The Ming Dynasty Gyobu Supreme Court Functions Transmutation Test

The Ming Dynasty is an extraordinary important period of Chinese feudal period, and it is not only reflected in the impact of Chinese history for its 200 years rule, but also in the impact of Chinese post-feudal institutional system for its institutional system construction. The Ming Dynasty is the nexus of Yuan Dynasty's incomplete legal system and Qing Dynasty's complete legal system. Especially on the set of functions of the judiciary there is a subversive evolution contrast with the set of functions of the judiciary of The Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty. One of the most striking is the Board of Punishments and the Supreme Court's functions change, from the Tang and Song period the Supreme Court as a specialized agency responsible for investigating cases and trialing and the Board of Punishments as a agency mainly responsible for the review of the case that trialed by supreme court, to the Ming and Qing period the Board of Punishments as a agency mainly responsible for the trial and the Supreme Court as a specialized agency responsible for the review of the case that trialed by the Board of Punishments. The Board of Punishments is not only a administration of justice, but also a justice agency, and also a legislative institution in Ming's early stage, Its functions had achieved the most expansive period of time since the establishment of the Ministry of Punishments. This situation continued until the Qing Dynasty, and it is reversed until the late Qing reform of the judicial system. It seems that there isn't much research about this evolution which has a great impaction of Chinese Legal History, and the research of the reason of evolution is limited on the strength of Imperial power and the need of centralization. However it can be seen from some historical data that the system of Yuan period has a great impaction of the evolution of the function and institutional setup of the Board of Punishments and the Supreme Court. So the main content of this dissertation is trying to investigate the process of the evolution and analyze the reason of the evolution on the other side such as the impaction of the Yuan's system to the evolution of the function of Ming's Board of Punishments and Supreme Court. This article is divided into three parts. The first part is the Origin of the Board of Punishments and supreme court of Ming Dynasty. The main content of this part is a brief introduction about the system of the Board of Punishments and supreme court of Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasty, at the same time, it will introduce the reason of the abolishment of supreme court and the diversion of the judicial power from supreme court to Board of Punishments in Yuan Dynasty. The second part is the process of the evolution of the functions and institutional of the Board of Punishments and supreme court of the Ming Dynasty. The main content of this part is an introduction of the process of the evolution of the functions and institutional of Board of Punishments and supreme court of the Ming Dynasty. The third part is the reason and historical influence of the evolution of the functions and institutional of Board of Punishments and supreme court of the Ming Dynasty. The main content of this part is an analyze of the factor influenced the process of the evolution and an instruction of the influence of the evolution basic on the second part.