In principle, the date of the events and proceedings reported in each case does not determine the time when the case record itself was compiled. However, the fact that most Zouyanshu cases originally were judicial documents implies that these documents were drawn up exactly at the time when the proceedings took place. As more than one government agency is involved in many cases, a step-by-step compilation must be assumed, e. g.: The local prefecture authority first undertook its own investigation, then formulated its submission, later the responsible court officials added their opinion, finally the emperor’s decision was attached to the document. This layer-by-layer process is easily discernible and made explicit in all those cases where different dates are provided for the submission of the case, for the submission to a higher authority and/or the decision (see the notes to the dates given above). But altogether, due to their nature as documents, there is no chronological distance between the proceedings recorded in the texts and their recording in a document. This is also true for case 22, which has to be considered an actual document. Therefore, for all cases except 19-21, the dates given above with the sigla J, S, and D also refer to the time of the original compilation of the case record.
Case 21 presents the discussions at the imperial court concerning a case submitted for decision in edited form. Based on the available evidence, it is not possible to decide when the editing took place, beyond that obvious fact that this must have happened after the compilation of the original documents on which the Zouyanshu case is based and before the compilation of the Zouyanshu itself.
Cases 19 and 20 are not actual documents, but narratives with a strong literary and rhetorical character about events the historical accuracy of which cannot be determined. An analysis shows that both texts, though telling a Chunqiu period story, can have been written not earlier than in post-unification Qin, and possibly only in early Han. Firstly, the texts themselves make their great
temporal distance explicit by referring to the time of the events they talk about as yishi 異時 “in the past”.201 Secondly, text 20 translates the terms supposedly used for labour convicts in Chunqiu period Lu into their Qin/Han equivalents.202 This last point in particular excludes an origin either outside of pre-unification Qin, or prior to Warring States Qin. Thirdly, and most importantly, the texts make use of a vocabulary that is not attested at all or not in the relevant sense in texts earlier than in post-unification Qin. This vocabulary appears both in the narrative and in quotes of legal stipulations which allegedly date back to Chunqiu times. Examples are 臥 in the nominal sense
“sleeping place”,203 or the technical legal term he 劾 “to bring an ex-officio charge”.204 Most significantly, the introduction of the term xianguan 縣官 in the sense “government affairs, official business”205 can be dated precisely to the year 221 BC, based on documents found in Liye. These include a list of terms and designations to be replaced by new ones, including the instruction to substitute the new term xianguan 縣官 “government” for both the old wang shi 王室 “royal house” and gong shi 公室 “ruling house”.206 Other items on the same list are known from the Shiji account of how King Zheng, in the 26th year of his rule, marked his success in unifying the realm by introducing new terms and designations, most importantly huangdi 皇帝 for wang 王.207 The composition of case 20 in its present form therefore can be placed with certainty after 221 BC.
Most likely, the same is true for case 19. The more expanded technical term xianguan shi 縣官事
201 Zouyanshu 162, 174. See note 35
202 Zouyanshu 175. See notes 45 and 46.
203 Compare Zouyanshu 167-168 with Hanshu 77, 2380. In earlier sources, the verbal sense “to sleep” is common. The earliest passage for nominal usage given in the Hanyu da cidian is Hanshu 70, 1872 (a slightly different worded parallel passage is found in Shiji 70, 2619).
204 The earliest use of he 劾 is found in late Warring States legal texts found at Shuihudi (Xiaolü 54, 55=RCL B 26, 27).
205 Zouyanshu 175.
206 Liye 8-461r. See also Lau and Staack 2016, 153 note 752.
207 Shiji 6, 236. Substitutions listed both in Liye 8-461r and the Shiji account include zhi for ming, zhao for ling, as well as Taishang Huang 太上皇 for Zhuang Xiang Wang 莊襄王.
“government business; official business” is only known from Han sources208 and is not attested earlier; however, this might be due to a lack of sources.
It would be tempting to place the composition of cases 19 and 20 in Qin, as this would neatly divide the Zouyanshu in a first part with cases 1-16 composed in Han and a second part with cases 17-22 composed in Qin. However, composition of cases 19 and 20 in Qin is doubtful. Based on what we know about the intellectual history of Qin, it would be surprising to find both cases attached to the Chunqiu-personages that appear in both cases as judges and which are taken from the Confucian pantheon.209 Case 19 is a variant of a Hanfeizi story where no judge appears; why would a judge associated with Confucian texts be introduced for this text in Qin? In case 20, the ru 儒-scholar certainly is presented as all clothes and no substance and thus not in the best light.
However, it would be too simple to interpret case 20 as pursuing a Qin agenda in demonstrating the superiority of Legalism over Confucianism. This would rely on too simple an understanding of the intellectual world in Qin and early Han, where ru-scholars cannot yet be fully associated with “Confucianism”, and fixed “schools” had not yet fully developed. Rather, the ru-scholar in case 20 should be seen as embodying a class of specialist officials, the ritual specialists, which is here contrasted with a representative of the separate class of judicial officials. Both the fact that the judge is taken from “Confucian” texts and that the Liji, where Confucius himself makes the point that the junzi is made not by his dress, but by the learning, shares a topos with this case,210
208 A typical example is found in Ernian lüling 267: 吏有縣官事而無僕者，郵為炊；有僕者，假器 “If an official is on government business, but has no servants, the courier station shall cook from him; if he has servants, it shall lend him [kitchen] utensils.” Other examples are found in Ernian lüling 46, 48, 183, 422;
Zouyanshu 180; Hanshu 13, 2427; 59, 2655. In most of these, xianguan shi is preceded by yi 以, as in Zouyanshu 175. The term xianguan on its own is very common in Han sources, but unknown in earlier ones.
An isolated example in the military chapters of the Mozi (Mozi 71, 370) does not change this picture, as (a) the context is insufficient to definitively decide whether the term is used in its Qin/Han technical meaning;
(b) the Mozi chapter itself, at least according to some scholars, might have been composed in Han (Graham 1993, 337), a view which finds support in Liye 8-461r; and (c) in any case, Liye 8-461r offers exceptionally strong evidence for the exact date of the introduction of the term.
209 See above.
210 Liji 59, 1668c.
should warn against premature simplifications.211 All in all, the intellectual fluidity and multi-facetedness of cases 19 and 20 probably fits better into early Han than in Qin.