According to the Statute on Theft (Daolu 盗律) of the Ernian Luling Codes found in the Zhangjia Shan collection of bamboo documents, the time between the Qin 秦 Dynasty of the Warring States Period and the beginning of the Former Han 前漢 was characterized by an increase in the severity of punishment for such crimes as group robbery from hard labor to the death penalty; and it was often the case that pursuers who captured or killed felons would be rewarded with prestigious aristocratic titles, etc. These types of serious crime had two elements : one pertaining to the princedoms that existed during the period, the other to group-related behavior. The latter element, in particular, consisted of gang-related crimes that would have to be handled by military troops organized by Xian 県 and Dao 道 level administrative offices. Here, we not only observe the characteristic features of the Ernian Luling's penal code, which looked upon gang-related crime as especially dangerous, but also the intentions of the Han Dynasties to prevent gang-related crime from escalating into political rebellion and civil war. Among the Ernian Luling criminal statutes we find provisions to deal with the illegal crossing of inspection points by bands of robbers; and the Statute on Robbery states that allowing valuable goods to flow out of inspection points constitutes robbery. These statutes show that 1) under the Jun-guo 郡国 feudal system during the early years of the Former Han Dynasty, many incidents occurred of criminals crossing inspection points in the remoter Xian and Dao districts to flee into the jurisdiction of a some princedom and 2) the Ernian Luling itself was filled with new legal provisions focusing on the situation of the princedoms in the east. Although the princedoms during this time were established in order to stabilize the Dynasty's rule, they also posed a threat to it. This is why the Ernian Luling imposed more severe punishment on group-related crime within the Dynasty's jurisdiction, hoping to prevent disputes among the surrounding princedoms. The Ernian Luling provisions stayed in effect through the reign of Empress Hou 呂, but there is no doubt that the penal system it called for stemmed from the social chaos that characterized the reign of the Han Dynasty's founder.
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