官箴書를 통해서 본 淸代 幕友와 法律運用 ― 汪輝祖의 사례를 중심으로 ―

Wang Huizu(汪輝祖) was a eminent private adviser(幕友) in Qing dynasty and, as a prolific writer, left various documents including ‘guidebooks for governance(官箴書)’ based on his rich experience. In those guidebooks for governance, he emphasized the role of private adviser to monitor and cure the ills of local administration. As a matter of fact, the importance of private adviser was becoming bigger and bigger throughout Qing dynasty because of the local clerks(胥吏)'s mischief. The local administration in Qing dynasty worked by local officers(地方官) on the one hand, and by various irregular positions of local clerks on the other hand. A response of Qing dynasty to the ills of local adminstration, mainly stemming from the local clerks' mischieves, was to increase informal private advisers. Those private advisers and local clerks were turned into formal official assistants in late Qing dynasty. In Guidebooks for Governance, Wang Huizu often emphasized the importance of acquaintance of law by local officers and private advisers. He did not insisted on the priority of law, however, over the aspects and logics of actual cases. In other words, he did not ignore the importance of counting on the aspects of actual, individual cases, denying the absolute priority of laws. This was because of the variety of customs in many parts of the empire which was not confined to daily life's custome but also included many different rules of trade, tax collection, buying and selling of lands, and so forth. The variety of those customs made it difficult to homogenizing the empire's local rules under the one unified principle of laws, and Wang insisted on the application of state law to be in harmony with various local customs.