Literary inquisition

The literary inquisition (simplified Chinese: 文字狱; traditional Chinese: 文字獄; pinyin: wénzìyù; lit. 'imprisonment due to writings'), also known as speech crime (以言入罪), refers to official persecution of intellectuals for their writings in China. The Hanyu Da Cidian defines it as "when a ruler persecuted intellectuals by deliberately extracting words or phrases from an author's writings to fabricate charges against them." ("旧时谓统治者为迫害知识分子，故意从其著作中摘取字句，罗织成罪"). The Qing dynasty was particularly notorious for the practice.

In general, there are two ways a literary inquisition could be carried out. First is that the conviction came from the writing itself. That is, the writing was the direct cause of the persecution. The second is that the writing was used as a tool to provide legitimate evidence for a predetermined conviction. Such persecutions could owe even to a single phrase or word which the ruler considered offensive. Some of these were due to the naming taboo, such as writing a Chinese character that was part of the emperor's personal name. In the most serious cases, not only the writer, but also their immediate and extended families, as well as those close to them, would also be implicated and killed.

The earliest recorded literary inquisition occurred in 548 BC in the state of Qi during the Spring and Autumn period. Recorded in the Zuo Zhuan, the powerful minister Cui Zhu (崔杼), who had murdered the ruler Duke Zhuang, killed three court historians (taishi, 太史) because they insisted on recording the event in the official history. The burning of books and burying of scholars in the Qin dynasty is also considered a form of literary inquisition by some Chinese scholars. It is uncertain how frequently the persecutions occurred. However, compared to during the Ming and Qing dynasties, literary inquisition before the Song dynasty happened less frequently due to the lack of printing.

One major case during the Han dynasty was that of Yang Yun (杨恽), a maternal grandson of Sima Qian. Emperor Xuan first discharged him from his position in the government under the accusation of defamation. In 54 BC, he was sentenced to death by waist chopping because of his complaints of his unfair treatment written in a letter to his friend Sun Huizong (孙会宗), which was considered disrespectful and outrageous to the Emperor. His friends still in court were also discharged from their positions. In 208 AD, Kong Rong, a lead figure of the Seven Scholars of Jian'an in the late Eastern Han dynasty, was killed by warlord Cao Cao for his letters to Cao disagreeing and criticizing his rule and practice, including Cao's ban on alcohol for its potential negative impact on the nation. His wife and two sons were also killed. In the Three Kingdoms period, the death of Ji Kang was also related to his writing. In response to Sima Zhao's offer of a position as civil official, Ji Kang wrote a letter ("与山巨源绝交书") expressing his refusal of pursuing any political career. This letter, however, later provided justification for the advice of Zhong Hui, the official who conveyed the offer for Sima Zhao to Ji Kang, to sentence Ji Kang to death.

During the Northern Wei dynasty, prime minister Cui Hao carved Guo Shu ("国书"), which records the history of the ruling Tuoba clan and of which he was assigned as the lead editor, into stone monuments and located them on the side of a major road in a suburb of the capital, Pingcheng. The Xianbei bureaucrats ostensibly found exposing their ancestors' history to the public to be offensive and inappropriate. Thus, Cui Hao was accused of defaming the state and thus sentenced to death in 450. Along with Cui Hao, his whole clan, his wives' clans, and 128 officials who had participated in the editing work were all sentenced to death.

In 609, Xue Daoheng, the grandfather of Xue Yuanchao, was sentenced to death by Emperor Yang of Sui dynasty. In response to Emperor Yang's attempt to keep Xue from retiring, Xue wrote an essay praising the previous Emperor Wen. Emperor Yang considered this response as a mockery and found it offensive. The direct cause of Xue's death was his saying in reminiscence of Gao Jiong (高熲), who supported Emperor Yang's competitor and was sentenced to death. However, there is also evidence for that the underlying cause of his death was Emperor Yang's jealousy of his talent on poetry as the author of the famous poem "Xi Xi Yan" (“昔昔盐”) from the Sui dynasty. In this case, Xue's death could also be considered as a literary inquisition on poetry (诗祸, shihuo).

During the Tang dynasty, the Jizhou (吉州) criminal Liu Shaolüe (刘绍略) was married to a woman surnamed Wang. She secretly had copies of the Sanhuangjing, which Li Shimin ordered to be burned. As a result, Li Shimin detained Liu and Wang and interrogated them. The Sanhuangjing claimed that those who chanted the inscriptions inside it would become emperor of China. In another case near the end of the Tang dynasty, someone presented a poem to Qian Liu that contained treason, so Qian Liu executed that person.

The Song dynasty marked the rise of literary inquisition both in its number of cases and in its use. During the Song dynasty, the number of literary inquisition cases reached over one hundred. The concept of literary inquisition started to take formal shape in this time period. Unlike isolated cases in previous dynasties, literary inquisition in the Song dynasty became a tool in political struggles, consciously and purposefully used by opposing political parties to suppress and eliminate opponents. However, because the founding emperor of the Song dynasty, Emperor Taizu, vowed to not kill any scholar or intellectuals who wrote to comment or address on political issues, intellectuals involved in literary inquisition in the Song dynasty were often exiled instead of sentenced to death.