This carefully produced version of the Ming Code with commentaries originated in the Censorate. In the 1596/1597 ed. the list of collaborators appearing after the mulu is headed by censor-in-chief Zhong Zhenji and his two deputies as commentators (同纂註), followed by 11 censors as collators (同校正); the 1597 enlarged imprint is due to the censor in charge of the Yangzhou Salt Administration (it is not clear what the supplements were), with Yangzhou prefect Guo Guangfu 郭光復 as collator. The 1610 version published in Zhejiang appears identical to the 1596/97 version in content and design, although it is again a different engraving (the commentary uses the same characters as the text of the law instead of being in smaller characters as in the earlier versions), and adds new substatutes; the list of collaborators is at the same place as in the first version but includes different names: following the mention of Gao Ju as “publisher” (發刻), Zhejiang regional inspector Zheng Jifang 巡按浙江監察御史鄭繼芳 and two other regional inspectors feature as revisers (訂正), followed by Zhejiang administrative commissionner Hong Qirui 洪啟睿, surveillance commissioner Dou Zicheng 竇子偁, and their deputies, eleven persons in all, as collators (校). The work features the text of the Ming Penal Code established in 1585, with small-character explanations inserted in the text of the statutes, each statute being followed by a comparatively long explanatory commentary introduced by the words zuanzhu 纂注, sometimes with further remarks introduced by an 按, plus occasional “reference materials” (備考, i.e. short notations in small characters specifying some points or suggesting analogies), and finally the relevant substatutes (條例)—sometimes including “newly published” (新頒) substatutes with Wanli dates. It seems that the commentaries largely take up those composed by Zheng Rubi 鄭汝璧 (js. 1568) for his own Da Ming lü jie fuli (q.v.) published in 1594, of which, according to Yang Yifan 楊一凡 (see below, He Qinhua, 260 n. 1), Gao Ju’s publication might in fact be a version edited under a different title (Yang does not seem aware of the original Zhong Zhengji version). Eight earlier commentaries are cited along the way, namely Lüjie bianyi (q.v.), Lütiao shuyi (q.v.), Lüshu fuli 律疏附例, Lüjie fuli (q.v.), Da Ming lü dufa shu 大明律讀法書 (probably Da Ming lü dufa [q.v.]), Dulü suoyan (q.v.), Dulü guanjian (q.v.), and Da Ming lü shiyi (q.v.). The overall organization is similar to that in other works of the same type, with Hongwu’s pref. to the Ming Code (1397), a general mulu (總目) listing the parts and sections of the Code and a detailed mulu listing the 460 statutes (only the 1610 ed. provides the juan numbers in the detailed mulu, which is placed after the tables), tables and lists of the five punishments, instruments of punishments, mourning tables and regulations, six spoils, eight characters, redemption tariffs, and the 1497 Zhenfan zafan sizui 真犯雜犯死罪 listing the relevant statutes by descending degree of capital punishment or military exile, for crimes susceptible to amnesty or not, followed by the 1585 Zhenfan sizui chongjun weimin li 真犯死罪充軍為民例. Then the text proper of the Code with commentaries starts with j. 1. The short j. 31 is devoted to two memorials by the Ministry of Justice.