What are the characteristics of ancient Chinese law?

First, the characteristics of the Tang law:

The Tang Dynasty was a prosperous feudal dynasty in the history of China. Especially after Li Shimin proclaimed himself emperor, he summed up the lessons of the demise of the Sui Dynasty, made great efforts to govern, and adopted many political measures to strengthen centralized rule, which promoted the unprecedented development of agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, foreign trade, science and culture in the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty became a powerful feudal dynasty after the Han Dynasty and the largest civilized country at that time. The law of the Tang Dynasty was formulated under such historical conditions. It is the product of China's ancient feudal political, economic and cultural prosperity. Judging from the content of the Tang law, it has the following characteristics:

First, the style is perfect, the structure is rigorous, the subject is concise, and the width is moderate. The perfection of style means a Tang law, which covers almost all aspects of social life at that time, and is a typical feudal code. It is no accident that the Tang Law has such a perfect style, because the society in the early Tang Dynasty was stable, the feudal politics, economy and culture flourished, and the feudal society entered its heyday. Various social relations in feudal society have emerged and need to be adjusted by legal means. At the same time, since the Qin and Han dynasties, nearly a thousand years of feudal rule and legal system construction have provided extremely rich experience for the formulation of Tang laws.

The rigorous structure is mainly manifested in the relationship between famous examples and chapters, as well as the mutual care of laws, especially the order of provisions, which embodies the theme of legislators, and it is clear to people that rulers use laws to adjust the priorities of various social relations. The simplicity of rules and the moderation of leniency and simplicity are reflected in the laws of Qin and Han dynasties, and are famous for their complexity. After Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, laws and regulations were disordered because of one thing. The revision of laws in the Western Jin Dynasty greatly reduced the number of laws in the Han Dynasty, and the number of laws in the Northern Qi Dynasty was12,949, which made some progress. The Tang Dynasty followed the Sui system and practiced the principle of simplicity and leniency. There are 12 method and 502 method, which were inherited by later generations. Take Tang Taizong's method of modifying Zhenguan as an example. "People who get rid of troubles and turn the heavy into the light can't win discipline." It shows the above characteristics of Tang law.

Looking at the logical order of the style arrangement of articles in the Tang Dynasty, the structure is rigorous, one link is buckled, the articles are concise, and the width is moderate, which reflects that the technology of establishing characters in the Tang Dynasty has reached a quite mature stage.

Second: the combination of ceremony and punishment, the unity of ceremony and law. The combination of etiquette and law, morality and punishment, began in the period of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, and further combined after Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties. In the Tang Dynasty, the basic spirit of etiquette became the theoretical basis of legislation. There is a cloud in the famous examples of the Tang Dynasty: "Morality is the foundation of politics and religion, and punishment is used by politics and religion, even if it is written by Xiao Yangqiu." Explain the relationship among morality, propriety and punishment, which complement each other and are inseparable. With the help of Yi Shu, the rulers of the Tang Dynasty endowed morality and etiquette with legal content. For example, in order to explain the "rebellion", I quoted a cloud from Gongju Biography: "Your relatives have no generals, but they will be punished." This proves that the crime of rebellion must be severely suppressed if the "general" does not carry it out. Because according to the requirements of the ceremony, "only the son is the minister, only loyalty is the filial piety." In feudal society, loyalty and filial piety are the most important moral standards. Loyalty to the monarch and filial piety is the highest standard to maintain feudal rule. If the content given to it by law violates this highest standard, it will constitute a serious crime and be punished accordingly. This spirit almost runs through the first article of Tang Law.

Third: temper justice with mercy. According to historical records, Emperor Taizong and Li Shimin "ruled the world with leniency, but were especially cautious in criminal law". Forgiveness meant advocating the use of light punishment. At the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, the rulers saw with their own eyes the harsh punishment and severe laws in the Sui Dynasty, which intensified social contradictions and caused a situation of "people complaining about others and chaos in the world". Taking this as a lesson, they set out from the purpose of long-term stability, and when the old law was revised during the Zhenguan period, the death penalty for exiles was reduced to 92, and the imprisonment was reduced to 7 1. Others that cut off troubles and become heavier and lighter are unforgettable. Throughout the ancient penalty system in China, only the provisions of the Law of the Tang Dynasty are the lightest. Mainly manifested in: (1) According to the laws of the Tang Dynasty, there are five kinds of statutory punishments: slapping, beating, imprisonment, exile and death penalty, which are divided into 20 grades. The death penalty is only executed by strangulation and beheading. (2) Basically, one crime and one punishment. Before or after the Tang Dynasty, there were sometimes two punishments and three punishments for one crime. (3) The principle of penalty addition and subtraction is relatively light. For example, the death penalty is generally not aggravated. If you add the death penalty, you will only be hanged, not beheaded. (4) It was created by Emperor Taizong in order to replace the death penalty criminals who can be killed or not. Those who are sentenced to death and don't kill, flow three thousand miles. Generally, after being exiled, they will serve for one year, while the service flow is two years, that is, two years and three years * * *, so it is called "service flow". In short, the principle of light punishment runs through every Tang law.

Cautious punishment refers to taking a cautious attitude when sentencing criminals. Emperor Taizong once said to his subordinates, "When dealing with ordinary crimes, we should first judge the seriousness of the matter and then increase the punishment." As for the death penalty, it is stipulated that criminals sentenced to death should review it repeatedly and report to the emperor before execution. The capital "repeats five times every two days" and the states "repeats three times", which shows a cautious punishment attitude. Due to the actual system, historical records make "many people live". To some extent, it can reduce unjust imprisonment.

Second, the important position of Tang law in the history of legal and cultural development

Due to its historical conditions, the law of the Tang Dynasty inherited the Classic of Law in the Warring States Period in the history of the development of ancient Chinese legal culture, and became a typical feudal code after Qin, Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties. Therefore, it became a model of feudal codes in the past dynasties after the Tang Dynasty. It plays a connecting role. Sun Xingyan, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, once said: "Without reading the laws of the Tang Dynasty, we cannot know that the laws and regulations of the pre-Qin period are suitable for reform." In other words, after reading the laws of the Tang Dynasty, we can understand the relationship and ins and outs of the laws of the past dynasties. Looking at the development and changes of China's ancient codes, as Sun Shi said.

Due to the highly developed social economy, politics and culture in the Tang Dynasty, it became an advanced civilized country in the world at that time, and its economic and trade relations and friendly exchanges with other countries were very frequent. Many countries, especially East Asian countries, sent envoys and a large number of overseas students to the Tang Dynasty to study China's advanced culture and various laws and regulations. There is a provision in the law of the Tang Dynasty to "turn foreigners into foreigners" in order to adjust the legal relationship of foreigners during their stay in the Tang Dynasty and protect their legitimate rights and interests. Because the Tang law is a typical feudal code, which accords with the interests and needs of feudal rulers, while learning Chinese culture, they also introduced the Tang law into their own countries and formulated their own codes in light of their own conditions. In Asia, the most prominent is Japan. Guo Moruo, a famous historian in China, pointed out: "During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, many Japanese monks and students came to China to study, which almost transported the culture of China and the ideology of various superstructures." Of course, it also includes legal culture. As Japanese scholar Sang Zang said: "China's Dabao law generally adopts the Tang law, but it was adopted after considering China's national conditions." For example, the "Eight Arguments" in the Law of the Tang Dynasty were saved as "Six Arguments", and the "Arguments" were deleted. Change "ten evils" into "eight evils" and delete "disharmony" and "civil strife". The penalty system is still based on the five punishments in the Tang Dynasty, namely, punishment, stick, probation, exile and death penalty. But exile is not miles, and it can be divided into three categories: near current, middle current and far current. The crimes stipulated by Dabao Law Firm, such as entering the palace, committing crimes, riding the imperial palace and crossing the pass privately, are the same as those in the Tang Dynasty. According to the Korean History, the ancient Korean code said: "The system of generations in Korea was generally imitated by the Tang Dynasty. As for the criminal law, it is also used according to the laws of the Tang Dynasty. " The ancient Vietnamese criminal law also "participated in Sui and Tang Dynasties". It can be seen that the influence of the Tang law not only reached the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties after the Tang Dynasty, but also reached Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other East Asian countries, becoming a unique representative of the Chinese legal system in several major legal systems in the world. Its influence on the world feudal code is comparable to that of Roman law. Therefore, it should be very appropriate to say that the law of the Tang Dynasty is a treasure in the ancient legal and cultural heritage of China.