How did Qing China's justice system work?

This is the fourth lesson in a mini scheme of work on Qing China, in which students learn about how law and order worked under the Qing Dynasty and how that compared with European law and order.

Within this lesson, the students:

• Begin by comparing what they know about law and order in Britain to what they can infer from a number of sources about law and order in Qing China.
• They then create a diagram to illustate how the Qing justice system worked.
• They then do a fun little activity where they try and match Qing punishments to crimes!
• There is also an activity that begins to explore how Confuscian principles impacted the Qing legal system.
• The lesson ends with an Autumn Court scenario where the students decide what punishment fits the crime given to them.

Overall this is at least two lessons’ worth of material, and was great fun when I tried it out with my class!