Shuìhǔdì Qín Mù Zhújiǎn‧Yǔ Shū 睡虎地秦墓竹簡‧語書
Bamboo Slips from the Qin Tomb at Shuihudi — Document on Policy
About the work
The Yǔ Shū 語書 (Document on Policy, or: Document on [Administrative] Language) is a precisely dated administrative circular recovered from Qin tomb no. 11 at Shuìhǔdì 睡虎地, Yúnmèng County 雲夢縣, Hubei Province, excavated in 1975–76. The tomb was sealed c. 217 BCE. The Yǔ Shū is the shortest prose text in the Shuìhǔdì corpus and the only one that is precisely dated and attributed to a named official. It takes the form of a dispatch from the Prefect (shǒu 守) of Nanjun 南郡 — named Téng 騰 — addressed to the heads of all counties (xiàn 縣) and roads (dào 道, administrative units for non-Qin ethnic communities) within the commandery, dated to the fourth month of the twentieth year of Qin king Zhèng 政 (227 BCE, before unification). The document orders local officials to abandon customs and practices that conflict with Qin law, to enforce newly issued statutes rigorously, and to report and prosecute officials who fail to comply. It is the most vivid document in the Shuìhǔdì corpus for understanding the administrative culture of the Qin state in the critical decade immediately before unification, and provides rare insight into how Qin legal authority was projected into newly absorbed territories.
Abstract
Date and addressee. The document opens: 廿年四月丙戌朔丁亥，南郡守騰謂縣、道嗇夫 (“Year 20, fourth month, day bǐngxū as first of month, day dīnghài: the Prefect of Nanjun, Téng, addresses the county and road sè fū [administrative heads]…”). Year 20 of King Zhèng of Qin corresponds to 227 BCE. Nanjun 南郡 (the South Commandery) was the Qin commandery established in former Chu territory after Qin’s conquest of the Ying 郢 region in 278 BCE. Its seat was at Jiāng líng 江陵 (modern Jīngzhōu, Hubei). The Yǔ Shū was likely distributed via the postal relay system (yóu 郵) and a note at the end confirms: “To be transmitted in sequence; a separate copy is being distributed at Jiānglíng to be circulated by postal route (yóu xíng 郵行).”
The argument. The Prefect Téng begins with a historical-philosophical preamble: 古者，民各有鄉俗，其所利及好惡不同，或不便於民，害於邦。是以聖王作為法度，以矯端民心，去其邪避，除其惡俗 (“In ancient times, the people each had their local customs; what they considered beneficial, and what they liked and disliked, differed; some of these were inconvenient for the people and harmful to the state. This is why the sage kings created laws and measures, to correct and straighten the people’s hearts, to remove their deviant tendencies, to eliminate their evil customs.”). This is followed by an acknowledgement that the law is now complete: 今法律令已具矣 (“Now the laws and statutes are complete”). But, the Prefect continues, officials and people still fail to apply them, and local customs (xiāng sú yín shī 鄉俗淫失) persist unaddressed. This is tantamount to “making clear the ruler’s law transparent while nurturing and concealing the deviant and dissolute among the people” (míng bì zhǔ zhī míng fǎ ér cháng xié bì yín shī zhī mín 明避主之明法殹，而養匿邪避之民).
The prefect then announces enforcement: Téng says he has himself revised and reissued the law codes (fǎ lǜ lìng 法律令), the field-law (tián lìng 田令), and the miscellaneous private orders (jiān sī fāng 閒私方), and has ordered officials to promulgate and publicize them so that officials and people alike will clearly know them (lìng lì míng bù, lìng lì mín jiē míng zhì zhī 令吏明布，令吏民皆明智之) and will no longer be [caught] unawares by crimes (wú jù yú zuì 毋巨於罪).
Taxonomy of good and bad officials. The document then provides, in a remarkable passage, a contrast between the “good official” (liáng lì 良吏) and the “bad official” (è lì 惡吏):
A good official (liáng lì) is one who knows the laws and statutes well (míng fǎ lǜ lìng 明法律令), is capable in handling affairs (shì wú bù néng 事無不能), incorrupt and hard-working (lián jié dūn mǐn 有廉絜敦𢡱), good at assisting his superiors, and has a public-minded spirit (yǒu gōng xīn 有公心) because he recognizes that no single official can handle all affairs alone. Such an official is self-contained (néng zì duān 有能自端) and dislikes engaging in arguments over documents (è yǔ rén biàn zhì 惡與人辨治); therefore, he does not contend over official documents.
A bad official (è lì) does not understand the laws and statutes, does not know how to handle affairs, is corrupt and not diligent, is unable to assist his superiors, follows others in rushing to handle cases (qiū suí jí shì 緰隨疾事), is glib and argumentative (yì kǒu shé 易口舌), is not ashamed of disgrace, speaks harsh words readily, and injures others carelessly (qīng è yán ér yì bìng rén 輕惡言而易病人). He has no public-minded spirit but a “headlong and combative” approach (máo dǐ zhī zhì 冒柢之治). He therefore relishes contending over official documents (xǐ zhēng shū 喜爭書). And when arguing over documents, he squints and clenches his fists to show strength (jū huán zhěng mù è wò yǐ shì lì 因恙瞋目扼捾以視力), shouts and speaks rapidly to show competence (xū xún jí yán yǐ shì zhì 訏詢疾言以視治), uses ugly language and aggressive posturing to show boldness (yìn chǒu yán bào zhuó yǐ shì xiǎn 誈&-;醜言麃斫以視險), and is obstinate and domineering to show strength (kēng lǎng qiáng àng yǐ shì qiáng 阬閬強肮以視強) — and his superiors still know his true character.
Enforcement procedures. Téng announces that he will send inspectors (àn xíng 案行) to investigate and bring charges against those who fail to comply with the orders. He will also conduct a periodic audit (kè xiàn guān 有且課縣官): any county where violations are numerous and the lìng (chief) and chéng (deputy) have failed to discover them will be reported. Officials who knowingly fail to report violations are not loyal (bù zhōng 不忠矣); officials who truly do not know are not competent (bù shèng rèn, bù zhì 不勝任、不智); officials who know but dare not report are corrupt (bù lián 不廉). The document closes by specifying the distribution procedure and identifying the document type: 語書 (“Yǔ Shū”).
Significance. The Yǔ Shū is remarkable on several counts. First, it is precisely dated (227 BCE) and attributed to a named official, making it the most reliably dated document in the Shuìhǔdì corpus. Second, it provides a rare example of inter-level administrative communication in the Qin empire — a commandery-level prefect addressing county-level administrators — and shows the mechanisms of top-down legal enforcement. Third, the contrast between the good and bad official (liáng lì vs. è lì) is the most psychologically detailed characterization of administrative types in the pre-Han corpus, and reads almost as a satirical portrait of bureaucratic pathology. Fourth, the document’s assertion that local customs (xiāng sú 鄉俗) are precisely what Qin law is designed to supersede provides direct evidence for Qin’s program of legal standardization in former Chu territories — a program that forms the background to all the other Shuìhǔdì texts (legal codes, model documents, almanacs) that Xǐ 喜 accumulated during his career in the same region.
Dating. The Yǔ Shū is precisely dated: fourth month of the twentieth year of King Zhèng of Qin (227 BCE). Both notBefore and notAfter are set to -227.
Translations and research
- Hulsewé, A.F.P. Remnants of Ch’in Law. Brill, 1985, pp. 16–25 — English translation with notes.
- 睡虎地秦墓竹簡整理小組, 《睡虎地秦墓竹簡》, 文物出版社, 1990 — editio princeps.
- Caldwell, Ernest. Writing Chinese Laws: The Form and Function of Legal Statutes Found in the Qin Shuihudi Corpus. Routledge, 2018, pp. 27–62 — extended discussion of the Yǔ Shū as an administrative genre.
- Pines, Yuri et al., eds. Birth of an Empire: The State of Qin Revisited. University of California Press, 2013 — contextualizes Qin’s administrative projection into conquered territories.
- Lewis, Mark Edward. The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han. Harvard University Press, 2007 — situates the Yǔ Shū in the history of Qin bureaucratic culture.
- Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: A New Manual, 5th ed. Harvard University Asia Center, 2018, §20 — overview of Qin documents.
Other points of interest
The Yǔ Shū document closes with the label 語書 — the title of the text itself — in the manner common to Qin administrative documents, where the document type is announced at the end. This self-labelling is characteristic of the formal administrative documents from the Shuìhǔdì corpus and distinguishes them from the legal statutes, which instead name the specific law at the end of each clause (e.g., 田律, 倉律). The Yǔ Shū is thus an example of a distinct genre: the administrative circular (shū 書) sent from a superior to subordinate officials, as opposed to a statute (lǜ 律) or a model template (shì 式).
The name of the Prefect Téng 騰 appears in later sources: some historians have tentatively identified him as the same Téng who served as Qin’s first Prefect of Yan-ji 燕記 after the Qin conquest of Yan. If correct, this would place his tenure at Nanjun immediately before his reassignment northward during the final years of the unification campaigns, and would make the Yǔ Shū a document from the penultimate phase of the great administrator’s career. The identification is plausible but not certain.
Links
- Wikipedia (Shuihudi bamboo slips): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuihudi_bamboo_slips
- Wikipedia (Nanjun): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_commandery