Chinese history and culture handbook

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Communication in the Ming Dynasty

People's activities made it necessary to keep in touch with each other. Long before the Ming Dynasty, China was a world of letters. People wrote letters to greet each other, to do business, and to exchange new ideas and changing concepts. Letters played the role that academic journals do today. At that time, people wrote to each other extremely frequently. Luo Hongxian (1504-1564), a scholar and map expert of the era, described his long correspondence with Wang Ji (1498-1583) this way, "Nine years' worth of letters and notes were written to and from large sections." Two events in the late Ming dynasty changed the content and form of correspondence. One was the publication of their letters by celebrities as a means of exchanging new ideas and views, and the other was the emergence of commercial postal services.

Little is known about how those letters were actually delivered. Sometimes they were delivered by servants, but manual delivery over long distances was not so practical after all. Often long-distance letters were entrusted to a traveler in that direction, preferably a friend or relative, rather than a special messenger. It was also possible to pay a fee to have a letter delivered by a merchant, a government official, a postman, or an official messenger. According to the regulations, official messengers and postmen were not allowed to carry private letters, but just as the official service on the Grand Canal inevitably carried personal belongings in small shiploads, the official postal service system facilitated the delivery of private letters as well. In the following two examples, we can see what strategies were employed to ensure that letters reached their destinations. These two examples are from original letters preserved by the author's people.

Zhuang Chenyuan was born in Nanxun, a commercial town in northern Zhejiang province, to a family of Jiangnan gentry, and in 1603 he traveled for forty days to Beijing to take the examination for a scholar, and in the following year he won the gold medal for an official post, and soon returned to his hometown because of his mother's worries. His voluminous works, of which there are copies in circulation today, include letters to his son written during his stay in Beijing between the summer of 1603 and the summer of 1605.

These letters tell us that correspondence did not reach its recipients on time, as Zhuang had hoped. Zhuang Yuanchen's first letter from Beijing was written on June 15, 1603, stating that he was staying at the Amitabha Temple outside Chongwenmen and that the reply could be sent to housekeeper Zhang at Wu Zhonggeng's residence for transmission. In his letter of September 14, he said that he had received his son's letter of July 22 on August 26 (it took 36 days for the letter to reach Beijing). In a letter written on October 14th, he told his son that he had asked Mr. Zhang to send the September 14th letter and asked if he had received it. In the winter of that year, the flow of letters suddenly slowed down, and for a long time Zhuang Yuanchen did not receive any letters until he received three new ones at once, written on September 19, November 10, and December 27, respectively. After that the pace slowed down again, and in his letter of June 2, 1604, he worriedly asked why he had not received any more letters from home after the one of December 27, and when he wrote home again eleven days later, he complained that four of his fellow townspeople had received letters from home, but only he had not received any.

The source of the "autumn after the beheading"

The city's summer, not quite escape, not quite hide, in addition to the air-conditioning unit of the cold wind blowing, the way to cool down is very little. Can not help but be tempted, looking forward to the autumn hurry to come, golden autumn, harvest autumn, so sing praises, mature and beautiful picture suddenly unfolded, but, suddenly associated with an idiom "to settle scores", it will be shuddering.

Perhaps some people will ask: Why did the ancient rulers have to choose the fall to deal with murderers?

Dating back to the period of feudal rule in China, about the "fall and winter execution". Records, the earliest in the "Zuozhuan Xianggong twenty-six years". And about the torture and killing and the seasonal exposition of the earliest in the "Rituals of the month": "the month of mid-spring ...... without wantonly plundering, stop the prison litigation".

In ancient times, due to the backwardness of science and culture, people could not correctly explain certain phenomena in nature and human society, and believed that outside of human beings and all things in nature there exists a Creator who can dominate all things. Disasters, pestilence, auspiciousness, good years are given by heaven, so all the behavior of people must be in line with the will of heaven. Setting up officials and establishing a system must not only harmonize with the will of heaven, but also penalizing and pardoning must not be contrary to the will of heaven. Ancient judicial workers believe that man and heaven are one, spring and summer between the grass and trees are lush and vibrant, although people are not grass and trees, but is also part of nature, its life and death should be in line with nature. In the fall, the grass withers and the leaves fall, and the execution of criminals is in line with the depression of heaven and earth. This is the order and law of the universe, the earth's justice should be adapted to the will of heaven, in line with the four seasons, or to be punished by the gods. The emperor is the son of heaven, and he should abide by the will of heaven and act according to the time of day.

Dong Zhongshu (179-104 BC), a master of the Confucian Spring and Autumn School of the Western Han Dynasty, inherited the Confucian idea of the "unity of heaven and mankind", and created a set of superstitious doctrines of "celestial inductions". He believed that "there are four seasons in heaven, and the king has four policies, celebrating, rewarding, punishing and punishing with spring, summer, autumn and winter in order to correspond to the class". The will of heaven is "any moral not criminal", "first moral and then criminal", so it should be spring and summer reward, fall and winter execution of punishment. Because at this time, "heaven and earth are beginning to clean", the murderous spirit has arrived, it can "Shen Yan Hundred Penalties", in order to show that the so-called "Shun Tianxing punishment". Emperor Zhangdi of the Eastern Han Dynasty reiterated in the second year of the Yuanhe period: "The king should follow the seasonal qi in order to kill. The law: no November, December report prisoners". In addition to treason and other "never wait for the time", the general death penalty shall be executed in the fall after the frost, before the winter solstice. From then on, "autumn and winter execution" was institutionalized in the law. Tang, Song law provides: from the spring to the autumn equinox, except for the crime of treason and above and the ministry, the slave girl to kill the master, other crimes are not spring death penalty. The Qing Dynasty stipulated that prisoners who should be executed after the trial of the dynasty, also need to be executed in the fall.

"Autumn beheading" is a term that began in the Tang Dynasty, and first appeared in literature in the "Water Margin" heroes. Of course, the time of the beheading of successive generations are not necessarily specified in the fall, only to the Ming and Qing Dynasties fixed in the fall, after the Jiaqing had changed to with the verdict with the beheading. There is also a theory that the reason for choosing the autumn and winter seasons, mainly to consider the role of warning, farmers in the autumn and winter seasons are more free, but also convenient for local officials to mobilize the public to watch. Then it is probably because of the autumn and winter, everything is depressed, is also the end of the year, but also suitable for execution, spring symbolizes the newborn, the summer everything is growing vigorously, so it is not suitable to take a human life.

Thus, the execution of the worst offenders in the fall and winter has become a tradition from ancient times to the present day, and gradually in the legal system to form a "fall" system: spring conviction, beheading in the fall.

The Story of Liu Bang's Snake Chopper

Liu Bang was a native of Fengyi, Pei County, at the end of the Qin Dynasty. In his early years, when he was the chief of Sishui Pavilion in Pei County, he was ordered to escort a group of laborers to Mount Li to build a mausoleum for the first emperor of Qin, and many of the laborers took advantage of the opportunity to escape on the way. Liu Bang thought that even if he arrived at Mount Li, the laborers had all fled and he could not deliver the goods. So he rested and ate in front of the zephyr of Mangdang Mountain, and released all the laborers at night, saying, "You all go on your own way! I have also fled henceforth." There were a dozen strong men among the laborers who saw Liu Bang's magnanimity and boldness and righteousness, and were willing to follow him.

At night, Liu Bang drank a lot of wine and continued his journey in the spirit of wine. The moon was pale and the path was winding. On the path fleeing to Mangdang Shanze, the person who went ahead suddenly shrieked and was busy turning back to report to Liu Bang: "There is a big snake blocking the way in front of you, please take a detour!" Liu Bang, drunken, laughed loudly and said, "Heroic and heroic, invincible, a mere snake, how dare you block my way?" In the middle of his speech, he set aside the crowd and walked forward with his sword, and saw a huge snake lying in the road, shaking its head and tail. Liu Bang was about to cut it with his sword, when he saw the white snake saying, "I am the son of heaven, and I will travel to the four seas to kill Qin and divide the world equally." Liu Bang refused, the white snake said: "You chop it, you chop my head, I mess your head, you chop my tail, I mess your tail." Liu Bang said, "I won't cut off your head, nor will I cut off your tail, so that you can be cut in two in the middle". He said, "I will not cut off your head or your tail, I will cut you in two." He said, "I will cut off the white snake in two." The snake's blood splashed and dyed the land red, and the grass that grows in this area is still red to this day. The white snake turned into a green gas floating in the air, shouting: "Liu Bang return my life, Liu Bang return my life." Liu Bang said: "Here in the mountains and wild forests how to return your life, to the level ground quasi-return your life." Liu Bang was a great man with a golden tongue. Later, Wang Mang usurped power and killed Emperor Ping of Han, splitting the 400-year old Han Dynasty into two halves. Legend has it that Wang Mang is a white snake, so he has returned Liu Bang's wish. This is a later story.

Liu Bang beheaded the snake, continued to walk, and then a few miles, drunkenness, drunkenness, lying on the side of the road.

The next morning, someone passed by the place where the snake was chopped, and saw an old woman crying bitterly, and asked, "Why are you crying bitterly?" The old woman said, "My son was killed." The pedestrian asked, "Who killed him?" The old woman said, "My son was the son of the White Emperor, and he was killed by the son of the Red Emperor when he turned into a snake and blocked the way to ask for the seal from the son of the Red Emperor." After the old woman finished speaking, she disappeared. The man came to Liu Bang's group and told them what he had seen. Liu Bang was so happy that he thought he was the son of the Red Emperor, and was even more determined to revolt against the Qin Dynasty, and the disciples of Pei County were all willing to join him. Liu Bang first hid in Mangdang Mountain and Ze, and then returned to Pei County, killed the magistrate, and was crowned as the Duke of Pei, pulling the flag to rebel. After the Chu-Han struggle finally ascended to the throne of the emperor.