宋初の配流と配軍

Abstract

This paper focuses on two types of punishments on those who are exempted from the death penalty, that is, life exile and penal registration in the Sung China. It examines the process through which penal registration has been incorporated with the penalty system in the Sung dynasty. In order to reduce the number of executed criminals which has been increasing during the Five Dynasties, the emperors in early Sung used to reduce their punishment by one degree, when memorials were sent up to request the emperor to fix the punishment. The convicts exempted from the death penalty were usually sent to Shamendao 沙門島. But the capacity of the island was not large enough to accept exiles increasing year by year. Besides, it caused abuses that families of the criminals must be sent to the capital with the criminals for the judgment of the emperor. It was penal registration that appeared to solve these problems. Criminals exempted from the penalty had been admitted into the army from the latter half of the Five Dynasties. As the army began to have different functions, it turned out that more convicts were sent to the labor battalions, the so-called provincial armies (xiangjun 廂軍), and at last, the convict units had the specialized status in provincial armies. At first. the criminals who committed crimes punished by life exile and those of minor offences who require heavier punishment were directly admitted into units engaged in odd jobs (loucheng 牢城), without waiting for the judgment of the emperor. Afterwards, the system of reduction of penalty for the criminals punishable by the death penalty was reformed. This paper, focusing on the penalties for robbery by stealth and force, examined how penal registration was incorporated into the penalty system of the dynasty.