Confucianism originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Although it was severely suppressed in the Qin Dynasty, it has become the ruling thought throughout the feudal society since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "ousted a hundred schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone". It permeates all fields of social life, including interpersonal relations, social relations, law and other fields.
Let me introduce the specific situation of legal Confucianism in the Northern Wei Dynasty. As we all know, the period of the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties was a period of great social turmoil and development, and the legislative and judicial systems at that time also underwent major changes. When we study legal Confucianism in this period, we can clearly see the gradual infiltration of Confucianism in the legal field, and then have a comprehensive study on the process of legal Confucianism in the whole feudal society.
The Confucianism of the legal system means that Confucianism gradually penetrates into the legal field, transforms and dominates the law, and makes it undergo "qualitative" changes. Throughout the history of Chinese legal system, the Confucianism of legal system is actually the main content of the early legal system evolution in China feudal society. This process began with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's "ousting a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone" and ended with the promulgation of the Law of Yonghui in Kaiyuan, during which it experienced the continuous advancement of the rulers of Jin, Northern Wei and Northern Qi. If we carefully sort out this process, it is not difficult to find that many mature legal systems in the Sui and Tang Dynasties actually started from the Northern Wei Dynasty, or the Northern Wei Dynasty reformed the existing legal system to make it more in line with Confucian ethics, so that it has been used until the Sui and Tang Dynasties. However, when the Northern Wei Dynasty entered the Central Plains with the Hu nationality, it was faced with conflicts and choices brought about by the differences between nomadic civilization and farming civilization, and it was not familiar with China's national conditions, and lacked the cultural concept and magic of governing the country and leveling the world. It only took more than a hundred years to summarize the numerous achievements of feudal legal system in Qin, Han, Wei, Jin and Southern Dynasties and develop them creatively, which not only met the needs of realistic political struggle at that time, but also provided conditions and foundations for the perfection and maturity of the legal system in Sui and Tang Dynasties. These achievements contributed to the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. It can be said that without the legacy of the Northern Wei legal system and the new fashion of the Tang Dynasty, the Law of the Tang Dynasty, regarded as the representative work of China's legal system, would not have appeared, which is the important position of the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty was in such a position that the academic circles ignored the study of it. When discussing legal Confucianism, the focus is often on the Han Dynasty or the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Even if the legal Confucianism in Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties is mentioned, it is only a textbook discussion and lacks in-depth and systematic research. Especially in the process of discussing the legalization of Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties are basically described as a whole, lacking specific analysis of specific issues, and failing to realize that the Northern Dynasties, as a nomadic people, have unusual arduousness and particularity in the process of legalization in the Central Plains. When analyzing its influence, it basically only discusses the influence of legal Confucianism on China's legal system and China's feudal society, but it is not clear which is more important, the influence of the Northern Wei Dynasty on China's legal system or the influence of the Northern and Southern Dynasties on China's legal system, not to mention the influence of legal Confucianism on a specific period, a specific nation and a specific regime. This academic thinking with Han chauvinism tendency has brought many defects to the study of legal Confucianism.
Personally, it is important to legalize the Han regime such as Han and Tang Dynasties, but the legalization of ethnic minorities can never be ignored, which is an important prerequisite for studying the legalization of the Northern Wei Dynasty. As a nomadic people, the Northern Wei regime was able to quickly adapt to the agricultural people's mode of production, social organization and ideology, and it has already made great achievements. Tuoba Xianbei, on the other hand, started from the primitive customary law without Confucian ideas and was thoroughly remoulded. In just over a hundred years, he actually completed the Confucianism of the legal system, and created a legal situation that "the north is superior to the south", which directly promoted the basic completion of the entire feudal legal system and was inherited by the prosperous Sui and Tang Dynasties. This is amazing. From this point of view, the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty is more worthy of our study. Therefore, the study of China's Confucian legal system is an important content, which is of great benefit to the study of China's legal system and Chinese legal history.
During the Northern Wei Dynasty, wars and man-made disasters, social unrest, changeable and disorderly political system, chaotic historical records and long-lost codes made it difficult to study the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. In addition, academic circles are used to ignoring the legal system of minority political power. So far, there are not many works in this field. Mr. Deng Yiqi put forward a "concrete analysis of specific problems" for the first time in the book "Research on the Legal System of the Northern Dynasties", and made a detailed textual research and in-depth discussion on the legal system of the Northern Dynasties. Naturally, he described the general situation of the Confucian legal system in the Northern Dynasties from a macro perspective, but did not elaborate on it in detail. Mr. Li's Study on the Legal System of the Book of Rites in the Northern Dynasties mentioned the Confucianism of the legal system in the Northern Dynasties from the perspective of "ritual system", but it was not a systematic study after all, and it seemed scattered. Other works and papers related to this aspect either study the Northern and Southern Dynasties as a whole or discuss them in textbook style, all of which lack systematic argumentation.
In this research field, Qu Tongzu's China Law and China Society is particularly worth mentioning. In the last part of the book, Mr. Qu specially studied the Confucianism of China's feudal legal system. He pointed out that the Confucianization of the legal system in the early Han Dynasty was restricted by the provisions, and we could only make efforts in interpreting the law and quoting the classics to determine the prison. After Cao Wei, every new dynasty had the opportunity for Confucian officials to use the law to modify the law, and tried to integrate Confucian ethics with the law until the law was completely ruled by Confucianism. The completion of this procedure was in the Northern Dynasties, and the law-making of the Northern Wei Dynasty was particularly critical. Mr. Qu thinks that the Northern Wei Dynasty brought the Hu nationality into the Central Plains, because of its lack of talents to govern the country, its unfamiliarity with China's national conditions, and its desire to win the support of the Han people, so it had to raise the talents of the gentry in the Central Plains. Ho Choi, Gao Yun and other "typical Confucian figures" entered the auxiliary government of North Korea, and introduced rites into the law to realize their ambitions. Therefore, the legal Confucianism in the Northern Wei Dynasty is "not partial and small-scale", but "thorough and systematic". Therefore, "the Confucianism of China law can be said to have started in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and became the orthodoxy of China law after its adoption in Sui and Tang Dynasties". Mr. Qu described the general situation of Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty from the macro perspective of Confucianism in the whole feudal society, which is of fundamental significance and worth learning from.
As mentioned above, the academic circles often take the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties as a whole to discuss the Confucian process of China's feudal legal system, which leads to many research defects. This paper tries to understand, analyze and restore historical materials from a specific period and regime, and discusses how the Northern Wei regime quickly realized the Confucianism of the feudal legal system from the primitive customary law, which directly promoted the completion of the Confucianism of the feudal legal system in China.
Emperor Xiaowen's legal reform is a turning point in the process of Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Before the reform of Emperor Xiaowen's legal system, the legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty tended to be Confucian, but it only stayed on the surface of Confucian culture and did not go deep into its essence, so its Confucianism was rough. Emperor Xiaowen's legal reform attached importance to ethics and introduced etiquette into the law, which led to the rapid infiltration of Confucian culture into the legal field and drastic changes, thus basically determining the pattern and style of the legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Since then, Confucianism has penetrated into all levels of society, and successive monarchs have comprehensively and deeply promoted the combination of etiquette and law, promulgated a relatively perfect and meticulous Yuan Dynasty law, and basically completed the process of Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. It can be seen that the legal reform of Emperor Xiaowen is an important part of the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Therefore, this paper takes the legal reform of Emperor Xiaowen as the breakthrough point, using the method of historical analysis, first discusses the historical basis of Emperor Xiaowen's legal reform, then analyzes the specific measures and influences of Emperor Xiaowen's legal reform, and discusses how the subsequent monarchs can continue to promote the combination of etiquette and law and basically complete the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Finally, this paper evaluates its historical position, so that the Confucian legal system in the Northern Wei Dynasty can be displayed in an all-round, multi-level and three-dimensional way.
In addition, Confucian legal thoughts have had a far-reaching impact on China society and even modern society.
The influence of feudal privilege thought. China's current Constitution stipulates: "The people of China and the citizens of China are all equal before the law", and "no organization or individual may have privileges beyond the Constitution and the law." This requires that our law enforcement must be serious, fair and selfless. Anyone who violates the Constitution and laws should be punished by law, and no one is allowed to have the privilege of going beyond the Constitution and laws. However, in real life, there are often some phenomena that are contrary to the constitutional provisions: illegal acts are the same as criminal facts, but the punishments are quite different because of the different identities of criminals.
The influence of the thought of "no litigation" Confucianism in China's traditional law is mainly guided by Confucianism, so Confucius, as the founder of Confucianism, can't help infiltrating into the traditional legal thought, among which the thought of "no litigation" is such an example with two sides. On the one hand, the thought of "no litigation" has some similarities with today's "ruling the country by virtue". In addition, it is reasonable for Confucianism to maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships and solve social disputes through mediation. On the other hand, it also denies the necessity of solving various social disputes through institutionalized and legal judicial proceedings. Judging from the judicial system, litigation is an important guarantee to realize the basic principle of governing the country according to law, but the Confucian idea of non-litigation excludes many disputes from the jurisdiction, which leaves a broad space for the rule of man and will make the abuse and corruption of administrative power not effectively restricted by law.
The influence of the thought of "benevolent government" Since the Confucianism of traditional law, the thought of "benevolent government" has also stepped onto the historical stage. There are many places in the thought of "benevolent government" that are worth learning today. The idea of "benevolent government" put forward by Confucius during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period pointed out that politicians must be kind to the people. He said, "Benevolence is greater than loving the people." The idea of strengthening people's moral cultivation and realizing people's value and dignity in Confucianism is still of great practical significance to us modern people. Among them, moral standards such as "filial piety" and "benevolence" should still be followed by modern people. No matter what the historical development of the times, the virtues of respecting the elderly, respecting others, honoring promises and keeping promises will be the standards to measure whether a person's personality is perfect or not.
Refer to the textbook History of Chinese Legal System.
Up and down five thousand years
Wei history, People's Republic of China (PRC) constitution