Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 2, 2024

Punishment with Severe Penalties and the Shift in Ming Taizu’s Role

(Abstract)

Fang Zhiyuan

As an important constituent element and basic feature of the national governance of Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming dynasty (Ming Taizu), “punishment with severe penalties” became a symbol of the times and an enduring remembrance of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Such memories change and even reshape themselves with the passage of time. As a symbol of the era, punishment with severe penalties was manifested in extrajudicial torture and the strictness of the law itself. Its extension to politics, the economy, culture and foreign policy, along with its randomness and caprice, created a dire and ruthless political atmosphere. The system underwent an initial process from cracking down on the rich, supporting the peasants, attaching importance to the people’s livelihood, and punishing corrupt officials severely to exploiting rich people and rich areas in order to increase the state revenue and having numerous meritorious officials and literati killed in order to protect the imperial house. Zhu Yuanzhang’s own role also shifted from a representative of the masses to the emperor of a centralized dynasty as his “original intent” to fight for the people consciously or unconsciously turned into the self-centered quest of passing down the reign to ten thousands of generations.  This has become a model for transformation from a “peasant leader” to an “authoritarian monarch.”