"Announcements to the underworld" (gaodi ce 告地策 or gaodi shu 告地書) are a type of document that was placed in tombs in ancient China, and the number of such documents that have been unearthed from tombs of the Former Han as a result of archaeological excavations during the past thirty to forty years is by no means small. To the best of my knowledge, the following nine such documents have been discovered: bamboo tablet from Former Han tomb no. 1 at Xiejiaqiao 謝家橋 (183 B.C.); wooden tablet from Former Han tomb at Gaotai 高台 (173 B.C.); wooden tablet from tomb no. 3 at Mawangdui 馬王堆 (168 B.C.); wooden tablet from Former Han tomb no. 1 at Maojiayuan 毛家園 (168 B.C.); bamboo tablet from tomb no. 168 at Fenghuangshan 鳳凰山 (167 B.C.); wooden tablet from tomb no.10at Fenghuangshan (158 B.C.); wooden tablet from tomb no. 8 at Kongjiapo 孔家坡 (142 B.C.); wooden tablet from tomb no. 5 at Huchang 胡場 in Hanjiang 邗江 (70 B.C.); and wooden tablet from tomb no. 3 at Guanghua Wuzuo 光化五座 (date unknown).
  In view of the fact that these documents are identical in style to the identification papers used by travelers during the Han period, Oba Osamu 大庭脩 once called them "passports to the netherworld" on the assumption that they were used by the deceased when setting out for the underworld. They are, however, fictitious documents and represent one of the mortuary customs prevalent at the time.
  An examination of their content and calligraphic style reveals a number of points shared by these documents. With respect to their content, they begin with the date, followed by the name of the applicant, a list of burial goods, the issuing authority, the recipient, etc. As for their calligraphic style, they are written in the standard style employed for practical use at the time, probably because they would generally have been written shortly before the burial, and most of them can be classified as cursive clerical script (caoli 草隷). In this article, I present a list of "announcements to the underworld" that have been unearthed to date with details of their actual condition and undertake a comparative examination of them as well as analyzing the calligraphic style of the script in which they are written.

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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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The "Ernian Luling" 二年律令 is a bamboo manuscript excavated from Han 漢 tomb 247 at Zhangjiashan 張家山, Jingzhou city 荊州 市, Hubei province 湖北省 during 1983 and 1984. It consists of statutes and ordinances 律令 which might have been promulgated in the second year of the reign of Empress Dowager LU 呂后 (186 BC) of the early Former Han 前漢 Dynasty. The author examines the "Ernian Luling" in relation to other existing and well-known historical documents concerning Qin 秦 and Han period law, in order to analyze penal policies regarding attempt, preparation and conspiracy in such crimes as homicide, wounding, larceny, counterfeitine (盜鑄銭), rebellion (謀反), kidnapping (劫人), and kidnapping and selling a person (略賣). When comparing the general trends of Qin and Han penal law to that of the later Tang law 唐律,we find three remarkable features, at least in Han law : 1. Under Han law, most types of crimes were to be punished even if they were only in the beginning stage. 2. Tang law applied three different types of punishment for the crimes of homicide and counterfeiting according to their stage of development, while Han law applied two, simply depending on whether the crime was commited or not. 3. Han law often applied the same punishment regrardless of whether the crime was completed or not. These three features show us that Han law dealt with criminal attempt, preparation and conspiracy more strictly than Tang law did. Although there are few historical documents regarding Qin law, it probably had the same features as Han law since the "Ernian Luling" came after Qin law, and they are very similar to each other in general. Penal policy in Qin and Han law intended to stop crimes themselves by warning that criminals should be strictly punished even if they failed in achieving their objective and regardless of whether or not it they were caught in the beginning stage. Qin and Han law more clearly reflected the government's political intent to maintain the social order than the later Tang law.

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