Sanctioned Violence in the Exercise of Power

Given the violence that was intrinsic to power, it is not surprising that emperors, or holders of power from behind the throne, did not hesitate to inflict bloody punishments upon courtiers, military officers and other sub­jects for real crimes, perceived slights or disloyalty, or to appease political constituencies.

The Legal Code

Although only the Tang dynasty legal code is fully extant, we can assume that its legal principles applied for most of the early medieval period because it is similar to surviving portions of earlier Qin, Han and Sui dynasty law, and later the Song dynasty (960-1270) accepted the Tang Code with only a few revisions.^[200] The code envisioned that justice would be meted out fairly because government officials did not have any discretion in sentencing. Punishments varied according to status ranking that divided society into three strata - privileged (imperial relatives and officials), commoners (free individuals) and inferior (slaves, bound retainers and bondsmen). For iden­tical crimes, miscreants of the privileged class received the lightest sentences and members of the inferior class the harshest.^[201] The social disparities in sanctions carried the assumption that commoners and slaves were more deserving of violent treatment than government officials and aristocrats, who could escape most crimes with a fine.

Some of the penalties were physically violent, while others took a psycho­logical and economic toll. The punishments grew progressively heavier, starting with corporal penalties of beatings with a light or heavy stick. Interestingly, the next two types of penalties, penal servitude or lifetime exile, were not physically violent, but took an emotional and financial toll. Finally, the most severe sentences were the death penalties of strangulation and decapitation. The latter was considered harsher because the body was mutilated. Only the emperor could approve a capital sentence, and penal servitude and exile had to be reviewed by higher authorities. From the perspective of the ruler and state, these punishments were ‘intended to inspire awe and to be dreaded... to fill the prospective law-breaker with fear'.^[202] The violent corporal and capital punishments were most explicit in this regard because they were carried out publicly. Despite the brutality of some of the corporal and capital punishments, they are somewhat moderated in comparison with Qin and Han dynasty law. The earlier legal codes prescribed various forms of mutilation - including severing of the nose, feet and testicles - and two other grisly types of death penalties that involved being carved into pieces or cut in half at the waist.^[203]

The ultimate purpose of the law was to protect the emperor and the dynasty. To this end, the most severe penalties were meted out for the crimes of rebellion, sedition and treason. All three offences carried penalties of decapitation for the criminal and collective punishment of their extended families. For example, when the crime was rebellion or sedition, the offen­der's father and sons were strangled and his extended family was enslaved by the state. For these offences, the privileged classes were punished as harshly as commoners.^[204] The function of these laws was to use state-sanctioned violence to strike fear into the hearts of any potential rebels in the provinces or usurpers at court, who, as we have seen above, were usually members of the elite.

Punishment of Civil Officials and Military Officers

Strong rulers varied in their application of violence towards officialdom and members of the court. Even though open discussion of policy was customa­rily encouraged, opposing an emperor's favoured policies posed dangers because criticism of the monarch carried the death penalty.^[205] Sui Emperor Yangdi (r. 605-17) reacted harshly towards critics. Zhang Heng - whose privately critical remarks about Yangdi's construction projects and imperial tours were reported to the emperor - was forced to commit suicide in 612. The atmosphere of fear at the court contributed to the quick fall of the Sui dynasty because officials became unwilling to report bad news.^[206] Some emperors consciously cultivated an image of tolerance towards remonstra­tions, most notably Taizong early in his reign. Taizong later applied violence strategically when he carried out a purge of corrupt local officials. Thousands were punished, including seven egregious offenders who were executed, which far exceeded the legal code's sanctions for corruption.^[207] Likewise, Empress Wu exercised violence strategically after founding her Zhou dynasty. Toning down her campaign to sow fear among officialdom, she gradually eliminated the ‘cruel officials' who had supported her rise to power with trumped up charges of sedition. However, she had a final outburst in 697 when thirty-six prominent officials and over a thousand of their relatives and adherents were executed or exiled for being suspected of disloyalty.^[208] In all of these cases, rulers reacted to real or perceived fears of corruption and disloyalty with capital sentences. The violence inherent to the rise to power obviously made emperors suspicious and created opportunities for informants to slander innocent enemies at court.

In the military, generals potentially could receive violent punishments that varied according to circumstances.

Suppression of Rebellion

In periods of rebellion and civil war, the rebel army and the populace under its control could become the target of state-sanctioned violence in the forms of plunder, enslavement, forced migration and killing. Even though the Confucian value system discouraged pillage, Chinese emperors took a prag­matic attitude towards paying troops with the spoils of war when their states were weak and short on funds. In the sixth century, Yuwen Tai's Western Wei forces plundered and enslaved the populaces of rival rulers.^[211] Two centuries later, during the An Lushan rebellion, Tang forces looted two southern cities retaken after local uprisings in 761.^[212] Though we have no evidence that the Tang generals or government condoned this instance of plunder, Emperor Suzong (r.

Ringleaders of rebellions typically were executed, but their followers might be pardoned or subject to forced migration or mass killing. An instructive case involves the Lanchi Hu, a non-Chinese people living in the northern Tang Empire. After a revolt in 721, Tang troops slaughtered 15,000 of the Lanchi Hu and captured their leader, Kang Daibin. Delivered to Chang'an, Kang was publically cut in half at the waist in the Western Market. His death penalty exceeded the decapitation stipulated in the Tang legal code, possibly inspired by the above-mentioned Qin and Han codes. Evidently as a warning, Emperor Xuanzong ordered the ‘chiefs of the four barbarians' to watch the gruesome spectacle, but pardoned the remainder of the Lanchi Hu whom he called ‘honest and obedient commoners, the same as Han' Chinese. Despite the pardon, the Lanchi Hu erupted in a revolt again in 722 after a misguided attack by Tang troops. After another military suppres­sion, the emperor ordered the forced relocation of 50,000 people to the south to prevent further uprisings.⁴⁶