Entry

The Ministry of Justice re-submitted a proposal by the Censor Wang Yi-qi, which noted: "`Whenever yi persons come to offer tribute, the Fu-jian coastal dwellers make contact with them and lure them there. This will bring calamities to the area. Strict laws should be set down requiring that, when fan and yi tribute ships arrive, if people receive them and privately trade with them before officials have been informed and inspected the ships, they should be subject to the regulations covering those who trade upwards of 1,000 jin of sapan wood or pepper. Those who form alliances with the fan and yi, those who trade with them, borrow from them, or cheat them, thereby resulting in troubles, and those who deceive them into disorder, should be subject to the regulations in force in Si-chuan, Guang-dong/Guang-xi, Yun-nan, Gui-zhou, Shaan-xi and Shan-xi. Those who privately purchase forbidden articles on behalf of the fan and yi should be subject to the regulations governing the inner and outer military and civil officials in the Interpreters Institute. Those who undertake the manufacture of ships of a forbidden type and privately sell them to the fan and yi should be subject to the laws governing those who take prohibited military weapons beyond the borders, thereby allowing information to leak out. In cases where people who have been charged with these crimes cannot be arrested, their family members should be banished (徒).' We note that the proposed regulations are sufficient to uphold the law. It would be excessive to banish their family members and it is thus requested that in such cases family members not be jointly charged. In addition to Fu-jian, these instructions should be circulated and publicly posted through Zhe-jiang and Guang-dong." This was approved.