Trial without Law: Land Disputes in Traditional Chinese Governance System

There are many perplexing and disputable problems in the interpretation of Chinese traditional civil trial with modern legal knowledge system. In the discussion of the new discourse, many important problems of Chinese inherent law are also covered up. If we analyze the origin of “law” (punishment) and contract, and combine with the traditional Chinese understanding of land and loan, we can find that the problem of “details” is not a civil law problem under today’s theory. It’s even hard to say that it’s a legal issue for traditional Chinese people. The strategies adopted by the traditional Chinese in dealing with these disputes are the result of the shaping of Chinese culture.