Extrajudicial deliberations in the late Qing local government: the case of Du Fengzhi

ABSTRACT

Du Fengzhi, a county magistrate in Guangdong province in the late Qing dynasty, recorded hundreds of legal cases in his diary. In addition to the details of cases and the process of dealing, he also recorded his own observations, doubts, analyses, judgments and deliberations. The diary reflected not only how he dealt with cases, but also the reasons for his decisions. From the diary, we know that Du’s actual judicial power far exceeded the provisions of the Qing law. However, the judicial resources he possessed and the political and social reality he faced often made it difficult for him to deal with legal cases abiding by the statute law, and in many cases the truth could not even be found at all. Therefore, he often ignored the evidence of the case and dealt with them in violation of law. His first consideration was to maintain his position in the officialdom, safeguard his own economic interests and reduce trouble. He also paid attention to the unwritten rules of officialdom and the comments of local gentries. In some cases, he showed his compassion for the poor, orphans and the widowed as well. This article discusses two cases in detail to reflect Du’s various deliberations in dealing with legal cases.

KEYWORDS:

• The late Qing dynasty
• local officials
• Du Fengzhi’s diary
• law
• judicial power

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Glossary

Chen Xianshu 陈贤书

chuangong 传供

Dalisi 大理寺

Da Qing lüli 《大清律例》

Duchayuan 都察院

Du Fengzhi 杜凤治

fanshi qian 饭食钱

Foshan 佛山

Guangning 广宁

Guangxin tang 广信堂

Hu Guocun 胡国存

Jiang Chaobo 蒋超伯

Jiang Yahua 江亚华

jiu di zheng fa 就地正法

kanyu 看语

Lan Dingyuan 蓝鼎元

Liang Dingyi 梁丁义

Liang Zhaojin 梁肇晋

Liu Biao 刘标

Liu Kunyi 刘坤一

Luoding 罗定

Luo Jiayou 罗家有

Luo Qilin 罗绮林

Luo Wenlai 罗文来

Luo Yayou 罗亚有

Luzhou gongan 《鹿州公案》

Nanhai 南海

Panyu 番禺

Qingyuan 清远

qiu shen 秋审

shi chu 失出

Sihui 四会

song lei 讼累

Song Xigeng 宋锡庚

Tan Chengkun 谭成坤

Tongzhi 同治

waiban 外办

wang fa 王法

wuxing 五刑

Xingbu 刑部

xingming muke 刑名幕客

Xinhui 新会

Xiyuan lu 《洗冤录》

Xu Zhongming 徐忠明

Zhang Yan 张研

Notes

¹ For example, in the “Introduction” of Wu Peilin’s Qingdai xianyu minshi jiufen yu falü zhixu kaocha, Wu made a comprehensive, in-depth, and objective review on the research of the legal history of the Qing dynasty for more than 30 years after 1980. His comments attach great importance from the perspective of historical, especially archival materials. However, he did not notice Du Fengzhi’s diary.

² About Du Fengzhi and his diary, also see Qiu Jie, Wan Qing guanchang jingxiang, 7-47.

³ Xu Zhongming, “Taiqian yu muhou,” 120.

⁴ Zhang Yan, “Qingdai zhixian Du Fengzhi,” 124-131.

⁵ Qingshi gao, vol. 4, 2993.

⁶ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 9, 4468.

⁷ Ibid., vol. 5, 2293-2294, 2635; Ibid., vol. 6, 2751.

⁸ About the practice, also see Qiu Jie, Wan Qing guanchang jingxiang, 279-285.

⁹ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 2, 603-604, 608.

¹⁰ Ibid., vol. 5, 2367.

¹¹ Wei Guangqi, “Qingdai zhou xian caizheng tanxi,” 279.

¹² Da Qing lüli, 616.

¹³ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 7, 3518, 3555.

¹⁴ Ibid., vol. 9, 4672.

¹⁵ Ibid., 4651-4652.

¹⁶ Zheng Qin, Qingdai sifa shenpan zhidu yanjiu, 149-152.

¹⁷ Bai Hua, “Zhengfa yu jiudizhengfa kao,” 432-441. Bai Hua points out that many scholars have discussed the practice of “executing death sentence on the spot” before, but there has been no unanimous understanding that the law did not begin in the late Qing dynasty, but was part of the criminal trial system in the Qing dynasty (438).

¹⁸ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 6, 2854.

¹⁹ Ibid., vol. 5, 2378; Ibid., vol. 6, 2854.

²⁰ Ibid., vol. 2, 804-805, 808.

²¹ Ibid., vol. 4, 1679. Du drew in his diary a sketch of the “nail rack”, which was a wooden frame with crossbars behind it.

²² Ibid., vol. 9, 4637.

²³ Ibid., vol. 2, 1030-1031; Ibid., vol. 9, 4913.

²⁴ Huang Zongzhi, Qingdai yilai minshi falü, 144.

²⁵ Nanhai xian zhi, juan 14, “Zheng jing lüe” [Politics and Economy].

²⁶ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 7, 3381-3382.

²⁷ Ibid., vol. 6, 2867-2868.

²⁸ Ibid., vol. 5, 2278-2279.

²⁹ Ibid., vol. 1, 302.

³⁰ Qiu Jie, Jindai Zhongguo minjian wuqi, 105-106.

³¹ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 7, 3302, 3889, 3891; Ibid., vol. 8, 4196.

³² Song Ci, Xiyuan jilu yizhu, 120, 122.

³³ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 4, 2173; vol. 5, 2223.

³⁴ When Du was appointed magistrate of Luoding Prefecture, he once prohibited a jail warden to deal with cases without authorization, but later he noticed that the jail warden lived a hard life without “extrajudicial” income, so he allowed the jail warden to handle some cases again. See Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 8, 4121. It can be seen that handling cases was a source of official income.

³⁵ See Qiu Jie, Wan Qing guanchang jingxiang, 367-368.

³⁶ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 6, 3080.

³⁷ For the discussion of Du’s cases involving foreigners, see Qiu Jie, “Yige Guangdong zhou xian guan,” 237-248.

³⁸ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 8, 3912.

³⁹ Ibid., vol. 7, 3897.

⁴⁰ Ibid., vol. 7, 3572-3573, 3585-3586, 3609-3610.

⁴¹ Ibid., vol. 8, 4012, 4021.

⁴² Ibid., vol. 2, 681.

⁴³ Ibid., vol. 7, 3505-3513, 3507-3513, 3519, 3530, 3550, 3552, 3667, 3789.

⁴⁴ “Pingfan wangyu,” Shenbao, June 9, 1881, 3.

⁴⁵ Da Qing lüli, 479.

⁴⁶ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 2, 711; vol. 7, 3493; vol. 8, 3945.

⁴⁷ Ibid., vol. 1, 199-200.

⁴⁸ Ibid., vol. 7, 3591.

⁴⁹ Ibid., vol. 2, 971; vol. 5, 2638; vol. 8, 4117.

⁵⁰ Ibid., vol. 5, 2731.

⁵¹ Ibid., vol. 8, 4302-4303.

⁵² Qiu Jie, and Wang Yina, “Grassroots Authority in Rural Guangdong,” 161-165.

⁵³ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 4, 1673.

⁵⁴ Ibid., vol. 1, 350.

⁵⁵ Ibid., vol. 7, 3521-3522.

⁵⁶ Huang Liuhong, Fu hui quanshu, 118.

⁵⁷ Lai Huimin, “Falü yu shehui,” 235, 275.

⁵⁸ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 2, 846, 851, 856, 862, 957.

⁵⁹ Da Qing lüli, 556.

⁶⁰ Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 5, 2637-2638.

⁶¹ Zhu Qingqi, Xing an huilan sanbian, vol. 3, 1974.

⁶² Du Fengzhi riji, vol. 2, 589.

⁶³ Ibid., vol. 4, 1656, 1669; vol. 10, 5437.

⁶⁴ Lan Dingyuan, Luzhou gong’an, 26, 37, 91, 132, 154, 186, 218, 158, 274.

⁶⁵ Sun Yat-sen, “Zhongguo fazhi gaige.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jie QIU

QIU Jie, born in 1945, is a retired professor of the Department of History, Sun Yat-sen University. His main research interest is modern Chinese history. His representative works include Jindai Zhongguo minjian wuqi (Modern Chinese Folk Weapons, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2012; Revised edition 2021) and Wan Qing guanchang jingxiang: Du Fengzhi riji yanjiu (A Mirror of the Officialdom in the Late Qing Dynasty: Du Fengzhi’s Diary, Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2021).