Forms of CH in Law An Annotated Translation of The Fengchen Shih

Harvard-Yenching Institute
Forms of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of The Feng-chen shih

Author(s): Katrina C. D. McLeod and Robin D. S. Yates
Source: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jun., 1981), pp. 111-163
Published by: Harvard-Yenching Institute
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Forms of Ch'in Law:
An Annotated Translation of
the Feng-chen shih
KATRINA C. D. McLEOD ROBIN D. S. YATES

Harvard University Harvard University
S INCE the publication of archaeological journals resumed in

Mainland China ten years ago, a remarkable number of dis-
coveries have been reported and many have proved to be of excep-
tional historical interest. The quantity and quality of the new
material are astonishing, particularly that of the early texts and
documents, and it will be many years before a full assessment, or
even full publication, will be achieved.
We wish to express our gratitude to Lien-sheng Yang and A. F. P. Hulsewe for com-
menting on earlier drafts of this article. We also thank Kwang-chih Chang and David
Keightley for criticism and encouragement. The results of a lengthy and enjoyable con-
versation with Li Hsueh-ch'in of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, to whom we
are also indebted, have been incorporated.
The following abbreviations are used in the article:

GSR Bernhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa (Stockholm: Museum of Far
Eastern Antiquities, 1964)
HFHD Homer H. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 3 vols. (Baltimore:
Waverly, 1938-55)
HFTCC Han Fei-tzu chi-chieh ft %-T fi, ed. Wang Hsien-shen iEm, Kuo-hsiieh
chi-pen ts'ung-shu ed. (Taiwan: Commercial Press, 1956)
HS Han shu pu chu % M, ed. Wang Hsien-ch'ien _E% (1900; rpt. Taipei:
I-wen yin-shu kuan, ca. 1960)
KHCPTS Kuo-hsiieh chi-pen ts'ung-shu KMA*RS

KKHP K'ao-ku hsiieh-pao ;t3;j
KS Lao Kan , Chui-yen Han-chien k'ao-shih chih-pu , CYYY
special publication no. 40 (Taipei, 1960)
III
112 McLEOD AND YATES
The present article is devoted to a translation, with brief philo-

logical annotation, of one of these new texts, the procedural and
pro forma documents, the Feng-chen shih ODA, found in tomb no. 11,
Shui-hu-ti t1rIt, Yun-meng SV County, Hupei, in 1975.1 Although
the bamboo strips on which this text is written form but a small
part of the contents of the coffin,2 they are, in our opinion, of
MH Edouard Chavannes, Les Memoires historiqutes de Se-ma Ts'ien, 5 vols. (Paris:

Alcan, 1895-1905)
SC Shiki kaichu kosho , ed. Takikawa Kametaro j )Ilfitt (Tokyo:
T6h6 Bungakuin T6ky6 Kenkyujo, 1934)
SCCC Yun-meng Ch'in-mu chu-chien cheng-li hsiao-tsu J
Shui-hu-ti Ch'in-mu chu-chien , (Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan she,
1977)
SHT Shui-hu-ti Ch'in-mu chu-chien cheng-li hsiao-tsu, Shui-hu-ti Ch'in-mu chu-chien
(Peking: Wen-wu ch'u-pan she, 1978)
1 Hsiao-kan ti-ch'u ti-erh-ch'i i-kung-i-nung wen-wu k'ao-ku hsiin-lien pan *AM g

=#AI$fi3ltlt 1 cc "Hu-pei Yun-meng Shui-hu-ti shih-i-hao Ch'in-mu fa-
chueh chien-pao" . WW, No. 6 (1976), pp. 1-10.
The tomb seems to have been that of a man named Hsi e of the state of Ch'in, who was
born in the 12th month of the 45th year of King Chao (262-261 B.c.) and died shortly
after 217 B.C. The documents translated in this article were written on 98 bamboo strips
and were found buried with the skeleton to the right of the skull. The title of the docu-
ments Feng-chen shih was discovered written in an indentation on the reverse of the last
strip of "Wang tzu ch'u HE 0 1?," which had been published as the sixth item in the series
in WW, No. 8 (1976), p. 34.
2 The other documents in the coffin include:
I. The Yii-shu gE4, in the first reports called the Nan-chin-shou T'eng wen-shu ,
3Z:N [Letter of T'eng, Administrator of Nan-chuin].
ii. ThePien-nien chi N*-" [The Chronicle], in the first reports called Ta-shih chi *g,.
Huang Sheng-chang MA3* has made an excellent preliminary analysis of this document
in "Yun-meng Ch'in-chien Pien-nien chi ch'u-pu yen-chiu" J
KKHP, No. 1 (1977), pp. 1-22.
iII. Wei li chih tao ,3Z, [The Way of Being an Official].
The above items are transcribed in WW, No. 6 (1976), pp. 11-14. Item i is transcribed
in two parts and commented upon by the Chi-lin ta-hsueh k'ao-ku chuan-yeh Chi-nan-
ch'eng k'ai-men pan-hsuieh-fen-tui 3a "Nan-chcn-
shou T'eng wen-shu ho Ch'in ti fan fu-pi tou-cheng" : KK,
No. 5 (1976), pp. 306-12.
iv. Ch'in lu t [Primary Laws of the State of Ch'in], divided, in the initial report (see
n. 1 above) and in the preliminary analysis by Chi Hsiun .Jj, "Yuin-meng Shui-hu-ti
Ch'in-chien kai-shu" . WW, No. 6 (1976), pp. 3-4, into three parts:
(a) Texts of primary laws (lu 0), with the explanation of their meaning.
(b) Primary laws, most of which have the title appended at the end of the item.
(c) Another collection of primary laws, situated in the coffin separate from (b),
and part of which, the Hsiao A [Verification] section, duplicates (b).
In the WW transcription (see below, pp. 115-16), these have been divided as follows:
FORMS OF CH'IN LAW 113
considerable importance, for they present a rare insight into the

functioning of the early Chinese legal system at the local level.
It should be emphasized, however, that the language of these
documents presents a considerable number of lexical and gram-
matical difficulties, even though we are greatly aided in our under-
standing and interpretation by the discovery in the same coffin of
Ch'in primary laws (lI 0), administrative rules, and questions and
answers on points of law and technical terminology. The style of the
documents is terse and elliptical, and several graphs appear which
are not to be found in any existing dictionary. Further difficulties
result from the fact that the transcriptions of the documents are
published in modern simplified characters both in the initial report
in WW and in the separately published SCCC, a large volume in
traditional binding consisting of seven ts'e or folio, which appeared
in 1977. This latter publication also disappoints with its obscure and
almost illegible photographs and meagre annotation. A third
transcription under the same title as SCCC, Shui-hu-ti Ch'in-mu chu-
chien, by the same group, Shui-hu-ti Ch'in-mu chu-chien cheng-li
hsiao-tsu, was issued in 1979, but the publication date is given as
1978. Although the transcription remains in abbreviated graphs,
the annotation is much fuller, and most of the documents found in
(a) comprises Part iII, section 4, WW, No. 8 (1976), pp. 27-34.
(b) comprises Part ii, section 1, WW, No. 7 (1976), pp. 1-8.
(c) comprises Part iII, sections 2-3, WW, No. 7 (1976), pp. 8-10.
v. Twenty-five Pro forma documents, the Feng-chen shih [Forms for Sealing and Guarding],
first explained as Chih-yiu an-li tpk$IY'J [Examples of Trials], then as Chih-yu ch'eng-shih
p$FW [Forms for Trials]. This is the section which forms the substance of the present
article.
vi. Two texts concerning divination (Jih-shu El f); no transcription has appeared at
the time of writing.
Summaries of the excavated materials also appear in Michael Loewe, "Manuscripts
Found Recently in China: A Preliminary Survey," TP, 63 (1977), 128-30, and Oba
Osamu tkg{r, "Mokkan no hanashi 6: mokkan no naiy6 1. H6ritsu" *MOD Jt 1, U 6:
*NopkJ? 1. 'j, Nihon bijutsu kogei El* qTF U 465, No. 6 (1977), pp. 60-66.
Oba has published a longer analysis in "Ummu shutsudo chikusho Shinritsu no kenkyfi"
g$$1rt;B1'$eiF3t, Kansai Daigaku bungaku ronsha Nx?.i at, 27, No. 1
(Sept. 1977) 19-45. A partial translation of Chi Hsun's article prepared by Donald J.
Harper has appeared in Early China, No. 3 (Fall, 1977), pp. 101-3, and a partial and ten-
tative rendition of section 5 was published by Harper in the same journal issue, pp. 103-4.
The best and most complete survey to appear so far in a Western language is A. F. P.
Hulsewe's "The Ch'in Documents Discovered in Hupei in 1975," TP, 64 (1978), 175-217.
Our own interpretation of the nature of sections 4 and 5 appears on pp. 123-29 below.
the tomb have been translated into modern Chinese. This book,
bound in Western style, is referred to in the present article as SHT.
The Yun-meng laws do not, however, represent anything like a
comprehensive code: primary laws are quoted in brief summary or
are referred to in passing both in the Questions (section 4) and in the
Procedural Documents (section 5) which are not found in the ex-
cavated material.3 Nevertheless, the corpus of the Yun-meng legal
strips is an extraordinarily important addition to our sources of
early Chinese law because information about the legal system before
the Sui-T'ang period had been restricted to the largely fragmentary
material written on wooden boards and slips found at the forts along
the northern border, and to literary references in such works as the
dynastic histories and the commentaries upon them. By combining
the pioneering reconstructions of Han law by such eminent scholars
as Professor A. F. P. Hulsewe4 and the results of research on the
wooden documents by Lao Kan,5 Michael Loewe,6 Fujieda Akira,7
Oba Osamu, 8 Mori Shikaz6, 9 and other scholarslo with philo-
logical investigations of the new Ch'in material, it will, perhaps,
be possible to trace the development of law and administration in
the late Warring States period and to extend our knowledge of
Han legal practice and terminology.
One of the most interesting questions which arise from the
material, and which has recently been referred to by A. F. P.
Hulsewe (1978, pp. 216-17), is the connection between the develop-
3 For example, 4.18 (SHTp. 159), 4.21 (SHT pp. 161-62), 4.30 (SHT 4.68, p. 185),
4.75 (SHT4.78, p. 189), 4.120 (SHT4.123, pp. 211-12), 5.3, and 5.16. There are also
some references in the primary laws.
4 A. F. P. Hulsewe, Remnants of Han Law, Vol. I (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955).
5 Lao Kan !, inter alia, KS.
6 Michael Loewe, Records of Han Administration, 2 vols., (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1967).
Fujieda Akira AR , inter alia, "Kankan no moji sugata" O DTthbk,

Bokubi *tZ No. 92 (1959), pp. 16-40.
8 Oba Osamu, inter alia, "Kyoen shutsudo no sh6sho satsu to sh6sho dankan ni tsuite"
JR:kc&)SXsESX;M;es>'x, Tozai Gakujutsu Kenkyujo ronso ,
== N No. 52 (1961), 1-36.
9 Mori Shikaz6 ,)-g, inter alia, "Kyoen Kankan no shuisei" ,lgI f6,* TC
(Kyoto), 29 (1959), pp. 139-54.
"g, 28, No. 4 (Mar. 1979), pp. 51-86.

10 Oba Osamu provides a full bibliography in "Chfigoku shutsudo kandoku kenkyui
bunken mokuroku" P t}ajff R jg H, Kansai Daigaku bungaku ronshui HJE
ment of law and related administrative procedures during the

Warring States period and the emergence of centralized states in
China from the seventh to the third centuries B.C. It is evident
from the complex nature of many of the rules contained in the
Ch'in documents, such as those relating to liability, intentionality,
and procedures of bureaucratic responsibility, verification, internal
checking, and the control of information, that legal administration
in Ancient China had evolved over a considerable period of time
before the establishment of the Ch'in empire and that the Ch'in
bureaucracy was highly internally differentiated. We expect to
examine how these administrative procedures and political and
legal institutions developed in a separate study on the origins of
the pre-Han state.
THE PREPARATION OF THE TRANSLATION
In the preparation of the translation, we have used the transcrip-

tions in WW, No. 8 (1976), pp. 34-37, and those found in SCCC
and SHT. As the WW is generally more readily available for
consultation than SCCC and SHT, we have followed its numbering
for the legal documents, with exceptions mentioned in the footnotes.
The WW editors have divided the legal documents into five sections,
comprising parts II and III of the transcription. Sections 1-3 are the
primary laws and administrative regulations, transcribed as part II
in WW, No. 7 (1976), pp. 1-10; we refer to items in section 1 under
section number, title of primary law or regulation, and number.
For example, 1 Ts'ang * 4 refers to number 4 of the primary laws
on Granaries in section 1, which can be found in WW, No. 7 (1976),
p. 2, and reads "Non-adult male and female bondservants (li-ch'en-
ch'ieh) are registered as adult male and female bondservants in the
eighth month; increase the food [allowance] in the tenth" 1
S1JLX"A*"+A1+X@A. Section 2 Verifications (hsiao A) is num-
bered consecutively, as is section 3 which contains articles belonging
to miscellaneous primary laws. Part III contains section 4, the
questions with answers on points of law and technical terminology,
and is transcribed in WW, No. 8 (1976), pp. 27-34. We have num-
bered these consecutively as 4 plus the number. Where more than
one item appears under the same numbered subdivision, they are
distinguished alphabetically: for example, 4.1 53a (SHT 4.63,

p. 183) reads, "If a servant (ch'en) forcibly fornicates with a master,
how is he discussed? Analogously to striking a master" VINAtE,
P30? JELt. This item may be found in WW, No. 8 (1976), p. 33.
Section 5 follows immediately upon section 4 in the same issue of
WW and is numbered consecutively 5.1 to 5.25. It is the translation
of this fifth section which forms the substance of the present article.
The documents are purely functional in nature and are not written
in good literary Chinese. In the translation, therefore, we have
tried as far as possible to be consistent in our renditions of the
technical terminology, and have also attempted to be faithful to
the original. Since translations that employ Roman or Common Law
terms sometimes obscure the fundamental differences between the
early Chinese legal system and that of the West, we have, for the
most part, avoided using Western technical legal terminology and
have instead employed literal renditions. While the literary quality
of the translation may, on occasion, be impaired by our method,
we hope that the reader will understand that we are trying to bring
out the procedural and the legal nuances of the original. Since
this is not the place to describe in detail the complex differences
between law in Chinese society and law in the West, we have con-
fined our remarks to a few of the more important terms, leaving the
theoretical discussion, which deserves complete elaboration, to
other publications. Where, therefore, we differ from the standard
renditions of the technical terminology, we have attempted to
justify our conclusions as briefly as possible and have drawn the
reader's attention to the alternative interpretations. Although this
may not be an entirely satisfactory procedure, the quantity of
supporting evidence requires us to limit our remarks in the present
context.
For the translation of bureaucratic titles, we have followed the
renditions of Homer H. Dubs as found in the index compiled by
Rafe de Crespigny, Official Titles of the Former Han Dynasty, Oriental
Monograph Series No. 2 (Canberra: Australian National University
Press, 1967). We have not translated the measurements because
Professor Hulsewe is preparing an analysis of early Chinese weights
and measures based upon the new archaeological materials. Rough
equivalencies for the weights and measures found in the text, how-
ever, are as follows:
ts'un ET 23.1 mm
ch'ih )t 23.1 cm
pu 1.38m
chang 31 2.31 m
wei 1 69.3 cm
chin ,i 244 grams
(based upon Michael Loewe, Records, I, 161, Appendix 1).
For a full discussion of the pre-Han and Han ranking system,
of which the terms shih-wu ?iZi "member of the rank and file,"
kung-shih >a?E, and wu ta-fu _i*A, appear in the procedural docu-
ments, see Michael Loewe, "The Orders of Aristocratic Rank of
Han China," TP, 58 (1960), 97-174, and for an analysis of shih-wu
in the light of the new texts, see Liu Hai-nien 1wJI$, "Ch'in Han
'shih-wu' ti shen-fen yui chieh-chi ti-wei" -*A:f bt{XM}t
WW, No. 2 (1978), pp. 58-62.
THE DATING OF THE YUN-MENG DOCUMENTS
The precise dating of the texts found in the Shui-hu-ti coffin

poses some problems. The Chronicle (Pien-nien chi) lists important
events in the state of Ch'in from first year of King Chao HUIE (306
B.C.) to the thirtieth of Ch'in Shih-huang-ti VA-41 (217 B.C.). The
Chronicle gives the date and time of birth for an individual named
Hsi (see note 1) as cockcrow, chia-wu FP-,fL of the twelfth month,
forty-fifth year of King Chao, and records important dates in this
man's official career and family history."1 Towards the end, the
11 For a discussion of the implications of the Chronicle for the Ch'in use of the Chuan Hsu
calendar fif before the unification of China, see Huang (1977), pp. 4-7. Wang Jih-
chen ET Fi M in his Li-tai ch'ang-shu chi-yao r,gg (KHCPTS ed., Shanghai, 1937),
has calculated Ch'in dates on the basis of this calendar and correlated the dates with those
of the Chou. There cannot, however, have been a chia-wu day in the twelfth month of this
year according to Wang's reconstruction in either the Chuan Hsu or Chou calendars.
Nor can there have been a chia-wu day in this month according to Tung Tso-pin's J{1J
reconstruction of the Chou chronology in his Chung-kuo nien-li chien-p'u rPFM* fi
(Taipei: I-wen yin-shu kuan, 1974). Only if Ch'in was one month behind the Chou in their
calendar is such a date possible, i.e., if the twelfth month began with theyi-hai LA (Tung)
or chia-hsii Ep A (Wang), corresponding to early 261 B.c. Further research is needed to clar-
ify this calendrical problem.
Chronicle indicates the first year of Shih-huang-ti's reign as "the

present" (chin ). The evidence would therefore suggest that Hsi
was buried in the tomb which was sealed shortly after 217 B.C. and
definitely before the death of the First Emperor in 210 B.C.
Another document discovered in the coffin, the Yii-shu or the Letter
of T'eng, Administrator of Nan-chiin (Nan-chiun-shou T'eng wen-shu), is
dated ting-hai T7 fourth month; ping-hsui NA is indicated as the
first day of the month. Since the historical records describe T'eng,
the Administrator of Nan-chuin, as leading the attack which de-
stroyed the state of Han in 230 B.C.,'2 the date of the letter must
correspond to the fourth month, 227 B.C. The commentators also
point out that the graph tuan X is used in the Letter as a substitute
for cheng E, tabooed because Cheng jgC was the personal name of the
First Emperor.13
Positive dating of most of the procedural and pro forma documents
(section 5, the Feng-chen shih) is more difficult. In 5.12 and 5.13 the
battle of Hsing-ch'iu j3i is mentioned, which both the Shih chi and
the Chronicle agree took place in 266 B.C.'4 The date of the case in
5.25 can also be determined with some accuracy from an analysis
of the following passage: "We asked him ... name and occupation
and determined that he had wandered off and absconded on the
day ping-tzu N7=}- of the second month. In the third month, he was
absent from constructing a government building for twenty days.
In the fourth year, third month, on the day ting-wei TX, he was
12 SC 6.15, MH ii, 118, where T'eng is said to be the provisional administrator of the
town of Nan-yang MM in 231 B.C. This town seems to have changed hands several times,
and been called by several different names at this period. In 272 B.C. Ch'in helped Han,
Wei, and Ch'u attack Yen and first established the commandery of Nan-yang MMj1 (SC
5.74; MH i, 89), while in the previous year Ch'in had given Wei the land of Shang-yung
JJ* which belonged to Han, and had banished the manumitted servants (?) of Nan-
yang (Nan-yang mien-ch'en M MV) to reside there (SC 5.74; MH ii, 88). In 263 B.C.,
Ch'in attacked the commandery of Nan (Nan-chiin MM) which belonged to Han and cap-
tured it (SC 5.76; MHii, 90-91). Chavannes prefers to read Nan-yang for Nan-chiun, as
does Derk Bodde, China's First Unifier: A Study of the Ch'in Dynasty as seen in the Life of Li
SsutflJj (280?-208 B.C.) (1938; rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Univ. Press, 1967), p. 245.
For a discussion of these problems in the light of the new texts, see Huang Sheng-chang
(1977), pp. 8-9, and for an earlier analysis see Hisamura Yukari X#N, "Shin no Joyo-
gun ni tsuite" Wc_? LJ - r, Tdhegaku #ff 11 (Oct. 1955), 38-49.
13 Chi Hstin, p. 1.
'4 SC 5.75; MHii, 90; WW, No. 6 (1976), p.12. See also below 5.12 and 5.13, pp. 144-
46.
registered for one abscondence of five months, ten days" IMA,KiZt1,

~Z tA H+Ws1%t, - L[Xt H .VEl$ X T*P-iii + H . Huang
Sheng-chang points out that the day ting-wei T* did not appear in
the third months of the fourth years of either Hui-wen-wang 4 TcE,
Wu-wang Aif, or Chao-wang DHBE, but only in that of Shih-huang-ti
where ting-wei was the nineteenth day of the third month. In addi-
tion, the graph cheng iE in the name of the office li-cheng RiE (village
chief) is tabooed and replaced with tien A. The day ting-wei must
therefore correspond to the nineteenth day of the third month,
fourth year of the First Emperor's reign, i.e., third month, 243 B.C.
Huang goes on to state that in both the fourth and third years of this
reign there was a ping-tzu i-Hf day in the second month: therefore the
ping-tzu date does not invalidate the conclusion that ting-wei, third
month, fourth year, is in Shih-huang-ti's reign, regardless of whether
the abscondence began on ping-tzu of the third or the fourth year.
Huang proposes, in conclusion, that the date ante quem non of this
replacing document is the fourth year of Shih-huang-ti and that
the same document was edited shortly thereafter. 15
While we agree with Huang that ting-wei, third month, fourth
year, must correlate with the third month, 243 B.C., we would suggest
that Huang Sheng-chang has slightly misunderstood the passage in
question. Five months and ten days could not have passed between
the days ping-tzu of the second month and ting-wei of the third month
of the fourth year. From ping-tzu, second month of the third year
to ting-wei, third month of the fourth year, would give over one
year's absence. Furthermore, in 5.5 the officials are ordered to
discover the number of times an individual has been registered as
an absconder and the length of his disappearances. We therefore
conclude that the sentence "he was registered for one abscondence
of five months, ten days" must refer to an absence prior to the one
which is the subject of the man's self-denunciation and that this
transcript must have been compiled and then edited at some time
after 243 B.C.
The Chronicle records that Hsi tried cases at Yen W on kuei-ch'ou
RIR of the fourth month in the twelfth year of Shih-huang-ti (235
15 Huang Sheng-chang, "Yiin-meng Ch'in-chien pien-cheng" ag-*fMM-E, KKHP, No. 1

(1979), pp. 4-5.
B.C.). It is quite possible that theproforma and procedural documents

of section 5 were used as a guide by Hsi on that occasion. This date
may therefore be a date post quem non for the redaction of these docu-
ments. The second abscondence mentioned in 5.25 beginning on
ping-tzu, second month, would therefore be dated either in 240 B.C.,
or in 237 B.C., because the ping-tzu day did not appear in the second
month of any other years between 243 and 235 B.C.
Huang Sheng-chang observes that in 5.16, the officials accompany-
ing the banished son are required to present a regulation letter
(heng-shu iKM@) to the office of the Grand Administrator (t'ai-shou
&t) of Shu Q.16 The historical records note that an Administrator
(shou 1) was sent to govern the region of Shu after Marquis Wan fV
was punished on suspicion of rebellion in the twenty-second year of
King Chao (285 B.C.).17 It would therefore seem reasonable to date
5.16 after this administrative change.
A chronological distinction is made in Huang Sheng-chang's
article between those documents, such as 5.4, 5.18, and 5.20 in which
cheng iE is replaced by tien A thereby indicating redaction in the
reign of Shih-huang-ti, and those documents such as 5.14 and 5.19
in which cheng !E is not avoided and which Huang dates prior to the
reign of Shih-huang-ti. Huang believes that by observing the inci-
dence or avoidance of cheng iE in the other parts of the Yiin-meng
documents, it is possible to date them to within or before the reign
of the First Emperor.18 Dating texts solely on this basis is, however,
in our opinion, open to some objections. Cheng is not avoided in the
phrase cheng-yueh iEA ("first month") in the Chronicle19 even though
the form tuan-yiieh NFI is known to have been used in the Ch'in ;20
as we have mentioned above, the Chronicle was probably written down
in, or shortly after, 217 B.C. during the lifetime of Shih-huang-ti.
We would suggest that the application of the taboo to graph forms
was not as systematic under the Ch'in as it became under the Han
16 Huang (1979), p. 5. It is therefore erroneous to assume that the title t'ai-shou tt was
first adopted in the second year of Han Ching-ti e ; (155 B.C.) (HS 19A.28b). See also
5.16, n. 143 below.
17 Ch'ang Chu tig, Huta-yang kuto-chih J (KHCPTS ed., Shanghai, 1938), 3.30.
18 Huang (1979), pp. 2-4.
19 See above p. 118.
20 cf. Ssu-ma Chen's J comment on the term, SC 16.9.
and subsequent dynasties and that it may therefore be unreliable

as a basis for the dating of pre-Han documents.21
Although the tentative date post quem non of the documents in
section 5 is fourth month, 235 B.C., the date ante quem non is not
entirely clear. Section 4 does, however, provide us with some
information. 4.169 (SHT 4.170, p. 233) defines the term tien-jen 'WA
as people who guard the tombs of Duke Hsiao *:& (d. 338 B.C.) and
Duke Hsien N9L& (d. 362 B.C.); 4.164 (SHT4.165, p. 231) refers to
male members of the Ch'in royal family (nei kung-sun VoB) without
rank, a category which would seem to date from the reign of Duke
Hsiao.22 4.183 (SHT 4.183, pp. 239-40) refers to the ruler of Ch'in
as King (wang zE) and must therefore have been written before
221 B.C. when Cheng assumed the title of Emperor (huang-ti 4 .2
Chi Hsiin *M stresses the differences between the "Legalist" and
"Confucian" schools of thought during the late Warring States
period and suggests that section four may be part of Shang Yang's
kIK (d. 338 B.C.) laws, with commentaries added at a later date to
explain the meaning of terms which had already been forgotten.24
There are, however, a number of correspondences between sections
4 and 5 (the procedural and pro forma documents) and items in the
primary laws (lu I) which are at variance with the policies attributed
to Shang Yang and other Legalists in the extant texts. It would be
unwise, in our opinion, until further research has been completed
or more texts discovered, to ascribe section 4 as a whole to an earlier
date than the rest of the legal documents.25
21 It should be noted that pang _, the personal name of the founder of the Han dynasty,
is not tabooed in the early Han silk manuscripts found at Ma-wang-tui (Ma-wang-tui
Han-mu po-shu cheng-li hsiao-tsu , Lao-tzu chia-pen chiian-hou
kz-i-shu ZT= * f Ma-wang-tui Han-mut po-shzi , Vol. [Peking:
Wen-wu ch'u-pan she, 1975], ts'e 3, passim).
22 Huang (1979), p. 4.
23 Oba, "Ummu shutsudo," pp. 37-38, also notes that the terms ming-shu 4jX "orders,"
and pai-hsing t "the hundred surnames" which occur in the documents were changed
after the Ch'in unification to chih $IJ "decrees" and ch'ien-shou ,* "the black-haired ones."
He observed that the reference in 1 Chih-li 1t 1 to twelve commanderies must date roughly
to the reign of King Chuang-hsiang , a little before Ch'in Shih-huang-ti's accession.
24 Chi Hsun, p. 3.
25 One interesting example of such correspondence raises the problem of the relation-
ship between Legalism, Confucianism, and the law in the late Warring States period:
4.85 (SHT4.89, p. 195) refers to a denunciation of unfiliality (pu-hsiao T2F) which is pun-
Our preliminary conclusion on the dating of section 5 of the

texts found in the coffin at Shui-hu-ti is, therefore, that they were
compiled over a period of time from at least the mid-fourth century
B.C. to shortly after 217 B.C. and that the date post quem non of the
documents in section 5 of the legal texts may well be the fourth
month, 235 B.C.
We should like to note, however, that 4.18 quotes and explains
the meaning of two technical phrases, "(persons) share the law with
the robber" (yiu tao t'ung fa MZFiJ) and "(persons) share the
crime with (the malefactor)" (yiu t'ung tsui 9 J), from the primary
laws (la t). According to the Tso chuan 2t, "King Wen (of Ch'u)
(r. 688-76 B.C.) made the law of P'u-ou which stated, 'he with whom
a robber hides the goods shares the crime with the robber...."
{:H31 TftM i -tfgP t1126 At least some of the mutilating
punishments, which are mentioned particularly in section 4, are
known to have been carried out or threatened to be carried out as
early as the Shang and Western Chou27 and seem to have been
widely used among the states existing in China in the three centuries
before imperial rule and unification in 221 B.C.28
ished by death. In 5.16, a father requests banishment for his unfilial son, and in 5.17,
another father requests death. Although the actual punishment is not recorded in 5.17,
it does seem likely that both requests would be granted in the normal course of events.
26 Tso chuan chu-shu A j, (SPPY ed.), 44.2b, Chao 7. James Legge, The Chinese
Classics, Vol. v, The Ch'un Ts'ew with the Tso Chuen (1872; rpt. Taipei: Wen-shih-che ch'u-
pan she, 1971), text pp. 611-12, trans. p. 616.
27 Hu Hou-hsuan ~AF,l "Yin-tai ti yiieh-hsing" ,(fliJfIJ, KK, No. 2 (1973),

pp. 108-17. For an important new find, an inscription on the so-called Ying I vessel,
which throws light on Western Chou legal practice and mentions mutilation, see Ch'i-
shan hsien wen-hua kuan aW %{tB and others, "Shensi-sheng Ch'i-shan-hsien Tung-
chia-ts'un hsi-Chou t'ung-ch'i chiao-hsueh fa-chueh chien-pao" jI -L4 Ct't
,gttg @ , WW, No. 5 (1976), pp. 26-44, particularly pp. 31-32 and p. 42
fig. 24 for the rubbing of the inscription. See also T'ang Lan I "Shensi-sheng Ch'i-
shan-hsien Tung-chia-ts'un hsin-ch'u hsi-Chou chung-yao t'ung-ch'i ming-tz'u ti i-wen ho
chu-shih" ' WW, No. 5 (1976),
pp. 55-59, and Sheng Chang A , "Ch'i-shan hsin-ch'u-t'u Ying I jo-kan wen-t'i t'an-
so" IW ; WW, No. 6 (1976), pp. 40-44. Note Herrlee G. Creel's
caveat about the "Li! Hsing" ,ffIJ "Punishments of Li!" chapter of the Shang shu frtA,
The Origins of Statecraft in China: Volume 1, The Western Chou Empire (Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1970), p. 161-62.
28 There are references to mutilated individuals in practically all Warring States texts.
Cf. Huang (1979), pp. 11-13. For the punishments in the Han, see Hulsewe, Remnants,
I, 124-28.
The new Ch'in legal documents should, therefore, not necessarily

be seen as containing provisions which were radical departures
from previously existing rules and regulations or as being unique in
the China of their time. Undoubtedly new laws and items were
added over the years to Ch'in administrative and legal practice as
the other states were defeated and their territory annexed, but it
is difficult at the moment to isolate the stages in this development.
Because of our more extensive knowledge of the Han, it is, however,
possible to evaluate the later reception of Ch'in laws, rules, and
technical terminology and to analyze how they were extended or
changed as Han imperial rule was consolidated.
We hope that the present translations will stimulate scholarly
interest in the problems raised in these remarkable new documents.
Analyses of them, in conjunction with research on other newly
discovered texts and archaeological material, provide the oppor-
tunity for a better understanding of the transformation of Chou
polity to a centralized, bureaucratic empire.
THE NATURE OF THE DOCUMENTS IN SECTION 5
All the documents of section 5, except numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 are

headed with the words yuian-shu 9X, a term which occurs in the
biography of Chang T'ang K in the SC and the HS. Yen Shih-ku
MO-& (581-645) explains this technical phrase in the latter text as
follows: '5yuian is 'to replace/exchange.' One replaces his [i.e., the
accused person's] spoken response with a written document" *Iti!
S4lZ:ffMA4 j: Pt. The sentence in the biography which elicits Yen's
comment is r.1 tp`- E F4;R # tz;P iMT. Hulsewe trans-
lates this passage: "He accused the rat [which had stolen meat]
and tried it by beating it, and transmitted (the statements) in
yuan (li) [*9.] style; he interrogated it (according to the statements
made) and condemned it. He took the rat and the meat and the
recorded suit and 'quartered' (the rat) at the foot of the hall."29
Hulsewe observes in a note on this passage:
Concerning the expression ch'uan-yiian-shu [N&R], I have followed the explana-

tions of Liu Feng-shih [1J1Mt] (11th century) and Wang Hsien-ch'ien (1842-
29 Hulsewe, Remnants, I, 72. For Chang T'ang's biography, see SC 122.12; HS 59.lab.
1918), viz. that ch'uan means 'to transfer', sc. the statements made by the accused
under bastinado during trial, on a yiian-shu, i.e. a document written in the style of
the yuan-li 9X, a textbook for the 'clerkly writing', ascribed to Chao Kao [ejm]
of the Late 3rd century B.C.; cf. D. Bodde, China's First Unifier 148 sq. and HS
30.25b. Ch'en P'an [P$] in his ["Han Chin i-chien ou-shu"] ;
"Notes on the Wooden Records of the Han and Chin Dynasties" in CYYC [i.e.,
CYYY] xvi (1947) 317-318, argues thatyiuan-shu has two separate meanings:
1. an apologia, and
2. a declaration or statement,
and that the expression in Chang T'ang's biography has the former meaning, but
I believe he is mistaken.30
In a personal communication concerning section 5, Professor

Hulsewe suggests the translation of "transcript" or "proces verbal,"
while Loewe renders it as "formal statement.''31
Hori Tsuyoshi :gf, in a recent article devoted to the Yun-meng
finds,32 argues that the yuian-shu in the Yun-meng documents corre-
spond to written reports of indictments, depositions of testimony, and
records of previous criminal offenses for the use of the legal officials
who take up the accusations and indictments in the prosecution of
public actions. Yiuan-shu are, Hori states, the general term for that
type of record drawn up by those under instructions (such as the
prison officials under Foreman Clerks, i.e., ling-shih f etc.) as
well as records drawn up by the District (hsiang 0) and Army
Headquarters (chuin-hui JWM) etc., in the performance of their
official duties.
5.12 and 5.13 both refer to the battle fought at Hsing-ch'iu city
in 266 B.C.,33 which shows that this type of document was in use in
Ch'in some time before Chao Kao rose to prominence as an expert
in legal affairs, and that he cannot therefore have been its originator.
It is important to note that no decisions or sentences are recorded
in these "transcripts," and therefore Hori is correct to deny that
the documents in section 5 are the Ch'in equivalent of precedents
or analogies (pi t) as stated by Chi Hsiin.34
80 Ibid., 95, note 3, where there is a typographical error: HS 49. lab is given instead of
HS 59. lab.
81 Loewe, Records, ii, 1 1, MD (Mu-durbeljin) 1, no. 9.
32 "Unimu shutsudo no Shinkan no kiso-teki kenkyui" AtEH?6@* fib5ffi3
("A Study of 'Inscribed Bamboo Slips Unearthed from the Ch'in Dynasty Tomb no. 11
at Shui-hu-ti' in Ytin-meng"), Shikan PI, No. 97 (Oct. 1977), p. 18.
88 See n. 14 above.
84 Chi Hsiin, p. 5; Loewe, "Manuscripts," p. 129.
5.4 specifies that the "transcript" derives from "X District"

(mou hsiang AN), and 5.12 is from "Army Headquarters X" (chun-hui
mou W(=))), while in 5.6 and 5.13 the place of origin is men-
tioned but the graphs are, unfortunately, illegible. Matters in the
"transcripts" may include the initial denunciation or accusation, a
detailed description of the crime and the circumstances of its dis-
covery, the names, residences and occupations (shih *) of the
accused and other parties to the case, and orders to verify the
accuracy of the accused's name, residence, and occupation. Although
5.3, 5.5, 5.14, and 5.15 specifically state that the occupation (shzih -)
should be or has been determined, the absence of any mention of
occupations poses a problem. Rank (chuieh /) is invariably recorded,
as is the name and place of residence; why in these "transcripts"
has information on occupation been omitted ?35
In the "transcripts" it is also recorded whether or not the accused
has been liable (tso 44)36 for any previous crime which has been
remitted (she ,k), whether a reinterrogation of the accused has been
performed, and the results of the medical examination of the
accused or other parties to the case (5.1 1 and 5.18) or of the evidence
(5.12). In the Han material from Chii-yen and other sites in the
Gobi, "transcripts" not only recorded claims for money owed,37
the results of archery tests for which rewards were expected to be
given,38 but also lease and sale of clothes,39 and deaths of post-
horses40 and men. 41
It can be seen from the above that these "transcripts" were
written reports prepared by lower officials detailing all the acts and
procedures that had been performed by the parties involved, be
they officials or private individuals. The documents were written
down to replace the verbal statements and orders given by the
35 See 5.3, n. 64 below. KS 239.46 is a fragment similar to the sentences in the Ch'in
documents. It reads, ". . . under inquiry and bound. When the letter arrives, determine
name, prefecture, rank, and village" ; (=U) & (=-) ; For shih : as
a technical term in the Han meaning "labor service," see Nancy Lee Swann, Food and
Money in Ancient China (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1950), p. 54. This meaning does
not, however, seem relevant to the present documents.
36 For the technical legal term tso 4~, see below 5.3, n. 66.
37 Loewe, Records, ii, 11; KS 259. 1.
38 Loewe, Records, ii, 57-60; KS 175.1, 6.5, 6.13, 485.40, 485.10.
39 Loewe, Records, i, 29; KS 10.34.
40 KS 96.1 etc.
41 KS 255.40A, 52.12, 145.35, 198.9 etc.
parties, and were then forwarded to higher officials who ruled on the
appropriate action to be taken in each case. These higher officials
made a reply (pao W) indicating the penalty, in the case of a delict,
to which the accused's act corresponded or matched (tang 2).42
It is in this context, also, that section 4 should be considered.
In p'ien 26 "Fixing Distinctions" ("Ting-fen" t5) of the Book of
Lord Shang43 occurs an interesting passage, translated by J. J. L.
Duyvendak as follows:
Whenever government officials or people have questions about the meaning of the
laws or mandates [fa-ling --], to ask of the officers presiding over the law, the
latter should, in each case, answer clearly according to the laws and mandates about
which it was originally desired to ask questions, and they should, in each case, pre-
pare a tablet [fu T4] of the length of 1 foot 6 inches, on which should be distinctly
inscribed the year, month, day, and hour, as well as the items of law about which
questions were asked, for the information of the government officials or of the
people. .. The officers, presiding over the law, should forthwith give to those gov-
ernment officials [and people] who ask information about the law, the left half of
the document [ch'iian ff] and they themselves should store carefully the wooden
bindings with the right half of the document, keep them in a room and seal them
with the seal of the chief of the office of laws and mandates. Later, on the death
of the officer, affairs should be transacted according to these files.44
The nature of section 4 of the Ch'in laws should, therefore, in our

opinion, be understood in either of two ways: this section contains
the questions which Hsi asked of the higher government officials in
seeking their assistance in deciding the appropriate matching
penalty and the appropriate legal terminology to use when he was
judging cases or this section contains Hsi's answers to his subor-
dinates and to the people in his area.45 These interpretations raise
42 Cf. the remarks on yiian-sht by Yu Wei-ch'ao -jt , "Luieh-shih Han-tai yii-tz'u

wen-li" g gtCiJ, WW, No. 1 (1978), pp. 38-39. Yu refers to Oba Osamu's
article, "Ensho k6" *4,4 Seishin Joshi Daigaku ronso . 12 (1958),
105-26, mentioned in Hayashi Minao ; Kandai no bunbutsu MoitDZ (Kyoto:
Ky6to Daigakujimbun Kagaku Kenkyfijo, 1976), p. 562, n. 45, which analyzes in detail
theyuian-sht. An offprint of this important article was kindly sent to us by Prof. Hulsewe.
43 Shang-chiin-sht chieh-ku ting-pen * ed. Chu Shih-ch'e *Rfla (1948;
rpt. Hong Kong: Chung-hua shu-chiu, 1974), pp. 92-93.
44 The Book of Lord Shang (1928; rpt. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1963), pp. 328-
29.
45 Huang (1979), p. 4, suggests that the material in section 4 consists of two parts, the
primary laws (lu), which are earlier in date, and the explanations, which are later, and
further problems: in some cases alternative penalties are suggested

(for example 4.102; SHT 4.105, p. 204). Does this indicate that the
lower officials had some discretion in deciding the appropriate
penalty or does it mean that Hsi was reporting an uncertainty that
was present in the primary law? Whichever of these two alternatives
is accepted, it seems likely that section 4 contains replies to queries
about the meaning of the Ch'in law.
During the Han dynasty, furthermore, it often happened that
cases were referred to higher authority, such referral being known
as yeh A. The higher authorities replied (pao 6) and judgment was
rendered. Hulsewe, in the passage translated above, 46 renders
pao by "condemn" and later he suggests it means "requite" which
"shows," he argues, "that the crime was 'requited' by the punish-
ment, the one as it were neutralising the other. It is not a matter of
avenging the deed on the doer, rather it is the one act (the crime)
which is counterbalanced by the other (the punishment). 47 Other
examples of pao he translates as "pronounce judgement" (pages
343-44) and "sentence" (page 403, note 268). We tentatively
suggest, however, that pao in many legal contexts should be under-
stood as "reply" and that the chih - which frequently follows pao as
its object in the SC, HS, and Hou Han shu 1.# refers not to the crime
or the criminal, but to the lower official who has sent up the "tran-
scripts" for the higher official to decide what the matching penalty
is for the crime. For example, the edict (chao AR) of Emperor Hsiao-
ching *Al, dated 143 B.C., recorded in HS 23.19a R
9l , as translated by Hulsewe, reads as follows:
That lawsuits when doubtful are to be referred to higher authority-(for this)
he gives the section the title Ch'in-lii shtto *# [Explanations of the Primary Laws of Ch'in].
See also his analysis of the nature of the section, ibid., pp. 7-11. We do not agree with
this interpretation and would like to point out that what little is left of Tung Chung-shu's
jf4ig Kttng-yang chih-yii aM;jrA (Httang-shih i-shu k'ao F ts'e 55) is quite simi-
lar in form to section 4. Prof. Hulsewe suggests a third possible interpretation: they are
fragments of a standard collection sent to all law officers (personal communication), cf.
Hulsewe (1978), pp. 191-92.
46 Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 72.
47 Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 80. Cf. the Mohist Canons A.36 "Shang (reward) is requital
(pao) from above for achievement below," and A.38 "Fa (punishment) is requital from
above for crime below" (A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science [Hong Kong:
The Chinese Univ. Press; London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978], p. 290).
there exists a (special) Ordinance. When (the official) who has referred (a doubt-
ful case to higher authority) has already pronounced judgment (based on the
instructions from his superiors), then, if in spite of this referring, (the verdict)
later (proves) not to have corresponded (to the crime), (the official) who has
referred (the matter to higher authority) shall not be considered as having com-
mitted a fault.48
Hulsewe observes49 that the same edict occurs in HS 5.8b, with two
differences, the second being that "afteryu i cheyeh [eREXt] HS 5
inserts 7 F,Ibt" and continues If-1ip-Affff
Dubs translates the whole passage "When, in a trial it is doubtful
[what to decide, the case] should be referred to the high officials;
what the high officials cannot settle should be transferred to the
Commandant of Justice. If it is ordered that a matter should be
referred [to a superior judge], and later [it is found that] it should
not have been referred, [that reference] does not constitute a fault."50
In the same note, Hulsewe states that "the insertion of the short
phrase yeh-che i pao [Z E] makes the structure of this [HS 23]
passage unclear; the passage in HS 5 is much clearer without it. I
suggest that the secondyeh is redundant, although the commentators
do not say so .......
Hulsewe is undoubtedly right to correct Dubs in his interpretation
of hou pu tang i but we would suggest that the difficulty with
the second yeh disappears if pao is taken in the sense of "reply," for
that yeh would then be the object of the verb pao, just as the first
yu ssu hp is the object ofyeh in the HS 5 passage: the construction of
the sentences HS 5yu lingyeh t1p- and HS 23yu lingyeh che Whp-t
would be the same.
Evidence in support of our interpretation of pao in such a legal
context, and thus indirectly of the function of "transcripts" in
the legal process, appears in 5.4, 5.5, and 5.16, where it is specifically
stated that replies are required. Further evidence comes from
Hulsewe's own rendition of an important sentence paralleling the
HS examples just given, in the Hou Han shu "Treatises" (chih 7) 25
on the duties of the Commandant of Justice (t'ing-wei LMr) where it
48 Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 344.

49 Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 402-3, n. 266.
50 Homer H. Dubs, HFHD, I, 326.
is stated : W;'R1W51 Hulsewe translates,

correctly in our opinion, "He is in charge of bringing equity in
lawsuits. He memorialises (the points of law) to which his equations
(of crime with punishments, i.e. his verdicts) correspond. In all
cases when the Commanderies and Kingdoms refer dubious cases
to him, he determines the equation and reports it back to them."52
In conclusion, we would like to reiterate that the documents in
section 5, the Feng-chen shih, are not precedents: they are intended to
inform officials of the correct procedure for conducting investiga-
tions and writing reports on them. Most are pro forma documents
drawn from actual reports of actual cases with the names of the
participants replaced by the Chinese "stems" and the names of the
government bureaus and most of the places replaced by the word
mou A, literally "a certain," but translated here for convenience as
"X." 5.22 gives alternative forms for writing up the report, while
5.20, after first giving a "transcript" of an actual case, then gives
the general method of official procedure when an individual is
found hanged. It can be seen in the latter report that the officials
who drew up the "transcript" did indeed follow the correct pro-
cedure.
51 Hogt Han shit chi-chieh j ed. Wang Hsien-ch'ien (1915; rpt. Taipei: I-wen
yin-shu kuan, ca. 1960), chih 25. lOa.
52 Hulsewe, Remnants, I, 86.
Translation
5.1 Trying a Case (chih-yu MM)
In trying a case, if one can use the documents to track down53
[the evidence in] their statements (yen >),54 and get the facts55 on
53 The editors suggest that ts'zung T "follow" is a loan for tsufig W "track/trace." Cf.
SC 118.18 and HS 44. 1Ob ("Biography of Liu An, King of Huai-nan" I
"The king [of Huai-nan] sent an envoy to present a letter to the emperor denouncing the
prime minister. The matter was sent down to the commandant of justice for trial. When
the latter followed the tracks, he implicated the king [in liability for the crime of rebel-
lion]." Yen Shih-ku notes that i should be read as 5t, which is the SC graph.
54 The graph ch'i Af appears to refer to all the parties involved in the case, not just to
the accused. At the end of Li Ssu's biography in SC 87.39-42, the case against Li Ssu
brought by Chao Kao in 208 B.C. is described in some detail, and the language used ap-
pears to be the same technical legal language found in the Yun-meng documents. Li Ssu,
after being beaten and first giving a false submission (tzu wu fu 0 MffR), sent up a long
memorial of his meritorious acts, listing them as his crimes (tsui W). Chao Kao, however,
refused to allow the memorial to be presented, and ordered ten of his henchmen to
conduct a reinterrogation (fzt-hsuin 41M). Li Ssu "again responded with the truth"
K.1AVV, whereupon Chao gave instructions for him to be flogged once more. The
Second Emperor sent men to examine Li, and since he thought that he was to be beaten
again, he "to the end did not dare to change what he said, and submitted in the state-
ment" j =,, PN. It should be remembered that in the ancient Chinese legal
process, the accused had to admit the truth of the charges brought against him (Hulsewe,
Remnants, I, 77). As can be seen from many of the documents in section 5, it was the duty of
the officials to verify the truth of the statements made by the parties involved in the case,
not only those made by the accused, but also those made by his accuser and the officials
at the local and village level. The phrases, "We searched (for the identity of) the head by
(dispatching) letters . . ." p - (5.13), "When it arrives, acknowledge with a letter"
iIJJL~~ p -(5.14), and "Acknowledge with a letter" p (5.15), are of particular in-
terest in this regard. What is being stated in 5.1, therefore, in our opinion, is that to check
the truth of the statements made by the parties by means of such documents (shu g) of
verification is the superior course of action. The inferior is to have to beat the parties.
The word keng X "change/alter" in the Li Ssu passage quoted above, and in 5.2 below
seems to have the force of "deny" the charges or truth of the first statement and to tell a
different story. Bodde's translation (Bodde, China's First Unifier, p. 51), "and so to the end
he did not dare to alter his statements, but admitted his guilt," should therefore be inter-
preted as referring to Li Ssu's initial false self-denunciation, not to his true memorial.
Cf. the Han primary law on not changing the statements quoted in the newly excavated
case from Chui-yen, WW, No. 1 (1978), p. 31, strip 21.
In 5.14 and 5.17 below there are instances of accused people confirming the accusations
the parties without investigation by beating (chih-luieh 'thp), that is

considered superior; investigation by beating is considered inferior;
in addition, intimidation is considered the worst [course of action].56
5.2 Questioning Parties to a Case (hsun-yui -f1)
In general, when questioning parties to a case, you must first

listen to everything they say and record it, with each party develop-
ing his statement (tz'u V).57 Although you may know (chih n) that
brought against them. Chi E (variant i) seems to have been a technical expression in
Warring States and Han political discourse. In Legalist theory the ruler should cover his
tracks and conceal his intentions: Han Fei-tzu chi-chieh = ed. Wang Hsien-
shen F (KHCPTS ed., Taiwan: Commercial Press, 1956), p'ien 5, 1.19; W. K. Liao,
The Complete Works of the Han Fei Tztt, 2 vols. (London: Probsthain, 1939-59), I, 32-33;
Huai-nan-tzu MF-=- (SPPY ed.), 18.22a; Wei li chih tao (SHT,- p. 284), "Take care, take
care, for your words cannot be pursued" ; -T->fhf; Shen Pu-hai FT-, frag-
ment 1(5), H. G. Creel, Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century
B.C. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1974), pp. 348-49, where sa i should definitely
be emended to chi S, n. 6, p. 349.
55 For the translation of ch'ing 'jp as "facts" (as opposed to wei fG "falsehood"), see
A. C. Graham, "The Background of the Mencian Theory of Human Nature" (CHHP,
NS 6.1-2 [Dec. 1967], 259-60) commenting on Tso chuan Hsi 28 (Legge, v, 204-5),
;;2^g@X;2;t "he knows fully what is fact or falsehood among the people."
56 The sentence yu k'ung wei pai I is obscure. We interpret - as X~, a usage that
occurs passim in the Yun-meng documents, and pai %k as in the sentence in Tso chulan
Hsiang 28 fJ IJA which Legge, p. 542, translates "if those (advantages) go beyond
that, ruin will ensue." Pai in 5.1 appears to mean "a disaster/failure/ruin/terrible occur-
ence," i.e., the worst course of action. Yu k'utng , could also be an abbreviation for yut
so k'ung JjfXj "intimidating someone." Hulsewe (1978), p. 193, gives the "highly ten-
tative translation" of "(for) when there is fear, everything is spoilt." This statement is
most interesting in that, during the Han, the bastinado was regularly applied to the
accused. Witnesses to a crime might also be arrested, with the result that they were, on
occasion, reluctant to come forward (Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 73).
57 In gloss 2027 on the term tz'u in the "Lu Hsing" M)fIJ chapter of the Shang shu, Bern-
hard Karlgren states in "Glosses on the Book of Documents," BMFEA, 21 (1949), 177:
Tz'u 'words, speech' has many applications. Yu tz'u 'to have words (about one)' can mean "to
be notorious" (either 'to be famous' or 'to be ill-famed'), see Gl. 1804. It can also .., mean
'to have (pleading=) an excuse (as such we have it later in our chapter: "The Miao people had
no [pleading=] excuse"). But again it sometimes means "to have indictments against" some-
body.. .or "to have indictments against one", to be indicted, accused,.. [transcription and
punctuation slightly modified].
In the Tso chutan Ch'eng 5 appears a passage illustrative of the close connection between
religious and legal language. Legge (p. 357) translates,
However, [each] State presides over [the sacrifices to] the hills and rivers in it; therefore when
a mountain falls or a river becomes dry, the ruler in consequence does not have his table fully
spread, does not appear in full dress, rides in a carriage without any ornament, hushes all his
he is lying (i M), there is no need to interrogate (chieh M) him im-

mediately.58 When his statements have been recorded in their
entirety and there are no explanations, then interrogate him with
interrogators. When interrogating him, once again listen and
record his explanatory statements in their entirety; once again
inspect the other [points] which lack explanation and reinterrogate
him about them. When you have interrogated him to the greatest
extent possible and he has lied repeatedly, has changed what he
has said but not submitted,59 should the law (lu 0) match inter-
rogation by beating, then investigate by beating.6o When you inves-
music, lodges outside the city, makes the priest prepare offerings, and the historiographer write
a confession of his faults [tz'u], and then does sacrifice [to the hills and rivers].
Natural disasters signify that the ruler has committed some fault and he must therefore
make a formal statement acknowledging his guilt.
The term was taken into the legal vocabulary of the increasingly structured and
bureaucratized Ch'in and Han states for the written statements in legal proceedings in
which the parties were required to admit their guilt (cf. Hulsewe, Remnants, I, 77). 4.79
(SHT 4.83, p. 192) indicates where these statements were made, at least in some cases, in
the Ch'in:
(The law reads) "A person who makes a statement makes this statement in court." Now, is the
Commandery Administrator the court or is he not? He is. (The law reads) "A person who makes
a statement deos not first make this statement to an Office Chief or to a se-fu." What is meant by
"Office Chief" and what is meant by "se-fu"? Tu kuan are called "(Office) Chiefs"; for the pre-
fecture one says "se-fu". (translated by Hulsewe [1978], p. 200).
tWtEg?~A LIT-A)A1 (M =51 0T5t 1 PONVJP PO =11 O)M14M(= )?X g BA
The term tz'u also appears in the newly discovered Western Chou bronze, see above
n. 27.
58 I.e., do not interrupt the exposition of his response.
59 See above n. 54.
60 Or, possibly, "those who match being beaten according to the statutes (lii) are then
to be beaten," i.e., excluding the very old, the very young, and possibly some other
groups, such as pregnant women, blind musicians, and dwarfs (Hulsewe, Remnants, I,
298-302). There are, however, only two other examples, as far as we can determine, in
the Yun-meng documents where "according to" (i .J) has been omitted: in 1 Ch'uan-shih
/it1, "as for those with aristocratic rank from the shih ta-fu working in the government
offices[?] and on up, feed them according to rank," and in 4.97b (SHT 4. 100b, p. 202),
where i should be inserted before tsui P, "crime." In every other instance where an
"according to" is required, there is a corresponding i. For example, 5.3 J2L, t1, "seal
and guard [his property] according to the law"; 5.15 . "seal and guard him
[and his property] according to the law"; 5.16 g1tt "with guaranteed (accompani-
ment) in accordance with the law." The presence of the particle nai 75 "then" suggests
that the che * is not the nominalizing particle ("those who ') but rather the topic marker
which appears in 4.120 (SHT 4.123, p. 211) and 4.142 (SHT 4.123, p. 220) , pW:
"what the law means," which is left out in 4.65 p We believe that the primary law,
which is not found in the excavated material, indicated which persons could be beaten
tigate by beating, you must compose a document which reads:

Transcript:
Because X repeatedly changed what he said and there were no
explanatory statements, we questioned X by beating.
5.361 Under Inquiry (yu chii )

We venture to inform the official in charge (chu t) of X prefecture
(hsien Q : 6 2
Male X is under inquiry. His statement reads: [I am a] member
of the rank and file (shih-wu ?Lii), resident in X village (ii M).
What63 is his determined name, occupation,64 and village, what
and under what circumstances. As such, the two interpretations are not substantially
different.
61 This is the numbering of the SCCC and SHT editors; the WW transcriptions have
5.3 and 5.4 in reverse order.
62 Interpret with the SHT editors. The official may have been the ch'eng 7& "assistant,"
since he participates in the legal process in 5.4, 5.14, 5.15, 5.17, and 5.22. SC 118.18
("Biography of the King of Huai-nan" a'T3E;IJN) reads, "At that time, the prime
minister of Huai-nan was angry with the assistant of Shou-ch'un for holding up the
arrest of the Heir Apparent and not sending him to the capital, and accused him of lack
of respect." Ju Shun 4p?# (fl. 189-265) comments that "the assistant was in charge of
criminal cases and prisoners. The assistant was following the king's will in not sending the
Heir Apparent to answer the letter of arrest." Cf. n. 64 below.
63 The WW editors read k'o 1pf "may" as ho fj "what," a usage that occurs passim
in the Ch'in documents. The SHT editors, however, retain k'o unaltered. If this is correct,
the translation would read, "You may determine name, occupation, and village. .
64 Both WW and SCCC transcriptions have the graph as shih * "occupation," which
the SHT editors define as "status" shen-fen 4te. In the Han dynasty, however, it is clear
that age was taken into consideration when trying an individual. As Hulsewe has pointed
out (Remnants, i, 299):
The abecedarium or primer, entitled "Quickly Attained," written between 48 and 33 BC. con-
tains a line "in the register they include the witnesses' statements, inscribing and asking their
age"; according to the much later commentary of Yen Shih-ku (581-645), this noting down of
the witnesses' age was "because for the young as well as for the aged punishment was not the
same" (Chi-chiu p'ien [al], 65a-b, SPTK ed.).
One Han document similar to those found in section 5 mentions age (Loewe, Records,
I, 68-69; KS 303.15, 513.17). It runs as follows: R,3#pp,-,ff W-56M
H Aa4t~
Loewe is of the opinion that the first of the two paragraphs, which are separated by a
punctuation mark (see n. 75), is "probably a citation from standing orders, made by an
official to justify the action that he is beginning to report in the second paragraph." He
translates the passages as follows:
... [ssu]-ma and senior officials. In cases of desertion by officials, conscripts, civilians or officers
are the discussions (lun r-" ) 65 for which he is liable (tso 44) 66 what
crimes have been remitted (she ), has or has not someone reinter-
of the colonies, a full report is to be submitted, listing the chiin, hsien and 1i of the man; his given
name, surname, age, height, colouring; the clothing that he was wearing, and the equipment
and baggage that he carried; the date of desertion, and the number of men involved. These details
are to be reported [three characters not understood].
I respectfully submit the following report [two characters not understood]; in the second year
of Shzh-yuan [85 B.C.], a party of 1500 guardsmen and conscripts detailed for agricultural duties
was engaged in digging water-courses at the orders of the Office of Agricultural Exploitation,
Hsing-ma. On the day chi-yu of the first month last, . . of Huai-yang chun. . .
Given the similarity between the Han document and the new Ch'in materials, particu-
larly 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6, we would suggest that the Han document was also a fragment
of a "transcript" (yfian-shu% Q-f). The first paragraph may well be the instructions issued
by the higher authority, probably the "subordinate assistant" (shui-ch'eng ,%77) mentioned
in the second paragraph-or possibly the shut and ch'eng are two separate officials, the one
civilian, the other military (Loewe, Records, ii, 387)-to the lower official whose reply
(pao 3) is recorded in the second paragraph. In the light of the Ch'in documents, we
would tentatively propose some emendations to Loewe's rendition. Chi 2p should be under-
stood as "immediately" or "go and." Ch'u fjJ should be taken as "previously": the higher
official is asking for records of previous abscondences as in 5.5 and 5.25. The graphs yii
ping i 5E might be interpreted as "together with (the names of) the sick who have
got better." Presumably the sick would not be held liable for absconding from their
duties.
65 Hulsewe translates Itln r "to discuss" as "to sentence" in Han legal contexts
(Remnants i, 80 and 382 n. 178). We prefer, however, in the Ch'in legal documents, to
retain the more general translation, first, because Itun often seems to be used to refer to
more of the Ch'in legal bureaucratic process than the matching (tang j) of criminal with
penalty; second, because "sentence" implies that more discretion was given the Ch'in
official in matching criminal with penalty than the evidence suggests such an official
possessed; third, Itun is used in contexts of official evaluation where criminality is not at
issue, for example: 1 Chun-chiieh -W 1 "As for army personnel who match discussion for
length of service and are rewarded but die before they are honoured . . ." W L
fjfijff K. This usage also appears in Kutan-tzut =- (KHCPTS ed., Shanghai: Com-
mercial Press, 1934), p'ien 4, "Li Cheng" r , 1, 14: "In the mornings of the first month
of spring, the ruler is personally to attend court and to discuss (luin) ranks and rewards
and the military and civil officials[ ?], and [this is] to last five days. In the evenings of the
last month of winter, the ruler is personally to attend court to discuss (ltun) fines and crimes,
punishments and executions. [This is] also to last five days."
66 Tso is a frequently used and crucial technical term in legal contexts in both Warring
States and Han literature. We suggest the translation "liability/to be liable" because of
the similarity of Chinese usage to the range of meanings of liability in English: "to be
bound by law/to be answerable for someone or something/to be legally subject to." The
enforcement of liability among or between persons in families, five-man groups, and
officialdom was a notable policy of control developed by the centralized states of the
Chan-kuo period. (For the "undivided legal responsibility of the group," see Hulsewe,
Remnants, i, 271 ff.). Perhaps because the literal meaning of tso "to sit" has an entirely
different semantic field in Indo-European languages (for example, to sit in English may
mean to be in the "chair" of authority, hence to "sit" of a court, "assizes" etc.), Western
historians have provided contradictory translations: C. Martin Wilbur, Slavery during the
Former Han Dynasty, Field Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Series No. 43
(Chicago, 1943), p. 286, "tried"; Loewe, Records, I, 69, "brought up on a charge"; Ch'u
T'ung-tsu, Han Social Structure (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1972), p. 265, "pun-
ished"; Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian of China, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia
LJniv. Press, 1961), i, 541, "reprimanded"; Dubs, HFHD, i, 313, "condemned"; Hulsewe,
Remnants, I, 334, "sentenced," p. 344, "adjudicated"; Duyvendak, p. 29, "punished."
There is a similar difference of opinion among scholars in translating the related techni-
cal term hsiang-tso TH4K, which we translate "mutual liability/to be mutually liable."
Hulsewe, Remnants, I, 273 and passim, renders the term "co-adjudication": Bodde, p. 35
and passim, "mutual responsibility"; and Lien-sheng Yang, "Hostages in Chinese His-
tory," HJAS, 15 (Dec. 1952), 51, "joint-suretyship."
We suggest that Bodde and Yang are correct to take tso as referring to some type of
responsibility or suretyship. First, in many Warring States texts hsiang-pao TH;/,m is used
as an alternative for hsiang-tso. For example, the Kuan-tzu, p'ien 57, "Tu Ti" lit, 3.20
states: jIfiJ-p- "each [office holder] is to guarantee whatever he might supervise."
(Cf. W. Allyn Rickett, Kutan-tzut: A Repository of Early Chinese Thought [Hong Kong: Univ.
of Hong Kong Press, 1965], p. 82.) This is a direct parallel to the clause in the Ch'in
documents, 2 Hsiao 7 (SHT p. 117), 41_A W ji "each [office holder] is liable for that of
which he is in charge." Second, tso is often preceded by hsiang, a particle which replaces
the direct or the indirect object of the verb. Just as hsiang-shih THZA means "to eat each
other" (figuratively, of course), so hsiang-pao THf;M means "to protect or to guarantee
each other." Hsiang-tso cannot, therefore, taking grammatical usage into consideration,
mean "to be tried," "to be sentenced," or "to be adjudicated" with someone; it must refer
to a mutual and, in these contexts, legal relationship. Tso is used in both Warring States
and Han texts in conjunction with other terms to form phrases with technical meanings:
for example, lien-tso L4I4 means "linked or to link liability [among family members or
coworkers]"; tso-shou s~it means "to be liable for arrest"; tso flu-mu MKZ: means "to be
liable for [the actions of] parents"; tso-shang MLL means "to be liable for [the actions of]
superiors."
To understand tso, therefore, as "to be liable or to be considered liable" obviates
difficulties in understanding some recurring passages in both SC and HS. Referring to
HS 23.17b, Ch'u T'ung-tsu (p. 265, n. 69) suggests that "the phrase I?& if trans-
lated literally would mean 'to be punished and arrested.' The word 'arrested' here
seems to give little additional meaning to the sentence." Hulsewe translates a similar
clause, which also appears in HS 23.17b, T;4R19 as "Collective judgement, attainder
and arrest of (a criminal's) father, mother, wife, children and brothers . . ." (Remnants,
I, 341; cf. n. 239, pp. 396-98). The parallel SC passage 10.13 reads 4 IJ, which
Hulsewe and Ch'uA note presents difficulties of interpretation. But if we take tso as "to be
liable," neither the HS nor the SC passages need emendation. We have simply in the HS
"[Holding] fathers and mothers, wives, children and brothers mutually liable to the
extent of being arrested," and in the SC "[Holding] them mutually liable and liable for
arrest."
The new Ch'in documents provide a wealth of information on definitions and aspects
of liability in the Ch'in state. For example, 4.19 (SHT p. 160) reads (literally) "Robbery
and all other crimes are what the coresidents should be held liable for. What does 'co-
residents' mean? It means a household is considered 'coresidents' and liable for [their]
bondservants; bondservants are not liable for the household" ( = I 1
In - 4 ( == 4) o- PM 9 ;1 Jlfi4 l i ( PA pH
rogated (fu-wen Vrj) him ?67 We have sent recorders (chih-che @ )68
to seal and guard [his property]69 according to the law who should
67 This sentence appears, with slight variations, in 5.5, 5.14, and 5.15. In 5.15, the
clause ho tsui she WJ (=O,)X4k "what crimes have been remitted" is missing. The reason
that this information is desired by the authorities would appear to be that an individual
could be discussed (luin) with his original (ka iW) crime after a she , (amnesty or remission)
if he committed a further offense. Part of 4.105 (SHT 4.108, p. 205) states, "If a gang
robber (ch'uin-tao #?A), [i.e., someone who has committed a crime in a group of five or
more individuals] is pardoned (she) and made a commoner (shui-jen l,kA) and, being in
charge of robbers who are fettered prisoners [guilty of crimes warranting punishment of]
mutilation on up, lets them escape, discuss him for the original crime, cut off his left foot
and make him a ch'eng-tan M - forced laborer." This passage is of particular interest for
the understanding of she in the early period, and is proof positive for Hulsewe's assertion
that "an amnesty did not imply a complete remission of all punishment" (Remnants, I,
225). Since the terms "pardon" and "amnesty" imply forgetfulness, we have chosen to
translate she as "remit/remission" in order to represent the Chinese term more accurately.
It should also be noted that no remissions are recorded in the historical sources as
having been granted by Ch'in Shih-huang-ti. Did he grant remissions, but the Han
historians failed to mention them in order to vilify him? Are those documents in section
5 which refer to she datable to the period before Shih-huang-ti's accession? Since the
practice of granting remissions was current before the time of Shih-huang-ti and was
extensively used by the Han emperors, it seems somewhat unlikely that China's unifier
completely dispensed with an activity of such ritual significance. Unfortunately the new
documents fail to resolve this problem.
68 The graphs :Ji: should probably be taken as chih-che "recorders/markers" rather than
as shih-che "those who know." The term also appears in 5.5. In 2 Hsiao 19-21 inaccurate
inscriptions or marks of identification (here the graph is written J, a loan for a accord-
ing to the editors) on equipment leads to a fine of the officials in charge. In 5.10, the word
chih appears as a "brand-mark," although the SCCC editors state that one interpretation
is to take the graph as shih "know/recognize." Cf. Wang Yin-chih 3IE1; (1766-1834)
and Wang Nien-sun's Tt, (1744-1832) comments on the word hui jB in Mo-tzu,
p'ien a 69 "Ch'i-chih" g "Flags and Pennons" (quoted by Sun 1-jang a, Mo-
tzzt chien-ku M-TA [1894; rpt. KHCPTS ed., Shanghai: 1936], pp. 359-60). See also
n. 69 below.
69 Feng shou + appears to be some form of property impoundment or confiscation,

perhaps similar to the modern ch'a-feng AX "attachment." Some such impoundment
seems to have occurred in Hsien-yang A, the capital, at the end of the Ch'in dynasty,
recorded in both SC and HS. The relevant passages read:
(a) HS lA.19b, Dubs, HFHD, i, 56-57: ..-. ; "The King
of Ch'in . . . having sealed up [for presentation to the Lord of P'ei] the imperial seals,
the insignia and the credentials, surrendered beside Chih-tao."
(b) Ibid.: 7 "so [the Lord of P'ei] sealed up the depositories and
treasuries for the Ch'in [dynasty's] important treasures and valuable objects."
(c) SC 6.86 Chavannes, MH, ii, 17: -g2JVf, "Le gouverneur de P'ei
entra alors dans Hien-yang; il mit sous scelles les palais, les magasins et les tresors."
In the following commentaries on Mo-tzu, p'ien 52, "Pei Ch'eng-men" ;IP9 "Prepa-
ration of City Walls and Gates"-Mo-tzuchiao-ting * -t, ed. T'ang Yao-ch'en Ik
(1554; rpt. Mo-tzu chi-ch'eng M =)jA, Taiwan, 1975), ii, 14.2b, p. 490; Sun, Mo-tzzt,
make copies (t'eng aI,) ;70 make replies (pao l)71 for all the copies.
We venture to inform the official in charge.
5.4 Sealing and Guarding (feng-shou ) 7 2
Transcript from X district (hsiang Wf4) 73

Pursuant to the document of Assistant (ch'eng 7&) of X prefecture:
[We have] sealed the family dwelling of A, a member of the rank
p. 320; Ts'en Chung-mien 4-Lr1, Mo-tzu ch'eng-shou ko-p'ien chien-chu t

(Peking: Ku-chi ch'u-pan-she, 1958), p. 8; Wu Yu-chiang kjn, Mo-tzu chiao-chu *
4,I (Chungking: Tu-li ch'u-pan-she, 1944), 14.3b-the gates of the city under siege are
recommended to be 1 E4]J "sealed with the seal of the Defender/Administrator."
Such a practice is recorded in the first "Verification" section of the Ch'in primary laws 1
Hsiao 4 and 5, 1 Ts'ang 10 and Shang-chiin shu (see p. 126 above).
We suggest that the ts'ai-wu X88 of (b) above should be understood as similar to the
huo-ts'ai ' of 4.189 (SHTp. 242) and is the Chinese equivalent of "(personal) effects."
4.189 reads, "What are considered 'big mistakes'? [Mistakes concerning] a man's house-
hold, horses, oxen, together with [those concerning] all personal effects worth more than
660 cash, are considered 'big mistakes.' Other mistakes [i.e., those concerning effects
worth less than 660 cash] are considered 'small mistakes.' " These personal effects would
consist of wife, children, livestock, and servants, who are clearly deemed saleable property
(see 5.14 where a servant ch'en f is sold to the government). In 5.4 below, a list is given of
all of a man's property. This list has probably been drawn up by the chih-che "recorders"
discussed in n. 68 above. For a further discussion of lists or inventories, see Krishna Riboud,
"A Closer View of Early Chinese Silks," in Veronika Gervers, ed., Studies in Textile History
(Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1977), p. 277, n. 39, which refers to UJmehara
Sueji , Moko Noin Ura hakken no ibutsu t y/ 4> ~Y RR @mtt [Studies of
Noin-Ula Finds in North Mongolia], T6y6 Bunko series A, No. 27 (Tokyo: 1960), pp. 30 ff.,
and plate 59.
70 The editors interpret the graph t'eng & as t'eng # "copy (a document)." Here pre-
sumably the recorders are to make copies of the documents listing the property that
has been sealed.
71 For a discussion of pao a as "reply," see above pp. 127-29.
72 Sealing and Guarding seems to be a form of official impoundment of the property
of an individual accused of a crime. Perhaps one of the reasons for this impoundment
was to insure that no one in the household who was legally liable under the hsiang-tso
system for the actions of one of its members could leave the neighborhood and abscond,
as the wife has in fact done in 5.4. Indeed, a number of the questions in section 4 address
themselves to the liability of household members for the actions of their affines or core-
sidents (for example 4.14-16) and to the problem of whether the wife's property should
be "seized" shou JjC (4.149, 150; SHT 4.151, 152, pp. 224-25). These two latter questions
are of great interest, since they seem to suggest that a wife could hold property inde-
pendently of her husband when he is held guilty of a crime which warrants the seizure of
his property. See also 5.3 n. 69 above.
73 The SHT editors suggest hsiang means the responsible official in the district.
and file of X village who is under inquiry (yu-chu tW),74 and his
wife, children, male and female servants, clothes, paraphernalia,
and livestock.
* 75A's dwelling and [family] members:
One roof, 76 two inner rooms, each with a door; rooms and
dwelling are all covered with tile; as for fully grown trees, there are
ten mulberries at the gate.77
* His wife, called X, has absconded and not attended78 the sealing.
* A child, adult female X, who does not yet have a husband.
* A child, non-adult male X, 6 ch'ih 5 ts'un tall.79
* Male servant X; female servant, non-adult X.
* One male dog.
* Several times8o we questioned the Chiefs (tien A)81 X and X and
the kung-shih a? X and X of A's five-man group (wu {fi) as to
whether there was anything else which ought to be sealed and
guarded, and whether X and the others had been remiss, had not
registered it in a document and, as a result, were guilty [of a crime].
74 See above 5.3.

75 These dots of heavy ink are found on the original bamboo strips and mark either
different items, as here, or the breaks between the reports of different officials involved
in the judicial process.
76 In HS 25A.20a, for the sentence T;K-r#FJ4M "The temples of the Five Emperors share
a roof," Yen Shih-ku glosses '"yii refers to the covering of a building. It means that beneath
one building it is divided into five temples" - -
77 The SCCC editors have altered the punctuation of the WW transcription to place a
comma after men Pj "gate." The precise meaning of the sentence is unclear. Perhaps the
SCCC reading should be interpreted, "the trees are mature and all at the gate: ten mulber-
ries." The SHT editors suggest that chii M should be taken as pei fjn which they define as
ch'i-pei rfji "all complete," and that mzt 7 is a mistake for chit ;, an abbreviation of
chu *, the classifier for trees: chu would have been written Xr, and thus would be easy to
confuse with X.
78 Hui - was the technical term for attendance at an official function, such as corvee
duty (cf. 4.143; SHT 4.144, pp. 220-21), derived from the meetings (hui) of the princes
and archer lords of Spring and Autumn period where covenants (meng X) were sworn.
For a translation of 4.144, see below n. 184 on 5.25.
79 Six feet five inches probably indicates an age of 16 1/4 years.
80 The SHT editors consider that chi ; should be understood as ch'a C "examine"
which is certainly possible.
81 Huang Sheng-chang (1977), p. 11, suspects that tien A may be a substitution for
cheng HE, a homophone of the personal name of Ch'in Shih-huang-ti, cheng ]g (see above
p. 119). The li-cheng Wj-E appears in a story about King Chao of Ch'in in the Han Fei-tzzt,
HFTCC, p'ien 35, 3.69-70 (Liao, ii, 125-26), and in Mo-tzu, Mo-tzzt chiao-ting, 15.8a, p.
551, Sun, Mo-tzzt, p. 363.
X and the others all said:

This is the whole of A's sealed [property]; there is nothing else
which ought to be sealed.
Immediately entrust A's sealed [property] to X and the others;
they are to take turns in guarding it with fellow villagers and await
orders.
5.5 Reinterrogation (fu &)
We venture to inform the official in charge of X prefecture:

Male X's statement reads:
[I am a] member of the rank and file, resident in X village, X
prefecture: I went off and absconded.82
What is his determined name, occupation, and village, what are
the discussions for which he is liable, what crimes have been remitted,
has or has not 83 reinterrogated him,84 how many times has he
been registered as absconding, how many and which days were they
on each occasion that he absconded or was absent from work?85
We have sent recorders who should make copies [of the informa-
tion]. Make replies for all the copies.86
We venture to inform the official in charge.
5.6 A Robber Denounces Himself (tao tzu kao 1 )
Transcript from - 87
The self denunciation of kung-shih A of X village reads:
On the last day of the fifth month, I, together with C, a member
of the rank and file of the same village, robbed D, a member of the
rank and file of X village, of one thousand cash. I have no other
liability88 and have come to denounce myself and to denounce C.
82 For arresting absconders pu wang Mjt in the Han dynasty, see Lao Kan, Chii-yen
Han-chien k'ao-cheng __-MM , (1944; rpt. in KS), pp. 13-14.
83 One graph missing, presumably huo A "someone." Cf. 5.3.
84 See 5.3, n. 67 above.
85 The SCCC editors incorrectly suggest that one of the two wang t "absconding" is
superfluous.
86 The WW editors have incorrectly punctuated this sentence by placing a comma
after wei A "make."
87 Three graphs missing.
88 This phrase also appears in KS 14.28, "I report in reply: Before Ho had been bound
for inquiry, he had no other liability. I venture to make this statement" R*9
We immediately ordered the [Foreman] Clerk ([ling-] shih 9j)89

X to go and seize (chih A) C.
5.7 90
Transcript:
Male A bound (fu t#) and brought along male C. His statement
reads:
A [i.e., I] was originally a member of the rank and file resident
in X village. In the fourth month past, [I] stole an ox, went off and
absconded, [erasing] my name [from the registration document].91
C is liable for wantonly92 injuring a man and 93 his name
(-~) Wt2&RrXit > 2 .The clause wu tso i-erh sztng-yi che i in Kzan-tzu,
p'ien 20, "Hsiao K'uang" ;JNJF 1.105., which has given commentators and translators such
considerable difficulty that they have been obliged to emend tso to ts'o s (Chauncey S.
Goodrich, "Some Remarks on Arrows in the Ancient Chinese Legal Process," JAOS, 82
[1962], 537-38), should probably be translated quite simply as, "As for those without
liability who engage in litigation or cases." A similar sentence appears in the edict issued
in 62 B.C., and recorded in HS 23.19b:
Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 344, translates this passage, "From the present time onward, in all
cases of (people of) eighty years and above, except for false accusation, and killing and
injuring people, they shall not be adjudicated for any other (crime)."
89 One graph missing, presumably ling j "Foreman"; the graph does not appear in
the original and has been supplied by the editors.
90 The two graphs of the title are missing. The editors suggest that the second is pu X
"arrest."
91 The SCCC editors quote Chin Cho's ;ij commentary on ming in HS 23. 14a: "ming
is 'name.' It makes the crime complete [?]" ? Hulsewe, Remnants, I,
336 and 382, n. 178, follows Li Ch'i's t interpretation that ming f means "escape"
3t-Ni. Ming 4? appears to be an abbreviation of the term wang ming t 4 which occurs
in the biography of Chang Erh 4 of Wei (SC 89.2) where Ssu-ma Chen quotes Chin
Cho: "Ming is 'name.' It means he removed his name from the registration document
and escaped" 4?:4 , PJJtWjj-. Ts'ui Hao JWM is also quoted: "Wang is 'lack.'
When a person escapes and hides, he erases his name from the registration document.
Escaping, therefore, is thought of as 'lacking a name"' t...tJ 'J$
&.4anto. Cf. Chi-chiuip'ien, 66b. Alternatively, wang i ming I 4o could be taken as
a single clause. The sentence would then be translated "I went off, erasing my name
from the registration document."
92 Tsei PA is a technical term, translated by Hulsewe, Remnants, I, 253 ff. as "murder-
ously" and "destructively." Like tuan *i "deliberately" and kut j "intentionally," the
term is used to classify degrees of culpability and, in this case, is used to describe the
setting out to commit a crime which is in itself an act or is likely to lead to an act destruc-
tive of life or property. Since tsei is also used to refer to rebellious bandits, we have chosen
to translate the term "wantonly," because this English word implies rebellion and reckless
disregard for the law. Tsei also appears in the title of 5.19 below.
93 The missing graph is probably wang t. See n. 91 above.
[from the registration document]. Yesterday, 94 A saw C hiding

among the hired hands in the market-place (shih-yung $*)95 and
arrested (pu M) him in order to come and give himself up.96 A has
no other liability.
5.8 97
Transcript :98
A and B, members of the rank and file of X village, bound and
brought along the males C and D, one hundred and ten new cash,
and two sets of cash molds. The denunciation reads:
C furtively99 cast these cash and D assisted in the casting. A and B
arrested C and D, searched their house, and obtained these cash and
molds. They have come and brought them along.
5.9 Stealing a Horse (tao ma ZPXJ)
Transcript:
94 The term tzu chou P - also appears in 5.11 (twice), in 5.22, and in 5.24, while the
analogous term tzu-hsiao - occurs in 5.21 and 5.22. The SHT editors suggest that
tzu-chou means "daytime yesterday" and that tzu-hsiao means "nighttime yesterday."
In Mo-tzu, p'ien 68, "Ying-ti tz'u" jT1:iJ (Sun, Mo-tzu, pp. 355-56; Ts'en, p. 88), the
duke of a state at the beginning of a military campaign swears an oath in which he ad-
dresses his courtiers with these words: ig ( =--) -T- P, f4gA. It is quite likely,
in our opinion, that hsia JI is a mistake for chou V and that the passage should be trans-
lated, "Oh you two or three gentlemen, assist me diligently even by night and by day,
me, the One Man." Tzu-chou in this context could not possibly mean "daytime yester-
day." Tzu-chou and tzu-hsiao may, therefore, mean no more than "in the daytime" and
"at night." Since this interpretation is based upon an emendation in Mo-tzu, however, it
must remain tentative, and we follow the SHT editors in the translation of the terms.
95 The term shih-yung appears in a Han case dated to Chien-wu M 3/12 (early A.D. 28)
concerning the debt owed by one Hou Su-chun to K'ou En, Hotu Stu-chiin so chai K'otu En
shih . from Chu-yen, WW, No. 1 (1978), p. 30, strip 16; photograph
p. 21. Hulsewe has translated this document and believes that Hou Su-chiin should in
fact be understood as "His Honor, Captain Li"; cf. "A Lawsuit of A.D. 28," Studia Sino-
Mongolica: Festschrift fur Herbert Franke (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1979), pp. 23-34.
96 A would receive a lesser punishment for his original crime if he (a) gave himself up
or (b) brought in the other criminal.
97 Two graphs missing.
98 The editors supply the missing graphyiian * "Replacing."

99 Literally, "in a robberly fashion" tao t. Cf. HS 24B. 13a, translated by Swann, p. 286,
"During the five years [ca. 119-115 B.C.] following the issue of the white metal coins po-
chin and the five-shut cash to the general amnesty [of 115 B.C.], several hundred thousand
officers 1i and people had been sentenced to death for beingguilty of counterfeiting [coins]"
: tX "?2 jLz 2S @ X XA
The robber-seeker (ch'iu-tao * )100 in X ward called A, who is

from the post (t'ing V) in the wardlol south of the market, bound
and brought along male C and one horse, a piebald mare with a
stab woundl02 on the right flank, light red lined garments with silk
lining and wide-bordered collar and sleeves, and shoes. The denun-
ciation reads:
C had stolen this horse and these clothes. Today I saw him by
the post and made the arrest. I have come and brought [them]
along.
5.10 A Dispute about a Cow (cheng niu 4
Transcript:
Kung-shih A of X village and B, a member of the rank and file,
brought along one head of cattle, a black female with a longl03
halter, L04 and with horns. The denunciations read:
This is A or B's cow, but it lacks the brand-mark of each party.105
They have come along together to dispute about it.
We immediately ordered the Foreman Clerk X to age the cow.
The cow was six years old.
5.11 A Gang Robber (ch'iin-tao l) 106
Transcript:
100 The term ch'iu-tao appears in SC 8.11 ("Basic Annals of Kao-tsu" [ff*j), mis-
translated by Chavannes, MH ii, 330, and in HS IA.5b; Dubs, HFHD, I, 33, translates
the term "thief-catcher." See also Yen Keng-wang , Chung-kuo ti-fang hsing-cheng
chih-tu shih rPF -t0.f J.g (CYYY Special Publication No. 45, Nankang, 1961), I, 1,
242-43.
101 This is a good example of an instance in which the French word "quartier" better
represents the Chinese term Ii. Instead of "village," we have translated it here "ward."
Cf. Miyazaki Ichisada, "Les Villes en Chine A l'epoque des Han," TP, 48 (1960), 376-92.
102 The SCCC editors understand p'iao gIJ "stab" as p'iao PI "blind in one eye." Ytu
p'iao t would then mean "blind in the right eye." Cf. KS 504.2; Loewe, Records, ii,
302-7.
103 The WW editors were unable to decipher the graph man ? "long." It is supplied in
the SHT edition.
104 Cf. 4.24: "A, a member of the rank and file, steals a sheep, there is a rope round the
sheep's neck, and the rope is worth one cash. The question is: how is he discussed? If A
thought that what he was stealing was [only] a sheep, though the rope was attached to the
sheep, when A led the sheep away, it is considered that [he stole] no more than a sheep."
105 The WW editors place a comma after wang A, and presumably understand it as
one of the SCCC editors does, namely, "but it strayed; each [party] recognized it." For
A, the subaltern (hsiao-chang KK) 107 of X post and the robber-

seekers in X village called B and C bound and brought along the
male D, two assembled crossbows,108 and twenty bolts. The denun-
ciation reads:
D and the owner of this head assaulted and gang robbed people.109
Yesterday A, leading B and the others, went on patrol to Mount X
and, when they [i.e., we] saw D and the owner of this head, they
arrested them. These crossbows and bolts are the crossbows and
bolts of D and the owner of this head. The owner of this head used
this crossbow and bolts 110 B, then they attacked him with
another example where it is unclear whether the graph n should be read as chih or shih,
see above 5.3 n. 68.
106 Committing a robbery in a group or gang of five persons or more was punished more
severely than stealing property worth more but doing it with fewer than five persons (see,
e.g., 4.1 and n. 67). It should be noted that man was distinguished from the beasts by his
ability to form such groups (Hsiin-tztt [SPPY ed.], 5.7b; Dubs, The Works of Hsun-tze
[1928; rpt. Taipei: Ch'eng-wen ch'u-pan she, 1966], p. 136; HS23. la; Hulsewe, Remnants,
I, 321), but at the same time obligations were created among the participants. The forma-
tion of groups was considered fundamental to the structure of society but was also poten-
tially subversive, especially if it involved drinking or eating, for the sharing of sustenance
was thought of as giving ritual expression to the creation of the mutual bond. The Chou
prohibition of drinking in groups (Shang shki, "Chiu Kao" M ; Bernhard Karlgren,
"The Book of Documents," BMFEA, 22 [1950], 46.14) was, therefore, more significant
than a puritanical attempt to curb the evils of drunkenness, as some recent commentators
have supposed.
It should also be pointed out that ch'iun-tao #$ was a technical term for a person who
engaged in robbery in a gang of five or more. For other examples, see 4.105 (SHT 4.108,
p. 205); SC 90.4 ("Biography of P'eng Yueh" t#IJ); HS 34.13ab refers to P'eng
merely as a "robber" (tao ?). Bodde, China's First Unifier, p. 38, renders the sentence in Li
Ssu's biography (SC 87.28) W+ 3-)IIf, , somewhat
inaccurately as "Yu, the son of Li Ssu, was Administrator of San-ch'uan, and when the
bandit hordes of Wu Kuang and his associates had overrun the territory on their way
toward the west, he had been unable to prevent them from passing by." The phrase
ch'un-tao Wit Kitang teng means "the gang robber Wu Kuang and others." Cf. SC 101.2
("Biography of Yuan Ang" fi#JJ) "[Yuan Ang's] father formerly had been a gang
robber and had been moved to dwell at An-ling [Emperor Hui's tomb]."
107 The military officer of this title appears as a member of the bureau of Water Con-
servation in Kitan-tzu, p'ien 57, "Tu Ti," 3.17 (Rickett, p. 77), and as the executioner
under "The Biography of P'eng Yiueh" in SC 90.5 and HS 34.13b.
108 The WW editors erroneously placed a comma after chii N, "assembled." For the
identification of the "assembled cross-bow," see Lao Kan, Chii-yen Han-chien k'ao-cheng, p.
48, and Loewe, Records, ii, 159.
109 Alternatively, "D and the owner of this head are people who assaulted and gang
robbed."
110 Six graphs missing.
swords and took his head. Because the mountain was rugged, they
could not bring out the body from the mountain.
D's statement reads :LLL
[I am a] member of the rank and file resident in X village. This
head is that of E, a member of the rank and file who, together with
D and F, G and H, members of the rank and file of X village at X
time assaulted and gang robbed the house of kung-shih X of X
village, stole ten thousand cash, went off and absconded.
F and the others had been caught previously. D and E, having
gone off and absconded, moved around with no fixed abode.
Yesterday, they were staying on Mount X. When A and the others
arrested D and E, E shot B and then they attacked and killed [him],
taking the head. None of them have any other crimes or liabilities.
* It is permissible to examine the head without examining the body.
5.12 Wresting away a Head (to shou V-)
Transcript of Army Headquarters[?] (chun-hui WE) X:112

A, a member of the rank and file of X village, bound and brought
along male C and one 13 severed head, male D accompanying.
* The denunciation reads:
[I], A, the batman (ssu-li ULt) of Colonel (wei Of) X was partici-
pating in the battle at Hsing-ch'iu city {R1th.114 Today I saw C at
section headquarters[?] (hui-sui fi) ;115 he immediatelyll6 attacked
"I The editors add the graph hsiin rjI "question" before Ting T "D," which would give
the translation, "[We questioned] D and his reply reads. . ." Such an emendation is
possible but not necessary.
112 The WW editors suggest that hui M should be read as , "the standard (at head-
quarters)." A similar usage appears in HS 54.6b ("Biography of Li Kuang" tg#IJ).
On the sentence , Burton Watson, trans., Courtier and Commoner in
Ancient China (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1974), p. 20, "Whenever he [Li Kuang]
received a reward of some kind, he at once divided it among those in his command,"
Yen Shih-ku glosses that htti is read as ,. The SHT editors take hti as a supplementary
or additional force p'ien shih 0I,.
113 Above i "one," the original strip has a mistaken dot.
114 This battle took place in 266 B.C. The Pien-nien chi, WW, No. 6 (1976), pp. 12-13,
corroborates the statement in SC 5.75 (Chavannes, MH, ii, 90) that the battle took place
in the 41st year of King Chao of Ch'in.
115 The editors do not alter the graph hui M. They interpret sui ti "plumed banner"
as sui g, which they understand as a "road," i.e., "on the road occupied by the supple-
mentary army." The character is, we suspect, a loan for tui 5& "section (in the army),"
written as R in Han documents (for example, Loewe, Records, ii, 42) and as ;, passim,
and wounded D with a sword, wresting away this head, but I made
the arrest and have come and brought [them] along.
We examined the head and, when that was done, we examined D
and also made an examination of the appearance of his wounds.
5.13 117
Transcript of 118
A, a member of the rank and file of X village, and a kung-shih,
formerly of Cheng *X, now resident in X village," 9 called B, together
brought along one severed head. Each denunciation reads:
A and B were fighting at Hsing-ch'iu city;J20 this is the head that
A and B took. A and B are quarrelling with each other and have
come and brought it along.
* We examined the head - with tzu-[ ?] 121 hairstyle, the right-
hand side was wounded in one place; [the wound] was five ts'un
long, penetrating to the bone, of the type left by a sword. Where
the headl22 was uneven, it was mangled[ ?] .123 We searched [for
in the military chapters of Mo-tzu (ch. 14-15). Presumably D had taken the head and was
reporting his trophy in order to claim a degree of rank. C then attempted to wrest the
head away from D, wounding him in the process. D and the batman thereupon arrested
C. Sui/tui, the lowest division of the army on the northwest frontier in Han times (Loewe,
Records, i, 76), may have referred to a larger unit in the Ch'in. It is also possible that the
compound hui-sui f$,02 was the name of the headquarters of the Colonel (wei).
116 The SHT editors suggest that chih ji "immediately" should be understood as
"intentionally/on purpose" kt-i & , which is quite possible.
117 Lien-sheng Yang suggests that the title should be cheng-shou 4a "Quarrelling about
a Head."
118 Two graphs missing.
119 The editors state that Cheng was a town in Ch'in northwest of the modern Hua-
hsien ;, Shensi.
120 The battle took place in 266 B.C. See 5.12 n. 114 above.
121 One graph missing. The editors suggest that the hapax legomenon a be read ssu ,
which the Yu P'ien IE,, (SPTK ed.), 5.6b defines as hsiao-fa JN' "side-whiskers." It is
possible, however, that the graph denotes one of the unusually elaborate hairstyles
worn by Ch'in warriors similar to those which can be seen in the recently discovered life-
sized tomb army of Ch'in Shih-huang-ti. (For diagrams of these coiffures, see WW,
No. 11 (1975), p. 16, and the photographs of the actual figures in the same issue following
p. 30.) Such an interpretation would explain why the authorities believed the head
belonged to a member of the Ch'in army and not to one of the enemy.
122 The editors suggest that t'ou "head" is a loan for tou Aw "neck." Such an inter-
pretation is quite possible.
123 The SHT editors consider that AJA) ts'an-ts'an may mean the appearance of short-
the identity of] the head by [dispatching] letters which read:

If someone is missing from his five-man squadl24 or is late and has
not arrived, send someone to come and identify him at Field
Headquarters (hui-tz'u jwi). 125
5.14 Denouncing a Servant (kao ch'en MIQ

Transcript:
A, a member of the rank and file of X village, bound and brought
along male adult C. The denunciation reads:
C is A's servant. He is arrogant and a scold,126 will not work in
the fields, and disobeys A's orders. I request that he be sold to the
state (kung >X), [have his left foot]127 severed, be made a ch'eng-tan
Fi forced laborer, and that [I] receive the value in cash.
* We questioned C. His statement reads:
[I am] A's servant, am truly a scold and disobey A. A has never
in my whole life discharged [i.e., manumitted] C. C has no disease
and no other crimes or liabilities.
We ordered the Foreman Clerk X to examine C. He was not
diseased.
ness. Since ts'an unreduplicated means "what is left over after wild animals have eaten,"
we tentatively suggest that the binome refers to the mangled appearance of the head.
124 Cf. Meng-tzu Tf ii-B.4 "Kung-sun Ch'ou hsia" oIL (ed. Chu Hsi , Ssu-shu
chi-chu M rff [Hong Kong: T'ai-p'ing shu-chii, 1968], p. 54); D.C. Lau, Mencius
(London: Penguin, 1970), p. 88, "Mencius went to P'ing Lu. 'Would you or would you
not,' said he to the governor, 'dismiss a lancer who has failed three times in one day to
report for duty?' "
125 Cf. Tso chtan Chuang 3; Legge, v, 76 (somewhat emended), "In all military expedi-
tions, where a halt is made for one night, it is called she j; where it is for two nights, it
is called hsin {F; and where it is for more than two nights, it is called tz'u *."
126 Cf. 4.64 (SHT 4.67, p. 185): "A wife is a scold and her husband beats her, splits her
ears, breaks her limbs or fingers, or dislocates her members. The question is: how is the
husband discussed? He should be shaved." Feng Yen Q,*j also sent his wife away for being
a scold (han 1) (Hou Han shu 28B. 12ab).
127 The graphs tso chih Th "left foot" may have been omitted. For this punishment,
see 4.1 and 4.105 (SHT 4.108, p. 205) and Huang Chan-yueh , , "Yun-meng
Ch'in-lu chien-lun" R;f#Mr, KKHP, No. 1 (1980), pp. 10-11, and Hori Tsuyoshi,
"Shinkan keimei ko" I Waseda Daigaku Daigakuin: bungaku kenkyuka kiyo bessa-
tsu . f 4 (1977), 113-31. Possibly i jj is a mistake

for chih, but it is also possible that chan a "sever" should be interpreted by itself as "sever
the left foot."
* We ordered the Shao-nei J/1N128 X and the Aide (tso {t) X to buy
C at the fair market pricel29 in the presence of Assistant X; as C was
an average man, the price was a certain amount of cash.
* The Assistant X informs the official in charge of X district:
Male C is under inquiry. 130 His statement reads:
[I am] the servant of A, a member of the rank and file of X
village.
[What is] his determined'31 name, occupation, and village, what
are the discussions for which he is liable, what crimes have been
remitted, has or has not someone reinterrogated him, has or has not
A ever, in his entire life, discharged C and taken him as a servant
again ?132 Seal and guard him [and his property]'33 according to
the law. When it arrives, acknowledge with a letter.134
5.15 Tattooing a Female Servant (ch'ing-ch'ieh Xji)
Transcript:
The kung-shih A of X village bound and brought along the adult
female C. The denunciation reads:
[I am] the steward (chia-li *3.) of B, a Wu ta-fu TiLkQ5 of X village.
128 According to Cheng Hsuan j32;, the nei pk in the title of the officer Chih-nei i p1 in
Chou Li , "T'ien kuan" it (Chot Li cheng-i ),Mj E,, ed. Sun 1-jang [KHCPTS ed.,
Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1934], ts'e 1, 1.28), is the same as the Han Shao-nei <jpk.
For the duties of the Chih-nei, see Chou Li cheng-i, ts'e 4, 12.22-23; and Edouard Biot, Le
Tcheou-li, 2 vols. (1851; rpt. Taipei: Ch'eng-wen ch'u-pan she, 1969), i, 134-35. Hulsewe
(1978), pp. 195-200, concludes, after an examination of the evidence available, that
shao-nei "were treasuries, that is to say offices which received and disbursed money, at-
tached to all organs, both metropolitan and regional, whose tasks included financial
transactions." Here, the Shao-nei must refer to the official in charge of this treasury.
129 In the Han case mentioned in 5.7 n. 95 above, the word p'ing 2 is used instead of
cheng lE for "fair."
130 See 5.3 above.
131 It might be possible either to interpret ch'i - as modal, "You should determine ...
or to invert the graphs ch'i ting At, and to translate, "Determine his . . ." The SHT
editors translate "Please determine his . . ."
132 Presumably the determination of the servant's status is being made to see whether or
not the sale is legally valid. If the servant had been manumitted, and had then been
illegally forced back into bondage, he would, no doubt, not be sold and mutilated. Cf. HS
17.25b (Wilbur, p. 419, no. 102).
133 See 5.3, n. 69 above.
134 See 5.1, n. 54 above. The SCCC editors interpret the words tao i shu yen qJ.1t rf
"After the original letter arrives, report back using a letter" * : A
similar sentence occurs in KS 255.27: and in other Chu-yen documents.
C is B's female servant. B sent A [i.e., me] to say, "C is a scold; I

request to tattoo and cut off the nose of C."135
* We questioned C. Her statement reads:
[I am] B's female servant; I have no other liability.
* The Assistant X informs the official in charge of X District:
A, the steward of B, a Wu ta-fu of X village, has brought along C,
the female servant of B, saying, "B has ordered A to request to
tattoo and cut off the nose of C."'136 You should ask whether or not
[A's statement] agrees with what [B] said. Determine name, occupa-
tion, and village, what the discussions are for which she is liable,
and whether or not someone has reinterrogated her.
Acknowledge with a letter. 137
5.16 Banishing a Son (ch'ien-tzu X+)
Transcript:
The denunciation of A, a member of the rank and file of X village,
reads:
[I] petition (yeh M) [the authorities] to shackle[?] (wo )138 the
feet of [my] natural139 son C, a member of the rank and file of the
same village, to banish [him] to a border county in Shu i and order
that, to the end of his life, he shall not be able to leave the place of
exile. [I] venture to make [this] denunciation.
We inform the official in charge of Fei-ch'iu lTh :140
A member of the rank and file, formerly of Hsien-yang FAM, now
resident in X village, called C, is liable for his father's petition that
[the authorities] shackle[?] his feet, banish [him] to a border
prefecture in Shu and order that, to the end of his life, he shall not
135 It is unclear whether the authorities or the Wtt ta-fu is to carry out the punishment.
In our opinion, it is probably the former.
136 The WW editors have placed a comma after "C," but it would appear that the
steward's statement ends at this point.
137 See 5.14 n. 134 above.
138 The SHT editors (p. 199) suggest, on the basis of the definition of wo in the Kuangya
Jo, that the word means "to cut off," or that it means "to put shackles on the legs."
139 "Natural" not in the sense of a bastard, but a son by blood, not an adopted son.
140 The SCCC editors identify Fei-ch'iu as being situated southeast of Hsing-p'ing ^ZlS,
Shensi, and say that this would have been the first halting-place on the road south to
Ch'eng-tu in Shu (modern Szechwan, the area to which the Ch'in apparently sent most
of its exiles).
be able to leave the place of exile. We discussed and banished C

according to A's denunciation, with guaranteed [accompaniment]
(Pao N)141 in- accordance with the law. At this time, we have
141 It is possible that the SHT editors are correct in their suggestion that pao tg at
this point and others in the Ch'in documents should be read as pao %. Pao tg *pdg (GSR
11 13a) and pao %, with its variant a, *p8g (GSR 1057f) are probably cognate with pao
* *p8g (GSR 1058a). All these words have related meanings in ritual and legal contexts
of mutual guarantee, protection, and reciprocity. We suggest, however, that in the Ch'in
stripspao 'N andpao i or ;, should not necessarily be conflated, but that these terms may
refer to two different types of guarantee. In later Chinese legal terminology, a technical
distinction was made between pao 'N "to contract or guarantee certain achievement"
andpao i the "guarantee of no failure" (Lien-shengYang, "Government Control of LJrban
Merchants in Traditional China," CHHP, NS 8.1-2 [Aug. 1970], 188-89). The latter
type of guarantee, used in entering officialdom, paying taxes, or securing loans, that is,
in all cases where someone is required to stand surety, seems to have originated in the pre-
Han period. In Tso chuan Hsiang 21, it is recorded that an individual was "unable to be
responsible (pao-jen ;f{) for his father's service." In Hsiin-tzu (Hsiin-tzu chi-chieh j
ed. Wang Hsien-ch'ien (KHCPTS ed., Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1929), p'ien 12,
"Chun Tao" jR& 3.6, shih ? are said to "guarantee (pao %) their official duties." In the
Kuan-tzu, p'ien 57, "Tu Ti," 3.20 (Rickett, p. 82) "each [office holder] is to guarantee
(;) whatever he might supervise." Mo-tzu, ch. 15 describes in detail the surety-houses
(pao-kung ;/&') in which live, during the siege of a city, family members guaranteeing
the good behavior of relatives who act as officials, scouts, or soldiers on special assignments.
In the Wei Liao-tzu , p'ien 22, "Ping Chiao hsia" #J (Kamb n taikei uZk
ed. [1912; rpt. Tokyo: Fuzambo, 1975]), p. 54, the first of twelve strategies for extending
royal power is "linked punishment which means requiring guilt to be shared and the
five-man group to be guarantors" :#IJf r {E-ji4. Hsiang-pao tN; or pao-wu f*:{i
seem to have been variants of hsiang-tso tjI4 "mutual liability" or lien-tso A4I "linked
liability," terms applied in legalist writings to the mutual responsibility of family and
five-man group members as well as coworkers in the bureaucracy.
Pao M appears several times in the Ch'in documents in the term pao-tzu = The
meaning of this term is unclear, and unfortunately a relevant example from KS 145.23
l&&73+ "arrest male pao-tzu[?]" is too fragmentary to lead to any conclusive definition.
The SHTeditors suggest that pao-tzu may be the same as the jen-tzu M-:T "appointed sons"
of the Han dynasty. This is plausible because the phrase i-shang p4J "and above" follows
pao-tzu several times, thereby suggesting that the term pao-tzu indicated a rank or status.
It is, however, possible that pao in the term pao-tzu may refer to a form of negative guaran-
tee because pao in this usage can be shown for other pre-Han texts. It may also be neces-
sary to separatepao 'g frompao i, in disagreement with the SHT editors, and to interpret
the former term as a positive guarantee, specifically the "guaranteed [accompaniment]"
of those sentenced to banishment whose family members stood as surety for their arrival.
Under judicial rules, if someone sentenced to banishment dies or absconds before his
sentence has been carried out, "those who have guaranteed him ;twF must go to the
place of banishment" (4.48; SHT 4.49, p. 177). But if a se-fu -t (for this official, see
Hulsewe [1978] pp. 201-4) is similarly sentenced, "should the wife of the banished person
guarantee -N [his arrival] ? She should not" (4.49; SHT4.50, p. 177). On the other hand,
"if someone should be banished, and his wife has first denounced herself [i.e., under the
shackled[?] C's feet. We have ordered the officials and convicts

(li-t'u i*) to carry passports (chuan ) 142 and one sealed regulation
letter (heng-shu M@) and report to the Foreman Clerks, who may
receive and replace the officials and convicts as they transfer him
through [each] prefecture in turn, and bring [him] to Ch'eng-tu
ijg. At Ch'eng-tu, the regulation letter is to be presented to the
office (ch'u A) of the Grand Administrator (t'ai-shou tr) 143 Feed
them according to the law. When Fei-ch'iu has transferred [them],
it is to make a reply. We venture to inform the official in charge.
5.17 Denouncing a Son (kao-tzu t+)
Transcript:
The denunciation of A, a member of the rank and file of X
village reads:
C, a member of the rank and file of the same village, A's [i.e., my]
natural-44 son, is unfilial';45 I petition that he be killed. I venture to
make this denunciation.
rubric of mutual liability], she [still] should guarantee Ig [his arrival]" (4.50; SHT 4.51,
p. 178).
142 For passports, see Oba Osamu, "Kandai no sekisho to pasup6to" OftjW<,
z ,f- >, Tozai Gakujutsu Kenkyujo ronso5, 16 (1954), 1-30; Ch'en Chih , "Han Chin
kuo-so t'ung-k'ao" L N.!nj, LSYC, No. 6 (1962), pp. 145-48, and Ying-shih Yu,
Trade and Expansion in Han China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press,
1967), pp. 122-28.
143 It is generally accepted that the title of the Administrator was changed from shou V
to t'ai-shou K!Vf only in the 2nd year of Han Ching-ti C (155 B.C.) (HS 19A.28b). The
present document, however, shows that the title t'ai-shou was used in Ch'in times, at least
for Shu, and thus supplies evidence in support of the reading t 'ai-shou for the title in Chao
, in 262 B.C. (SC 43.87); the emendation to excise t'ai t proposed by Chang Shou-chieh
Ntffih and followed by Chavannes (MH, v, 118, n. 2) should therefore not be accepted.
Cf. Chu Hsi-tsu , "Mo-tzu Pei Ch'eng-men i-hsia erh-shih-p'ien hsi Han-jen wei-shu
shuo" -W{ rn{P tg A a, Ku-shih pien f_ (1933; rpt. Hong Kong:

T'ai-p'ing shu-chu, 1963), 4.266.
144 See 5.16, n. 139 above.
145 The denunciation of unfiliality here and the request of capital punishment in 4.85
(SHT 4.89, p. 195), as well as the request for the banishment of a son in 5.16 above, are
of interest because of the supposed hostility of the Legalists to ancestral religion and
associated ritual structures which might intervene between the individual and the state
(see n. 25 above). Unfiliality was recognized as one of the ten evils (offenses) in dynastic
Chinese law (Ch'u T'ung-tsu, Law and Society in Traditional China [The Hague: Mouton,
1961], pp. 25-30, 42-43), but an early tradition existed that filial piety should be upheld
by political authority. The Meng-tzu, VI-B.7, "Kao-tzu hsia" :fF, p. 181 (Lau, Mencius,
We immediately ordered the Foreman Clerk F to go and seize C.

Transcript of Foreman Clerk F:
Together with prison bondservant (li-ch'en ) 146 X, I seized C,
taking him at X house.
p. 177), recounts that Duke Huan of Ch'i yff , at the meeting of K'uei-ch'iu 41h,
pledged, with the other archer lords, "to punish the unfilial." The Liu-shih ch'un-ch'iu F
?4k (SPPY ed.), 14.2a, ascribes to the Shang shu a passage which states that "of the three
hundred crimes which are punishable, none is more serious than being unfilial."
From section 4 of the Ch'in documents, as well as from 5.16 and 5.17, it is evident that
the power of parents, and in particular fathers, over children (and analogously servants
and slaves in their households) was not diminished by the centralized state of the fourth to
third century B.C., but rather incorporated into its scheme of public and bureaucratic law.
The interference of the Ch'in state in intrafamily disputes or delicts and its attempt to
control the actions of heads of households is demonstrated by the use of the term shan X
in contexts of the exercise of parental power: "If anyone unauthorizedly kills, mutilates, or
shaves his [recognized] heir, refer him [to the authorities]" (4.58; SHT 4.60, p. 182).
Specific punishments were outlined for people who illegally assaulted their children: "If
anyone unauthorizedly kills a son, black-brand [the offender], and make him a ch'eng-tan
and her a ch'ung W" (4.56; SHT 4.58, p. 181). Note that ch'ung "rice-pounding" was a
female punishment and therefore mothers are brought within the purview of this instruc-
tion.
Questions in section 4 attempt, on the other hand, to limit the competence of the state
in intrafamily disputes. "What is 'a public domain denunciation'? What is 'a nonpublic
domain denunciation'? Wantonly killing, injuring, or robbing other people is considered
'public domain.' [But] if a son steals from his father and mother, and the parents un-
authorizedly kill, mutilate, or shave the son together with male and female slaves, this is
not to be considered a 'public domain denunciation' " (4.86; SHT 4.90, pp. 195-96).
Slaves who unauthorizedly kill their offspring are made ch'eng-tan, branded, and returned
to their master (4.59, SHT 4.61, p. 183).
The power of parents was also formally recognized by Ch'in law to extend to the killing
of the newly born who were deformed, but social policy intervened so that infanticide was
not condoned if "the child's body is whole and without deformity [and the child is killed]
merely because [the parents] have too many children and do not wish it to live" (4.56;
SHT 4.58, p. 181).
Further distinctions were made in Ch'in law between the power of a father over natural
and over adopted sons. The son's status in this regard is mentioned in 5.16 and 5.17: "If
a father steals from a [natural] son he is not considered a thief. Now an adopted father
steals from an adopted son: how is he discussed ? He should be considered a thief" (4.17;
SHT 4.17, p. 159). Despite the injunctions against killing or assaulting sons, officials are
instructed not to hear denunciations made by sons or servants on these grounds, and the
intervention of outsiders is also disallowed (4.87; SHT 4.91, p. 196). Although sons were
liable at law for the actions of their parents (see n. 66 above), it seems that denunciation
of parental culpability would be considered unfilial, as it was in the Han dynasty when the
unfortunate heir of the king of Heng-shan rF-ij[ "was liable for denouncing the king and
[thus] unfilial," and executed (SC 118.46).
146 The exact status of the 1i ch'en-ch'ieh f "male and female bondservants," who
appear in a large number of the Ch'in documents, is a matter of considerable dispute,
Assistant X questioned C. His statement reads:

[I am] A's natural son and am truly unfilial with regard to A.
I have no other liabilities or crimes.
5.18 Leprosy[?] (li 0) 147
Transcript:
for the evidence is conflicting: some bondservants seem to have been criminals, while
others inherited their status. For discussions of the problem, see Kao Heng A,='It, "Ch'in-
Ii chung 'li-ch'en-ch'ieh' wen-t'i ti t'an-t'ao-chien p'i ssu-jen-pang ti fa-chia 'ai jen-
min' ti miu-lun" 4 -l (itl WW,
No. 7 (1977), pp. 43-50, who adopts the untenable position that not only li-ch'en-ch'ieh,
but all criminals served for life; Kao Min -i4, Yun-meng Ch'in-chien ch'u-t'an Y;V$gfiVJ
(Ho-nan jen-min ch'u-pan she, 1979), pp. 102-2 1, who mistakenly assumes (p. I 1) that
5.4 "Sealing and Guarding" refers to these bondservants; Huang Sheng-chang (1979),
pp. 5-11; Huang Chan-yueh, pp. 17-25; Hulsewe (1978), pp. 211-14; Hori, "Shinkan
keimei ko," p. 116. We tentatively suggest that the criminal bondservants were subjected
to a three-year term, but since the issues involved are so complex, discussion will have to
be deferred. It is unclear whether the bondservants here and in the items below refer
to criminals or to those who have inherited their status.
147 Identification of ancient diseases is, of course, tentative, especially when the only
available evidence is textual. The problem of whether or not lailli g may be identified as
"leprosy" is, in fact, of some comparative historical interest.
The earliest extant Western description of low-resistance leprosy is that of Celsus
(25 B.C.-A.D. 37), who called the disease elephantiasis as did Pliny (A.D. 23-79). The latter
claimed that it had only appeared in Italy about a hundred years earlier. The first clinical
description is by Aretaios Kappadox (fl. A.D. 200). The sara't of Leviticus and elsewhere
in the Septuagint is translated in the Vulgate as lepra but this is not the same condition as
elephas or elephantiasis or medieval Western leprosy: sara't may affect houses and clothing
and denotes a condition of ritual impurity or a temporary form of skin disease. The
osteoarchaeological researches of M0ller-Christensen have confirmed that genuine leprosy
cannot be shown to have existed in either Biblical Palestine or Egypt. For a summary of
research related to these problems, see Johs. G. Andersen, "Studies in the Mediaeval
Diagnosis of Leprosy in Denmark," Danish Medical Bulletin, 16 (Nov. 1969), supplement
IX, 1-142. The earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of leprosy in the West
comes from Poundbury Camp, Dorset, where a recently excavated Romano-British
cemetery has been found to contain bones datable by archaeological context to the fourth
century A.D. Skeletal changes similar to those described for leprous bones by M0ller-
Christensen have been reported (Rachel Reader, "New Evidence for the Antiquity of
Leprosy in Early Britain," Journal of Archaeological Science, 1 [1974], 205-7).
The present Chinese document may well be the earliest description of leprosy and may
indicate an answer to a problem which has vexed historians of medicine: Where was the
original locus of the disease and what was the direction of its transmission to Europe? Drs.
Lu and Needham have argued that "the Chinese did diagnose leprosy fairly specifically in
the first millennium B.C." ("Records of Disease in Ancient China," in Diseases in Antiquity,
ed. D. Brothwell and A.T. Sandison [Springfield, Ill.: C. C. Thomas, 1967], p. 236),
The Chief A of X village brought along villager C, a member of

the rank and file. The denunciation reads:
I suspect leprosy[?] and have come and brought him along.
We questioned C. His statement reads:
At the age of three, I became sick with sores on the head; my
eyebrows swelled up; it could not be ascertained what sickness it
was. I have no other liability.
We ordered the physician D to examine him. D said:
C has no eyebrows; the bridge of the nose is destroyed1;48 his
nasal cavity is collapsed; if you prick his nose, he does not sneeze;
elbows and knees 149 down to 150 the soles of both feet are
defective and are suppurating in one place; his hands have no hair;
I ordered him to shout and the ch'i ; of his voice was hoarse. It is
leprosy[?].
but their evidence for this is an ambiguous passage in the Lun Yui where Confucius is de-
scribed as visiting his disciple who is afflicted with lailli, and being willing to touch the
sick man's hand only through the window. Nathan Sivin has suggested that the identifica-
tion is unconvincing (S. Nakayama and N. Sivin ed., Chinese Science: Explorations in an
Ancient Tradition [Cambridge: MIT Press, 1973], p. 306) but when the description of
lailli g in the Nei-ching stt-wen f,r,J also quoted by Lu and Needham and dated by
them to the second century B.C., is adduced with the third century B.C. Ch'in forensic
document, the identification may be more tenable. There is a striking similarity between
some of the symptoms of lailli in the Nei-ching and those listed in the Ch'in document. In
particular, the destruction of the "pillar of the nose" (pi-chu ^,'I) might suggest either
leprosy or syphilis (for possible confusion between the two diseases arising from similar
rhino-maxillary changes, see Andersen, pp. 73-78), but a much more positive identifica-
tion can be made from the range of symptoms in the Ch'in examination. Swelling of the
eyebrows, loss of hair, absorption of the nasal cartilege, affliction of knees and elbows,
difficult and hoarse respiration, as well as anaesthesia are significant diagnostic criteria
for low-resistance leprosy. In this regard, it is interesting that the first non-Chinese writer
to mention the destruction of the nasal septum in leprosy was the Arab philosopher and
physician Avicenna (980-1037) and that the test for lepromatous anaesthesia (pricking
with a needle) is not recorded in the West until the work of Arnauld de Villeneuve (1235-
1312). Given the resemblance between the symptoms in 5.18 and other premodern de-
scriptions of genuine leprosy, we would suggest, modifying Lu and Needham, that the
disease was present in China at least by the third century B.C., probably some two hundred
years before it was recognized and recorded in the Mediterranean region. Lailli also
appears in 4.101-3 (SHT 4.104-6, pp. 203-4) where it is ruled that afflicted people
who commit crimes or criminals who contract the disease are punished more severely than
the crime alone would warrant: in 4. 101, for example, by being drowned or buried alive.
148 The editors suggest that the graph ken % be read as ken t.y, with the sense of shan ken
SIjt "bridge of the nose".
149 Three graphs missing.
150 One graph missing.
5.19 Death by Wanton Violence (tsei-ssu SYE)
Transcript:
The denunciation of A, robber-seeker in X post reads:
In place X in the area under my jurisdiction, there is an un-
identifiable male with bound hair who has died by wanton violence.
I have come to inform.
We immediately ordered the Foreman Clerk X to go and make
an examination.
Foreman Clerk X's Transcript:
Along with prison bondservant X and A, I immediately made
the examination. The male corpse was situated in X house with
head to the south, lying straight out facing up. On the left corner
of X's head there was a blade laceration in one place, on the back
[of the body] in two places, all vertical to the back of the head, each
being four ts'un long, with the blood mixed together,151 and each
being one ts'un wide: all the lacerations were precisely of axe type.
Blood was being emitted both from the cranium, the temples, and
beneath the eye sockets, befouling the back of the head and the
ground; none [of the blood] could be reckoned as to length and
breadth. The rest of the body was whole. The clothes were of
unlined cloth, skirt and jacket one item each. As for the straightl52
lacerations in the back of his jacket, they had been cut by a blade
in two places. The back of his jacket and the middle of the skirt
were 153 befouled with blood, corresponding to the lacera-
tions.154 To the west of the man was a pair of lacquered Ch'in
corded shoes. One was more than six pu away from the man, the
other ten pu. We took the shoes, put them on the man and they
fitted him. The ground was hard and we could not discern foot-
prints of the assailant (tsei M). The man was able-bodied, pale of
complexion, seven ch'ih one ts'un tall, and his hair was two ch'ih
151 The SCCC editors suggestjuan X "soft" be read asju Mt which they define as "blood
mixed together."
152 The SHT editors interpret chih A "straight" as hsiang-tang Trn "corresponding."
154 Or, takingying wei 0 ( = ) X and the previous sentence with the SCCC editors, "As
for the straight lacerations in the back of his jacket, they were cut by a blade in two places
corresponding to the lacerations. The back of his jacket and the middle of the skirt ...
befouled with blood."
long. His belly had old moxibustion scars in two places. From the
place where the man's corpse was to post X was a hundred pu, and
to the field hut of C, a member of the rank and file of X village, was
two hundred pu.
* We order A to coverL55 the man with his cloth skirt and bury him
at place X and to await orders. Bring along the jacket and shoes to
the Judicial Office (t'ing E) .156 Question the people in A's post and
C to ascertain on what day [the man] had died and whether or not
they had heard him cry "Robber" (k'ou a).157
5.20 Death by Hanging (ching-ssu HUE)
Transcript:
A, the Chief of X village, states:
Villager C, a member of the rank and file, has died by hanging
in his house; I do not know the reason and have come to inform.
* We immediately ordered the Foreman Clerk X to go and make
an examination.
* Transcript of Foreman Clerk X:
Along with prison bondservant X, and A, C's wife and daughter,
I immediately examined C. C's corpse was suspended from the
crossbeam of the north wall in the eastern inner room of his house,
facing south, by a hemp rope as thick as a thumb. The noose was
tied round the neck; the noose was tied at the nape and the top of
the rope was tied to the beam; the rope was bound round twice
and the tail end left over was two ch'ih long. The top of the head was
155 The SCCC editors suggest that the unknown graph pij be read asyen ~J "sharp," a
loan foryen & "cover."
156 This is probably the office of the prefecture hsien.
157 4.81 (SHT 4.85, p. 193) reads: "A bandit enters A's house, wantonly wounds A, and
A cries "Robber"; his four neighbors, the Village Chief and Elder have all gone out and
are not present, so that they do not hear him cry "Robber!" The question is: should they
be discussed or not? If they really were not present, they should not be discussed, but
although the Chief and Elder were not present, they should [nevertheless] be discussed."
4.83 (SHT 4.87, pp. 194-95) reads: "Someone wantonly kills or wounds a man on the
main road, and those with him or close by do not come to his assistance. Those within one
hundred pu (600 feet) [should be discussed] analogously to [such an occurrence in] the
countryside (yeh Xr) and should be fined two sets of armor." In the present case, therefore,
the officials are required to determine whether or not C and the people in A's post are
liable for the delict of hearing the shout for help, but failing to come to the victim's as-
sistance and apprehending the murderer.
two ch'ih away from the beam and the feet were two ts'un off the
ground. The back of the head touched the wall; the tongue protruded
level with the lips; below, he had excreted faeces and urine which
befouled both his legs. When we released the rope, the ch'i from his
mouth and nose spurted out. The rope had left bruises from the
tightness158 two ts'un short of encompassing the nape. As regards
other considerations, there were no signs of weapons, wood, or rope.
The beam was one wei thick and three ch'ih long; it was two ch'ih
west of an earthen platform. On the platform one could leadl59 and
tie the rope [to the beam]. The ground was hard and we could not
discern human footprints. The rope was one chang long. His clothes
were: unlined jacket and skirt of silk thread, one item each; he was
barefoot. 160 I immediately ordered A and the daughter to
convey C's corpse and bring it to the Judicial Office.
In the examination, it is necessary first to make a thorough and
careful inspection of the evidence; should he have arrived alone at
the place of death, immediately inspect the rope used in the tying
and whether where it is tied still has marks round it; then inspect
whether the tongue protrudes or not, how far the head and feet
each are from where it was tied and the ground, and whether or not
he has excreted faeces and urine. Then untie the rope; inspect
whether the mouth and nose spurts or not, and inspect the form of
the bruises left by the rope. Lead the rope to where it was tied and
try to slip it off the head. If you can slip it off, then 161 his
clothes; inspect the body all over from the hair on the head to the
crotch. If the tongue is not protruded and the mouth and the nose
have not spurted forth, the rope has not left bruises or the rope is
tied so that it cannot be quickly slipped off ,162 it would be
difficult to verify as death. 163 When a person has been dead a
158 The editors interpret 8 as a short form of chiao j "pepper plant" and a loan for
tsu Iff "tighten." Yu #f (GSR 495b *jiwat) "block up" should possibly be taken as yii g
(GSR 61h *.io) "blood congestion/bruise," although phonetically the two words were
quite dissimilar in the archaic language.
159 Tao a "road/speak" is perhaps a loan for or abbreviation of tao a "lead." The
SHT editors interpret it asyu fb, "follow/from."
161 One graph missing, probably shih JN "inspect."

163 One graph missing, probably ching E "by hanging."
long time, in some cases his mouth and nose will be unable to
spurt. A suicide must first have a reason: question his co-residents
to answer for his reason.164
5.21 Robbery by Tunneling (hsueh-tao )
Transcript:
The denunciation of B, a member of the rank and file of X village
reads:
Last night, [I] stored B's [i.e., my] lined silk[?] (;) 165 clothes on
one of B's side rooms and closed the door. Only B and his wife, C,
sleep at night in the hall (t'ang 1). This morning, I got up and
opened the door to take out the clothes, but people had already
tunnelled into the side room penetrating to the inside, and the
silk[?] clothes were unavailable. I do not know who the robbers by
tunneling were or their number. I have no other lost [articles] and
have come to inform.
* We immediately ordered the Foreman Clerk X to go and make
an examination and search for the robbers.
Foreman Clerk X's Transcript:
Along with District 166 bondservant X and B, and Chief D,
I examined B's side room. The side room was on the east of the
large inner room, very close to it, facing south and with a door.
Behind the room, there was a small hall and, in the center of the
room, there was a new hole which penetrated into the room. [The
place where] the hole went down was level with the small hall. At
the top, it was two ch'ih three ts'un high and, at the bottom, two
ch'ih five ts'un wide; at the top, it was shaped like a pig's hole. What
had been used to dig with was of wide chisel (p'ang-tsao -) type.'67
164 4.61 (SHT4.65, p. 184) reads: "Someone commits suicide, and his family members
do not tell the officials, but immediately bury him. The question is: should the wife and
children of the deceased be arrested? If they bury him without telling them (i.e., the
officials), they should be fined one set of armor." In this case, the family members have
followed the correct procedure in reporting the suicide to the authorities.
165 The graph kt (ku?) is unknown, but must refer to a type of silk cloth. The SHT
editors suggest that it should be read as chuii , i.e., a garment with a long border or lapel.
166 Two graphs missing, probably mou X "X" and lao $ "prison."
167 The SCCC editors have emended the faulty punctuation of the WW transcription.
The exact meaning of p'ang - is unclear. Perhaps it should be understood as "wide" or
as a loan for fang t "square."
The marks of the chisels were 168 and two-thirds ts'un wide.
The earth from the hole was on the small hall.169 The hole had been
dug straight and the earth removed, and it broke into the room.
In the soil in the room, and in and outside the hole, there were
prints of knees and hands in six places each. The earth outside [had
prints of] Ch'in corded shoes in four places, one ch'ih two ts'un
long; from the toes there were numerous cord [prints] four ts'un
long, from the sole there were fewer, five ts'un long, and from the
heel there were numerous [prints] three ts'un long. The prints of the
shoes were of old shoe type. To the north of the room was a wall
which was seven ch'ih high, and immediately north of the wall was
the alley. The wall in the north was a chang away from the northern
lip of the small hall and the eastern end of the wall was five pu away
from the room. On top of it, there was a small amount of new
damage; the damage was directly in the center and on the outside,
with traces of the type made by feet striking it; none of them could
be reckoned for length and breadth. The ground at the foot of the
small hall and outside the wall was hard and could not be imprinted.
We do not know the number of robbers or where they have gone.
In the room, there was a bamboo clothes box which was in the
north-east of the room; it was four ch'ih away from the walls both
to the north and east, and was one ch'ih high. B says that 170
silk[?] clothes were in the clothes box.
* We questioned B and C. They both said:
B made these clothes in the second month past; the material was
fifty ch'ih [long], silk lined, five chin of silk thread, and five ch'ih of
ornamented silk[?]"'7 for hems and borders. We do not know who
168 One graph missing. The SHT editors suggest that it is erh = "two."
169 In early China, the hall was distinguished by having a rammed earth foundation
and one would enter such a hall by mounting some steps. The soil is presumably on this
step-foundation.
170 One graph missing, probablyfu ; "lined."
171 The SCCC editors understand the graph i as chuang f "ornamented/decorated"
and the graph mou g as the name of a type of tseng tM "silk cloth." The precise difference
between po % and tseng , has given commentators considerable difficulty since the Shuo-
wen M-;C dictionary defined the one as the other. Jen Ta-chung {fjkiW (Shih Tseng ,
Huang Ch'ing ching-chieh fT,ml [Kuang-chou hsiieh-hai t'ang, 1860], 503. la-2a)
concludes that po was the name of a type of tseng of pi-jade M color. He bases his argument
upon a critical examination of the Chi-chiu p'ien, 28ab; upon the commentary of Yen Shih-
ku, who states that po is a general name for tseng; upon the Tzu Lin t#, which concurs
the robbers were, whether it was early morning or evening, and have
no suspects.
* We questioned D and ,172 a member of the rank and file and
B's fellow five-man group member (wu-jen {i%A)173 who said:
We saw that B had lined silk[?] clothes with bound hems and
borders. They were new. We do not know what articles were
174or how they got lost.
* According to this, price the value of the clothes.
5.22 An Aborted Child (ch'u-tzu tti?)
Transcript:
The denunciation of A, the wife of a member of the rank and file
of X village reads:
A had been carrying a child for six months. Yesterday, [I, A]
fought with adult female C, a fellow villager. A and C seized each
other by the hair and C knocked and ground down[?]175 A. The
villager, kung-shih D, came to the rescue and separated C and A.
When A reached her house, she immediately became sick with belly
with Yen's opinion; and upon Cheng Hsuan's gloss on Chou Li (SPTK ed.), 5.16b, "po
is like the modern pi-jade colored tseng" , Cf. Biot, Le Tcheou-li, I, 433,
who translates po as "taffetas." Jen quotes from the Admonitions to Women (Nii Chieh ;(X)
as found in the Sung encyclopedia T'ai-p'ing yii-lan taz #p (S. Sung ed., rpt. Peking:
Chung-hua shu-chu, 1960), 814.8a, (this is a Han work by Ts'ao Chao 7&p mistakenly
attributed to Ts'ai Yung V M by the T'ai-p'ing yii-lan editors and left uncorrected by Jen)
that "when tseng is expensive and thick, and in addition the color is deep, it is used for its
pliability and strength" i ,1U i, h4,i. Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, Written on
Bamboo and Silk (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 126, defines tseng as "a finely
woven silk with heavy threads . . . probably made from the product of wild silkworms
and was thicker, darker and more durable than other kinds of plain silk materials." Jean
Mailey, "Some Suggestions concerning the Ground of the Ch'u Silk Manuscript in Rela-
tion to Silk-weaving in pre-Han and Han China," in Early Chinese Art and its Possible In-
fluence in the Pacific Basin, ed. Noel Barnard (Taiwan, 1974), p. 110, suggests that the pi-
color indicates that "undyed tabbies [of tseng] probably had a green or brown tinge as if
they were made of wild silk." Cf. E. I. Loubo-Lesnitchenko, "Nekotoriye terminiye dlya
shelkovyh tkanii v drevnem Kitaye" ("Some Terms for Silk Tissue in Ancient China"),
Trudii Gosudarestnnovo Ermitazha, 5 (1961), 252, who relies heavily on Jen Ta-chung.
172 One graph missing, either mou A "X" or mou y6 "E."
173 4.82 (SHT4.86, p. 194) defines a man's four neighbors as those people (presumably
the heads of households) who belong to his five-man group.
174 The graph li ; is obscure; possibly the one graph missing isyiian a "hemmed."
175 The meaning of Vf- is unclear. Possibly the word is a loan foryen 6j- "grind."
pains; last night, the child miscarried and aborted. Now A, having
wrapped and carried the child, has brought it along to denounce
herself and to denounce C.
We immediately ordered the Foreman Clerk X to go and seize C
and immediately to examine the sex of the baby, how much hair
had grown, and the appearance of the placenta. We also ordered a
bondwoman (li-ch'ieh) who has given birth several times to examine
the appearance of A's emissions of blood from her vaginal76 and
wounds.",7 We also questioned the people in A's house concerning
the condition in which A reached the house and the type of belly
pains when the child aborted.
* Transcript of Assistant B:
[I] ordered the Foreman Clerk X and the bondservant X to
examine the child which A had brought along. It had been previously
wrapped in a cloth napkin and, in shape, it resembled clotted blood
[i.e., an unformed fetus], large as a hand, and unidentifiable as a
child. They immediately placed it in a basin of water and shookl78
it: it was clotted blood [i.e., an unformed fetus], a child. Its head,
body, arms, hands, fingers, legs down to the feet, and the toes,
were of human type, but eyes, ears, nose, and sex were unidentifiable.
When it was taken out of the water, it again had the appearance of
clotted blood.
* Another Form for it reads:
We ordered the bondwomen X and X, who have given birth
several times, to examine A. They both stated that A had dried
blood on her front and sides. At the moment, blood is still being
emitted, but it is lessening: it is not menses. X has been carrying a
child but it miscarried. The blood on her front and the blood that
is being emitted resembles A's .179
5.23 A Statement about Poison (tu-yen 180
Transcript:
176 The SHT editors suggest that ch'ien U, should be understood asyin-pu C- n3 "vagina,"
which may well be correct.
177 The SHT editors suggest thatyung a which normally means "abscess" should here
be taken as "wound."
178 The text (strip 91) has yao M "trees moving" which is a loan for yao A "shake."
SCCC incorrectly transcribes the graph as A, and says it is a loan for f-.
179 The last graph is missing. Possibly it is hsiieh ift "blood."
180 The title might be rendered "Poisonous Words." We suspect that the poison is not a
Kung-shih A of X village and others, twenty people in all, brought

along villager C, a member of the rank and file. All their denuncia-
tions read:
C has stated that he would like to[ ?] 181 poison people. A and the
others balk at eating and drinking with him and have come to
denounce him.
We immediately wrote down separately the names and occupa-
tions on the back of an official tablet (kuan-tieh M).
* We questioned C. His statement reads:
My maternal grandmother D, of the same village, was liable for
stating that she would like to[?] poison people and was banished
when she was more than thirty years old. Whenever C's household
holds a sacrifice, we summon A and the others, but A and the
others are unwilling to come. In addition, they have never summoned
C to drink. Whenever the village has a sacrifice, C, along with the
villagers and A and the others, meet to eat and drink. Not one is
willing to share a cup or vessel with C. A and the others and the
elder and younger brothers of the villagers, and others who know C,
curse but rather some concoction to be slipped into the food and drink. Wang Ch'ung
IEi, however, wrote an essay in his Lan Heng r'*j entitled "Yen-tu" "Speaking
Poison" (KHCPTS ed., Shanghai, 1934), ts'e 4, 23.15-17, translated by A. Forke as "On
Poison" (Lun-Heng: Philosophical Essays of Wang Ch'ung, 2 vols. [London: Luzac, 1907],
Part 1 [Vol. I], 198):
The fiery air of the sun regularly produces poison. This air is hot. The people living in the land
of the sun are impetuous. The mouths and tongues of these impetuous people become venomous.
Thus the inhabitants of Ch'u and Yiieh are impetuous and passionate. When they talk with others,
and a drop of their saliva happens to fly against their interlocutors, the arteries of the latter begin
to swell and ulcerate.
The Southern Circuit [Nan-chun M, the area in which Hsi lived] is a very hot region. When
the people there curse a tree, it withers, and, when they spit upon a bird, it drops down
181 The SHT editors quote Yang Shu-ta % (1885-1956), Tz'zt Ch'ulan ~JJ- (1928;
rpt. Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1932), 4.55, that ning * is a meaningless particle.
Ning appears in Tso chuan Hsiang 31. Legge (text, v, 560) translates the passage (p. 564)
as "Guests [then] came to Tsin as if they were going home;-what
calamity or distress had they to think of?" Another example occurs in the Shih Ching,
Ode 257, "Sang Jou" t, in the line . Karlgren, "Glosses on the Ta Ya and
Sung Odes," BMFEA, 18 (1946), 113, gloss 980, rejects Cheng Hsiian's interpretation of
ning as an % "be content with," and prefers Ch'en Huan's - interpretation that ning
means hu MA "why?" i.e., "Why are they a bitter poison?" Although Ch'en and Karlgren
may well be correct in the interpretation of the Ode, ning clearly cannot have the meaning
of "why" in the present context and perhaps is related to the Tso chuan usage. Our rendi-
tion is tentative. Possibly ning should be read as ning fi, which the literati in Yen-t'ieh lun
M p'ien 26 "Tz'u-i" ,f1IJg (KHCPTS ed., Shanghai, 1934) p. 99, define as "to lead
people astray by evil" S1gjApf f.
all balk at eating and drinking with C. Even though I am C, I do

not carry poison and have no other liability.
5.24 Fornication (chien 4F) 182
Transcript:
A, a member of the rank and file of X village, brought along a
male B and a female C. The denunciation reads:
B and C fornicated together. Yesterday, I observed place X. I
arrested, fettered, and have come and brought them along.
5.25 An Absconder Gives Himself Up (wang tzu ch'u t 8 i)
Transcript from X District:

Male A brought himself along. His statement reads:
[I am] a member of the rank and file, resident in X village. In
the second month past, on an unidentified day, I went off and
absconded; I have no other liability and have come to give myself up.
* We asked him p183 name and occupation and determined
that he had wandered off and absconded on the day ping-tzu N-Ii
of the second month.L84 In the third month, he was absent from
constructing a government building (kung ') for twenty days. In
the fourth year, third month, on the day ting-wei T*, he was reg-
istered for one abscondence of five months, ten days.L85 He has no
182 The Ch'in punished certain types of fornication severely. 4.151 (SHT4.153, p. 225)
reads: "If persons of the same mother but of different fathers fornicate together, how are
they discussed? They are cast away in the market place [i.e., executed]." 4.153a (SHT
4.63, p. 183) reads: "If a servant (ch'en E) forcibly fornicates with his master or mistress,
how is he discussed? Analogously to striking a master or mistress." The punishment for a
servant who strikes his master is unfortunately not mentioned in the excavated strips.
183 One graph missing, presumably 1i g "village." Cf. 5.3 and 5.5, not ho f{J "what"
as Huang (1979), p. 4, suggests.
184 The SCCC and SHT editors suggest that chiang-yang JjWj, should be interpreted as
yu tang O "wandered off." Cf. 4.143 (SHT 4.144, pp. 220-21), "if [someone] does not
attend [corvee service etc.], he is to be beaten; if he is caught before a full year is over, a
further beating is to be carried out for 'wandering off.' " The term appears in Shang shu
ta-chuan RW1;Jki ([SPTK ed.], 1B.14b), which Chu Chuin-sheng XB (1788-1858)
(Shuo-wen t'ung-hsiin ting-sheng & M11)t [Lin-hsiao-ko ed.], 1851, 18.43a) suggests is
similar to hsiang-yang iUt, which Yen Shih-ku (HS 97A. 15a "Wai-ch'i chuan" A fgf)
defines as "soaring/wandering off," ao-hsiang $.
185 See also 5.3 n. 64 above. This date appears to correspond with the fourth month,
243 B.C. (Huang [1979], pp. 4-5, and pp. 118-19 above).
other liability. No one has reinterrogated or questioned him. We

have referred A to the Chief B for examination, and we now have
ordered B to take him along for discussion.
We venture to make this statement.186
186 The ending formula kan yen chih suggests that this document is being sent from
a lower to a higher office, in contrast to 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5 which are orders transmitted
from higher to lower authorities.

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Harvard-Yenching Institute

Forms of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of The Feng-chen shih

KATRINA C. D. McLEOD ROBIN D. S. YATES

S INCE the publication of archaeological journals resumed in

The following abbreviations are used in the article:

KHCPTS Kuo-hsiieh chi-pen ts'ung-shu KMA*RS

The present article is devoted to a translation, with brief philo-

MH Edouard Chavannes, Les Memoires historiqutes de Se-ma Ts'ien, 5 vols. (Paris:

1 Hsiao-kan ti-ch'u ti-erh-ch'i i-kung-i-nung wen-wu k'ao-ku hsiin-lien pan *AM g

considerable importance, for they present a rare insight into the

Fujieda Akira AR , inter alia, "Kankan no moji sugata" O DTthbk,

"g, 28, No. 4 (Mar. 1979), pp. 51-86.

ment of law and related administrative procedures during the

THE PREPARATION OF THE TRANSLATION

In the preparation of the translation, we have used the transcrip-

distinguished alphabetically: for example, 4.1 53a (SHT 4.63,

ever, are as follows:

THE DATING OF THE YUN-MENG DOCUMENTS

The precise dating of the texts found in the Shui-hu-ti coffin

Chronicle indicates the first year of Shih-huang-ti's reign as "the

registered for one abscondence of five months, ten days" IMA,KiZt1,

15 Huang Sheng-chang, "Yiin-meng Ch'in-chien pien-cheng" ag-*fMM-E, KKHP, No. 1

B.C.). It is quite possible that theproforma and procedural documents

and subsequent dynasties and that it may therefore be unreliable

Our preliminary conclusion on the dating of section 5 of the

27 Hu Hou-hsuan ~AF,l "Yin-tai ti yiieh-hsing" ,(fliJfIJ, KK, No. 2 (1973),

The new Ch'in legal documents should, therefore, not necessarily

THE NATURE OF THE DOCUMENTS IN SECTION 5

All the documents of section 5, except numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5 are

Concerning the expression ch'uan-yiian-shu [N&R], I have followed the explana-

In a personal communication concerning section 5, Professor

5.4 specifies that the "transcript" derives from "X District"

The nature of section 4 of the Ch'in laws should, therefore, in our

42 Cf. the remarks on yiian-sht by Yu Wei-ch'ao -jt , "Luieh-shih Han-tai yii-tz'u

further problems: in some cases alternative penalties are suggested

48 Hulsewe, Remnants, i, 344.

is stated : W;'R1W51 Hulsewe translates,

5.1 Trying a Case (chih-yu MM)

In trying a case, if one can use the documents to track down53

the parties without investigation by beating (chih-luieh 'thp), that is

5.2 Questioning Parties to a Case (hsun-yui -f1)

In general, when questioning parties to a case, you must first

he is lying (i M), there is no need to interrogate (chieh M) him im-

tigate by beating, you must compose a document which reads:

5.361 Under Inquiry (yu chii )

69 Feng shou + appears to be some form of property impoundment or confiscation,

5.4 Sealing and Guarding (feng-shou ) 7 2

Transcript from X district (hsiang Wf4) 73

p. 320; Ts'en Chung-mien 4-Lr1, Mo-tzu ch'eng-shou ko-p'ien chien-chu t

74 See above 5.3.

X and the others all said:

5.5 Reinterrogation (fu &)

We venture to inform the official in charge of X prefecture:

5.6 A Robber Denounces Himself (tao tzu kao 1 )

We immediately ordered the [Foreman] Clerk ([ling-] shih 9j)89

[from the registration document]. Yesterday, 94 A saw C hiding

5.9 Stealing a Horse (tao ma ZPXJ)

98 The editors supply the missing graphyiian * "Replacing."

The robber-seeker (ch'iu-tao * )100 in X ward called A, who is

5.10 A Dispute about a Cow (cheng niu 4

5.11 A Gang Robber (ch'iin-tao l) 106

A, the subaltern (hsiao-chang KK) 107 of X post and the robber-

5.12 Wresting away a Head (to shou V-)