Товч агуулга:The developments in Chinese history during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries involved great changes in political thought, intellectual trends, economic activities, and institutional systems. While this period has often been characterized as the “Sung-Yüan-Ming transition” and considered a formative era of modern Chinese civilization, it has not been entirely clear to historians why and how these changes took place at this particular time. Although modern scholarship has tried to explore various aspects of this special period, and to give a satisfactory account for the transformation of Chinese civilization, the effort has encountered great difficulties, mainly because of the unfamiliarity with...The Yuan dynasty adopted many important legal principles from previous dynasties in establishing its own penal system. The influence of Mongolian law and customs, also provided substantial innovations in the Yüan system. Since the dynasty existed during a period in which the great urban and commercial expansion of Chinese civilization reached its peak, many new principles were institutionalized for the first time in the Yüan legal codes. On the whole, the traditional five punishments (i.e., thewu-hsing) remained the major legal penalties, although significant changes, both in content and in form, also occurred. Some of those changes were uniquely Yüan,...
