Research On Verdicts In The Qing Dynasty

A verdict is the most representative species among legal instruments. In ancient societies, it is theapplied style of judges’ presenting cases, listening to cases and judging cases.After more than athousand years of evolution, the verdict in the judicial practice has developed a unique language styleand mental outlook, with distinctive characteristics of the writing.The verdicts of the Qing Dynastyinherited some merits of other dynasties and rich in new changes, and reached a new peak in thedevelopment of the ancient verdicts so that their legal meaning and literary tension attracted theRepublic of China and even the modern society. Scholars should pay attention to this style of "theliterary body, the application in judicature". This paper is about literati groups of the Qing Dynasty whohave the double identity of the writer and judiciary and their verdicts writing.Because the subject of writing verdicts develops from the etiquette and cultural environment, sothe ideas of writing verdicts and its literary expressions are closely related to the ideal of ConfucianStatecraft and the judicial philosophy of reducing punishment owing to the sympathy. Therefore, thisarticle will examine the verdicts of the Qing Dynasty between literature and law from the viewpoints ofthe etiquette and cultural environment. In accordance with the text of the verdicts and related documentsand historical materials, the author analyzes the impacts between the judicial practice of fair Confucianjudges of the Qing Dynasty, the spirit of the officials’ governing and verdicts writing. This paperexplains the characteristics of the literary expression of verdicts in the Qing Dynasty. At the same time,this paper also interprets the combination of sympathy, reason and law of verdicts in the Qing Dynasty,and its relationship with literary tendency and rhetorical style. The ideas and the content of verdicts inpoetry, novels, plays and other literary works of the Qing Dynasty, are the important materials toexplore the subject of writing verdicts and verdicts writing, which are included in the study, andanalyzed to some degree.The paper begins with the introduction and develops from it. In the Introduction, a series ofconcepts will be explained, the research background and significance, main references and academicachievements will be introduced, and the research methods and ideas will be given. The main body ofthis paper has six chapters.In the first chapter, the verdicts before the Qing Dynasty (focused primarily on the historicaldevelopment of Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming) will be reviewed, the active practice of the fair Confucianjudges and the expression of texts will be analyzed. The literature of the verdicts, the affections ofwriting verdicts, ethics of thinking and so many ways will be involved. Therefore, we can see the ethical character of the verdicts and the literary expression of sympathy,reason and law in one wholebody,which are connected with officials’ culture, moral sentiments, values of Confucian Statecraftclosely.In the second chapter, from the viewpoints of the integration of texts and laws in the Qing Dynasty,the author combs judging practice of fair Confucian groups in the Qing Dynasty and verdicts writing.By inspecting verdicts of the Qing Dynasty and groups of writing verdicts systematically,the authorelaborates "Quan" election system of the Qing Dynasty (a system of selecting officials) to influenceverdicts writing of subjects, judicial practice, and behavioral style,trying to showing the characteristicsof verdicts in the Qing Dynasty,which inherited something from the previous dynasties, are differentfrom them. It is related to not only more mature civil service system and law cultural awareness of theQing Dynasty, but also the humanistic accomplishments of the subjects and the changing social andcultural context.These factors determine the verdicts containing the expression of the text with theheterogeneous factors and highlight the main characteristics, but also reveal subjects’ change andpersistence in different cultural contexts.In Chapter III, the author selects the verdicts in the early Qing Dynasty as cases, analyzes of thejudicial spirit and literary expression. By comparison, characteristics of the convergence have beenfound in literary expression, ethics and preach, but also a certain degree of development and changeshave been found. It is related to the consciousness of subjects of writing verdicts influenced by the spiritof practical statecraft,and also related to the praise of virtue trial of quelling litigation andpeople-oriented.This judicial spirit "practical statecraft", and the judicial process of "the power of arts"have some impact on practical expressions of verdicts and the writing style of showing sympathy.Thischapter depicts the rise of theory of writing verdicts and verdicts writing in the early Qing Dynasty, andtakes the example of Xu Shilin ’s final verdicts,who is an upright official, analyzes the contents andfeatures produced by the early verdicts of the Qing Dynasty.The fourth chapter analyzes the groups of writing verdicts not only inheriting the spirit of practicalstatecraft, but also displaying the judicial style of" taking law as the criterion". In this stage, groups ofwriting verdicts are diligent to resort to law and put experiences of writing verdicts into a variety oftexts, to promote positive interaction between the theory of judicial practice and writing verdicts so thatverdicts in the middle of the Qing Dynasty show the perfect combination of the style of literature andlaw. In this chapter, a typical representative of verdicts is from Zhang Wentao, used to explore howmultiple identities of the subject of writing verdicts as a poet,scholar and so on affect the expression ofthe text of the verdict, the development of verdict styles and its literary value.In Chapter5, based on combing the text of the post Qing Dynasty verdicts,combined with otherliterature relating to judicial practice records in other literature about the case of groups of writingverdicts and verdicts,the author finds the late Qing verdicts inherited the expression of the power of arts,put the emphasis on using knowledge of legal affairs in order to increase application performance, andthus the verdicts system showing the new change of becoming standardized. In the late Qing Dynasty,many famous officials, local officials were under the circumstances of corruption inofficialdom than before, sticked to the spirit of etiquette, and enhanced the practicality,so as to reach anew realm of combination of literature and verdicts.The humane style of taking care of both sympathyand law in verdicts laid the foundation for modern verdicts.We can see the verdicts of famous officialsFan Zengxiang and so on in the late Qing Dynasty received widespread concern and acceptance in theRepublic of China.In Chapter VI, based on the records of the poems, notes, novels and other literary forms about therelevant cases and experiences of writing verdicts, the author analyzes the spirit and mentality ofsubjects, combing the verdicts of the official discourse in the institutional paradigm,preaching function,and legal awareness, how to affect the legal expression of other genres and literary value;and analyzinguniqueness of contents of verdicts of drama and fiction in the Qing Dynasty and the influence betweenverdicts and literature, to see the relationship between judicial practice and texts of verdicts.The epilogue made a comparison of Chinese and foreign verdict texts, and based on the previouschapters about historical data and verdicts, the literary value and social functions of verdicts in the QingDynasty carried out an objective evaluation. Finally, the prospects of the research,and its room forfurther development are discussed.