Song people only cut down trees next to the cemetery. Why should we sentence them?

The Song Dynasty was divided into two periods: the Southern Song Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty. During the Song Dynasty, it experienced ups and downs, and the most famous "shame of Jingkang" occurred in history. The two emperors in the Song Dynasty were taken away, and the Northern Song Dynasty perished, thus the Southern Song Dynasty began. However, the Song Dynasty achieved considerable political and economic development. For example, the economic center of gravity moved south in the Southern Song Dynasty. It is said that in the Song Dynasty, people were sentenced for cutting down trees next to cemeteries. Why?

Song Dynasty was a society with a strict calendar.

In the Song Dynasty, the laws of the country were very strict. In order to ensure the orderly progress of social order, the rulers have formulated very strict laws, especially to protect personal property, so they have made very detailed legal provisions on personal property.

The trees beside the cemetery belonged to personal property in the Song Dynasty. Once it is personal property, it will be valued by the rulers, and cutting down other people's trees without others' permission is a violation of personal property to some extent. So they will violate the laws made by the rulers at that time, and then these people will be punished by the rulers.

Another aspect is the protection of land.

As we all know, land has been extremely precious since ancient times, and deforestation will definitely do harm to land. The rulers of the Song Dynasty all emphasized agriculture and suppressed commerce. How can a society that attaches so much importance to agriculture allow the phenomenon of destroying land to appear? Therefore, the rulers made it clear that any destruction of land would be regarded as a violation of national laws.