Dà Qīng Lǜlì 大清律例
The Great Qīng Code with Substatutes by 三泰 (奉敕纂), 徐本 (奉敕纂), 劉統勳 (續纂)
About the work
The working penal-and-administrative code of the Qīng dynasty in 47 juǎn, in its mature recension as adopted under the imperial command of Qiánlóng 5 (1740) and revised in successive five-yearly updates through the eighteenth century. The Sìkù-included version reflects the 1768 (Qiánlóng 33) state of the text, with the basic substatute body of 1740 incorporating revisions added through the early Qiánlóng decades. Compiled by Sān Tài 三泰 (d. 1759) and Xú Běn 徐本 (1683–1747) under the original Qiánlóng 5 commission, with the continuing revisions supervised by Liú Tǒngxūn 劉統勳 (1700–1773). The work is the canonical late-imperial Chinese legal code, the descendent through the Míng Dà Míng lǜ of the Táng Lǜ shūyì (KR2m0054), and one of the most thoroughly translated and studied premodern Chinese codes in modern Western legal sinology.
Tiyao
The local WYG source contains only the Shùnzhì 3 (1646) imperial preface to the predecessor Dà Qīng lǜ jíjiě fùlì 大清律集解附例 — the tíyào proper is not in the in-tree file. The Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào (Kanseki number 0173601) preserves the tíyào, here translated:
In Qiánlóng 5 (1740) by imperial command. Imperial preface promulgated. Total: Lǜmù (table of laws) 1 juǎn; Zhūtú (charts) 1 juǎn; Fúzhì (mourning-relations) 1 juǎn; Mínglì lǜ 2 juǎn; Lì lǜ 2 juǎn; Hù lǜ 7 juǎn; Lǐ lǜ 2 juǎn; Bīng lǜ 5 juǎn; Xíng lǜ 16 juǎn; Gōng lǜ 2 juǎn; Zǒnglèi (general categories) 7 juǎn; Bǐyǐn lǜtiáo (analogical-citation articles) 1 juǎn. Prefaced by ten fánlì (general principles) and the memorials and arguments from Shùnzhì onwards. There are then reverently transcribed: an imperial preface by Shìzǔ Zhānghuángdì (Shùnzhì), an imperial decree by Shèngzǔ Rénhuángdì (Kāngxī), an imperial preface by Shìzōng Xiànhuángdì (Yōngzhèng), and an imperial decree (also Yōngzhèng), placed at the head of the juǎn.
The articles of our dynasty’s code: from the founding of the dynasty, an imperial command was issued to Wú Dáhǎi 吳達海, Minister of Punishments, et al., to investigate the Míng code in detail and supplement it with the institutions of our state, redacting it into a complete book and promulgating it within and beyond the empire. In Kāngxī 9 (1670), Grand Secretary Duì Kānà 對喀納, with concurrent control of the Ministry of Punishments, et al., was again ordered by imperial decree to collate and correct it; soon afterwards another imperial instruction directed the ministerial officials to determine, of the substatutes (tiáolì) outside the fixed code, which to delete and which to preserve, with detailed examination, and to print them as appendices to the code, revised over time. By Yōngzhèng 1 (1723), Grand Secretary Zhū Shì 朱軾 and Minister Chá Lángā 查郎阿 et al. were charged with continuing the work. Our present sovereign (Qiánlóng) on his ascension granted Minister Fù Nǎi’s 傅鼐 request to summon the courtier-officials and verify the articles one by one, completing the present compilation: more than a thousand established substatutes were drawn into the code. The imperial mind being attentive and benevolent, the Way takes its meaning in fitting the case to a balanced standard. Whenever judicial files were memorialised, all minute distinctions were analysed, weighing facts against the law, instructing as the case demanded — always seeking the level rule, manifesting the principle of “lighter in light times, heavier in heavy times.” Furthermore, every several years there was a revision: each new substatute was severally appended at the end. The court-officials, hearing the imperial voice, sometimes tracing the trace back to the heart, sometimes inferring the manifest to reach the hidden, settled the matter with a single phrase, fully balanced upon the truthfulness of heaven’s principle and human feeling. The sage’s attention to many an ordinary lawsuit is a thing without parallel among emperors and kings of millennia past; and this compilation is, accordingly, the jade-rule and gold-canon of all ages.
Abstract
The Dà Qīng lǜlì is the working law of the Qīng dynasty from 1740 onwards. Its predecessor was the Dà Qīng lǜ jíjiě fùlì 大清律集解附例 of Shùnzhì 3 (1646), promulgated under the supervision of Wú Dáhǎi 吳達海, which followed the Dà Míng lǜ article-for-article and added Manchu-state institutions. Kāngxī 9 (1670) saw a major collation under Grand Secretary Duì Kānà 對喀納, and Yōngzhèng 1 (1723) a continuation under Zhū Shì 朱軾 and Chá Lángā 查郎阿. The 1740 Qiánlóng recension, requested by Minister Fù Nǎi 傅鼐 and overseen for the actual compilation by Sān Tài 三泰 and Xú Běn 徐本, drew more than a thousand established substatutes into the body of the code. Thereafter the code was revised on a roughly five-yearly cycle, with each new substatute added at the end of its rubric. The Sìkù recension reflects the 1768 (Qiánlóng 33) revision overseen by Liú Tǒngxūn 劉統勳, who continued in this role until his death in 1773. The catalog meta date Qiánlóng 33 (1768) accordingly fixes the notAfter of this entry; notBefore is 1740.
The structure is canonical: 47 juǎn divided into the seven boards plus Mínglì (general principles) — Mínglì lǜ 2; Lì lǜ 2 (officialdom); Hù lǜ 7 (households, taxation, marriage, market); Lǐ lǜ 2 (rites, sacrifices); Bīng lǜ 5 (military, postal, frontier); Xíng lǜ 16 (criminal procedure, theft, brigandage, fraud, sex, homicide); Gōng lǜ 2 (public works) — preceded by a table-of-articles, charts, and a fúzhì (mourning-relations chart), and followed by Zǒnglèi (cross-classified summary tables) 7 juǎn and Bǐyǐn lǜtiáo (analogical-citation articles) 1 juǎn. The total is approximately 436 articles in the lǜ (statutes proper) and over 1,800 lì (substatutes), with the substatute count rising at each revision; by the late nineteenth century the lì count exceeded 2,000.
The Dà Qīng lǜlì is one of the most important sources for premodern Chinese social, family, market, and ritual law. As Wilkinson (citing Wallace Johnson) notes, “thirty to forty percent of the statutes in the Qīng code of 1740 are identical to those in the Tang code of 653” — the lǜ (statutes proper) carry the deep continuity, while the lì (substatutes) absorb the contemporary jurisprudential adjustment. The four-volume French translation of Boulais (Manuel du code chinois, 1924) and the eighteenth-century English translation of Sir George Thomas Staunton (1810) made the work foundational to the early-twentieth-century Western understanding of Chinese law.
Translations and research
The standard English translation is William C. Jones, The Great Qing Code (Oxford UP, 1994), based on the 1740 recension with later substatutes; complete translation of the lǜ and selected lì. Earlier and still useful: Sir George Thomas Staunton, Ta Tsing Leu Lee (London, 1810), the first Western translation. The standard French is Guy Boulais, Manuel du code chinois (Shanghai: Variétés sinologiques 55, 1924), with rich legal-historical notes. Modern critical Chinese editions: Tián Tāo 田濤 and Zhèng Qín 鄭秦, eds., Dà Qīng lǜ-lì 大清律例 (Fǎlǜ chūbǎnshè, 1999); the Falü dianji xubian 法律典籍續編 vol. 5 contains the 1646, 1646–1740 transitional recensions. Foundational secondary studies: Derk Bodde and Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch’ing Dynasty Cases (Harvard UP, 1967); Marinus Johan Meijer, The Introduction of Modern Criminal Law in China (1950); Geoffrey MacCormack, The Spirit of Traditional Chinese Law (Georgia UP, 1996); Janet Theiss, Disgraceful Matters: The Politics of Chastity in Eighteenth-Century China (UC Press, 2004), uses the substatute body extensively. The Niida Noboru 仁井田陞 / Akimori Ryōji 秋森良治 Tō Min Shin sanlü hebian 唐明清三律合編 (vol. 8 of Falü dianji xubian) provides a synoptic comparison.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào is unusually rhetorical — “the jade-rule and gold-canon of all ages” — reflecting that the work is the working code of the present dynasty rather than a historical artifact. The five-yearly revision cycle means that the “1740 Dà Qīng lǜlì” is in fact a moving target: the 1740, 1743, 1768, 1773, 1789, 1799, 1825, 1851, 1870 recensions are each substantially different in the lì (substatute) layer while preserving the lǜ (statute) backbone. The Wényuāngé recension represents the 1768 state and is the principal text used by Liú Jùnwén 劉俊文 (the Táng lǜ editor) and others for cross-period comparative legal studies.