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Abstract
This article gathers and examines information about the legal practices of Qin and Western Han China, and demonstrates that these served communicative functions. Law in early imperial China not only penalized antisocial behavior, it was also a medium for communication between the central government, the common population, and officials. The information so transmitted comprised institutional and personal information, including that which facilitated the function of reputation on a national scale. There is also important evidence that people at the time recognized the communicative possibilities of legal practice, as reflected in cases where they manipulated penal communication for individual benefit.
The most famous road built during the Qin dynasty was the Zhidao, literally, the Direct Road. The Direct Road connected Ganquan, near the capital, with the northwest corner of the empire, and historians have discussed it since ancient times. Yet the earliest sources do not give any information about the Direct Road’s specific route, leaving this question open to debate. In recent decades, there has been a controversy among historical geographers and archaeologists about the path the Zhidao took, and numerous articles have been published proposing variations of two main possibilities. This article gathers relevant historical materials, reviews the scholarship on both sides of the debate, and discusses the difficulties that emerge when scholars seek to integrate history and archaeology.