Chapter 120 Criminal Law
The early years of the Han Dynasty.

Liu Bang once again thought about how he couldn't even get all the horses together. Although he was relieved, he still remembered that he was too poor! Not only was he unable to get all the things the emperor had, but he was also unable to fight back against the Huns and was forced to sue for peace...

He secretly affirmed the correctness of his choice of Lu Zhi as his successor. Lu Zhi successfully led the Han Dynasty through that difficult period and survived until Liu Heng grew up and was able to succeed to the throne. Those policies, especially the distribution of land to the people, were the solid foundation.

Looking back at the later dynasties, even the Tang Dynasty which implemented the "equal field system", it seems that none of them was able to have land and farm like the Han Dynasty.

Thinking of this, the corners of Liu Bang's mouth curled up: Those dynasties were definitely not as long-lived as the Han Dynasty of our Lord!

Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu period.

Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the various policies of the Han Dynasty and Liu Heng and was filled with gratitude for a moment: "Taxes are levied one in thirty, once every three years, and those who till the land own the land... How great it would have been if it could be like this back then!" The rent for land was low, corvée labor was very rare, and ordinary people had at least one hectare of land to cultivate. If this was possible, how could people starve to death!
It is a pity that, except for the early years of the Han Dynasty, the subsequent dynasties could not achieve the same policies and effects. The tragedy of "white bones exposed in the wild, no rooster crowing for a thousand miles" happened again and again like a reincarnation, and the land basically did not really belong to the people at the bottom of the society.

As for Liu Heng's merchant policy, Zhu Yuanzhang did not agree with it. Giving so many things to those merchants did help the Han Dynasty's economy at the time, but what would happen over time?

Zhu Biao advised: "No one can guarantee that every step is absolutely correct. Daddy, there is no need to blame them. As long as those people can correct it in time, it will be fine."

Zhu Yuanzhang listened to it and gradually felt relieved, but before he could completely relax, he felt something was wrong: people like Emperor Wen of Han, his policies would gradually deteriorate, so what about his own? He had been aware of this problem before, but he had ignored it at the time because of other things. Now that he thought about it, he really needed to investigate and think about it carefully.

[These policies strongly promoted the recovery and development of the Han Dynasty's economy. This was reflected in business, where "rich merchants traveled around the world, trading everything"; and after Liu Heng, his son Emperor Jing Liu Qi also vigorously developed the people's livelihood economy, laying the economic foundation for Emperor Wu Liu Che to launch a large-scale war between the Han and the Xiongnu.

Apart from commerce, in terms of currency, Liu Heng abolished the order against counterfeiting and allowed private coinage. However, this policy was abolished during the reign of Emperor Wu, and private coinage was banned again.

Han Dynasty, during the first year before Emperor Wen.

Liu Heng raised his eyebrows. He didn't care whether his policy on private minting would continue or not. After all, different demands might arise in each period, and it was okay to ban private minting. What he cared about was the reason behind the ban on private minting: Why on earth would his good grandson stop this policy that had lasted for two generations and instead ban private minting?

Is it private minting itself that causes the problem, or is it that private minting cannot meet certain needs, and banning private minting can better meet the needs?
From the few words on Tianmu's forehead, we can analyze that during the reign of his good grandson, the large-scale war with the Huns was the main content at that time, and it lasted for quite a long time. In this case, all social conditions and policies at that time must have served the Han-Hun War.

Then, private minting could not meet Liu Che's needs for launching wars, and banning private minting would bring greater profits.

[In another aspect closely related to the people, Liu Heng also made significant changes. That is punishment.

After ascending the throne, Liu Heng first abolished the law of collective responsibility, which meant that if one person committed a crime, his family members would be taken as slaves and various other laws that punished the whole family.

In the 13th year, Liu Heng abolished corporal punishment, replacing tattooing with shaving the head and clamping it, replacing cutting off the nose with 300 lashes, replacing left toe clamping with 500 lashes, and replacing right toe clamping with execution.

Corporal punishment has a very long history. It was widely used since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and continued until the Qin Dynasty. After the fall of the Qin Dynasty, Liu Bang established the Han Dynasty, which was called "Han inherited the Qin system". This description also applies to punishment. Although Liu Bang abolished some of the harsh laws of the Qin Dynasty, he also retained some of them, including corporal punishment and collective punishment.

When Liu Heng came to power, he may not have thought these laws were necessary. In addition, the "Tiying Saves Her Father" incident happened at that time, so Liu Heng simply abolished corporal punishment and replaced it with other punishments.

Song Dynasty, the first year of Kaibao.

The story of Tiying saving her father was passed down in history along with Liu Heng's abolition of corporal punishment, and is known to all those who read history.

Zhao Kuangyin's tone was full of praise: "Tiying's lawsuit against her father was also very knowledgeable, and her letter was sincere and elegant." Even though we don't pursue "filial piety" as morbidly as in the Han Dynasty, the appreciation and admiration for filial piety has never changed. Tiying's behavior is not only a glorious record of Emperor Wen of Han Liu Heng, but also a model for promoting filial piety.

Tang Dynasty, Zhenguan period.

"Law is the right way to govern. It is used to prohibit violence and guide good people..." Li Shimin recalled the words of Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty when he revised the law in the "Records of the Grand Historian". "If the law is right, the people will be honest. If the punishment is appropriate, the people will obey."

In the Tang Dynasty today, those cruel and inhumane punishments are no longer used. Especially since Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty promulgated the Kaihuang Code, the most basic laws and punishments were established, which are generally referred to as "whipping, caning, imprisonment, exile, and death."

Since Li Shimin ascended the throne, he has paid more attention to the construction of the legal system, striving to reduce the number of death sentences and establish a culture of consciously abiding by the law throughout the Tang Dynasty, in order to recreate the customs of the ancient heyday of "no doors locked at night, no picking up lost items on the road."

"Virtue and punishment complement each other, and civil and military affairs are promoted simultaneously." Li Shimin looked at his ministers, "Although my virtue is not great, I also hope to restore the style of the Three Dynasties. I hope you will work hard to help me realize this wish."

Ming Dynasty, during the Hongwu period.

Zhu Yuanzhang was very supportive of abolishing corporal punishment. As a common citizen, he could better understand the people's attitude towards government and punishment, and also understood the people's fear and rejection of it.

And this is the attitude under the punishment since the Sui and Tang Dynasties. If it were corporal punishment like those before Emperor Wen of Han that caused great pain to people, the people would only be more fearful and resistant.

However, as a person of ordinary origin, Zhu Yuanzhang's understanding of law and punishment was also very simple: the law stipulates what cannot be done, and the punishment is formulated to warn people and make them never dare to break the law or do things that they should not do.

Under the guidance of such thoughts, Zhu Yuanzhang sometimes thought that heavier and crueler punishments would have a greater effect.

So, he spoke calmly: "Emperor Wen was magnanimous and benevolent, and he ruled the world with virtue, which was a merit. However, being too lenient may not be able to intimidate those villains. The subsequent rebellion of the princes and the arrogance of the wealthy merchants may not have been caused by this." In short, he, Zhu, acknowledged Liu Heng's virtue of abolishing corporal punishment and governing with leniency, but he would not adopt such an approach.

What leniency? It would be better to deal with it according to the law. As for his favorite punishment of turning one person into two, it is even more impossible to abolish it.

Whether it was the princes, the civil and military officials present, they all looked calm and indifferent, and were not surprised at Zhu Yuanzhang's speech - what a joke, who could possibly expect Your Highness to change his style of doing things? Anyone who had such a delusion either couldn't even step into this hall, or had already turned into a pile of yellow earth.

Qin Dynasty.

Ying Zheng was not very concerned about Liu Heng's abolition of various "inhumane" punishments. After all, he had long ago deduced that future dynasties would probably disagree with the punishments and laws of his Qin Dynasty, and he was not surprised by this. What he was concerned about was the sentence: "Han inherited the Qin system."

There were many Qin systems, many of which were new systems created after the Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms. So how many of them did the Han Dynasty inherit?

It is known that the Han Dynasty had the system of enfeoffed kings and marquises, but it also seemed that there was a shadow of the county system, and these emperors were all suppressing the power of the kings and marquises, so were the counties and fiefdoms implemented together?
As for the official system, centralized power, and the system of imperial supremacy, there is no need to elaborate. Judging from the known content, they have basically been inherited.

Ying Zheng was somewhat interested in the Han Dynasty's system of counties and fiefdoms running in parallel. Although his county system was the most correct choice in the eyes of later generations, it did have some major problems at present. In his opinion, the fact that Hu Hai was able to destroy the Qin Dynasty's foundation so quickly after coming to power was also related to the fact that the new systems had not been thoroughly perfected.

The Han Dynasty chose to establish states and counties in parallel, probably in order to consolidate its rule - the Liu surname was not among the nobles of the Six Kingdoms, and Liu Bang was probably just a middle-to-lower class commoner, so he conferred titles of kingship on people with different surnames to help stabilize the various forces that accompanied him in his conquests; and since people with different surnames were kingship, then people with the same surname should also be kingship to strengthen the central power.

But obviously, the central government itself must become stronger as soon as possible, and the kings and princes in various places, regardless of their surnames, must be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise, it will become a situation where the tail is too big to be eliminated.

For example, Ying Zheng was very skeptical. During the Han Dynasty, even during the reign of Liu Heng, was there only one rebellious prince, Liu Xingju?
[Along with Liu Heng's glorious and virtuous policies, there existed the shadow that had been growing continuously since the founding of the Han Dynasty.

That is, in order to stabilize the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang chose the parallel system of counties and kingdoms to overcome the threat from the princes, which had never disappeared.

After stabilizing the country, Liu Bang continued to eliminate kings of different surnames. During the reign of Lu Zhi, she also tried to weaken the kings of the same and different surnames who were not from Liu Ying's line. Liu Heng, on the other hand, tried his best to increase the power of the kings of the same surname in order to fight against those of different surnames.

As mentioned earlier, because he was dissatisfied with Liu Heng's ascension to the throne and the uneven distribution of benefits, King Jibei Liu Xingju raised the banner of rebellion and became the first vassal king of the same surname to rebel in history.

At that time, his rebellion was quickly suppressed, but since then, rebellions by princes have always occurred, and it only appeared again during the reign of Liu Heng.

In the sixth year, Liu Bang's youngest son, Liu Chang, the King of Huainan, raised the banner of rebellion again.

The early years of the Han Dynasty.

Liu Chang had not yet been born, and Liu Bang was quite curious about this son. What kind of personality would this son have? If he planned to rebel, what would the result be? Would he be captured before he could even start a rebellion like Liu Xingju?

Although this is indeed good for the Han Dynasty and does not consume the country's strength at all, it is a bit too embarrassing for him as a father...

However, this youngest son definitely did not succeed, including the rebellion of princes in the future as mentioned by Tianmu. After all, Ming Taizong Zhu Di was the only prince who successfully rebelled.

Han Dynasty, the fourth year of Yuanshou.

Liu Che sneered at those restless princes.

"Although there are always people with ill intentions, they are my people after all. Even if they are not my people, they have made contributions to the Han Dynasty," he said leisurely. "As an emperor, how can I not pay attention to their feelings and promote benevolence and filial piety? Allowing the princes to have children is to let everyone get what they want, and it is also my grace."

Lord Father Yan is truly a good subject of mine, and the method of extending favor to him is most appropriate.

However, when he thought of the rebellion of the princes, he could not help but think of Emperor Taizong of Ming Zhu Di who rebelled and came to power, and also of Emperor Jianwen Zhu Yunwen who was obviously in the orthodox position. There are so many princes in our Han Dynasty, so many examples of princes rebelling, and so many attempts to weaken the princes and weaken the branches to strengthen the trunk. How could you still end up like that?
After Liu Heng ascended the throne, Liu Chang, relying on the brotherly relationship between him and Liu Heng, thought that he was of noble status and was closest to Liu Heng, so he often behaved arrogantly and illegally.

However, Liu Heng, because Liu Chang was his brother, always showed leniency towards him and did not pursue the crime.

In the sixth year, Liu Chang asked people to discuss with Chai Qi, the son of Chai Wu, the Marquis of Jipu, and planned to use forty large trucks to rebel in Gukou County, and sent envoys to contact various places in Minyue and Xiongnu.

But before he could officially launch the rebellion, he was discovered by the imperial court, which sent people to summon Liu Chang to Chang'an.

After arriving in Chang'an, Prime Minister Zhang Cang and others wrote to the emperor, requesting that Liu Chang be punished, but Liu Heng was reluctant to do so. The ministers wrote to the emperor a second time, but Liu Heng was still reluctant to do so and planned to pardon his death penalty but depose him from the throne. The ministers wrote to the emperor a third time, and Liu Heng finally decided on a disposal plan: depose Liu Chang from the throne and let his wives and concubines accompany him to Shu.

But Liu Chang did not reach Shu, he died of starvation on the way. 】

The early years of the Han Dynasty.

Liu Bang became more relaxed as he read on, especially when Liu Heng was close to his brothers and was reluctant to part with Liu Chang.

"This kid is really good..." He took a sip of wine. Of course, he was not saying how friendly and brotherly Liu Heng was, but that his expression and handling methods were very good - who knows how much brotherly love Liu Heng really has for Liu Chang?

No matter how much brotherly love he had, his performance was enough. After all, the Han Dynasty still advocated filial piety. Even if Liu Heng did not have much affection, it would be better if he could show it like this. It was not that Liu Bang did not like his sons to have a good relationship, but it was just that Liu Ying, who was fully friendly with his brothers, was too incomprehensible.

In a good mood, he also commented: "It's well done, but it's still a little imperfect." This is about Liu Heng exiling Liu Chang to Shu. You see, Liu Chang starved to death, right? "Rather than letting Liu Chang starve to death halfway and possibly affect his reputation, it would be better to make him understand his mistakes with reason and emotion in Chang'an..." Then, he could just commit suicide.

In that case, not only will Liu Heng's reputation be absolutely safe, but Liu Chang himself can also get a reputation of "returning to the right path after straying."

Ming Dynasty, Yongle period.

Zhu Di was quite disdainful of these princes who failed in their rebellion: "They can't even contact people, and they don't know how to find and seize opportunities. How can such people succeed?"

Of course, even if he felt that these people, including the princes of the Ming Dynasty today, simply did not have the ability to successfully rebel, he still had to strengthen the management of the princes to avoid any chaos. It might not cause any substantial damage, but it would not sound good after all.

(End of this chapter)