<Articles>Distance-based Exile in the Qing Dynasty: The Revision of the Chart for the Five Military Exiles 五軍道里表

KIM Hanbark

doi:10.14989/shirin_102_689

This study aims at clarifying the characteristics of distance-based exile in Qing times through an examination of the charts for exile (道里表 daolibiao) and argues that the charts for exile not only functioned as tools to determine that criminals who had committed the same crime be given the same punishment and sent to a place of exile of the same distance, but also to disperse criminals throughout the country. Exile punishments of the Qing dynasty, which chiefly consisted of basic exile (流刑 liuxing), military exile (充軍 chongjun), and deportation (發遣 faqian), were the harshest punishments, second only to the death penalty. Among them, basic exile and military exile were punishments that sent criminals to locations inside China proper, and the places of exile were designated by the distance of exile from their official households. Ihave named this exile system ʻdistance-based exile.ʼ Distance-based exile had been instituted before the 6th century, but actual exile did not correspond to the prescribed distance. However, in the Qing era, distance-based exile was used as real criteria for designating the place of exile, so it serves as one of the characteristics of exile in the Qing era. The Qing government made a Chart for the Five Military Exiles 五軍道里表 and a Chart for the Three Exiles 三流道里表 for distance-based exile and the dispersion of criminals. It can be confirmed from the case of the Ba county archive 巴県档案 that the charts for exile were actually employed. In the latter part of this study, through statistical analysis of five versions of the Chart for the Five Military Exiles, Iclarify not only that there were small revisions to it according to changes of the administrative districts, but also two large-scale revisions. A revision in 1767 aimed to make the actual exile distance consistent with the regulations. However, as a result of the revision, the number of places of exile in a geographic unit decreased, so the criminals tended to concentrate in certain places. So, another large-scale revision in 1779 aimed to disperse criminals by increasing the number of the places of exile in a specific jurisdiction, and this secured more than twice as many locations than in the previous version. The establishment and revisions of the chart of exiles aimed to realize exact exile distances based on legal fairness, and reflected a consideration of the reality faced by local governments that had to manage criminals in places of exile. We can see here the characteristics of the penal system in the Qing era: the fact that criminals were sent not to distant frontier areas, but dispersed within China proper according to the system of distancebased exile and the actual problems derived from it.

<Articles>Distance-based Exile in the Qing Dynasty: The Revision of the Chart for the Five Military Exiles 五軍道里表

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