Circulating the Code. Ting Zhang
CIRCULATING THE CODE
Print Media and Legal Knowledge in Qing China
TING ZHANG
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
Seattle
Circulating the Code was made possible in part by the UW Press Authors Fund.
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UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Zhang, Ting (Legal historian), author.
Title: Circulating the Code : print media and legal knowledge in Qing China / Ting Zhang.
Description: 1st. | Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019041164 (print) | LCCN 2019041165 (ebook) | ISBN 9780295747163 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780295747156 (paperback) | ISBN 9780295747170 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Da Qing lü—Publication and distribution. | Legal literature—Publishing—China—History. | Law—Study and teaching—China—History. | China—History—Qing dynasty, 1644–1912.
Classification: LCC KNN82 .Z484 2020 (print) | LCC KNN82 (ebook) | DDC 349.5109/03—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041164
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019041165
The paper used in this publication is acid free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.∞
For my parents, Zhang Qiang and Zhang Suhua
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the research and writing process of this project, I received enormous help from various people, institutions, and libraries. First and foremost, I owe William T. Rowe and Tobie Meyer-Fong a deep debt of gratitude for their generous help, thoughtful guidance, and heartwarming encouragement. Their erudite knowledge of Qing China and their excellent advice have shaped the ways I have researched and written this book. I am also grateful to Sarah Schneewind, Mary Ryan, Erin Chung, Cynthia Brokaw, Li Chen, James Gao, the anonymous readers of the manuscript for University of Washington Press, and fellow members of the DC area Modern China Reading Group, who read most chapters or the whole manuscript, raised insightful questions, and provided valuable advice. I also want to thank my editor, Lorri Hagman, for her efficient work and wonderful suggestions.
In the course of my research, I have made use of a number of libraries, archives, and online databases, including the National Library of China, Library of Congress, First Historical Archives of China, C. V. Starr East Asian Library of Columbia University, Harvard-Yenching Library, HathiTrust Digital Library, and the libraries of the University of Tokyo, the National Committee for the Compilation of Qing History, the University of California, San Diego, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Maryland. I am indebted to the wonderful staff at these institutions. Special thanks are due to my friends Liu Wenpeng, Wang Yuanchong, and Emily Mokros, who helped me get access to important databases and to collect and photocopy some important primary sources.
This research was assisted by generous fellowships and grants from a number of agencies. They include the Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies, the Doris G. Quinn Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the China Scholarship Council, the China and Inner Asia Council of the Association of Asian Studies, the University of Maryland at College Park, and Johns Hopkins University.
Many people have commented on chapters or on related conference papers, asked meaningful questions, and offered critical advice. They include Jonathan Ocko, Madeleine Zelin, Wu Yanhong, Chiu Peng-Sheng, Benjamin Elman, Matthew Sommer, Melissa Macauley, Kai-wing Chow, Shuang Chen, Wang Zhiqiang, Robin Yates, Lisa Mar, Stanley Chodorow, Taisu Zhang, Weiting Guo, Yun Xia, David Crowe, Janet Chen, Meghan Cai, Michael Bryant, Timothy Waters, He Bian, and Nancy Park. I am also grateful to Antoine Borrut, Ahmet Karamustafa, Philip Soergel, Peter Wien, Sarah Cameron, Madeline Zilfi, Holly Brewer, Andrew Schonebaum, and my other colleagues at the University of Maryland for their help and support. Thanks also go to my fellow students and friends at Johns Hopkins: Ke Ren, Zhang Ying, Yang Jin, Zhu Xiaolei, and Li Yao. They made the research and writing process a lot more fun and my life happier.
My deepest gratitude is to my family. My parents, Zhang Qiang and Zhang Suhua, are always confident in me and encouraged me to pursue a career as a historian. They and my parents-in-law, Wang Xianghua and Huang Cunrong, provided tremendous support and helped with childcare when I was researching, teaching, and writing. I am grateful to my grandmother, Liu Shuqing, who provided me with a comfortable place to stay and cooked for me every day when I was collecting primary sources for this project in Beijing. My two children, Meilan and Yilan, arrived when I was writing and revising the manuscript. They brought endless fun and joy to our lives. Finally, my husband, Wang Jianwu, has shared all my frustrations and happiness throughout the writing of this book. This work could not have been done without his love, encouragement, and support.
INTRODUCTION
In the summer of 1695, a farmer named Du Huailiang in Liaocheng County, Shandong, turned himself in to the county magistrate. He reported that he had just caught his wife and her lover having sex in his house and that he had known for a long time something “fishy” was going on with his wife and this other man, Chen Wenxian. He testified that on the night in question, when he was sleeping in the courtyard to guard his cattle, he heard noises coming from his bedroom. He quickly got up, picked up a hatchet, and rushed into the room, where he found his wife in bed and Chen, stark naked, trying to get away. Naturally, he was outraged, he explained to the magistrate, so he blocked the door and hacked his wife and Chen to death.
The magistrate launched an investigation and went to Du’s house to collect evidence. He personally examined the two corpses and questioned the neighbors. As a result of his extensive investigation, he discovered that Du had made up the whole story—and the truth was even more sordid. Du had been having an affair with Chen’s wife—not the other way around—for three years. Deeply in love, Du wanted to live with Chen’s wife, and after she ended their illicit relationship, Du desperately wanted to get her husband and his own wife out of the way so that he could reconcile with Mrs. Chen and live openly with her. He knew about a legal loophole that excused homicide by a husband if he caught his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto. According to the Qing Code, “If a wife or concubine commits adultery with another man and her own husband catches the adulterers at the place in the very act of adultery and immediately kills both of them, there is no punishment.”1 Du was a farmer and had probably received little formal education. But obviously he knew something about the law. He lured Chen to his house for a visit and got him drunk. He then killed his guest with a hatchet and hacked his own wife to death. He took off their clothes to make it look like they had been having sex when he killed them. Du later confessed: “I hoped that if it seemed as though I had killed them while they were committing adultery, I wouldn’t be charged with a crime.”2 Du’s hope was in vain because Mrs. Chen’s confession implicated him, and the magistrate was smart enough to see through his scheme. The magistrate sentenced