從當事人的訴訟策略看清代“訟費高昂”書寫的話語性特徵

清代的許多文獻常常概括性地聲稱打官司的費用非常高昂，以至于往往會讓訴訟兩造傾家蕩產。這種被官員和士大夫們大力宣揚的說法，不僅成為當時社會中廣為流傳的刻板印象，而且還直接影響到當代的許多研究者對此問題的認識。在清代，由于吏役收取司法陋規的作法在各地方衙門中的廣泛存在，打官司的費用對于許多普通民眾來說確實會是一筆相當大的開銷，但也未必皆是實際沉重到讓人完全無法承受。對清代訟費“高昂”程度的重新檢視，需要看到有許多當事人采用了一些內含著某種經濟理性的訴訟策略，例如“圖准不圖審”“官司打半截”，又或者多人分攤訟費，從而在不同程度上實際降低了司法陋規所帶來的經濟壓力。在面對清代史料中那些關于“訟費高昂”的說法時，我們需要同時注意到“訟費高昂”書寫作為一種特殊話語所具有的微妙功能，進而發掘其書寫者和主要言說者的主觀意圖。

Many documents in the Qing Dynasty often claimed that the costs of litigation were so high that they were likely to ruin the people involved in the lawsuit. This view, which had been widely publicized by officials and scholars, not only became a stereotype shared by the general public at that time, but also directly affected many contemporary researchers. In the Qing Dynasty, due to the widespread existence of the practice of charging judicial customary fees in local yamen, the cost of litigation would be a considerable expense for many ordinary people, but it may not always be too heavy for all people to bear. To re-examine the“high”level of the cost of litigation in the Qing Dynasty, we need to see that many litigants have adopted various litigation strategies with economic rationality, such as“trying to make the lawsuit to be accepted, but don’t want the case to be heard”, giving up a case halfway, or sharing the cost of litigation by more people, so as to actually reduce the economic pressure brought by judicial customary fees to varying degrees. In the face of those statements about“costly litigation fees”in the historical materials of the Qing Dynasty, we should pay attention to the subtle characteristics of the writing of“costly litigation fees”as a special discourse, so as to explore the subjective intentions of its writers and main speakers.