| Abstract | Provincial administrations were constantly showered with communications from the center called tongxing tiaoli 通行條例 (including new substatutes, memorials, and so on) which the governors were supposed to forward to the prefectures and counties through the provincial treasurer and judge. As recalled in the introduction, a decision of 1753 ordered that from now on they be printed in the provincial capitals by the latter in order to simplify things and avoid the multiple errors made in the process of hand-copying. Apparently the two heads of the provincial bureaucracy (the provincial treasurer and juge) distributed the materials among themselves according to their respective domains of competence; as a result, the Dingli huibian is not a compendium of all the communications received in Jiangxi, it only includes those belonging to the judicial domain (隸刑名者), the rest being entrusted to the provincial treasurer. As indicated in the fanli, Jiangxi received the decision on QL 18/12/18 and the compilation was immediately started for that very year; the presentation is by Penal Code categories, with precedents on the same subject arranged chronologically; there are 7 juan, plus one collecting the new substatutes established by the Lüliguan (xuzuan tiaoli 續纂條例) and approved for 1761; from 1762 onwards the precedents newly received will be printed and circulated as they come in, to be compiled as a book at the end of the year and circulated again; from now on one new juan will be printed every year. In other words, this fanli seems to have been written in 1761 for a publication of the precedents since 1753. It is followed by a complete mulu, occupying 9 fascicles in all, which includes the period 1753-61 as described above, and then one juan for each new year (internally arranged by mingli and 6 ministries), beginning in 1762 (j. 9) and ending in 1881 (j. 128). |
