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散見簡牘合輯‧四川青川縣郝家坪五十號秦墓木牘

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Text ID
KR2p0121
Date
-309–-309
Dynasty
秦

Sǎn Jiàn Jiǎndú Héjí‧Sìchuān Qīngchuān Xiàn Hǎojiāpíng Wǔshí Hào Qín Mù Mùdú 散見簡牘合輯‧四川青川縣郝家坪五十號秦墓木牘

Collected Scattered Documents — Wooden Tablet from Qin Tomb no. 50 at Hǎojiāpíng, Qīngchuān County, Sichuan

(Qin state official document; the back inscription attributes the revision to Chief Minister Gān Máo 甘茂)

About the work

A single wooden tablet (mùdú 木牘), inscribed on both sides, recovered from Qin 秦 tomb no. 50 at the Hǎojiāpíng 郝家坪 site, Qīngchuān County 青川縣, Sichuan Province, excavated in 1979–1980. The tablet contains the earliest precisely dated Chinese legal text: an enactment of the Wéi Tián Lǜ 為田律 (Land Law) dated to the second year of Qin Wǔwáng 秦武王 (309 BCE), with a colophon on the reverse side attributing the revision to the Chief Minister Gān Máo 甘茂. Published in KR2p 散見簡牘合輯 (Sǎn Jiàn Jiǎndú Héjí), compiled by the Institute of History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 1990.

Abstract

The dating formula and colophon. The tablet’s front face opens with a precise date: “Second year, eleventh month, day jǐyǒu (jǐ yǒu shuò, i.e. first day of the month), day wùyín (wùyín日): the King orders Chief Minister (Chéngxiàng) Wù 戊, Interior Scribe (Nèishǐ) Yǎn 匽, and Minister (mín bì 民臂) to revise the Land Law (gēng xiū wéi tiánlǜ 更脩為田律).” On the reverse, the colophon explicitly names the authority behind the revision: “秦武王二年丞相甘茂為田律 — Second year of Qin Wuwang, Chief Minister Gān Máo 甘茂 revised the Land Law.” The second year of Qin Wuwang corresponds to 309 BCE, making this the oldest precisely dated legal document in Chinese history. The “Chief Minister Wù 戊” in the front text is commonly taken to be Gān Máo 甘茂, whose personal name may have been recorded differently in different sources.

The Land Law text. The Wéi Tián Lǜ regulates the dimensions of agricultural fields and road infrastructure. Key provisions include: “A field one pace (bù 步) wide and eight zé long constitutes a zhěn 畛 [boundary strip]. One mǔ 畝 [= 100 paces] has two zhěn, one hundred [pace] road (dào 道). One hundred mǔ constitute one qǐng 頃, [with a] one-thousand [pace] road. Roads shall be three paces wide. Boundary mounds (fēng 封) four feet high — their width matches their height; boundary furrows (lǚ 捋) one foot high, two feet thick at the base. In the eighth month of autumn, repair boundary mounds and furrows, straighten borders (bānbèi 彊畔), and remove the large weeds from paths and ridges (qiān bǎi 千百). In the ninth month, clear major roads and dangerous slopes. In the tenth month, build bridges, repair embankments and dikes (bō dī 波隄), clear and maintain fords (lì jīn liáng 利津梁), remove straw from roadsides (xiǎn cǎo lí 鮮草離). Outside the routine clearance season, if there is collapse or damage making [the road] impassable, repair it immediately.”

The reverse side also contains a brief calendar record listing days with names — likely a schedule of when specific regulations took effect or tasks were to be performed.

Significance. The Qīngchuān tablet is of exceptional importance for several reasons: (1) It is the oldest precisely dated legal text from China, antedating the Shuǐhǔdì 睡虎地 Qin legal corpus (discovered 1975, from a tomb sealed c. 217 BCE) by nearly a century. (2) It provides direct evidence for the Qin state’s systematic regulation of agricultural land measurement and road maintenance under Qin Wuwang, a reign notable for military expansion into Sichuan and Ba. (3) The attribution to Gān Máo 甘茂, Qin’s most powerful minister in this period, adds historical specificity. (4) The survival of a Qin legal text in Sichuan — a region conquered by Qin only in 316 BCE — suggests that Qin law was actively promulgated in newly annexed territories. The text provides a glimpse of how early Qin administrative law was extended to the frontier.

Hulsewé’s Remnants of Ch’in Law (1985), while focused on the Shuihudi corpus, provides essential comparative context. Wilkinson’s Chinese History (§20 on Qin laws) treats the significance of Qin legal documents in the broader context of early Chinese governance.

Translations and research

  • 中國社會科學院歷史研究所, 《散見簡牘合輯》, 文物出版社, 1990 — editio princeps.
  • 四川省博物館, 青川縣文化館, 「青川縣出土秦更修田律木牘—四川青川縣戰國墓發掘簡報」, 《文物》 1982.1, pp. 1–21 — excavation report and initial transcription.
  • Hulsewé, A.F.P. Remnants of Ch’in Law: An Annotated Translation of the Ch’in Legal and Administrative Rules of the 3rd Century BC. Brill, 1985 — essential comparative reference; discusses the Qīngchuān tablet at pp. 207–210.
  • Barbieri-Low, Anthony J., and Robin D.S. Yates. Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247. 2 vols. Brill, 2015 — comparative context for early imperial legal language.
  • Kern, Martin. “The Odes in Excavated Manuscripts.” In Martin Kern, ed., Text and Ritual in Early China. University of Washington Press, 2005 — methodology.
  • Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual, 5th ed. Harvard University Asia Center, 2018, §20 — overview of Qin legal documents.

Other points of interest

The Qīngchuān tablet predates the famous Shuǐhǔdì Qin legal corpus (see KR2p0128 for the Shuihudi tomb no. 4 letters) by approximately ninety years and is the single most important piece of evidence for Qin law in the pre-unification period. The specific regulation of field dimensions (wéi tián 為田) is also attested in the Shuihudi corpus, allowing scholars to trace continuity and change in Qin agrarian law over nearly a century.

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