime of “forming cliques” was a Ming legal innovation. The formal charge, “treacherous clique,” appears in the case of Hu Weiyong (Fu 1963; Massey 1983). In 1380, Grand Councilor Hu and his followers were accused, among other things, of plotting rebellion and forming treacherous cliques, and were executed (MS, 7906–9; TS, 2043; DMB, 638–41). The subsequent pursuit of alleged Hu-clique members lasted over a decade.⁷ As a result, the court executed more than thirty thousand people, including at least twenty-two meritorious officials and nobles such as the former Grand Councilor Li Shanchang (1314–1390) (MS, 3769–73; DMB, 638–41, 850–54; Qian 1985, 2126–42; Pan 1968, 73–81). To warn and educate his officials, Zhu Yuanzhang had several documents published: Instructions for Ministers (Chenjie lu, 1380) and The Prime Minister’s Mirror (Xiang jian, 1380), both of which listed historical figures as good or bad examples; and Revelations of the Treacherous Clique (Zhaoshi jiandang lu, 1388), a record of the testimony and confessions of the accused Huclique members (Langlois 1988, 142; Qian 1985, 2134–40). By 1386, the crime of “forming treacherous cliques” had been included in The Great Ming Code (LJBY, 70). In 1393, the rule was applied in the case of Lan Yu, Dynastic Duke of Liang (Fu 1963; Massey 1983). Lan faced the same charges as Hu Weiyong: plotting rebellion and forming a clique. Consequently, Lan Yu and more than ten thousand other people were put to death. Then, the emperor again had a tract published, Record of Rebellious Ministers (Nichen lu), which listed the crimes of sixteen prominent members of the Lan-clique: one duke, thirteen marquises, and two earls (MS, 3863–70; DMB, 788–91; Langlois 1988, 169–72; Wang and Zhang 1991).

In early Ming law enforcement, “treacherous cliques” merited the gravest punishments, illustrating the emperor’s animosity toward such groups. Brutal purges like the cases of Hu and Lan suggest an intriguing relationship between “forming treacherous cliques” and “plotting rebellion and great sedition,” the most heinous group of crimes stipulated in The Great Ming Code (Art. 277). Whoever committed the former always seemed to intend to carry out the latter—any official who desired to topple the dynasty would always seek the assistance of colleagues. Either way, the conclusion seems clear: no “treacherous cliques” could be formed without endangering the dynasty, hence the draconian treatment of clique members, including extralegal punishment like “clan extermination” (zuzhu).

The closeness of the two sets of crimes is also demonstrated in the cosmological explication of their effects. For “plotting rebellion and great sedition,” the early Ming jurist He Guang, following the Commentary on the Tang Code, defends the ruler as the one who “occupies the most honorable position and receives Heaven’s precious Mandate” and who, “like Heaven and Earth, acts to shelter and support, thus serving as the father and mother of the masses.” Endangering the dynasty, according to He, “runs counter to Heaven’s constant virtues and human principles” and “offends against Heaven” (LJBY, 30–31, 173).⁸ Other commentaries on The Great Ming Code also explicate the rule in terms of Heavenly Mandate and the hierarchal order of Heaven/ruler and Earth/minister (XTFL, 91a–92a; LMBJ, 6.2b–6.3a; ZPZZ, 8.2a-b). For “memorializing in praise of the virtues and achievements of high officials,” a model verdict also blames the criminals for “offending Heaven” (XTFL, 1.20b; LMBJ, 1.33b). Indeed, when the emperor is revered as the Son of Heaven and identified as the cosmic intermediary between Heaven and humans, any act against him brings cosmological consequences.

Another major legal liability for officials concerned deceiving the throne. For Zhu Yuanzhang, to exercise imperial authority and govern the realm effectively, it was crucial to keep the “information channels” (yanlu) unimpeded. “Information,” he claimed, was like “water,” which should flow constantly. “If water is blocked, all the rivers will be obstructed. If information is stopped, [the relationship between] ruler and subjects will be impeded” (TS, 196–97). He was fully aware of the limits of his own governing capacity, and therefore urged his officials to take opportunities to air their views; he also allowed every subject in the empire to send sealed memorials directly to him. Otherwise, he feared, the ruler would become deaf and blind (TS, 1830, 1864). To facilitate the flow of information, the emperor created new government offices. In 1370, the Office for the Scrutiny of Memorials (Chayan si) was established to take charge of receiving memorials from all over the empire (MHY, 602). In 1377, the more enduring Office of Transmission (Tongzheng shi si) was established to manage memorials submitted to the throne. The official title, “tongzheng” (lit., “government circulation”), according to the emperor, was precisely named for the “water” metaphor: government was like water, which should circulate without obstruction. Viewed as the mouthpiece of the imperium, that office was founded to prevent officials from concealing information and monopolizing authority (TS, 1868–69; MHY, 602–3).

The Great Ming Code prevented the obstruction of information to the throne. It not only required that officials memorialize to the throne on all important matters (Art. 68), but also punished them for preventing others from presenting memorials to the throne or attending court audiences (Arts. 189, 190, 262). Each of these crimes might merit the penalty of strangulation or decapitation. The goal here was preventing a monopoly of authority, and deception of the throne (JJFL, 487). Indeed, the Code also stipulated other “obstruction”-related crimes (liunan), such as “creating obstructions in receiving or issuing government goods” (Art. 142) and “causing obstructions at checkpoints” (Art. 243). But only “obstructing others from attending court audience” entailed the death penalty, since other “obstructive acts” only delayed matters, whereas preventing the attending of court audience deceived the ruler and hence was more harmful to the dynasty (LJBY, 136; JJFL, 954, 957, 1255). The commentaries on the Code, again, justified these rulings in cosmological terms: the emperor with his “celestial countenance” (tianyan) lives in the “celestial city” (tiancheng). While the establishment of the “nine-layered celestial palace” (tianque jiuchong) signified the cosmic hierarchy, this complex arrangement might also cause the concealment of information, thus keeping the ruler from maintaining sharp eyes and keen ears for the events taking place in the “four quarters” of the realm. To uphold the “dynastic body” (guoti) and “court principles” (chaogang), therefore, it was imperative that any act of “deceiving the ruler” be swiftly subject to severe penalties (XTFL, 1.17b, 6.13a–14b; LMBJ, 1.42a-b, 4.18b–20b; ZPZZ, 2.37a-b, 5.15b–17a).

The Code protected several institutions to facilitate the transmission of information to the throne. The first was “intercepting the carriage of the emperor,” in which petitioners appealing for legal redress were allowed to prostrate themselves outside the area of an imperial procession and await the imperial decision on their petition. While the law prohibited making false accusations, it exempted those who “intrude into the procession” from the penalty of strangulation, as long as they presented true information (Arts. 215, 355). According to the commentaries, by pardoning those who offended the “celestial majesty” (tianwei) of the ruler, this rule helped him to “hearken to the people’s sufferings” (XTFL, 7.11b–12a; LMBJ, 4.47b–48a).

The Code also protected the institution of “beating the petitioner’s drum,” by which an accuser might also bring his case directly to the emperor (Art. 355). Also intended to help the government “hearken to the people’s sufferings” (DLSY, 401), the petitioner’s drum was first set up in 1369 outside of the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, and a censor was assigned to supervise its operation. Later, it was moved outside the Chang’an Gate and supervised by members of the Six Offices of Scrutiny and Imperial Bodyguard in rotation (MHD, 905). When someone beat the drum, the official on duty had to present the case to the throne immediately; anyone who obstructed that process would be put to death (TS, 708–9). According to court regulations, only cases involving “important matters” of great grievances or dynastic secrets would receive imperial attention by beating the drum; no one should use it for such “trivial matters” as household, marriage, or land disputes (TS, 708–9; MS, 2313–14). In practice, however, either category could receive attention under the system. A clerk at Longyang district (Huguang province), for example, went to the capital to memorialize to the throne on serious local flooding, but received no reply. He then beat the drum and hanged himself under the instrument. The emperor was shocked by the suicide and exempted Longyang from over 24,000 shi worth of grain taxes (MS, 4010). On another occasion, in 1391, a functionary at the Longjiang Guard was punished for copying documents. At that very moment, his mother died. He accordingly requested to go home to mourn his mother. When his request was rejected by the minister of personnel, the functionary beat the drum to air his grievance. Hearing about the case, the emperor criticized the minister and permitted the functionary to observe the three-year mourning period (MS, 2314). While the first of these two cases could be counted as an “important matter,” the second might be categorized as a “trivial” household matter. But, ironically, it was the emperor, the ultimate source of authority in making court regulations, who acceded to this appeal. Two factors might have motivated the emperor in this case: either he did not view the mourning period as “trivial,” or else he was eager to employ the institution to punish his subjects’ deceitful acts.

Zhu Yuanzhang’s active role in enforcing the law on “deceiving the throne” is more clearly revealed in the establishment of the institution known as “matching half-seal tallies” (banyin kanhe). During the early years of the Hongwu reign, local officials adopted a practice of prestamping government documents for the sake of convenience. Each year, when they shipped money, grain, or military supplies to the central government, they bore with them prestamped but blank report forms. If the Ministry of Revenue discovered errors in the original reports, the local officials could fill out the new ones without going back to their native place. In 1376, when Zhu became aware of the practice, he suspected the officials involved of deceit; in a surge of fury, he had them either executed or exiled (MS, 2318–19; Meng 1981, 55; Langlois 1988, 135–36; Danjo 1985). A direct result of this “Prestamped Documents” case (Kongyin an) was the establishment of the “matching half-seal tallies” system in 1382. The new system required that each page of the official registers have two (left and right) sheets, with the Palace Treasury seal stamped so that part of it could be seen on either sheet. The right sheets were held at the Palace Treasury, while the left sheets were issued to local civil and military units. If the central government needed to transfer funds from local governments, they filled out the left sheet and sent it to the responsible subordinate office. The subordinate office would only transfer funds when they saw that the seal and register number of the two sheets matched (TS, 2222–23; MHD, 292). In The Great Ming Code, if officials did not use the matching tallies for receiving or spending money, grain, or other items, the penalty might be one hundred strokes of beating with the heavy stick and life exile to a distance of three thousand li (Art. 135). What really mattered was not the physical loss entailed, but rather the potential threat posed by the act. A model verdict for the law equates failure to use matching tallies with “fabricating imperial rescripts,” since it “treacherously deceives the ruler” (XTFL, 4.14b; LMBJ, 3.22a).

In order to detect and eliminate deceitful acts, the Ming instituted more sophisticated surveillance agencies. The Ming surveillance system included censors in the Censorate and provincial surveillance commissions (MS, 1771–72; You 1998, 22–29; Hucker 1966). Also known as “guardians of the customs and laws” (fengxian guan), these surveillance officials were mainly responsible for investigating and impeaching officials for their transgressions (MS, 1767–69; You 1998, 29–45; Guan and Yan 1996, 133–42). Zhu Yuanzhang was well aware of his limits in getting the crucial information he needed to rule the empire. He was too busy; he had to “attend to numerous dynastic affairs every day,” which could prevent him from making well-founded judgments (TS, 1207). He was also too isolated; he lived in seclusion in the imperial palace, whose high walls obstructed his view and hearing (TS, 1871). He therefore needed his “ear-eye officials” (ermu zhi guan)—the censors—to “shake up officialdom” and “remove evildoers and promote the pure” (TS, 616, 854–55, 1207).

While the Code endowed censors with authority to investigate matters and review documents (Arts. 4–6, 63, 73, 190, 357, 421), it also imposed special obligations on them. When censors went to local areas for inspection or investigation, local officials were forbidden to go outside the walls of their cities to greet them or bid them farewell. If the censors allowed them to do so, they would be punished along with the local officials (Art. 192). This law prevented the obstruction of official duties and precluded any potential collusion between censors and local officials (ZPZZ, 5.18a-b). In addition, due to their special government position, if censors committed crimes involving illicit goods, the penalty would be two degrees heavier than for other officials (Art. 373). The Collected Commentaries justifies this rule: “Officials and functionaries who guard the customs and laws are in charge of investigation; if they commit crimes involving illicit goods, how can they discipline others?!” (JJFL, 1778)

According to the commentaries on the Code, surveillance officials’ legal obligations also had cosmological significance. The law required censors and surveillance commissioners to “reverse unjust judgments” by reviewing court verdicts and rectifying any incorrectly ruled cases (Art. 434). Surveillance officials should also be scrupulous in deliberating on the death penalty, to ensure that no injustice would occur (Art. 435). Regarding the general rule on “reversing unjust judgments,” one model verdict points out that the cosmic phenomena of fire, water, thunder, and lightening—i.e., law—are dangerous and stern; that is why “gentlemen” (junzi) always stay away from litigation, and the ancient kings were cautious in their use of punishment.⁹ It then uses a number of historical anecdotes illustrating the significance of careful enforcement of the law codes. One such anecdote concerns a “filial daughter-in-law” who was wrongly executed, which led to the “disaster of the drought god” (hanba) (LMBJ, 10.22a; ZPZZ, 10.73a-b).¹⁰ Another model verdict warns that “when red writing-brushes are used to judge difficult [law cases], the ghosts and gods are lined up [watching]; and when the ‘autumn frost’ [is imitated] to carry out the law, Heaven and the Sun make [the judicial results] abundantly clear [to the world]” (XTFL, 15.18b–19a; ZJQS, 10.60a-b). These texts delivered a clear cosmological message to surveillance officials: the law code, which imitates the cosmic design, should be handled with great care; wrong law judgments will cause cosmic misfortune. Regarding surveillance officials’ obligation to deliberate on the death penalty, a model verdict again explicates the rule in cosmological terms: “Spring generates and autumn exterminates—the ruler should follow the times of the heavenly way; deliberating on law cases and suspending penalties, and officials with authority should carry out the virtues of the sage-ruler” (LMBJ, 10.24b; ZPZZ, 10.74b). The commentary, then, correlates the value of human life with the heavenly virtue of generation and elucidates the cosmological relationship between Heaven, ruler, and officials.

Other categories of offenses against the throne by government officials had to do with imperial authority, dignity, and personal safety. To protect imperial authority, the Code prohibited high-ranking officials from appointing their own civil or military subordinates. The authority to select and assign officials, the Code stipulated, belonged exclusively to the throne; any violation would result in decapitation (Arts. 48, 49). The harsh penalty for this crime targeted two related acts: “usurping imperial authority” and “seeking private interests” (JJFL, 385, 388). In the commentaries, both imperial authority and official duties are again explicated in terms of Heaven. Because officials hold “Heaven-appointed offices” (tianzhi), they are selected according to “heavenly words” (tianyu)—imperial decrees. If officials take any of the “eight handles” (babing)—including the appointment of officials¹¹—away from “heavenly authority” (tianheng), they are likely to foster personal cliques and thus cause dynastic collapse (LMBJ, 1.3b–4a; ZPZZ, 2.3b–4a; DLSY, 72). In the eyes of the Ming court, usurping imperial authority by appointing subordinates and cultivating private cliques were closely related.

Infringement on imperial dignity was mainly concerned with ritual regulations. For instance, in the case of an imperial audience, congratulatory ceremony, or greeting imperial edicts, neither the officials in charge of the ceremonies nor the participants were allowed to make errors. Offenders were blamed for “forgetting the deep grace of Heaven and Earth and ignoring the fundamental principles of ruler and father” and sentenced to forty strokes of beating with the light stick (Art. 186; XTFL, 6.11b). In 1370, when the influential court advisor Song Lian failed to appear at court, he was punished—not by beating but by demotion from the position of chancellor (rank 3a) to Hanlin Academy compiler (rank 8a) (MS, 3785; DMB, 1227). Song Lian might have escaped corporal punishment due to his official status, but his demotion reveals that the emperor would not tolerate ceremonial errors, even by his most trusted advisors.

Regarding ritual behavior, the Code also prohibits officials, when paying court audience, from making mistakes in prostrating or ascending the hall, or misbehaving by falling to the ground, being sloppily dressed, or whispering to each other (Art. 187; JJFL, 951). One model verdict depicts the grand cosmic scene: “The celestial gates in the nine heavens follow the ecliptic and open widely [to demonstrate] the loftiness of the palaces, and dignitaries from ten thousand countries surround the purple court and worship from afar the magnificence of the imperial crown gems” (XTFL, 6.12a). By including the heavens and humans, the commentary places government officials in an important cosmological setting, even though such acts of “irreverence” (JJFL, 951) comprised a very minor threat to the throne, entailing only a fine of one half month’s salary (Art. 187).

Crimes against the emperor’s personal safety were regarded as a greater threat to the throne, mainly falling into the category of “great irreverence” (da bujing)—one of the “Ten Abominations.” Such crimes included mistakenly failing to follow the correct prescription when preparing imperial medicine or making mistakes in writing or attaching the label, mistakenly violating dietary proscriptions when preparing imperial food, failing to exercise or train carriage horses properly or failing to make the harness or equipage sturdy and complete, and mistakenly failing to make the imperial touring boats sturdy. The primary offenders were the physicians, cooks, or artisans employed by the court. Nevertheless, supervisory officials such as those at the Imperial Academy of Medicine could also be punished, although their penalty was usually reduced by two degrees (Arts. 182, 183). A key factor in deciding these cases was the offender’s mental state, i.e., whether they had intentionally committed these acts. Therefore, as long as no actual harm was done, the punishment was relatively light—limited to one hundred strokes of beating with the heavy stick. However, because these acts all involved the emperor’s personal safety, the cases were not considered closed even after the offenders had been punished. The Code further required that these cases be memorialized to the throne requesting the emperor’s special decision, which according to specific circumstances might increase the penalty significantly. In addition, because most of these acts are grouped within the “Ten Abominations” (Art. 2), offenders would be deprived of their legal privileges (Jiang 2005, lxvi).

In sum, to defend the ruler’s superior status in the envisioned cosmic order, The Great Ming Code indicated special crimes and punishments for officials. In particular, it prohibited them from forming “treacherous cliques,” deceiving the throne, usurping imperial authority, infringing upon imperial dignity, or threatening imperial safety. These regulations basically defined the cosmological role of officialdom toward the ruler, so that officials would repay the emperor, who as the Son of Heaven had provided them with the opportunity to serve as his representatives in governing the realm.

RECOMPENSING ONE’S PARENTS

In the Chinese intellectual tradition, parents occupy a crucial position in the cosmos; they are a person’s biological origin and nurture them as a cosmic being. For any individual, parents constitute an all-important link in their cosmic existence and continuity. They are one’s ancestors: deceased ancestors after their physical death, and “living ancestors” while alive (Yao 2000, 202). To recompense parents for such cosmic grace, one must practice filial piety. Confucius states that “Filial piety and brotherly respect is the root of humanity” (Chan 1963, 20). The Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing), one of the fundamental Confucian documents that first received dynastic support during Han times, views filial piety as the “constant way of Heaven, the fundamental principle of Earth, and the eternal virtue of human beings” (Xiaojing, 2549). Filial piety, therefore, was considered to be a basic element in the cosmic order. As Yao Xinzhong (2000, 202) puts it: “Filial piety is more than a secular attitude; it has become part of religious ritual and a constituent element of spirituality.”

The early Ming court emphasized the significance of governing the realm with filial piety. Zhu Yuanzhang believed that because all humans loved their parents, they should be provided with the opportunity to fulfill their filial duties. One day in 1370, when he saw a bird caring for her chicks, Zhu connected the bird’s labor with a human mother’s grace, and ordered that any officials with elderly parents wishing to return home and care for them might do so. The emperor claimed that filial piety was an essential component of human nature; sage-rulers were supposed to govern the realm on the basis of human sentiment. Filial piety, the emperor concluded, is “the cornerstone for the transformation of customs” (TS, 962–63).

Zhu Yuanzhang provided specific plans for his subjects on how to exercise filial piety for living or deceased parents. During the parents’ lifetime, to recompense them, one had to “keep them warm in winter and cool in summer, give them delicacies to eat, be diligent and attentive rather than idle, admonish their misdeeds sincerely even to death instead of implicating them.”¹² This definition of filial piety is expanded in the Grand Pronouncements to include additional deeds, such as serving the ruler with loyalty, making distinctions between husband and wife, maintaining precedence between seniors and juniors, preserving sincerity among friends, behaving sedately, accomplishing official duties with honor, fighting battles with great valor, not violating dynastic law, not damaging one’s own skin and body, and not cursing others (DGXB, 267–69). Apparently, Zhu Yuanzhang had redefined the traditional concept of filial piety. To the emperor, filial piety extended far beyond the parent-child relationship. Rather, it involved a broad spectrum of social relations, including self-respect and self-cultivation; husband-wife and senior-junior family relationships; friend-friend community relationships; the empirewide ruler-subject relationship; and within an administrative region, the official-commoner relationship. By regulating these social relations, the emperor incorporated fundamental dynastic values into the law and brought them to bear upon the single concept of “filial piety.”

After one’s parents pass away, Zhu Yuanzhang commanded, one had to “sacrifice to them at the appointed times to show filial respect.” To facilitate the ceremony of ancestor worship, the emperor prepared a “standard prayer text” for his subjects to follow. In it, one was supposed to acknowledge blessings from the ancestors for the continuation of the family line, and serve the ancestors with food and wine (JMBW, 1434–37; Farmer 1995, 206–7). By communicating with and serving deceased parents, one was expected to unite the worlds of the living and the dead and connect the past, present, and future, which was the quintessence of filial piety.

In The Great Ming Code, officials are subject to three categories of special regulations on recompensing their parents.¹³ First, officials could have their parents enjoy certain legal privileges. For example, if the parents of officials of the first through third ranks committed crimes, they could not be interrogated without authorization. Their case was handled in three steps: first, reporting the facts to the throne and petitioning an imperial rescript authorizing an interrogation; second, setting forth the crimes and circumstances to be deliberated, and memorializing to request permission to deliberate; and third, after deliberation, memorializing to petition a decision from the throne. If parents of officials of the fourth or fifth rank committed crimes, although their cases could be interrogated by the authorities, the final judgment regarding their crimes and the severity of punishment had to be approved by the emperor (Art. 9). The mid-Ming jurist Ying Jia explained the privilege in terms of extension of the family line: “Parents are where officials come from,” therefore, they should be treated the same as their children (MLSY, 15). These regulations, of course, were not a legal guarantee of such privileges; they merely provided officials with certain opportunities, for all final decisions on these cases came from the emperor. Nevertheless, the preferential treatment of officials’ parents testifies to the dynasty’s endorsement of filial sentiment in officialdom.

Another category of special regulation for officials concerns their criminal liability in “abandoning parents to take government office.” According to the Code, if their parents were eighty years of age or older or incapacitated, and had no other adult male to rely on, an official could not leave them to take government office (Art. 199). This article, obviously, aims to promote the sentiment of filial piety. The commentaries on the Code see treating parents as strangers and discarding them as an “evil” act, and view an official who shows filial sentiment as a crucial link between the ruler and the common people: “If they lose the way of filial piety, they will certainly fail to serve the throne with loyalty; if their own bodies are not upright, how can they enforce orders on the masses?!” (ZPZZ, 5.26a). Meanwhile, the commentaries also tie this article to a classic source of tension in Chinese political history: how does one achieve balance between being a filial son and loyal subject? As a son, one should “serve the parents to fulfill filial piety”; as a subject, however, one should “labor for the dynasty and forget the family” (XTFL, 6.21a). The solution involved compromise: “If parents are desperate, [the officials] should first love them with benevolence; if the ruler’s matters are pressing, they should serve the ruler urgently with righteousness.” In this particular case—when aged or sick parents need substantial care, it is “blood relatives” (tianqin) who take precedence over governmental duties (ZPZZ, 5.26a).

A third category of special regulation concerning an official’s filial piety has to do with their responsibility in caring for deceased parents. When parents pass away, according to the Code, officials could not stay in office and had to take mourning leave; nor could they, before the mourning period was over, return to carry on government service (Art. 198). Such a “monstrous crime” would stem from lack of filial piety. Indeed, one’s parents are the source of the greatest grace, which “is illimitable like the Great Heaven” (ZPZZ, 5.25a). When officials continued to fulfill their official duties, ignoring the grace they had received from their parents, they undermined the foundation of human relationships and violated principle; furthermore, an unfilial person would never be utterly loyal (XTFL, 6.20a; LMBJ, 4.28b–29a; MLSY, 95). Here, as seen in various commentaries, the Ming jurists looked at the law in terms of how officials should “recompense” their deceased parents who “gave birth to them” and who “nursed them in their arms for three years” (ZPZZ, 5.25a). Taking care of the dead is connected to fulfilling duties and setting an example for the living. Again, the law sought a balance between filial piety and dynastic loyalty, emphasizing their correlation and unity. Based on Ming cosmology, however, it also seems likely that the law aimed at promoting a reciprocal relationship between the worlds of the living and the dead, ensuring that ancestors would react positively and send blessings to the living. The location of the two above-mentioned articles (Arts. 198, 199) within the Code is also noteworthy: they are found neither in “Administrative Affairs” nor in “Households and Corvée Services”; instead, they are located in “Ceremonial Regulations.” This arrangement signified the ritual dimension of the acts and emphasized the cosmological connection between parents and their sons.

To understand an official’s filial obligation toward his parents, it must be viewed in conjunction with his loyalty toward the ruler. “Filial devotion of officials for their parents is transformed into loyalty to the ruler,” a worldview termed by Norman Kutcher (1999, 2) as a “parallel conception of society.” Kutcher also observes “a serious commitment to the parallel conception of society” under Zhu Yuanzhang’s revivification of Confucianism during the early Ming (ibid., 40). Indeed, in the two law articles above where the punishment for lack of filial piety is specified, the Code also forbids officials from cheating the throne by providing incorrect information on their parents. If, for instance, officials fraudulently claimed that their parents were aged or infirm and petitioned to return home to take care of them, they would be punished the same as for “abandoning parents to take government office,” because they were using their parents as “instruments of deception” and discarded the “righteousness of serving the dynasty in officialdom” (Art. 199; JJFL, 984; MLSY, 96). In the same way, if their parents were not dead, but officials fraudulently claimed them deceased or falsely claimed an old death as of recent occurrence, they would be punished the same as for “concealing a parent’s death,” because they displayed a lack of loyalty (Art. 198; JJFL, 980–81; MLSY, 95). In fact, the early Ming was a time when scholar-officials were severely punished for refusing to serve the new dynasty (Mote 1962, 178–79, 239; DGSB, 385–87, 390–91). The close connection between filial sons and loyal subjects in these injunctions testifies to a broad definition of “filial piety” by the early Ming court.

In the Code, an important institution to balance filial piety and loyalty is “returning officials to government service by curtailing sentiment” (duoqing qifu). That is to say, when an official’s parents died, the emperor could order either to shorten or completely ignore the mourning period. In case of “curtailing sentiment,” therefore, officials remained in or returned to government office without going home to mourn their deceased parents (Art. 198). Clearly, while urging officials to serve the public (LTSY, 12.17a), this proviso enabled the emperor to make the ultimate decision on loyalty and filial piety. In his account of imperial efforts to promote filial piety among officials in the Hongwu reign, however, Kutcher stresses Zhu Yuanzhang’s “disdain for duoqing.” Unfortunately, while Kutcher uses the prohibition of duoqing as the most conspicuous example of the emperor’s acceptance of the “parallel conception of society” (1999, 42–43), he does not provide any evidence for his proposition. To be sure, Zhu earnestly encouraged officials to observe the mourning rituals. In 1375, for example, he reformed the legal procedure to facilitate the mourning process. When officials were first informed of the death of a parent, their office would verify the death. Only after verification could the officials hasten home to mourn. This often delayed or prevented them from attending a parental funeral. Therefore, in 1375, the emperor ordered: “When officials hear of the death of their parents, they may leave office without awaiting a verification report.” By speeding up the process, the emperor hoped that officials would participate in the rituals to bury their parents and, as result, the court would enhance the “way of filial principle” (xiaoli zhi dao) (TS, 1700). Nevertheless, during an era of centralization that is often labeled “Ming despotism” (Mote 1961), it seems unlikely that the strong-willed Zhu Yuanzhang would restrict imperial authority.¹⁴ Even if he did prohibit duoqing, as the evidence shows, his law compilers took no heed of what he ordered and codified the institution, which undoubtedly benefited imperial authority.

RECOMPENSING THE PEOPLE

As one of the primordial forces in early Ming cosmogony, the “people” constituted the basis for an official’s existence. Zhu Yuanzhang once said that the cosmos inspired him with “three awes”: he was in awe of Heaven above, of Earth below, and of the people in the middle. He, the human ruler who had Heaven as a father and Earth as a mother, and who himself was the father and mother of the people, cherished a cosmic mission to combine the Way of Heaven and Earth and bring peace to the people (TS, 1447–48). In this cosmic structure, there was initially no place for officials. Officialdom served as the ruler’s instrument to achieve his cosmic mission, and thus depended on the people as well as the ruler.

In early Ming cosmology, because of their significant position in the cosmic order, the people were closely associated with Heaven. Their feelings were considered a determinant of the Mandate of Heaven and the location of heavenly principle; their opinions represented Heaven’s views. The cosmological definition of the people led to the adoption of the age-old political ideology—“the people are the foundation of the country” (min wei bang ben) (TS, 1232)—by the early Ming ruling elite. According to Zhu Yuanzhang, the people served as the foundation of the country by supporting both the ruler and officials. Due to the ruler’s primordial cosmic standing, he and the people were considered “one unit” (yiti). If the people could not live in peace, the ruler could not sit firmly on his throne (TS, 1401). Because of the officials’ lack of primordial cosmic status, their existence could not be taken for granted. While the ruler conferred official titles on them, it was the people who supplied them with food and clothing (TS, 1451). The government, therefore, should protect and nourish the people by implementing a policy of “recuperation and multiplication” (anyang shengxi) (TS, 506); otherwise, if the ruler and officials abused their power and bullied the people, it would undermine the source of their food and clothing. Zhu used a metaphor to describe the relationship between the ruling elite and the people—a horseman and his horse. If the horseman never rested his horse but blindly whipped it to a gallop, it was rare for the horse not to stumble and fall. “When the horse stumbles and falls how can the rider not be injured?!” (TS, 1401). Here, the political tone is clear: while officials were urged to repay the people, it was the interests of the ruling elite that were the dynasty’s ultimate political concern.

The Great Ming Code outlines a variety of measures to prohibit officials from exploiting or disturbing the people. Here, the focus will be on two major categories of legal liability that were prescribed for officials: crimes involving “illicit goods” (zang), and those committed by local officials. The Code defined “six types of illicit goods” (liuzang),¹⁵ three of which either exclusively or primarily involved the interaction between government officials and the common people: accepting property and subverting the law, accepting property without subverting the law, and committing crimes involving illicit goods obtained through malfeasance. As these acts had a direct impact on people’s lives, they were extensively regulated in the law.

For “accepting property and subverting the law,” the Code provided a sentencing scale to punish offenders according to the value of the illicit goods, and had the officials’ certificates of appointment and registration revoked. If officials accepted property from more than one person, the value of the illicit goods would be calculated on the basis of the entire amount of goods received (Art. 367). This rule deviates from the general legal principle requiring that when two or more crimes are discovered together, offenders would be punished for only the most serious crime (Art. 25). This exception indicates the special attention law compilers paid to the problem of “illicit goods.”

“Committing crimes involving illicit goods obtained through malfeasance” referred to cases where officials received property for matters of which they were not in charge (Art. 368). In the Code, however, this crime was applied on broader terms than the legal definition.¹⁶ Here, receiving goods was not a necessary component of the crime; any property damage or pecuniary loss could be punished under this crime. For example, when officials assessed merchandise prices, if they set prices unfairly high or low, they would be punished as if the increased or reduced prices were for illicit goods obtained through malfeasance, even though they had not taken any property for themselves (Art. 172). Similarly, if officials used labor to make things, but the products were substandard and unusable, they would be punished based on the amount of money wasted, as if they had obtained illicit goods through malfeasance (Art. 449). Such regulations complemented those on other crimes involving illicit goods, thereby making the law against official corruption more extensive.

Officials who committed crimes involving illicit goods were one of the main targets for law enforcement during the early Ming. Learning from the corrupt practices of late Yuan dynasty officials, the Ming founding emperor believed that “the most corrupt practice in government is committing bribery and embezzlement” (TS, 2332). In 1371, he ordered: “From now on, if officials or functionaries commit crimes involving illicit goods, they shall not be pardoned” (TS, 1288). About a decade later, he again ordered that if officials or functionaries took bribes, both parties—those receiving and those who paid—were to be punished by banishment to the frontiers.¹⁷ Indeed, “severely punishing corrupt officials” (zhongsheng zangli) became one of the fundamental legal policies of the Hongwu reign (MS, 2318). The Ming emperor frequently employed harsh remedies to punish officials who committed crimes involving illicit goods. This is best illustrated by cases collected in the special law, the Grand Pronouncements, compiled by the emperor himself. In this law, which metes out punishment to corrupt officials, two features stand out. The first is the relative preponderance of laws dealing with corrupt officials. Out of 156 law cases collected in the four compilations of the Grand Pronouncements, 128 are concerned with official crimes, of which 59 (about 46 percent) target bribe-taking officials (Yang 1988, 86).

The second feature has to do with the severe penalties used to punish corrupt officials. In the well-known case of Guo Huan mentioned in chapter 2, for example, Zhu Yuanzhang acknowledged that within a half-year period, innumerable people lost either their lives or their families; the penalties inflicted included death, exile, confiscation, pulling out tendons, severing fingers, cutting off feet, head-shaving, and tattooing (DGSB, 393). The emperor believed that corrupt officials “courted their own ruin” by “taking bribes” and “maltreating my honorable people” (YZDG, 228, 245). To guide his officials, Zhu asked for their compliance: “I have compassion for the people and stand in awe of Heaven. Will you subjects follow me?” (DGXB, 273).

Another major category of official crime was the failure of local officials to dutifully care for the people. The Ming emperor had great expectations for his so-called “father-mother officials” (fumu guan): “It is the ruler who governs the people on behalf of Heaven; it is local officials who nurture the people on behalf of the ruler” (TS, 2815). He named the provincial government offices, which were supposed to “carry on good traditions and transform the people” (TS, 2140), the Office of the Commissioner for Undertaking the Promulgation of Imperial Orders and for Disseminating Government Policies (Chengxuan buzheng shi si) (Hucker 1985, 127). He admonished district and prefectural officials, the ones who had the most direct contact with the people, to attend strictly to their duties and to become “gentlemen” (junzi) who “cherish splendid heavenly principle,” rather than “mean persons” (xiaoren) who “harbor sordid, selfish desires.” These “shepherds of the people” (mumin zhi guan) should shoulder the task of transforming social customs (TS, 1421–23).

Severely punishing corrupt local officials was an essential part of the early Ming legal policy of protecting the people (Watt 1972, 109–10). In 1369, shortly after the founding of the dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang admonished his officials, using his own experience from late Yuan times:

In the past when I was among the people, I often saw that subprefectural and district officials mostly did not assist the people, but frequently sought wealth and sexual indulgence, drank alcohol, and neglected their work. They completely ignored the weal and woe of the masses. My heart was filled with anger towards them. At present, therefore, I strictly enforce the law. As long as I am aware of officials and functionaries who commit corruption and harm my people, I will punish them without pardon. (TS, 800)

In combating corrupt local officials, the emperor imposed severe penalties on them (Yang 1988, 80–93). For example, some sources record that Zhu Yuanzhang practiced skinning corrupt officials. Zhu had a “skinning ground” (pichang) created nearby the government offices and temples at the seat of each prefecture, subprefecture, military garrison, and battalion. Any corrupt official who received bribes worth at least sixty liang of silver would be beheaded and skinned. The skins would then be used to make office chairs—when future officials sat down to work, they would be reminded of the ignominious fate of their predecessors (He 1640, 418; Zhao 1987, 480–81).¹⁸ The emperor not only employed legal and extralegal remedies, but also institutionalized a practice in which commoners might directly seize corrupt local officials for trial (YZDG, 236–37; DGXB, 272–72; DGSB, 408–9). Indeed, the Ming founder identified the common people in local communities as his trusted allies in reconstructing the ideal society (Watt 1972, 110–15; Andrew 1991).

The Great Ming Code provided fourteen special articles to punish crimes committed by local officials,¹⁹ twelve of which deal with the relationship between officials and the people within their jurisdiction. First of all, the law required local officials to take care of the people’s basic needs. When natural calamities occurred within their administrative units, damaging fields and produce, “the officials who shepherd the people shall not sit back and merely watch people’s sufferings” (JJFL, 600); they had to report disasters immediately to their superiors, and, at the same time, inspect the fields so as to manifest the “loving heart” of Heaven and Earth (Art. 97; XTFL, 2.18a). This article instructed emissaries sent down from superior offices, as well as local officials who had direct jurisdiction, in order to ensure timely disaster relief. When some districts in Shandong suffered from flooding, for example, Zhu Yuanzhang sent emissaries to examine the number of households affected. The emissaries recorded some 170, only one-tenth of the actual figure. As a result, many victims continued to be burdened with taxes. After the emperor learned the truth, he had the emissaries punished by beating with the heavy stick, and exempted the local people from taxation.²⁰ On another occasion, the court sent a bureau secretary from the Ministry of Revenue named Zhao Qian to relieve flood victims in Jingzhou and Qizhou, Huguang Province. Zhao, however, “did not consider people’s difficulties, but sat and looked on and procrastinated,” which caused many people to die of hunger. The emperor had Zhao executed to “warn those who do not assist my people.”²¹

To help poor and weak people, the imperial court required that “nourishment houses” (yangji yuan) be built throughout the empire to provide helpless people with food and clothing (MHD, 459; LMBJ, 2.25a). The Code ruled that if widowers, widows, orphans, the childless, the elderly, or the incapacitated were poor, had no relatives to rely on, and could not survive on their own, officials should “grant grace” to them and support them with government facilities (Art. 95; JJFL, 588). According to one model verdict, supporting helpless people signified imperial grace based on cosmic principle: “The myriad things all flourish thanks to the shelter and support of Heaven and Earth; and the people have their livelihood assured because of the moisture of rain and dew.… The sun shines upon the nine heavens, illuminating every dark and distant place on the Earth; [imperial] grace spreads throughout the realm, first nourishing the desolate and childless” (ZPZZ, 3.20b). Failing to show concern for the week and poor disrupted the cosmic order and was not in keeping with “human sentiment” (ibid.).

Second, the Code forbade local officials from harassing the people when levying corvée services and collecting taxes. In levying miscellaneous corvée services, officials were required to check the number of individuals and field products registered, and establish upper, middle, and lower household degrees. If they released the rich and oppressed the poor or altered the degrees to practice fraud, the Code encouraged aggrieved poor people to report them to their superior officers (Art. 86). Similarly, in assigning corvée services to able-bodied adult males or artisans for work in government offices or workshops, if the assignments were unequal or if the adult males or artisans fulfilled their duties but were not released, the officials would also be punished (Art. 87). In addition, officials should not exempt the relatives of influential people from performing corvée service, because it would increase the burden on the poor (Art. 88). In collecting grain taxes, granary officials or measurers should allow taxpayers to use rods to level off the measures; they had to assume legal liability if they kicked the measures or piled grain up cone-wise and thus collected excessive amounts of grain (Art. 128). These rules prevented the abuse of authority in officialdom.

The early Ming court seemed to have been determined to protect the people from excessive taxation in order to maintain a stable agrarian economy (Huang 1998, 106–7). In 1374, for example, officials at the Commercial Tax Office of Zhangde Prefecture, Henan, taxed the local people on things like melons, vegetables, persimmons, and jujubes. On hearing of this, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed: “These officials are just like what people in ancient times said: ‘Officials who collect taxes are worse than officials who steal.’” He ordered the officials punished (TS, 1571). The Ming court even punished officials whose proposed use of labor might drain the people of their resources. In 1376, when the assistant magistrate of Pingyao at Fenzhou subprefecture, Shanxi, finished his term of office, the subprefectural official gave him an excellent personnel evaluation for “being able to expand commercial taxes.” But the emperor held that the assistant magistrate’s responsibility was to “assist the district government to pacify the masses.” Expanding commercial taxes beyond fixed rates would certainly “exploit the people.” The assistant magistrate, then, was not capable of governing the people and had neglected his duties. The emperor ordered the Ministry of Personnel to investigate the case (TS, 1776–77). A year later, the vice magistrate at Linzi district, Shandong, memorialized to the throne on exploiting natural resources in the mountains and seas so as to open more sources of wealth. The emperor believed that his idea would “tire the people” and thus had him dismissed from office (TS, 112.1859). Due to special circumstances, however, Zhu Yuanzhang imposed heavy punitive taxes on Suzhou City and its surrounding prefectures (Mote 1962, 212). Revenge on his former enemies and precaution against future rebellions seems to have superseded his compassion for the people of the southeast triangle.

Third, the Code prohibited local officials from exploiting the people within their jurisdiction. Former or incumbent local officials were forbidden to extort or borrow property from or sell their own goods to the people under their jurisdiction. If they accepted gifts of local products from local people, both the recipients and the presenters would be punished (Art. 371). If the officials’ household members, including relatives and bondservants, committed such offenses, their penalty would be reduced by two degrees from that for officials; if the officials knew of the circumstances, they would suffer the same punishment (Art. 372). Officials were also prohibited from purchasing fields or houses in their service locations (Art. 100). This group of regulations, according to the Collected Commentaries, regulated local officials along moral and economic lines, encouraged them to become “upright” before ruling the masses, and prevented them from “encroaching upon the people’s interests” (JJFL, 614). A major feature of these rules is that they were not limited to crimes involving actual damage—officials could be punished even when engaging in fair transactions with local people. The important issue was to prevent any harm to commoners, who were vulnerable to government power. Another feature of these rules concerns the tension evinced between the interests of officials’ own families and those of the dynasty. Such rules targeted the officials’ efforts to build up their own family possessions and financial resources, which potentially conflicted with the dynastic cause. As articulated in one model notice:

The court appoints officials to protect people; [the officials] shall not oppress the people and covet wealth. The officials in authority should be willing to die for the dynasty; how can they put their individual families ahead of the dynasty? Officials shall worry about whether they fulfill their duties and shall not worry about their offspring’s housing and food; they shall be anxious for the management of government affairs, not for the convenience and comfort of their fields and houses. (ZPZZ, 3.29a)

The notice urges local officials to “devote themselves to the dynasty with loyalty and faith and govern their families with purity and honesty” (ibid.).

Fourth, the Code forbade local officials from engaging in any kind of sexual relationship with local women, regardless of whether it was consensual marriage or violent assault. If during their term of office, local officials married others’ wives, concubines, or daughters under their jurisdiction, or if they arranged such marriages for their relatives or household servants, not only the officials but also the women’s husbands or fathers would be punished. Remarried wives or concubines would be taken away from both the officials and original husbands and returned to their natal families, and daughters would be returned to their parents. If officials forced women into marriage, their penalty would be increased by two degrees, while the women’s families would not be punished (Art. 116). Therefore, neither consensual nor forcible marriage was allowed for officials within areas under their jurisdiction. For consensual marriage, in particular, both sides of the marital relationship (i.e., officials and commoners) would be punished. The political message is clear: officials might take advantage of their power and coerce people, while commoners might present their women to gain personal favors. Therefore, they would both be penalized and lose the remarried wives or concubines. But the symbolic meaning of this rule also seems significant: officials were the “father-and-mother,” and commoners the “sons or grandsons”; their marriages undermined the “principles of the three bonds and five constant virtues” (gangchang zhi li) (LMBJ, 2.58b–59a). Similarly, if officials committed either consensual or forcible fornication with local wives, daughters, or imprisoned women, they would not only be punished more severely than ordinary persons, but would also lose their official status (Art. 395).

Finally, the Code severely punished local officials who “provoke honorable persons to revolt,” a serious problem in the early Ming. According to the Veritable Records, hundreds of rebellions took place during the Hongwu reign. While a great number of those rebellions were caused by ethnic conflict and regional rivalry, many of them originated from official corruption. In 1388, several regional military commissioners were punished for certain crimes, including the Guangxi Regional Military Commissioner Geng Liang, who “provoked honorable persons to revolt.” Zhu Yuanzhang, therefore, specifically issued the “Decree Calling for Military Officers to Protect Themselves” (Wuchen baoshen chi). In it, the emperor instructed officers how to defend the empire, uphold their reputation and rank, enjoy legally acquired wealth, and pass happiness on to their offspring. He hoped that his officers would review the text daily and master its lessons (TS, 2916–17).

The Code stipulates: “If officials who shepherd the people fail to nourish and care for the people but act contrary to the law and provoke honorable persons to revolt, so that a crowd gathers to rebel and cities are lost, they shall be punished by decapitation” (Art. 231). This is the harshest penalty against local officials in the Code, indicating the gravity of the crime. Indeed, if local officials failed to perform their duties as “father-and-mother,” but instead applied cruel policies like tigers or vultures, they risked “causing the water to capsize the boat” (LMBJ, 4.74b). The fate of the dynasty was at stake. The Collected Commentaries states: If local officials “do not harbor caring hearts to care for the people but constantly act tyrannically, they will inevitably cause turmoil. Heavy penalty is therefore meted out to make those who shepherd the people know what they should deeply ponder over” (JJFL, 1128).

If such a case occurred, due to the criminal liability of the officials, the rebels were likely to be pardoned. In 1383, when Jiangxi provincial officials petitioned for more military guards to fight bandits in the mountains and forests, Zhu Yuanzhang responded: It was not the people’s original intent to become bandits. People revolted because their officials failed to assist them and provide them with food and clothing. By asking for more troops, the local officials knew only the “branch” instead of the “root” (TS, 2446). The emperor’s remarks brought up the issue of legal liability for such a grave matter. If officials were to blame, the commoners who turned to banditry should be treated leniently. In 1388, because of local officials’ corruption and garrison troops’ harassment, some people in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, fled to the mountains and forests and became bandits. When the emperor found out that the rebels had been forced into banditry, he ordered the captured rebels released and pardoned those who were still at large, as long as they took up their original occupations (TS, 2871). Although the imperial decision in this case appears more a political resolution than a legal judgment, the exoneration of the rebels attested to the gravity of official liability.

In short, to protect the people, one of the fundamental elements in early Ming cosmology, The Great Ming Code was enacted to combat corrupt officials. Its general objective was prohibiting officials from exploiting the masses, and, in particular, urging local officials to fulfill their duties. In law enforcement, the Ming court seems to have carried out these regulations.

SACRIFICE TO THE DEITIES

The duty of “sacrificing to the deities” was assigned by Zhu Yuanzhang to local officials in the Comprehensive Instructions to Aid the Realm:

The “one sacrifice” means sacrifice to the deities and ghosts. An official receives a posting outside the capital in either a district or an outpost. When the ruler entrusts him with a district, none of the matters in the district or outpost which ought to be done can be left undone. The reason officials throughout history suffered natural disaster and human catastrophe is that they were lax in teaching the people to sacrifice to the deities. In entrusting them, the ruler’s intention was that decrees be carried out and ghosts and deities sacrificed to. Besides, the ghosts and the deities depend on it and must wait for sacrifices to be completed. How can officials just rejoice in their happiness, fill their bellies, ignore what they sacrifice to, and have no concern for the suffering of the people? That will cause the deities to be angry. Therefore, they [corrupt officials] will come to no good end.²²

This passage expresses the emperor’s views on the relations between deities and local officials. Appointed by the ruler, the mission of local officials was to perform sacrifices to the deities and care for the people under their jurisdiction. The deities were seen as empowered to control the local officials’ fate, and could eliminate those who neglected their cosmological duties. The punitive destruction imposed by the deities would affect not only their own localities, but would also endanger the dynasty. Hence, the ruler also benefited through sacrifices conducted by local officials.

In The Great Ming Code, Article 178 contains several key points relating to the sacrifices required of local officials, indicating the major spirits to whom local officials should perform sacrifices. The spirits recorded in the dynastic sacrificial statutes (sidian) included those of Soil and Grain, Mountains, Rivers, Wind, Clouds, Thunder, Rain, as well as sage sovereigns, wise kings, loyal subjects, and martyrs. Although they were inferior to those worshipped by the Ming court in the hierarchical order of the spirit world, they were by no means denigrated by the early Ming legal order. In 1380, the government office of the Lishui district, Nanjing, substituted minced beef for minced deer meat in worshipping the Spirits of Grain and Soil. On hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the local officials in charge punished. But officials at the Ministry of Rites tried to exempt the officials from criminal liability by reminding the emperor of a court “commandment” (ling): when sacrificial objects were lacking, other objects could legally be substituted. The emperor disputed this statement:

What “lacking” means is that [the sacrificial objects] are not produced in the local areas. As a matter of fact, there are deer in Lishui. How can you call them “lacking”? It is due to the officials’ lack of sincerity in worshipping the deities that they made [the ceremony] simple and careless. That government officials are able to do their duty and take care of the people is because they harbor reverence and awe in their heart. Now, the officials at Lishui are even disrespectful to deities, what can they fear in human affairs?! (TS, 2117)

The emperor insisted that the local officials be punished according to the Code, also issuing a rescript to government offices across the empire reiterating that sacrificial objects could only be substituted when they were not locally produced and could not be purchased (TS, 2117–18). To the emperor, reverence and sincerity should be manifested in ceremonies to deities, whether the ceremonies were conducted at the capital or in local areas. Actually, outside the official pantheon there were other spiritual figures whose meritorious deeds were outstanding. Although local officials were not required to perform sacrifices to these figures, their temples had to be protected (TS, 760).

In fact, Article 178 of the Code lists only a few major deities and martyrs that local officials should worship. Important deities worshipped throughout the empire but not listed in the law were the spirits of walls and moats (chenghuang) (Romeyn Taylor 1977). Early in the Hongwu reign, the spirits of walls and moats were worshipped throughout the realm and were granted various honorary titles and noble ranks by the imperial court (TS, 755–59; HMZL, 19). In 1370, to purify the official pantheon, the Ming court did away with spirit titles. At the same time, it institutionalized sacrifices to the spirits by making prefectures, subprefectures, and districts establish temples for the spirit of walls and moats (TS, 1033–36, 1050; HMZL, 26–28). In daily government, the ruling elite apparently petitioned this spirit for aid. At the capital, for example, the emperor prayed to the spirits of walls and moats to cure sick horses and for rain during times of drought (YZWJ, 236, 245); in local districts, officials invoked the spirits of walls and moats to repel tigers (TS, 1223, 1998). Apparently due to the belief that these spirits, like many others, could “generate the myriad things, make people live in peace, and bring people ample food” (MHD, 534), the Ming court intended to incorporate the spirits of the walls and moats in each locality into “a unified religious community” (Romeyn Taylor 1977, 43).

Article 178 of the Code also requires local officials to serve the spirits: each office had to establish tablets and write on them the names of the spirits and the dates of their sacrifices, and officials were to hang the tablets in clean places and perform sacrifices in accordance with the schedules. According to the Collected Commentaries, this article precluded “mistakenly forgetting to perform sacrifices,” rather than intentionally undermining rituals. Nevertheless, the oversight warranted punishment because “deities are disrespected” (JJFL, 925). The requirement that spirit tablets be placed in clean spots is also noteworthy. That the fundamental law of the dynasty paid attention to this detail reveals how seriously the law compilers viewed it—lack of proper hygiene was considered profanation of the deities, which could dissuade them from positively influencing human affairs.

Furthermore, Article 178 prohibits local officials from performing sacrifices to spirits that should not be worshipped. Considered as “nonclassical” (bujing) or “heterodox” (yin) activities (JJFL, 925; MLSY, 88), such sacrifices fell into two categories. One concerned “deformed” sacrifices for the spirits within the official pantheon. For example, although the Three Illustrious Emperors (Sanhuang, i.e., the legendary cultural heroes Fu Xi, Shennong, and Huangdi) were officially acknowledged spirits, they had been worshipped throughout the empire as gods of medicine. In 1371, viewing it as “profaning” and “against propriety,” Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that the prefectures and districts of the realm stop “blasphemously worshipping” (xiesi) these spirits; only the officials of the districts where the spirits’ mausoleums were located should worship them as sage-rulers (TS, 1199–1200). The other category concerned sacrifices performed for spirits outside the official pantheon. In 1371, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Ministry of Rites to reformulate a list of past rulers who should receive official sacrifices. Eventually, thirty-five rulers of previous dynasties were accepted into the official pantheon on the grounds that they had once ruled the Central Plain and brought peace to the people. Sacrifice to any other rulers, including those who were worthy but had only ruled remote areas and those who had ruled the Central Plain but were comparatively unimportant, were considered “heterodox” (TS, 1200–1201).²³ Indeed, as Romeyn Taylor (1997, 117) points out: “The Ming founder took great pains to reform the religious life of the empire, with particular attention to the official religion.” The Great Ming Code aimed to eliminate “heterodox” sacrifices by punishing such “profaning” acts (JJFL, 925).

Sacrifices to local deities constituted an essential part of Ming official cosmology. Local deities governed local affairs. And just as the emperor served as the chief priest-mediator between Heaven, Earth, and human beings, local officials—as the emperor’s representatives—functioned as mediators between the deities and local people. Zhu Yuanzhang once stated that the task of local magistrates was not just to “shepherd the people,” but also to sacrifice to “ghosts and deities”; together, these represented the yin and yang sides of the “way of humans.” The emperor required local officials to bid farewell to deities when going out and report to them when coming in. Only when officials were models for commoners of reverence to the deities would the deities be at peace; and only when the deities were at peace would local areas avoid disaster and receive blessings (YZDG, 238). To establish and maintain a harmonious relationship with the deities, local officials had to fulfill a variety of duties, such as reporting on anomalies to the capital court (TS, 659), performing timely sacrifices to deities, and keeping temples of the deities clean and tidy (TS, 2363). Zhu Yuanzhang warned that if local officials failed to carry out these tasks and “treated deities rudely and oppressed the people,” they would be punished by the “constant law of the dynasty” (TS, 2115).

In conclusion, The Great Ming Code lay out extensive regulations on the cosmological roles of officialdom. By legislating the “three recompenses and one sacrifice,” it obligated officials to obey the supreme authority of the emperor, to be filial toward their parents, to care for the welfare of the masses, and to maintain a harmonious relationship with the deities. These regulations defined the nature of officialdom with reference to cosmic forces. The emperor offered them official posts on behalf of Heaven; parents gave them cultural meaning and were their biological origin; the people provided them with material necessities and were also the raison d’être for the office they held. Lastly, the deities oversaw the performance of their duties. All of this attests to the cosmological status of officialdom—to serve as representatives of the Son of Heaven in mediating between the spiritual and mundane worlds and governing the human realm. Although some legal documents do not explicitly include cosmological terminology, their contents should nevertheless be understood within the early Ming definition of officialdom’s cosmological status; moreover, many such laws were interpreted by Ming commentators as cosmologically meaningful.²⁴

To be sure, relations between the Son of Heaven and his representatives were often tense. The emperor was notorious for his harsh laws against errant officials (Yang 1988, 80–93); from time to time, those harsh laws even contradicted the dynastic basic law—The Great Ming Code. This is illustrated by a case wherein the emperor used “extra-Code” methods to punish a corrupt official. In 1396, an investigating censor reported to Zhu Yuanzhang that the vice magistrate of Xiangyin, Huguang, had a whip made of rawhide with inset copper coins used for flogging people to the point where the skin was torn and the flesh laid open. When a local police chief did not come out to greet the vice magistrate, his wife was nearly beaten to death. Zhu was outraged at such cruel, unsuitable punishment: the Code had clear regulations on penal instruments. With his cruelty, the vice magistrate had “discarded my law and thus cannot be punished by the regular Code.” The emperor had him executed in the open market (TS, 3561–62). Here, the emperor punished an official accused of disregarding the dynastic legal code, so the punishment was also outside of the dynastic code.

This harsh extralegal punishment raises two questions: Was the Code really the fundamental law of the dynasty? And were officials regarded as the emperor’s representatives in fulfilling his cosmological functions? The answer to both is yes. First, acceptance of The Great Ming Code as the fundamental law of the dynasty was evident in both the holistic nature of the document and its intricate relationship with other legal establishments of the Hongwu reign. By restructuring the Code into six main categories of cosmological significance, the early Ming ruling elite envisioned a legal text that comprehensively regulated all important social relations. Practically, the Code incorporated a number of legal documents, such as the Commandment, and made them enforceable by means of punishments. Most of the special laws, with their own sentencing, functioned as minor supplements to the Code. The single major piece of legislation that challenged the supreme authority of the Code—the Grand Pronouncements—was employed by the emperor as an educational handbook. By the end of the Hongwu reign, this text’s legal authority only extended to the death penalty, and its influence faded from the Ming legal system soon after the death of its author, the founding emperor. The Great Ming Code, on the other hand, was revered by the succeeding emperors (MS, 2286) and served as the standard imperial law throughout the dynasty.²⁵

Furthermore, Zhu Yuanzhang’s hostility toward a large number of officials did not negate their perception of their cosmologically ordained function. On the contrary, the emperor’s harsh punishments of accused officials revealed his anxiety that his chosen representatives had not lived up to his high expectations. In his study of the Hu Weiyong and Lan Yu cases, Fu Yiling (1963) points out that a great number of officials during the Hongwu reign abused their power, exploited the people, and thus endangered the stability of the new regime. Zhu’s cruel purges testified more to his intention to eliminate “evildoers” than to his personal paranoia. In his brilliant study of the ruler-official relationship during the early Ming, F. W. Mote also observes that as a semieducated but experienced ruler, Zhu “accepted completely the values of his civilization, and in his way, cherished goals in common with his scholar-officials. He wanted the same things for China that the scholars wanted.” Mote particularly argues that when Wei Guan (d. 1374), Prefect of Suzhou, endeavored to achieve those “common goals” at the local level, he perceived one of his tasks as making local people “feel that this new dynasty mediated for all men universally with the cosmic order”; this task was also identified by the emperor as his own personal responsibility (Mote 1962, 212–13). Undoubtedly, while Zhu aimed to achieve dynastic peace and prosperity, and cosmic harmony, his goals could not be achieved if his officials failed to implement his world-saving plans. Therefore, what the emperor did demonstrated the unity of the cosmic status of the emperor and officialdom.

The early Ming ruling elite shared a common belief that the ruler and his officials formed one body, the body politic. The ruler was the head (yuanshou); his officials were the legs and arms (gonggu); his surveillance and transmission officials were respectively his ears and eyes (ermu) and throats and tongues (houshe), corresponding to the law-enforcing stars (zhifa) in Heaven; and his guards and soldiers were his talons, teeth, armpits, and elbows (zhaoya and yezhou). Together, these parts shared one heart and constituted a single governmental body. In order for the body to be healthy, the ruler and officials must live with a single heart and mind (tongxin yide) (TS, 1215, 1869; YZWJ, 62; XTFL, 1.19a, 7.3b). Together, they served as a cosmic unit mediating between the spiritual and human realms. The regulations governing officials in The Great Ming Code were essentially rules for restraining the ruler. In fact, this is exactly what Zhu Yuanzhang told succeeding emperors:

It has been more than forty years since I first took up arms. I have personally ordered the affairs of the realm. The good and bad, true and false of human nature have all been experienced by me. Those who were wicked and crafty by nature and committed serious crimes obvious beyond doubt have been ordered to be punished by extralegal penalties with the intention of making people take heed and thus not lightly dare to break the law. Nevertheless, this is just an expedient measure to punish the wicked; it is not the permanent law (changfa) of the ruler. From now on, when my descendants become emperors, they shall only enforce the Code and Grand Pronouncements. They shall certainly not employ any punishments like tattooing, cutting off the feet, cutting off the nose, and castration. Because succeeding rulers will be born and raised in the palace, they will not have complete knowledge of human nature’s good and evil. I fear that in time, untoward events will transpire and innocents will be mistakenly harmed. If there are officials who dare to memorialize requesting the use of these punishments, civil and military officials shall immediately submit accusations against them, and the criminals shall be executed.²⁶

Apparently, this “imperial instruction” justified the emperor’s use of extralegal punishments. What is interesting here is the order that later rulers should observe the Code²⁷ and the injunction to prohibit them from employing extralegal punishments. Reading the Code as a whole, the legal responsibilities prescribed for government officials were also intended for the human ruler.