Studies In The Punishments Of The Offcials In Tang Dynasty

The bureaucracy system is an important segment of the political system in ancient China. It is necessary content to appoint and dismiss officials of bureaucracy system. However for a long time, people pay much attention to the appointment and less attention is paid to its stand opposite, namely the dismissal. To punish the officials is the important contents of the whole dismissal system. Limited by the time, energy and knowledge, I simply intend to probe into the punishment of the officials in Tang Dynasty.Through enormous data of Tang Dynasty and on the basis of the practice rather than merely the rules, I conduct a systematic survey on the officials' punishment problem of Tang Dynasty, which aims to further investigate the aspects that are often overlooked by some scholars.There are various reasons for the officials of Tang Dynasty being punished, mostly: dereliction of duty, disobeying the manners, giving offense to some person or connecting with some person, involved others in a criminal etc. In terms of duty, there are already articles focusing on corruption and bribery. Yet, few articles touch upon choosing improper officials, the military defeats, delay, other breach of duty, involved others in a criminal in the public affairs. As for disobeying the manners, the academic study tends to pay more attention to arrogate and impiety. I define the manners in personal home life as private manner and others related with being an official are called public manner. I add other aspects of disobeying the manners as the funeral service disrespect, bad dieting manners, casual dynasty ceremonies, unharmonious family relations, cruelty, fornication and etc. People are familiar with the phenomenon that officials were punished due to offending the emperor or powerful ministers. I analyze this phenomenon in my dissertation thoroughly. The officials were also punished because of arguing with associates, making friends with certain people and personality blemish. Scholars pay little attention to these aspects.In the next chapter, I subdivide embroilment into a fewreasons such as involving the relatives, friend or political clique, the people who were responsible for recommendation.In Tang Dynasty the main ways of publishing the officials were the administrative punishment, criminal punishment, material punishment and psychic punishment. I spend much space on demoted official, the banish punishment, economic punishment, bad ShiHao,desterilizing surname and changing the bad name. I add the reason and variety of LiangYi, the influence of demotion, the characteristics of bastinado to death, material punishment besides salary-fine, psychic punishment, compare different degrees of punishments, and analyze the merits and demerits of them in practice.I examine the factors that affect the officials' punishment of Tang Dynasty and the corresponding results. Test, Supervision, Justice, Advice, Privilege, Remit and other factors all influence the punishment of the officials. Besides, I add the judicial form, namely, gathering officials in argument. The reasons directly affect the results. Innocent punishments and inappropriate punishments would produce negative effects, but if the officials who were published mistakenly had high quality, it would produce positive influences to the local development surprisingly.I argue against other people's standpoints, and therefore put forward my own viewpoints, for instance: ChaShiTingZi refers to people rather than an organization established by the eunuchs. Demotion and moving outside were not rules for demoted officials, who cannot optionally leave the region. And this was not restricted simply to those officials. Five-Year-Move did not yet become rules; the banish punishment were used to punish the crime of serious kinds, not merely emphasizing on the political strive; The banish punishment was worthy of the name, matching its status in the "Tang Law". After sentenced, the criminals need not bastinado. The aim of the timeless banish punishment was consistent with the banish punishment,...