Research On Lv-ling Xue In Qin And Han Dynasties

Lv-ling Xue was an important branch of the legal knowledge in Qin and Han Dynasties which made a great contribution to the improvement of legal theory and legal system and trained a lot of officials who were good at the legal knowledge, skills and thought.This research on Lv-ling Xue has two significances. The historic one is to investigate the origin and development of Lv-ling Xue, to deepen the understanding about the contemporary trends in law and legal doctrine in Qin and Han Dynasties, and at the same time to make an in-depth study on history of Qin and Han Dynasties. The realistic one is that this research helps to solve the problem of how to analyze and understand the legal instruments which came out of the ground and the legal awareness and legal actions in Qin and Han Dynasties.This research is based on the historical records, unearthed relics, books of legalists in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period and other documents in Han Dynasty, and the research results by modern academic scholars. From this, this dissertation tries to construct a study system of Lv-ling Xue. This dissertation sticks to historical materialism, adopts the method of duplicate historic proofs and at the meanwhile combines the historic research with modern political and legal theories, which will be beneficial to the research.This dissertation focuses on the study of the origin and development of Lv-ling Xue and goes into details about teaching materials, teaching methods, electoral institution of Mingfa (which means showing good sense on the law), people's family tree and official careers who studied laws and decrees, and so on.This dissertation is divided into three major parts, which are the introduction, the main text and conclusion.The introduction part interprets the importance, value, purpose and method of the research on Lv-ling Xue. It reviews the achievements of the academic research, and gives the definition of Lv-ling Xue.The first chapter is the study of Lv-ling Xue's origin and formation. From the historical materials of the pre-Qin days, the author organizes the content, forms, development and circulation of the laws before Reforms of Shang Yang, and concludes that the written or statute law in the state of Jin was the main origin of Lord Shang's Law. Next the author discusses the relationship between Reforms of Shang Yang and the laws and decrees of Qin Kingdom. According to this, the author holds that Shang Yang was the founder of the legal of Qin and Han Dynasties and the builder of Lv-ling Xue.The second chapter is the evolution and change of Lv-ling Xue, which is arranged in order of time and discusses the development of Lv-ling Xue. Next it concludes that Lv-ling Xue developed continuously in Qin and Han Dynasties, and formed the foundation for Lv Xue from the Wei and Jin Dynasty to Tang and Song Dynasties.The third chapter is teaching materials of Lv-ling Xue, which researches on the knowledge of Lv-ling Xue such as legal ideology, legislation, interpretation of the law, technique of law, moral character and history of law. This part also gives the specific and historic examples of how people learned and inherited the legal knowledge.The fourth part is the imparting methods of Lv-ling Xue, which the author divides into three types, one was to study from the officials, one was to learn from private friends or teachers, and another was to study from the Confucian classics and the decrees. This part elaborates on these three ways.The fifth chapter is electoral institution of Mingfa in Qin and Han Dynasties. By researching on three aspects, which were the royal edict promulgated by Qin Xiao Gong, legal official system in Book of Lord Shang, and the checkup system, the author draws a conclusion that learning law was very beneficial to the career of people who studied laws and decrees. Next it discusses the electoral institution of Mingfa in Han Dynasty and comes to a conclusion that with the improvement of the electoral institution and checkup system people with legal education could get more opportunities in career than others.The sixth chapter is people's family tree and official careers who studied laws and decrees. Through analyzing them, the author makes conclusions as follows: firstly, the people who studied laws and decrees had various backgrounds, including emperors, officials and common people. Secondly, during the development of politics in Qin and Han Dynasties, the experience of learning laws and decrees should have a profound impact on the official career. However, Lv-ling Xue could not always satisfy the various needs of political officials. Thirdly, the majority of people who studied laws and decrees were those who entered the officialdom to begin their official career. Among them, the typical political images were reformers, jurisprudents, literal clerks and ideologues.The seventh chapter is the characteristic, influence and limits of Lv-ling Xue. Lv-ling Xue, with its outstanding features of practicability, popularization and utilitarianism, had a positive influence on the academics, politics and the society in Qin and Han Dynasties.Meanwhile, due to its dependence on politics, its moral misunderstanding of advocating personal ability as well as its influence by the cultural and educational policy, the position of Lv-ling Xue changed as time went by. It fluctuated in the course of development. The concluding part makes a summary to this dissertation. It explains respectively the importance to choose this subject, the relationships between Lv-ling Xue and study of Confucian classics and its position in ancient Chinese history of law.