Study Of The Late Ming And Early Qing Legal Thought

Chinese legal system was established by the Confucianism. The Ming Dynasty's law was too. It protected the highest power of the monarch, supporting the grade social order; The Rites and law managed the society together. The Ming Dynasty was demolished by a minority, which provided the history facts for the advanced thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty to criticize Ming Dynasty's law. The advanced thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty who thought for the public benefits, absorbed the Chinese traditional cultural essence, adopted science and reasonableness mode of thinking, criticized the Ming Dynasty managed all by law. As a result, the Ming Dynasty was perished by national law fallen into desuetude because of emperor personal desires. They criticized empty talking atmosphere of school made the Ming Dynasty ruined because the emperors of the Ming Dynasty promoted the eight part essay as the standard to select talented persons etc. At the same time, the advanced thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty constructed the legal to save the Ming Dynasty society which promoted the Chinese traditional legal to develop in that period. The trend of legal thoughts of the advanced thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty primarily represented the legal development at that time. That is: rising of trend of thoughts featured by criticizing the feudalism legal; awakening trend of legal thoughts of the humanities and renewing of trend of legal thoughts attained practical use to save the society. Research about trend of legal thoughts in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty is beneficial to comprehend the angle for the thinkers in Chinese history considering law problem, to observe the motive and limit of the Chinese legal development, to investigate the special way of the Chinese legal development and the native resources of Chinese legal system.This thesis took the problem research method, primarily divided the chapter of the article with the contents and characteristics as standard of the trend oflegal thoughts of the advanced thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. It included the following five parts.Chapter One: the background of the trend of legal thoughts in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. Although the advanced thinkers in late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty proceeded to think and criticize the Ming Dynasty's law, the history fact was that the Chinese legal system in Ming Dynasty still was of vitality, which influenced the other nations in the world. Just the economical development and artificial factors made the law in Ming Dynasty lose originally value. Here mainly analyzed three problems: The main trend of legal thoughts in Ming Dynasty; Law functions and value in Ming Dynasty; social general situations in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty.Chapter Two: Rising of trend of legal thoughts of criticizing the feudalism legal in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty. The history fact that the Ming Dynasty was perished provided the external terms for the advanced thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty to think and criticize the law in Ming Dynasty. The mode of thinking of advanced thinker replaced in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty which provided the internal terms for the thoughts liberation. The contents of the trend of criticizing feudalism legal thoughts of thinkers in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty were mainly included that the trend of thoughts which criticized the Confucian school of idealist philosophy of Song and Ming Dynasty; the trend of thoughts of criticizing the institutional in lawmaking of the Ming Dynasty; the trend of thoughts of criticizing the judicatory of the Ming Dynasty. The characteristics of criticizing legal thoughts expressed three aspects. One is to make clear the theory firstly, reaching to use; Secondly is to criticize the legal system in Ming Dynasty thoroughly and systematically; Finally, it reflected t...