Читать книгу Circulating the Code - Ting Zhang - Страница 7

Qing legislators made great efforts to promulgate up-to-date laws for the bureaucracy and society. At least eight imperially authorized editions of the Code were compiled and published, as well as more than twenty editions of the Expanded Substatutes of the Great Qing Code (Da Qing lü xuzuan tiaoli). Qing rulers had a more flexible attitude than rulers of previous dynasties on modifying laws, especially substatutes, to adapt them to social and political changes.¹ Qing laws were frequently updated with a large number of new substatutes. Law-making matters, of course, but the circulation and reception of law matters as much as the legislation process itself. After all, laws cannot be effectively implemented unless they are effectively communicated. Active legislation requires an efficient dissemination system. This was especially true for the Qing, a vast empire that had numerous judicial officials working in the huge bureaucracy.