The ritsuryo ̄ statethe Chuigong code, compiled during the reign of Emperor Zhongzong (656–710, r. 684 and
again 705–710) but enacted during that of Empress Wu Zetian (624–705. r. 690–705); as well as
the Shenlong code (also during the reign of Emperor Zhongzong). Emperor Xuanzong (685–762,
r. 712–756) alone oversaw the compilation and enactment of three legal codes, in the third (715),
seventh (719), and twenty- fifth (737) year of the lengthy Kaiyuan era (713–741).
The last of these, known as the Kaiyuan code, was exceptionally sophisticated and proved to
be the apogee of Chinese legal codes. Setting aside alterations to the titles of government offices,
official ranks, provinces, and counties; and slight revisions in the wording of certain regulations,
the more fundamental aspects of national governance—the central and local bureaucracies,
family and tax registers, the system of land division, the social class system, and the institution of
a royal guard—remained largely unchanged thereafter.
By comparing fragments discovered at Dunhuang with a document entitled Gu tanglü shuyi
(“Commentary on the old Tang lü regulations,” an annotation of the Kaiyuan code, completed
in 737), we have been able to successfully reconstruct all of the Tang lü regulations. By contrast,
the second part of these same Tang legal codes, the ling regulations, were lost at a relatively early
date. Niida Noboru and Ikeda On searched through Dunhuang fragments and quotations embed-
ded within numerous documents in hopes of reconstructing the ling regulations.^2 Then Dai
Jianguo, a Chinese scholar working at the end of the twentieth century, discovered a Ming era
copy of a Northern Song legal code in China’s oldest extant library, Tianyige at Ningbo. As a
result of Dai’s efforts, reconstruction of the Tang ling has since progressed at a rapid pace.^3
Compilation of ritsuryo ̄ legal codes in Japan
With the rise and expansion of the Sui and Tang empires in China came a general sense of
increased tension that reverberated throughout all of East Asia. The three Korean kingdoms and
Japan began working diligently toward the establishment of centralized state government, along
imperial Chinese models. Empress Suiko’s (554–628, r. 593–628) reign witnessed the first official
Japanese envoy to Sui China, the compilation of a “Seventeen Article Constitution,” and the
introduction of a system of official ranks divided into twelve tiers.^4 Some two decades thereafter,
the downfall of the main lineage of the Soga family was followed by an extensive round of polit-
ical transformations, including the construction of a new capital at Naniwa (in modern- day
Osaka), the establishment of a system of local administration that divided land into districts.^5
The Nihon shoki, the court’s first official historical chronicle (released in 720) and our principal
source for the events of the seventh century, asserts that the key elements and principles of the
ritsuryō state were introduced at a stroke, in a four- clause edict issued on new year’s day in 646,
in the wake of the spectacular Taika coup d’etat led by imperial prince Naka no Ōe (later Emperor
Tenji; 626–671, r. 662–671). Modern scholarship has, however, demonstrated that the reform
process was far more gradual, and far less uniform in pace, than the Nihon shoki account implies.
Historians today identify three major waves of reform activity.^6
The first occurred in the early years following the Taika coup. But while this event resulted
in a major shift of power within the court and decisively committed the court itself to Chinese-
inspired political reorganization, the central government did not, at this time, yet possess the
power needed to fully implement the measures described in the Taika edicts, and the reform
movement eventually flagged.
Nevertheless, a second burst of reform activity began in the 660s, when Emperor Tenji,
having suffered a horrible loss at the Battle of Paekchon River in 663, exploited widespread fear
of the waxing power of the Tang and imminent Chinese invasion of Japan to renew enthusiasm
for centralizing reforms.^7 In 670, the Kōgo Register (Kōgo nenjaku) was compiled as a means of