The four forms of law in the Tang Dynasty, namely, the law, the order, the pattern, and the style, complemented each other.

Decrees, patterns, and styles regulated the rules and regulations of the state in a positive way, while the law regulated the criminal responsibility for violating them in a positive way. The four are used together to form a comprehensive legal system with the law as the mainstay and the order, style and form as the supplement.

The law is the basic code of the state, take the form of codification of the law, criminal, civil, military, administrative, litigation, etc., but to the criminal law, criminal penalties and punishments are mainly used for the law. Compared with the order, frame, style, the law has absolute authority and relative stability.

The order is a supplement to the law, is about the state system and its basic system of laws and regulations, mainly regulating the organization of state power, operating procedures and systems, in order to strictly respect the order of inferiority and superiority.

Ge is the rules for the daily work of the various departments of the state organs and the hundred officials, as well as an abridgment of the emperor's relevant edicts.

Style is the official program of the state organs and the rules of administrative activities.

Expanded information:

The main characteristics of Tang regulations are:

①To maintain imperial power, confirm the emperor's total and supreme dominance, and publicly Recognizing the difference between the inferior and the superior, the feudal hierarchical system of oppression was maintained.

②From the perspective of the overall interests of the landowning class and the long-term interests of the landowning class, the criminal suppression of the peasants paid more attention to control; the landowning class elements to seize extra-legal privileges have also been limited.

③The Confucian concept of feudal morality was the guiding principle, and it emphasized the interplay of rituals and laws; on the one hand, it used the coercive power of the law as a backing to promote the norms of rituals, and on the other hand, it used rituals as a spiritual backbone to strengthen the repressive effect of the law.

④The combination of law, order, pattern, style, code, edict, and example, formed a complete legal system, which was used to regulate social relations in all aspects of feudal society.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Statutes of the Tang Dynasty