Great Ming Code Research Articles

A Study of English Translation of The Great Ming Code from the Perspective of Ontological Hermeneutics

A Study of English Translation of The Great Ming Code from the Perspective of Ontological Hermeneutics

Insiders by Analogy: Slaves in the Great Ming Code

ABSTRACT This article seeks to reinforce arguments that a genuinely global history of slavery is possible only if we examine the nature and dynamics of chattel and bonded status in parts of the world that have been largely ignored in slavery studies. Although scholars have begun to reassess the dynamics of slavery in early-modern Asia, a comprehensive study of slaving practices in China remains to be written. A careful examination of the provisions on ‘slaves’ (nubi) included in the Great Ming Code (1397) provides an opportunity to better understand slave status in Ming (1368–1644) China. Despite their limits, the norms and concepts subsumed in the legislation can tell us a great deal about the relative nature of social status and changes in slave status through time. This article seeks to explain how and why slaves were conceptualized as such in the late imperial period. It distinguishes between two categories of social interaction (that which slaves had with society and that which they had with their master’s family) and dissects the analogy between slaves and children in these interactions. It argues that the features that historians usually regard as distinctive of nubi slavery cannot be properly understood without adequate contextualization.

Serving and Working for Others

Abstract Over the past decades, “wage labor” has been a lingering issue in studies on the development patterns of late imperial China. The legal reconfiguration of the category of “hired laborers” (gugong 僱工) between 1588 and 1788, in particular, has been foregrounded as a salient manifestation of the “incipient capitalism” going hand in hand with the emergence of a “free” labor market and with the decline of bound labor. Questioning the preconception that the mere appearance of labor relations mediated by means of wages would suffice to prove the existence of “free labor,” this article proposes to revisit the issue of “hired labor” in late imperial China. It approaches this issue from a conceptual standpoint, as a first step toward an overdue reassessment of the significance of wages in labor relations and their impact on the status of workers. The first section endeavors to sketch out a general conceptualization of gugong from the Great Ming Code and from Ming and Qing legal exegesis. The second section focuses on the study of the legal redefinition of gugong between the late sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and looks for the social and legal implications of being hired. By doing so, it also explores changes in the Chinese conception of the notion of “service” and its relationship with what we would name “servitude.”

The Operation of Translation Norms in the English Version of The Great Ming Code

The Great Ming Code is one of the most influential codes in Chinese history, and its English version by Jiang Yonglin is undoubtedly counted as a new milestone in the study concerning with translation of Chinese legal classics. This research, based on the English translation of The Great Ming Code, is intended to show that the various norms in the source and target culture have a significant role to play during the translation process due to the fact that readers’ reception is the priority for translators. It is also found that such translation catering for the target readers without leaving the exotic culture out is very likely to be accepted and even welcomed by the target reader for the translation fits the readers’ expectation in the target society.

Towards an Ethical-Based Approach to the English Version of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lü)

Based on the English version of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lu) , and drawing on the translator’s subjectivity, this article probes into the role of translator’s ethics and subjectivity in the translation process. It is found that the translator’s ethical value, more often than not, influences the translation purpose, source text selection and further the translation strategies. This finding confirms the interactive relationship between ideology and translation purpose, facilitates understanding the Chinese legal classics of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lu).

On the Translation of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lü) from the Perspective of Translator’s Discourse

<p><em>Based on </em><em>a paucity of </em><em>cases and drawing on the translator’s subjectivity, </em><em>this essay examines</em><em> how Jiang Yonglin employed numerous translation strategies to foster the realization his discursive power: On the one hand, he tries to be neutral or objective via a combination of domestication and foreignization strategies, at the same time, influenced by such factors as culture, value and ideology, he is more </em><em>or</em><em> less biased towards one party by adopting selective translation strategies. The study proposes that translators, subject to various social and personal ideologies and cultural value, do display double roles during the translation process. The findings illustrate the fact that there is indeed a close connection between discourse and ideology, and promote the translation criticism of Chinese legal classics.</em></p>

Discursive Construction of the Translator: An Example of the English Version of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lü)

Based on the translation of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lü), The Principle of Objective, and drawing on Michel Foucault’s work, this article attempts to explore how various discursive strategies were employed by Jiang Yonglin to foster the realization of his objective and further examine that the translator, more often than not, influenced by such by social ideology, knowledge structure and what he intends to attain, does play a dual role in translating The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lü). Accordingly, Jiang Yonglin’s version of The Great Ming Code (Da Ming Lü) was well embraced by the target readers. This paper seems to make theoretically contributions to the analysis of the translation of legal classics and further verifies the interrelationship between power, ideology and discourse.

Hongwu Emperor’s plans of country governance and the Great Ming Code in the Early Ming Empire

Hongwu Emperor’s plans of country governance and the Great Ming Code in the Early Ming Empire

The proportionality between crimes and punishments in the Great Ming Code

The proportionality between crimes and punishments in the Great Ming Code

The study on the article of violating imperial edicts of the Great Ming Code in the Joseon dynasty

The study on the article of violating imperial edicts of the Great Ming Code in the Joseon dynasty

The Great Ming Code and International Custom of Medieval East Asia: An Analysis of Korea's Policies regarding Japanese Crimes in the Fifteenth Century

The Great Ming Code and International Custom of Medieval East Asia: An Analysis of Korea's Policies regarding Japanese Crimes in the Fifteenth Century

The Study on the Period of Responsibility for Crimes in the Great Ming Code

The Study on the Period of Responsibility for Crimes in the Great Ming Code

LEGISLATING HIERARCHICAL YET HARMONIOUS GENDER RELATIONS IN THE GREAT MING CODE

Drawing primarily on the Great Ming Code, this essay examines how the early Ming ruling elite defined women’s legal status by way of examining gender relations. Specifically, its purpose is twofold: to explore gender relations defined in law codes and to redress the negative images that are imposed on legal regulations on women in existing literature. It argues that imperial law aimed to legislate hierarchical yet harmonious gender relations. To achieve harmony, the Great Ming Code endeavors to restrict male power and protect female rights while maintaining a hierarchical legal structure.

The Study of the Article of Doing What Should Not Be Done of the Great Ming Code in the Joseon Dynasty

The Study of the Article of Doing What Should Not Be Done of the Great Ming Code in the Joseon Dynasty

THE GREAT MING CODE AND THE REPRESSION OF CATHOLICS IN CHOSŎN KOREA

Many works have been written on the early Korean Catholic Church, but little has been said concerning the legal angle of the repression conducted by the Chosŏn state. Each anti-Christian campaign had a legal basis and was officially implemented in the frame of the legal system supported by the Great Ming Code, which was the penal code in use during the Chosŏn dynasty. The present study thus suggests that legal history may provide a suitable framework for the analysis of the anti-Christian campaigns of the nineteenth century and complement existing literature. I begin with investigating which laws were referred to during Catholic-related judicial cases and, then, I propose a few elements in order to explain why the government put such an emphasis on immediate decapitation, which was the gravest legal punishment. I also analyze how government officials enforced and misused the penal code to reach their objectives, and I conclude that laws, in the end, constituted an ideal means to justify the repression of Catholicism.

Der Orden des Sima Chengzhen und des Wang Ziqiao. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Shangqing-Daoismus in den Tiantai-Bergen by Thomas Jülch (review)

110 Journal of Chinese Religions secular–religious dichotomy? Does the case of The Great Ming Code not demonstrate that the political and the religious (that is, acknowledgment of, and references to, superhuman forces) were intertwined? Should the starting point of a “China-centered Chinese history” (p. 178) not be the recognition that it is often the terms of analysis that are suspect? After all, how should we understand the significance of The Great Ming Code? One promising approach, as Jiang has shown from time to time, is diachronic. The idea of the Mandate of Heaven was of course not new. Neither, it would appear, was the use of law as a transformational tool. One obvious question then is to what extent was the The Great Ming Code a departure from its predecessors. Was the legal cosmology reflected in the Code significantly different from earlier (or later) periods? For students interested in these and other questions concerning Chinese law or religion in the late imperial period, Jiang’s learned study should be an obvious starting point. LEO K. SHIN, University of British Columbia Der Orden des Sima Chengzhen und des Wang Ziqiao. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Shangqing-Daoismus in den Tiantai-Bergen THOMAS JÜLCH. München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2011. v, 145 pages. ISBN 9783 -8316-4083-6. €49.00 hardcover. Mao Shan 茅山, “Mao’s Mountain,” in Jiangsu was the center of the Daoist Shangqing 上清, or “Highest Clarity,” tradition which “prevailed among the upper classes of China from the fifth until the tenth century.”1 When, in the middle of the eighth century, Li Hanguang 李含光, thirteenth patriarch of this tradition, made Mao Shan his home, “[…] Mao Shan has come to be the [true] begetter of studies of the Dao for all Under Heaven.”2 However, Li’s predecessor Sima Chengzhen 司馬承禎 (647–735) had moved the Shangqing headquarters, as it were, to Tiantai Shan 天台山 in Zhejiang 浙江. Sima Chengzhen, arguably the most important Daoist of the Tang dynasty, played an important role as consultant to Emperor Xuanzong 玄宗 (r. 712–756), bestowing upon the emperor a religious diploma and assisting him in making 1 Edward H. Schafer, Mao Shan in T’ang Times (Boulder 1980), 1. 2 Yan Zhenjing, as quoted in Schafer 1980: 39. Book Reviews 111 Daoism a sort of state religion. Apart from his “official” role, Chengzhen is also credited with the authorship of several important Daoist texts. Thus, any research concerning Sima Chengzhen and his work has to be welcomed. Chengzhen’s move from Mao Shan to Tiantai Shan asks for explanations. Firstly, why had it to be Tiantai and no other mountain? And secondly, how could he legitimize this move? This small book, whose title may be translated as The Order of Sima Chengzhen and Wang Ziqiao – Inquiries Into the History of Tiantai Shan’s Shangqing Daoism, attempts to provide an answer to both questions. It consists of an introduction and three chapters (plus a 1.5 pages conclusion) originally written as separate articles during the work on a Ph.D. thesis on Tang Buddhism3 and put together to form a second monograph. There is no index available. The introduction puts forward the very interesting thesis that Sima Chengzhen created an “ideology whose focus was Wang Ziqiao 王子喬, the central figure among the Perfected [immortals, SPB] of the Shangqing school” (p. 2, my translation). Wangzi Qiao (Jülch transliterates as Wang Ziqiao) alias Wangzi Jin 王子晉 (Jin, Crown Prince [of King Ling of Zhou 周靈王]) had a long pre-Shangqing history (pp. 7–10) before he appeared to Yang Xi 楊 羲, the medium and calligrapher who laid the foundations of the Shangqing tradition. This tradition believed Wangzi Qiao to be the immortal official in charge of the Jinting dong 金庭 洞, the “Golden Court Grotto” located below Tongbo Shan 桐柏山 of Tiantai. It was this connection between Wangzi Qiao and Tiantai that made him so important to Sima Chengzhen that he composed a Wangzi Qiao life, the Shangqing shi dichen tongbo zhenren zhen tuzan 上 清侍帝晨桐柏真人真圖讚 (“True Illustrations with Eulogies of the Director Aide to Imperial Dawn of Shangqing and Perfected of [Mount] Tongbo,” DZ 612, fasc. 334). Why was it Wangzi Qiao who among all the Shangqing immortals attracted Sima Chengzhen’s attention? Precisely because he...

The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code by Jiang Yonglin (review)

The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code by Jiang Yonglin (review)

DEFENDING THE DYNASTIC ORDER AT THE LOCAL LEVEL: CENTRAL-LOCAL RELATIONS AS SEEN IN A LATE-MING MAGISTRATE'S ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW

The Ming Dynasty witnessed a restoration of Chinese rule after nearly one century of Mongol conquest. The enterprise of recreating a Chinese world order was initiated by Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398), the dynastic founder of the Ming, and his court officials. A large number of law codes were established to guide the reconstruction of Chinese society. Most important, the Da Ming lü (Great Ming Code), the fundamental law of the dynasty, was enacted to set forth the ruling elite's basic value system and to specify social norms for the realm. The Hongwu reign (1368–1398) under Zhu Yuanzhang became the most productive period in Chinese legislative history. The laws that were promulgated by the court represented a collective voice of the central government.