Qi Tai's Kin Pardoned in 1425

Background

Qi Tai was a native of Lishui and Minister of War under the Jianwen emperor, and died in the Jingnan Campaign, when the Jianwen side was defeated. The Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer gives only this much in the entry for 1425, adding that the details are "in the biography", which belongs elsewhere in the gazetteer. After the case his kin were implicated and the family property confiscated; the pardon came only in the first year of the Hongxi era.

Time and place

The pardon was issued in 1425. It concerned Qi Tai's kin in Lishui, and the property was restored in the county itself.

What was done

仁宗洪熙元年乙巳，赦溧水前兵部尚书齐泰宗党，给还故业。齐泰死建文君难，详《传》。 — Kangxi Lishui County Gazetteer, 卷之一·邑纪·仁宗洪熙元年乙巳

Translated: In the first year of the Hongxi era, the kin of Qi Tai, formerly Minister of War of Lishui, were pardoned, and their former property was restored to them. Qi Tai died in the troubles of the Jianwen emperor; see the biography for details.

Two measures are recorded: the pardon of the kin, and the restoration of the family property. The word "formerly" before the office shows that the title recorded is the one Qi Tai held under the Jianwen emperor.

Consequences

The case was not settled at a stroke. In 1525 the magistrate Wang Congshan asked that Qi Tai be sacrificed to in Lishui, and the shrine was named Biaozhong, bringing him into the county's observances. In 1621 the court pardoned the thirty-eight households of the loyal minister Qi Tai who had been exiled with him and returned them to the Lishui registers. A hundred and ninety-six years separate the pardon of the kin in 1425 from the restoration of the households in 1621.

Uncertainties

First, the circumstances of Qi Tai's death are referred to the biography, which is not in this volume; this entry therefore does not reconstruct them.

Second, the extent of the 1425 pardon and the way in which the confiscated property was identified and restored are not recorded.

Third, the gazetteer does not say whether the thirty-eight exiled households pardoned in 1621 were those missed in 1425 or the result of a later investigation, and it gives neither their place of exile nor the term of service.