The father and mother of the people, the district magistrate was the lowest representative of the Chinese imperial government, bore responsibility for approximately one-hundred thousand people, and performed a number of essential functions facilitating Chinese society (Berring). As the local tribunal overseer, crime investigator, tax collector, public benefit distributor, and communal leader, the magistrate served as the administrative juncture between the people and the imperial government. The likelihood of their corruption was astutely obviated by the imperial government’s poor compensation package, frequent rotation of magistrates, and rule of barring a magistrate from serving in their home district. The last anti-corruptive technique—commonly termed the rule of avoidance—unintentionally resulted in a system that made the magistrate, who could not effectively communicate in the district’s local dialect, dependent on the district’s informal power structure, or gentry, to accomplish tasks (Berring 12), which may have increased the number of both unsolved cases and individuals wrongfully punished.

Fortunately, this informal power structure’s interests oftentimes aligned with the district magistrate’s goal of keeping his xian quiet, to wit, giving the imperial government the appearance that he could manage his affairs without external help. However, when the two interests collided, ideally, the district magistrate either utilized the gentry as a guide in resolving its affairs internally or hoped society’s moral principles steered deviants to correct behavior before the imperial government discovered the magistrate’s inability to contain his affairs.

An exceptional example of this kind of magistrate is Judge Dee, a seventh-century district magistrate. Unlike most Chinese magistrates, he did not wait to utilize the gentry for guidance, nor appeal to moral structures as a means to confirm his intuitions and contain the effects of miscreants; rather, he relied on these two techniques as a strategy for achieving quietness within his xian.

Tasked with solving three daunting murder cases simultaneously—as Robert Van Gulik details in Celebrated Cases Of Judge Dee—Judge Dee filters the gentry’s evidence, considers multiple sources of information, exercises sound logic, and relies upon his intuitions to not only solve the murder of Bee Hsun, murder of Lee-goo, and murders at Six Mile Village, but also to avoid wrongfully punishing innocent individuals in these three cases.

The murder of Bee Hsun, an undetected murder case Judge Dee uncovered while investigating the murders at Six Mile Village, typifies Judge Dee’s reliance on Dao-based intuitions and training in Confucianism; both philosophies help him to contain his xian’s problems and provide his xian with a model for correct behavior. The Dao, though inexplicable, takes form in Judge Dee’s dream wherein he draws connections between imagined elements and evidence related to Bee Hsun’s case. Under a modern lens, Judge Dee’s attempt to supply interpretations to confirm his intuition of Mrs. Bee née Djou’s guilt could be perceived as a confirmation bias. However, in seventh-century Chinese society, his willingness to depend on a structure and principle beyond himself bespeaks not only his faith in a higher order, but also his observance of the li, for he sought to avenge the death of Bee Hsun for the sake of principle, not as a duty imposed by his xian. This combination of intuition and character almost costs Judge Dee his bureaucratic career: “The Judge has just ordered us to turn the screws tighter, but what if [Mrs. Bee née Djou] dies, and later is proved to have been innocent? That will cost His Excellency his name and position, and us our life” (Van Gulik 62). Fortunately, Mrs. Djou’s confession later absolves Judge Dee and his constables of the possible ramifications of wrongful punishment. Nevertheless, Judge Dee’s willingness to endlessly pursue, capture, and sentence a wrongdoer to avenge a victim of murder without petition reveals his commitment to his xian and observance of the Pole Star, an immaterial force that connects the xian and imperial government and provides the xian’s members with a model of virtue. Leading by example, he inspires his xian to have self-awareness, to monitor others, and to report wrongdoers to the proper officials to promote the ideals of correct behavior and to restore the cosmic balance. The Pole Star helps to distinguish Judge Dee from other magistrates who are dependent on their gentry, for these other magistrates contribute to the reversal of the imperial government’s structure, diminish the emperor’s power, and arguably inhibit the magistrate’s ability to keep his xian quiet.

The intuition and principles prompting Judge Dee to solve the murder of Bee Hsun also inspire him to avoid wrongfully punishing Candidate Hoo Dso-bin in the murder of Lee-goo and Warden Pang and Djao Wan-chuan in the two murders at Six Mile Village. Given the prominence of Hua Guo-hsiang and testimonial consistency presented before the court, Judge Dee could easily have been persuaded by the evidence and imputed the murder of Lee-goo to Candidate Hoo. Instead, he shrewdly avoided an inadvertent ensnarement by filtering the petitioners’ evidence, detecting logical flaws in their testimonies, and correctly attributing the murder to a red adder. The gentry’s failure to supply Judge Dee with entirely accurate information does not prevent him from using their testimony as a guide to identifying the true culprit. The scrupulousness of Judge Dee in this case resembles his investigation of Bee Hsun in that it exceeds any expectation set by his xian.

The murders at Six Mile Village, in contrast to the previous murder cases, demonstrate Judge Dee’s ability to supplant his sedulousness with the gentry’s conviction. In this case, alone he weighs his intuitions and the evidence incorrectly, for he would have punished Warden Pang and Djao Wan-chuan without the intercession and cogent testimonies of Djao San and Djiang Djung, respectively. In this case as well as the murder of Lee-goo, Judge Dee furthers his embodiment of the Pole Star by discriminating when it’s appropriate to be scrupulous and follow his intuitions and when it’s auspicious to trust his gentry.

The ingeniousness, resolve, and self-awareness of Judge Dee throughout these three murder cases are emblematic of a district magistrate who oversees but does not disturb the xian’s activities, who receives but does not command the xian’s attention, and who leads but does not directly instruct the xian’s behavior. As the supply of water and its mounting pressure affects the height of a geyser’s fountain, the magistrate’s observance of the li and his xian’s observance of him shapes the effect of the Pole Star. In Judge Dee’s case, his observance of the li, admiration from his xian, and consequent embodiment of the Pole Star help him to detect unnoticed crimes and avoid wrongfully punishing innocent individuals—two of the rule of avoidance’s potential shortcomings.

Undoubtedly, the imperial government’s demand for Judge Dee-like magistrates always exceeded its available supply. However, the imperial government expected magistrates to maintain quietness within their xian, not meet the standard set by Judge Dee. Ordinary magistrates were usually uninvolved in local affairs; as long as social harmony was maintained, the local power structure enjoyed little oversight from the magistrate as they managed local affairs (Berring 13). Patently, the gentry’s operational latitude came with much responsibility. To preserve social harmony and protect their control over local affairs, the gentry promoted observance of the li and, in effect, recreated the Pole Star as a spirit tangibly representative of the collective. This spirit of the collective imposed a duty on the xian’s members to behave in such a way that neither caused the magistrate concern, nor reflected poorly upon the magistrate: the former limited the frequency of minor transgressions and obviated egregious crimes, while the latter safeguarded the magistrate from the imperial censors. The magistrate and gentry’s tacit exchange helped an ordinary magistrate achieve, or at least create the appearance of, quietness in their xian—the imperial government’s primary expectation for a district magistrate.

For the imperial government, social harmony served as one of the most useful indicators of its sovereignty. The unintentional consequences of the rule of avoidance, then, were concerns held only by extraordinary magistrates such as Judge Dee, for magistrates could maintain social harmony without solving every case and always identifying and punishing the actual culprit.

Magistrates needed only to encourage the xian’s respect of the Pole Star: Judge Dee-like magistrates would cast a model of virtue, while ordinary magistrates depended on local gentries to fashion this construction. The xian’s adherence to the Pole Star—irrespective of its source— indicates that social harmony derives from the Pole Star, not necessarily the people’s father and mother.

Sources:

Berring, Robert C. “Midterm List” University of California, Berkeley, 2014. Web. Berring, Robert C. “Speculations on Law and Society in Modern China.” University of

California, Berkeley, 2010. 1-22. Web.

Bloom, Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene. “Confucius and the Analects.” Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. I. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. 41-44. Web.

Bloom, Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene. “Molders of the Confucian Tradition.” Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. I. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. 86-100. Web.

Bloom, Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene. “The Legalists.” Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. I. New York: Columbia University Press, 1960. 122-37. Web.

Head, John W. “Dynastic China’s Legal Development.” China’s Legal Soul: The Modern Chinese Legal Identity In Historical Context. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2009. 3-26. Web.

Van Gulik, Robert. Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1976. Print.