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Unless otherwise specified, the descriptions of sources in this section are extracted from Pierre-Etienne Will and collaborators, Handbooks and Anthologies for Officials in Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography, 2 vols., Leiden: Brill, 2020
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Description
documentTypeBook
TitleXunci 㽦辭 [Plowing Words]
Short title(Court Verdicts That Touch the Heart)
Topic2.2 Judicial cases: Local casebooks
Historical periodLate Ming (1585-1644)
CountryChinese
Year1634
Reprint (year of)2005
AuthorZhang Kentang 張肯堂
CollectionLidai panli pandu 歷代判例判牘
Volume12
Number of volume4
Publisher中國社會科學出版社
Place of publication北京
Publication typePrint
Abstract

An anthology of judicial cases judged by the author as magistrate of Junxian 濬縣, in Henan (or, for some of them, in neighboring counties where Zhang was serving as acting magistrate) around 1630. The work was originally part of the Wan’er ji, a 20-juan collection of the author’s administrative pieces from his tenure at Junxian, now lost but mentioned in the Mingshi and described in Cheng Jingzhi’s preface. There are 308 entries, dealing with a total 302 cases. (A few entries are general narratives, e.g. on bandit suppression, and some cases are discussed in several entries.) Each entry is a “judgment” (yan 讞, the word used at the head of the chapters to indicate the nature of Zhang’s authorship); it consists of a short narrative of the case and ends with the legal and/or moral bases for judgement; the sentence itself is indicated only occasionally. The text is over-abundantly punctuated. There are also 24 “judgements on important criminals” [check this meaning] (審錄要囚參語) appended, which in fact are not distinguished from the rest in the text itself. A number of cases deal with military families and military domains. According to Jiang Yonglin (see below), the 302 cases judged by the author are in the form not of “leading cases” (cheng’an) or other official documents but of rewritten narratives emphasizing the author’s reliance on the dynastic penal code and on moral values in making decisions. The work may be considered both as a model anthology for officials and (Jiang’s interpretation) as warnings intended as admonishments to the public. According to Cheng’s preface, the word xun in the title is in comparison with deep plowing that brings out the richness of the soil: in the same way, Zhang’s direct and well-crafted judgements went directly to the hearts of the contending parties.ca

Comment

An anthology of cases adjudicated around 1630 by the author as magistrate of Junxian 濬縣 (Bei Zhili), or in some instances as acting magistrate in neighboring counties. The work was originally part of Wan’er ji 莞爾集, a 20-j. collection of the author’s administrative pieces from his tenure at Junxian, now lost but mentioned in the Mingshi bibliographic treatise and described in Cheng Jiming’s preface. The 308 entries deal with a total 302 cases. (A few are general narratives, e.g. on bandit suppression, and some cases are discussed in several entries.) Each entry is a “judgment” (讞)—the word that defines the nature of Zhang’s authorship in chapter captions—and uses the name of the culprit as its title. It consists of a short narrative of the case and ends with the legal and/or moral basis for judgment, the sentence itself being indicated only occasionally. The text is over-abundantly punctuated. The mulu also features 24 “commentaries on important criminals” (審錄要囚參語) as an appendix, though in fact they are not distinguished from the rest of j. 12. A number of cases deal with military families and military domains. According to Jiang Yonglin (see below), the 302 cases judged by the author are not in the form of official documents but are rather rewritten narratives emphasizing the author’s reliance on the Penal Code and on moral values in making decisions. Yang Yifan (see below) also notes the elegance of the style. In fact they are more like “rescripts” (批) in form. According to Jiang, in two-thirds of the cases the litigants were from outside Junxian, partly due to Zhang’s reputation as an impartial judge; he remarks that in his judgments Zhang hardly ever invoked the substatutes (例) attached to the Ming Code, making a point of relying on the regular statutes instead. This seems to contradict a number of assessments of judicial practice in the Ming, beginning with that of the Mingshi itself. In any event, in a number of cases involving local interests, in particular those of lineages, Zhang seems to have avoided a strict application of the Code and preferred to decide in a way that preserved local practice. Many cases are indeed dealing with “minor affairs” (such as family or commercial conflicts) that the magistrate would resolve by simple arbitration and with arguments more moral than juridical. The work may be considered both as a model anthology for officials and (Jiang’s interpretation) as warnings intended as admonishment to the public. According to Cheng’s preface, the word xun 㽦 in the title is used in comparison with deep plowing that brings out the richness of the soil: in the same way, Zhang’s direct and well-crafted judgements go directly to the hearts of the contending parties. (Jiang renders the title as Court Verdicts That Touch the Heart.)

SubjectLaw
LanguageChinese
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