Prohibition And Punishment Of Officials Engaging In Business In Song Dynasty

During the Song Dynasty,domestic trade,border trade and maritime trade all achieved unprecedented development,and the Confucian concept of "righteousness and profit" was impacted,and the current situation of profit-seeking among the private sector affected officials in the officialdom.Therefore,this paper takes Song dynasty officials’ business as the research object,and analyzes why the officials’ business was repeatedly prohibited under the legal regulation and severe punishment of officials’ business behavior,based on the analysis of the main body of business,business mode and business field of Song dynasty officials.To this end,this paper analyzes the following aspects in order to explore the deeper reasons.The first chapter examines the business activities of officials in the Song Dynasty.During the Song Dynasty,the commodity economy had been developed in a breakthrough manner,and people’s view of "righteousness and profit" had also changed significantly,and commerce was no longer regarded as the "last business".In the early Song Dynasty,military generals were the main body of officials engaged in business,and after the early Song Dynasty,civil officials gradually became the main body of officials engaged in business.They not only engaged in business themselves,but also made use of the surrounding related personnel to engage in business.Not only were they engaged in buying and selling commodities in the domestic market area,but they also borrowed the management of questionable courts to conduct border trade and used their authority to engage in overseas trade.The second chapter examines the legal prohibitions against officials engaging in business in the Song Dynasty.In the face of the widespread phenomenon of officials engaging in business,it appears from the legal prohibitions that the Song court did not impose strict controls on officials’ private business practices.The control of illegal business by officials in the Song dynasty is referred to as a prohibition,and the prohibition of this matter is not systematic in the official history books seen in the Song dynasty.From the viewpoint of the extant prohibitions,the form is divided into prohibitions seen in written law and those issued in scattered form,and from the viewpoint of the content of the prohibitions,they are divided into principle provisions and special provisions.Regardless of the above divisions,there is no complete and systematic regulation of officials’ illegal business practices,and the legal provisions are more general.The third chapter examines the severe punishment for officials’ business behavior in Song Dynasty.This chapter divides the punishment for officials into Southern and Northern Song dynasties,from which it can be seen once again that in both Southern and Northern Song dynasties,it became common for officials to engage in business,not only in various ways,but also in a wide range of fields and with a variety of commodities.In terms of punishment,there were various ways,including dismissal,deportation,seizure,reprimand,etc.A small number of officials were also sentenced to abandonment of life,"to be put in a place of heavy law",and even in the process of punishment of a small number of officials engaged in business,the punishment of "collateral" was also applied.However,the punishment for officials engaged in business in the Song dynasty can be seen that many officials were rehired after they were demoted from their official positions,and some of them were even "suddenly added to the beauty of the post",which shows that the Song dynasty did not impose strict prohibition on officials engaged in business,but relaxed it in the process of prohibition.At the same time,the principle of "convicting officials with stolen goods" became the principle of criminal punishment for engaging in business,and became an important basis for calculating the amount involved in illegal business after the article of "crediting the prisoner".Chapter 4 explores the reasons for the existence of officials engaging in business despite the strict legal prohibition.The Song dynasty court had always prohibited officials from engaging in business,and at the same time used punitive measures to crack down on them,but their engagement in business still failed to end.In the change of the Song people’s "righteousness and profit",when commerce no longer became the "last business" in people’s eyes,collusion between officials and merchants became a common phenomenon,and even buying officials with merchants was also promoted by the rulers,who also indulged them in the process of punishment for some reasons.These have become important reasons for the repeated prohibition of officials engaging in business.The last chapter is the concluding remarks.In the Song dynasty,when it became common for officials to engage in business,the Song dynasty prohibited and punished it,but in the end,the phenomenon was not eliminated,but became more and more common.The reasons for this are mainly twofold: first,the rulers were indulgent in prohibiting it;second,the change of social "righteousness and profit" greatly contributed to the proliferation of officials’ business practices.Therefore,the indulgence of the ruler and the change of social "righteousness and profit" in the Song Dynasty were the important reasons why it was difficult to curb the trend of officials engaging in business.