An anthology of judicial cases (mostly reports introduced by the phrase shende 審得, “it is found that”) dating from the period when the author was prefectural judge of Ningbo (1631-37). The 234 cases presented in ten chapters deal with marriage (hunyin 婚姻), inheritance (chengxi 承襲), real estate (chanye 產業), forgeries (zhawei 詐偽), sexual crimes (yinjian 淫姦), banditry (zeiqing 賊情), taxes (qianliang 錢糧), administrative mistakes (shiwu 失誤), recidivists chongfan 重犯), and injustices (yuanfan 冤犯), respectively; an appendix features three cases of “doubtful cases” (yifan 疑犯) and 21 communications (xiangyu 詳語). The publisher‟s note suggests that a draft (gao) was used. The text of the modern edition, edited (重訂) by Wang Ji 王季, apparently reproduces the heavy punctuation and underlining of the original. According to Tam (see below) this collection belongs to a genre of “heavily edited” cases rewritten as narratives aimed not only at practioners of justice but also at the larger public for its instruction and entertainment concerning crime and punishment. In many of the cases the final decision is omitted. In the Chongzhen ed. (copy at Jilin daxue) the compilation and editing of the work are attributed to Wang Siren 王思任 (Z. Jizhong 季重, 1575-1646, js. 1595), an official with legal expertise and popular author who retired to his native Shaoxing in 1636, to whom a preface is also attributed; according to Tam, “Justice in Print” [see below], 157-8, this is probably spurious.
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