酷吏列傳

Confucius said: 'Guide them with policies and align them with punishments, and the people will evade penalties but feel no shame. Guide them with virtue and align them with ritual, and they will have a sense of shame and moreover reform themselves.' Laozi said: 'The highest virtue does not claim virtue, and thus possesses it; the lowest virtue never loses sight of virtue, and thus has none. The more laws and regulations proliferate, the more thieves and bandits appear.' The Grand Historian says: How true these words are! Laws and regulations are the instruments of governance, not the source that determines whether governance is clear or corrupt. In the past, the legal net was drawn very tight, yet fraud and deceit continued to spring up. At its worst, superiors and subordinates deceived one another until the system collapsed entirely. At such times, the work of officials was like fighting fire by fanning the flames — without forceful, severe, and harsh men, who could have borne the burden and kept order? Those who spoke of virtue and moral transformation were drowning in their own inadequacy. Hence the saying: 'In hearing litigation, I am like any other man — what I would truly wish is that there be no litigation at all.' And: 'When the lowest type of man hears the Way, he laughs aloud.' These are not empty words. When the Han was founded, it rounded off the sharp corners and smoothed away the ornate — the legal net let through fish large enough to swallow boats — yet officials governed steadily, the people did not turn to wrongdoing, and the common folk found peace. From this perspective, the answer lies in that approach, not in severity.

Zhi Du was a man of Yang. He served Emperor Wen as a Gentleman. Under Emperor Jing, Du rose to Colonel of the Gentlemen of the Interior. He dared to speak bluntly and publicly challenged ministers at court. Once, when accompanying the emperor on a hunt in Shanglin Park, Consort Jia went to the latrine, and a wild boar suddenly charged in. The emperor signaled Du to intervene, but Du did not move. The emperor was about to take up arms himself to rescue Consort Jia when Du threw himself before him and said: 'Lose one consort and another will take her place — does the realm lack women of Consort Jia's sort? Even if Your Majesty takes his own life lightly, what of the ancestral temples and the Empress Dowager?' The emperor turned back, and the boar also left. When the Empress Dowager heard of this, she rewarded Du with a hundred catties of gold, and from then on held him in high esteem.

The Kuai clan of Jinan comprised over three hundred households of powerful and unruly people whom no governor of two-thousand-bushel rank could control. Emperor Jing thereupon appointed Du as Governor of Jinan. Upon arrival, Du exterminated the chief offenders of the Kuai clan; the rest trembled in fear. After just over a year, lost articles were not picked up throughout the commandery. The governors of more than ten neighboring commanderies feared Du as they would a superior authority.

Zhang Tang was a man of Du. His father served as Deputy Magistrate of Chang'an. Once, when the father went out and left young Tang to guard the house, he returned to find that a rat had stolen some meat. His father was angry and flogged Tang. Tang then dug out the rat's burrow, found the rat and the remaining meat, drew up charges against the rat, interrogated and tried it, drafted the case documents, rendered judgment, and executed the rat and the meat by dismemberment in the courtyard. His father observed the proceedings and found the written documents as sophisticated as those of a veteran prison clerk. He was astonished, and from then on had the boy draft legal cases.

At this time the emperor was turning toward literary scholarship, so when Tang decided major cases, he wished to ground his judgments in classical precedent. He requested that Erudite disciples trained in the Documents and the Spring and Autumn Annals be appointed to assist the Commandant of Justice, standardizing doubtful points of law. When presenting cases with ambiguous legal questions, he would always prepare in advance an analysis of the underlying principles for the emperor. Whatever the emperor approved, Tang would adopt it and formalize it as legal precedent in the Commandant's office, making sure that the decision highlighted the emperor's wisdom. When a memorial drew censure, Tang would apologize and defer to the emperor's preferred interpretation, invariably citing his deputies and clerks, saying: 'They had already recommended this to me, but I failed to follow their advice — my foolishness led to this outcome.' The penalty would then be dropped. When a memorial met with approval, he would say: 'It was not I who composed this — it was my deputy so-and-so.' In recommending officials, he would publicize others' merits and conceal their faults in just this way. When the emperor wanted someone convicted, Tang assigned the case to prosecutors who would press hard; when the emperor wanted someone acquitted, he assigned it to those who would judge leniently.

Wang Wenshu was a man of Yangling. In his youth he was a grave-robber and petty criminal. He was later selected to serve as a township head, but was dismissed several times. As an official, he advanced through prison administration to Court Secretary. He served under Zhang Tang, was promoted to Inspector, and made a name for himself suppressing bandits — killing and wounding large numbers. He gradually rose to Military Commander of Guangping. He selected over ten daring and powerful local men as his enforcers, keeping evidence of their serious crimes on file while setting them loose to suppress bandits, satisfying whatever vendettas they wished. Though these men had a hundred crimes to their names, he never prosecuted them; but if any tried to evade his control, he used the evidence to destroy them, exterminating their entire clans.

A visitor reproached Du Zhou: 'You decide cases for the Son of Heaven, yet you do not follow the three-foot-tall law codes; you make prosecutions entirely according to the emperor's wishes. Is this what the judicial system is supposed to be?' Du Zhou replied: 'Where do those three feet of law come from? What the previous sovereign approved was written into statutes; what the current sovereign approves is issued as edicts. Whatever is right at the time is what counts — why appeal to ancient law?'

The Grand Historian says: From Zhi Du to Du Zhou, these ten men all made their names through severity and harshness. Yet Zhi Du was steadfast and upright, arguing questions of right and wrong and contending for the fundamental interests of the realm. Zhang Tang understood the dynamics of power and rose and fell alongside the ruler, frequently debating the merits of policies, and the state benefited from his aptitude. Zhao Yu held firmly to the law. Du Zhou was merely sycophantic, using his taciturnity to project gravity. After Zhang Tang's death, the legal net grew ever tighter, prosecutions grew ever harsher, and government business gradually deteriorated. The nine ministers plodded along in their offices, barely able to cover their own mistakes — how could they have attended to anything beyond the strict letter of the law? Still, among these ten men, the incorrupt ones can serve as models and the corrupt ones as warnings. In their strategies, methods, and ability to suppress wrongdoing, all had both substance and refinement. Though they were harsh, they were suited to their positions.