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The Political Implications of the Minority Policy in the Qin Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2014
Abstract
Among the 190 articles in the so-called “Answers to questions about the Qin Laws/Statutes” (Falü dawen 法律答問) written on bamboo strips excavated from a tomb at Shuihudi in Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, the one concerning Qin's citizenship particularly attracts my attention. It says: “What is the meaning of a ‘Xia child’? (A child born of a) father from a vassal state, and a Qin mother.” (可 [何] 謂夏子? 臣邦父、秦母 謂也). In this paper, I argue that this article, which is perhaps surprising in regard to the patriarchal mentality dominating the Chinese world, can be explained by the historical, political and military context of the Qin state in the 3rd Century B.C.E. and by its global strategy of infiltrating and “nibbling at” its protectorates.
本文重點討論睡虎地秦簡《法律答問》律文: “可 (何) 謂夏子? 臣邦 父、秦母謂也。” 雖然從中國父權傳統角度看 ， 這條律文頗令人感到 詫異 ， 然而要正確釋讀並深入分析它的政治內涵 ， 必須瞭解秦國歷史 的背景和當時境內境外的形勢以及秦王室的企圖和心態。這條律文的 制訂 ， 是秦國為實現入主中原大業長遠統籌策略的一個重要環節 ， 此 中還隱藏着滲透邦國的伏線 ， 企圖藉通婚滲進臣邦王室內部 ， 以配合 秦國的蠶食策略。
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- Information
- Early China , Volume 35: Dedicated to LI Xueqin on the occasion of his eightieth birthday , 2013 , pp. 277 - 289
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 2013
References
1. Li in this address expressed his admiration for Chen Zhi's 陳直 personal integrity, both in and outside his academic activities. See Xueqin, Li 李學勤, Zhui gu ji 綴 古集 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1998), 280 Google Scholar. This episode reminded me of this casual remark he made when he was my guest in 2005. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Li Xueqin for checking some of his own remarks cited in the present paper, and Dr. Zhou Shangzhen 周尚真 (Tsou Sheung Tsun), Mathematical Institute, Oxford University, Oxford, and Dr. Geneviève Barman of the Université populaire de Lausanne, for making various stylistic contributions to its presentation, as well as Dr. Chrystelle Maréchal of CNRS-EHESS-CRLAO, Paris, and Ms. Cen Yongfang 岑詠芳, librarian at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, Collège de France, for providing me with practically all the necessary publications for the preparation of this paper. Last but not least, I should thank Prof. Xing Wen and Prof. Sarah Allan, both of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures, Dartmouth College for inviting me to take part in this Festschrift, and for kindly proofreading this final version.
2. Haoliang, Yu 于豪亮, “Qin wangchao guanyu shaoshu minzu de falü jiqi lishi zuoyong” 秦王朝關於少數民族的法律及其歷史作用, in Yunmeng Qinjian yanjiu 雲夢 秦簡研究 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981), 316–23Google Scholar; Xueqin, Li 李學勤, “Xin chutu wenxian yu gudai wenming yanjiu huiyi bimu de yanjiang” 新出土文獻與古代文明研究會議閉幕 式的演講, in Xin chutu wenxian yu gudai wenming yanjiu 新出土文獻與古代文明研究, ed. Weiyang, Xie 謝維揚, Yuanqing, Zhu 朱淵清 (Shanghai: Shanghai daxue, 2004), 1 Google Scholar.
3. In order to avoid a too long title, I take the liberty of using the term “political” in its broad sense, including economic and military aspects.
4. Haoliang, Yu, “Qin wangchao guanyu shaoshu minzu de falü jiqi lishi zuoyong,” 316 Google Scholar, said: “The law section in the Yunmeng bamboo slips calls those articles concerning specific relationships with the minorities ‘statutes on vassal states’ (shu bang lü 屬 邦律). Before then, nothing bearing on this problem has been mentioned in existing documents inherited from the past. Unfortunately there is only one single article of this kind, probably because the person buried together with the bamboo slips in Tomb 11 at Shuihudi was a public servant of low grade, and he only copied the few items that were directly related to his job. However the fact that there is a document called ‘statutes on vassal states’ in the Qin laws indicates that there should be more articles of this kind.”
5. Hulsewé, A.F.P., Remnants of Ch'in Law: An Annotated Translation of the Ch'in Legal and Administrative Rules of the 3rd Century B.C. Discovered in Yün-Meng Prefecture, Hu-pei Province, in 1975, Sinica Leidensia 17 (1985), 171 Google Scholar.
6. Yu's paper was first published in Yunmeng Qinjian yanjiu in 1981. To my knowledge, the article in question has not been discussed in related literature. As a representative of the spade-work on this article, some of the viewpoints are not maturely considered and this is excusable; it is our duty as late comers to make the necessary amendments.
7. On this point, Moto-o, Kudo 工藤元男, (Shuihudi Qinjian suo jian Qindai guojia yu shehui 睡虎地秦簡所见秦代國家與社會, trans. Feng, Cao 曹峰 et al. [Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2010], 91)Google Scholar is more prudent: “logically we may deduce that if both parents were Qin people, their children should be considered as Xia zi. The Falü dawen 法律答問 does not mention this point because this goes without saying, and there is no need to discuss it.”
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21. Now near Gansu Province.
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