Early Ming Misdemeanors Discrimination

Though there has been a long history in China of research on the legal situation of Ming Dynasty's early period, some questions remains to be answered. Based on the research on Hong Wu Thirty-Years' Law, Yu Zhi Da Gao, Second Yu Zhi Da Gao and Third Yu Zhi Da Gao, this paper will make some try to solve the following problems:Firstly, this paper discusses existence of the hardness of Da Ming Law. If we compare Da Ming Law with Tang Dynasty's Law, we will make a conclusion that, from the angle of Criminal Law' structure, Da Ming Law didn't set lighter punishments on light crimes or set harsher punishments on felonies compared with Tang Dynasty's Law, which had been a conclusion of many experts. Generally speaking, Da Ming Law basically is in of accord with the social and historic situation. And its most obvious characteristic is its regulations about those officers.Secondly, it's important to point out that the most special regulation about those officers is Ming Da Gao, which is consisted of four parts. Ming Da Gao was expected to solve problems of corruption with wide range of legal coverage and harsh punishments. Though the emperor Zhu Yuanzhang gave great expectation to Ming Da Gao, but the unstoppable and continuous corruption didn't bring him good effect.Thirdly, why are those laws so useless since they both emphasized on the punishment of corruption? It's not because of the ignorance of normal legal constitution or of its generally losing its frightening function. The reason is that Zhu Yuanzhang's legal idea is the improvement of the Chinese traditional legal idea which actually means ruling by virtue. It looks like that the law aims at the corruption, but it makes the emperor's power rising to the climax, which makes the power structure wider and worse, and deteriorates the Law and fails the reform.