[I N T R O D U C T I O N:  CHAPTER II:  Shang Yang as Social Reformer]

2. Shang Yang’ s System of Rewards and Punishments

The social organization connected with the ching system p.57 was as follows: a ching consisted, as we have seen, of eight families; three chings, said to be 25 families, were grouped together around an Altar of the Soil, shê, and formed a li. Or differently divided, a li comprised five neighbouring districts, lin, each composed of five families (278). In an interesting paragraph in the Han-shih-wai-chuan (279) the ideal relationship which existed between the inhabitants of these hamlets is described.

« The eight families protected one another, outside and inside they took turns in keeping watch, in sickness they condoled with each other, in distress they assisted one another, those, who had, lent to those, who had not, on festive occasions they invited each other, they arranged marriages for each other, they shared the results of fishing and hunting, they showed each other benevolence and kindness and thus the people lived in harmony and intimacy and loved each other.

But then it continues:

« Now the people in groups of five are responsible for each other’ s crimes, they spy on each other to discover transgressions, they denounce each other and cause hostile relations. By thus establishing enmity the people harm each other, they injure friendly feelings, destroy benevolence and kindness and damage scholarship and culture. Those of friendly spirit are few, but those who p.58 desire to cause harm are many, and the way of virtue has been destroyed...

It would seem as if here is given a description of the state of affairs as desired by Shang Yang. For, as we have seen (280), the reform which came before all others was the organization of the people into groups of five or ten men, who were mutually responsible for each other, and were obliged to denounce each other’ s crimes; at the same time the old patriarchal family-system was broken up. In the Life this measure is not mentioned in any relation with the abolition of the ching system, but it fits in very well with that reform.

The oldest testimony, from which Ssu-ma Ch’ ien may have drawn for his account of this measure, is Han Fei-tzu, who twice (281) mentions this law. « Kung-sun Yang in ruling Ch’ in, established the system of denunciation of crime in which (for the non-denunciation) one was punished as if one had committed the crime oneself; he organized groups of ten and five men who were all held equally responsible for each other’ s crimes.

The Book is not so explicit. In the apparently old par. 19 it is said (282) that 

« in battle five men were organized together into a squad; if one of them was killed the other four were beheaded, but this is a military measure which cannot have been applied in every-day life. In par. 18 (283) it is also said that:

« by the order in the ranks they should be organized into bands of five.

But in the same paragraph (284) it is stated: p.59

« All should control one another by means of the law and correct one another by means of mandates, and in par. 24 we read (285):

« In a condition of complete good government, husband and wife and friends cannot abandon each other’ s evil, cover up wrong doing and not cause harm to relatives, nor can the men from the people mutually conceal each other from their superiors and government servants.

These two paragraphs cannot, however, be considered as belonging to the old part of the work (286). In par. 2, which is older, it is said (287) that relations should be involved in the punishment, and the expression used might just as well mean that those of the same group should be involved in the punishment. In par. 5 it is clearly said (288):

« If they make it their habit to denounce all crimes, then the people make the judgments in their own minds, and if, when the ruler gives his orders, the people know how to respond, so that the means for enforcing the law are really manufactured in the families and merely applied by the officials, then the judgments over affairs rest with the family. Therefore, in the case of one, who attains supremacy, judgments with regard to punishments and rewards rest with the people’ s own minds, and those with regard to the application of the means for enforcing the law, rest with the family. So not the officials of even quite small administrative units of ten or five hamlets should decide people’ s merits and demerits, but the latter should themselves do so (289). Rewards and punishments should be so definite and clear that everybody should know at once the consequences of his own or of his neighbour’ s actions.

p.60 Now these punishments are meant to be deterrent in the highest degree. “Punish severely the light crimes”, such was the law of Kung-sun Yang, says Han Fei-tzu in his important 30th paragraph (290), and in the explanatory part of that same section it goes on:

« If small offences do not arise, big crimes will not come and thus people will commit no crimes and disorder will not arise. In the oldest sections of the Book we find this phrase repeated ad nauseam, and it is stated again and again that the result will be that punishment will be no longer necessary as nobody will dare to commit the slightest offence. The same phraseology recurs also in Kuan-tzu (291):

« If one desires the people to be correct, it is necessary to prohibit small offences, for big offences originate from small ones. If small offences are not prohibited, it is impossible to obtain that big offences shall not harm the state (292).

The Life says that even the omission to denounce a culprit was punished by being cut in two; and for concealing a culprit one received the same punishment as he who surrendered to the enemy. The Ch’ ien-han-shu (293) adds to this that Shang Yang used the punishments of branding on the top of the head, extracting the ribs, and boiling in a cauldron. In the Biography of the Shih-chi it is asserted (294) that Shang Yang did not hesitate to punish the crown-prince himself; the account in the Chan-kuo-ts’ê states (295) a even more clearly that “the punishments did not spare t he strong and great”.

p.61 Not less curious than his system of punishments was the system of rewards which Shang Yang is reputed to have initiated. The Life tells us (296) that

« those who had military merit all received titles from the ruler according to a hierarchic ladder », and « whosoever should denounce a culprit would receive the same reward as he who decapitated an enemy.

The Book also says that « in the case of one who attains supremacy …. rewards are bestowed on the denouncement of villainy, so that minor sins do not escape unnoticed (297).

In Han Fei-tzu we receive a little additional information on this point. He mentions as one of Shang Yang’ s measures “to reward the denunciation of crime” (298) and writes also (299):

« The law of the Lord of Shang said: “He who cuts off one head is given one degree in rank, and those who desire to become an official obtain an office worth 50 piculs. He who cuts off two heads, is given two degrees in rank, and those who desire to become officials are given an office worth 100 piculs.” We are fortunately somewhat informed about this curious hierarchy of henchmen and denunciators. It was, in fact, the beginning of an institution which has been perpetuated throughout the course of Chinese history down to modern times, viz., that an officer, apart from the real office which he fills, holds a nominal rank which is purely honorary. As Chavannes remarks (300), these ranks were not unlike the chin of the former Russian administration. The hierarchy numbered 18 degrees, and when Ch’in Shih-huang-ti had destroyed feudalism in the whole country, two new degrees p.62 were added to these, which were given to former feudal lords who had become high dignitaries. The Ch’ ien-han-shu (301) gives a summary of the organization as it existed during the early Han, and as it had been taken over from the Ch’ in dynasty. The 18 degrees which concern us here are the following:

1. kung-shih; i.e. in distinction from ordinary shih “patrician”, they receive the honorary appellation of kung “official”.
2. shang-tsao; i.e. the Emperor, shang, had made, tsao, the decree by which they received this title.
3. tsan-niao; lit. “horse with a silken harness”; which those who had this title were entitled to mount, as in modern times purple or yellow bridles were conferred by the Emperor.
4. pu-keng;the holders of this rank were free from keng, police-duties.
5. ta-fu; the holders of a simple rank of ta-fu, Grand Officer.
6. kuan-ta-fu.
7. kung-ta-fu.
8. kung-ch’eng; the holders of this rank were entitled to mount, ch’ eng, an official, kung, carriage.
9. wu-ta-fu; Grand Officers of the 5th degree.
10. tso-shu-chang; the “left head of the multitude”.
11. yu-shu-chang; the “right head of the multitude” (302). p.63
12. tso-keng.
13. chung-keng.
14. yu-keng (keng meaning here to command the police).
15. shao shang-tsao.
16. ta-shang-tsao; the holders of these two ranks, junior and senior, seem to have had authority over the ordinary shang-tsao, those who held the second degree.
17. ssu-chü-shu-chang; this gave the right to mount a carriage with four horses, ssu-chü.
18. ta-shu-chang.

Altogether these 18 degrees formed 9 groups, which were known as the chiu-ch’ ing.

In this system there is evidently no place left for feudalism. The Life says (303):

« Those of the princely family, who had no military merit, could not be regarded as belonging to the princely clan. He made clear the distinctions between high and low, and between the various ranks and degrees, each according to its place in the hierarchy.... Those, who had merit, were distinguished by honours, while those who had no merit, though they might be rich, had no glory whatever.

This made a clean sweep of all privileges by birth.

In the 19th paragraph of the Book of Lord Shang several of these degrees are mentioned as being given for military merit. In a somewhat doubtful passage (304) it is also said that a man who could capture a head was exempted from taxes; for the capturing of the head of a man of rank, land was given, apart from one degree in the hierarchy, and also a bodyguard for each rank (305). Han Fei-tzu, in the passage (306) mentioned before, p.64 criticized this system of rewards not without a touch of humour, referring in particular to the possibility of obtaining a real office in this manner. He says:

« Thus promotion in rank and. office correspond to the merit acquired in cutting off heads. Now suppose there were a law that those who cut off a head are ordered to become doctor or artisan’; then houses would not be built nor would sickness be cured.

Indeed, an artisan has skill in his hands, and a doctor prepares drugs, but if one is set to do these things because of merit in cutting off heads, then one does not have the required ability. Now for filling office knowledge and ability are necessary, and the cutting off of heads is the result of courage and strength, and if offices for which knowledge and ability are necessary are filled according to the results of courage and strength, it is exactly the same as if those who had merit in cutting off heads became doctors and artisans."

The sanguinary exploits which originally alone constituted a claim to these ranks, were later replaced by the more peaceful method of buying a degree by means of a contribution in grain. In the Annals of the Ch’ in dynasty this is for the first time clearly stated in the year 243, where it is said:

« All those who brought 1,000 piculs of grain were awarded one degree of rank (307).

In the Han dynasty at various times the same system has been followed. We have seen (308) how Ch’ ao Ts’ o, in order to promote agriculture, suggested that titles should be awarded to those district officials who brought grain, and in the chapter on economics in the Shih-chi (309) it is said that those who sent grain to the frontier, where it was p.65 needed for the garrisons, obtained ranks up to the 18th, that of ta-shu-chang. This is explained as meaning, that for 600 piculs the degree of shang-tsao (the 2nd) was given, for 4,000 piculs that of wu-ta-fu (the 9th), and for 12,000 that of ta-shu-chang.

The various ways in which, in later times, rank and office have been for sale, need not detain us here, where we are only concerned with the origin of the custom, which became a vice. For the right understanding of the Book of Lord Shang one should, however, keep this system in mind. Repeatedly it is said (310) that office and rank should only be acquired through one opening; viz. that of war and agriculture. Apart from military merit, agricultural success can give a claim to rank.

When the army is mobilized for an offensive, rank is given according to military merit, and, reliance being placed upon the military, victory is certain. When the army is in reserve and agriculture is pursued, rank is given according to the production of grain, and, reliance being placed, upon farming, the country will be rich (311).

Already in the Book there are traces that this last method developed into simply buying office. Once it clearly stated (312):

« If the people have a surplus of grain, cause them to obtain office and rank by means of their cereals.

In the policy which is developed in the Book, the rank conferred would, on the one hand, constitute a reward, while on the other, it would impoverish the rich people, who otherwise, remaining wealthy, would fall into the snares of culture, or, to speak in the Book’ s vigorous terminology, would become addicted to the six “Lice”. * * *