Sword Fight Between a Runaway 'Slave' and a Thief Catcher

Section 4.5 Sword Fight between a Runaway ‘Slave’ and a Thief Catcher

This is the third case in the Book of Submitted Doubtful Cases that transpired in the wake of the Imperial instruction proclaimed by Liu Bang in 202 BCE and its resulting legislation (discussed in the preface to sec. 4.2) ordering the popula- tion displaced after the collapse of the Qin dynasty and the subsequent civil war to return to their natal homes and register themselves and their property with the Han authorities. Many who had formerly been enslaved could register themselves within thirty days and then return to their previous commoner lives, provided they had not committed any offense. As with the case documented in section 4.2, this case (dated one year ear- lier) was submitted from Jiangling County, located in present-day Jingzhou, Hubei, the former capital of the state of Chu, by the same Assistant Magistrate Ao, but this time the record mentions his superior, Magistrate Yu. The case was first submitted for adjudication to officials at the commandery, where the two main offenders were sentenced, but then forwarded to the Han capital, presumably because the Nan Commandery officials wanted their judgment of the matter confirmed. The chief judicial officer of the empire, the Commandant of the Court, most likely Xuan Yi 宣義 (d. 181 BCE), requested Emperor Gaozu himself to pronounce final judgment, presumably because he, too, was not completely sure whether Nan Commandery had judged the case correctly. The Emperor did indeed confirm the judgment decided by the lower court. The case involves a dispute between a member of the rank and file, Jun, and his former slave, Wu, who was born in about 230 BCE, both of whom apparently had been under the authority of the Chu regime of Xiang Yu. At some point during the civil war, Wu had run away from his master and surrendered to the Han. He later took advantage of Liu Bang’s amnesty offer, registering himself as a free man with his property, and became an ordinary commoner under Han authority, somehow acquiring and arming himself with a sword, which was the symbol of free male adulthood during the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods. However, his former master, presumably unhappy about losing such a valuable asset, and possibly unaware of Emperor Gaozu’s Imperial instruction allowing for the emancipation of certain types of slaves, or at least unaware that Wu had availed himself of the legal opportunity to free himself, caught sight of him again several years later and denounced him as a runaway slave.

The denunciation was made to the appropriate local legal authority in Jiangling County, the Constable, Chi, who, with his Thief-Catcher, Shi, pursued Wu with the intent of arresting him for the crime of being an absconded slave, based on this seemingly valid denunciation. However, in a rare mention of an emotion in the Book of Submitted Doubtful Cases,1 Wu angrily drew his sword to resist, knowing that he was a free commoner and not subject to such arrest. Had he simply gone with the officers to plead his case, he probably would have won, and nothing more would have happened. But in the subsequent fight, Wu injured the Thief-Catcher, who also injured Wu, and the two officers managed to subdue the former slave and arrest him. In the statement Jun made to the interrogators of the Jiangling Magistrate’s court, he admitted that he had unintentionally ‘made a careless denunciation,’ which, according to the “Statutes on Denunciations” (sec. 3.4) no. 2 (slip no. 127), would have been punished only one degree less than the crime for which Jun had denounced Wu. The court accepted this plea, and no more is heard about Jun’s punishment. But the Jiangling court was unsure of what crimes the former slave, Wu, and Thief Catcher Shi had committed by coming to blows in the course of the (unjustified) arrest. The decision of the Nan Commandery officials, ultimately confirmed by the Emperor, was based on two different statutes: For sentencing Wu, his crime would have matched “Statutes on Assault” (sec. 3.1) no. 20 (slip no. 25), which states, “For one who maliciously injures another person, as well as for one who maliciously injures himself or herself in order to avoid [labor or military] service: in every case, tattoo [the criminal] and make [him or her] a wall-builder or grain-pounder.” For matching Shi, they would have pointed to “Statutes on Arrest” (sec. 3.5) no 8 (slip no. 152), in which an individual who killed or injured a suspect in the course of attempting an arrest had his liability for a crime completely removed. So because Wu was unable to control his anger, he lost his recently won freedom and was condemned to have his face tattooed and be made a hard-labor convict. His flash of righteous anger as he confronted his pursuers is the only instance of emotion detectable in these heavily edited legal cases. The former slave was clearly conscious of his newfound dignity, and fought to preserve it, but that fight ultimately cost him his freedom.

1 As Lau and Lüdke (2012, 136) stress, the mention of anger as a motivation for Wu was an attempt by him to plead guilty to the lesser crime of ‘injuring a person during a fight’ (dòushāng rén 鬬傷人), which was a crime instigated by sudden emotion, rather than accept the more serious crime of ‘maliciously injuring a person’ (zéi shāngrén 賊傷人), which assumed premeditation and intent to harm.