Fengjian
Fēngjiàn (
Development
The rulers of these
Each fengjian state was autonomous and had its own tax and legal systems along with its own unique currency and even writing style. The nobles were required to pay regular homage to the king and to provide him with soldiers in a time of war. This structure played an important part in the political structure of the Western Zhou which was expanding its territories in the east. In due course this resulted in the increasing power of the noble lords, whose strength eventually exceeded that of the Zhou kings, leading to dwindling central authority. The vassal states started to ignore the orders of the Zhou court and fight with each other for land, wealth and influence, which eventually disintegrated the authority of the Eastern Zhou into the chaos and violence of the Warring States period, where the great lords ended up proclaiming themselves as kings.[8]
During the
After the establishment of the Han dynasty, Confucianism became the reigning imperial ideology and scholars and court officials alike again began to look to the Zhou dynasty fengjian system as an ideal. These scholars advocated incorporating elements of the fengjian system into the junxian system. The Han dynasty emperors ultimately chose to parcel out land to their relatives and several other powerful officials, thus combining the junxian and fengjian systems.[8] The turning point came at the Rebellion of the Seven States, following which the autonomy of the fiefs was curbed and the fiefs were eventually abolished altogether. Subsequent dynasties also partially implemented the fengjian system alongside regular administration in other regions of the empire.
From the Tang dynasty to the Southern Song dynasty, including the Liao dynasty and the Jin dynasty, nobles were granted titles but held no fiefs.
The fengjian system was again revived in the Yuan dynasty when dynastic fiefs were once again established at various parts of the empire. This remained the same throughout the Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty, albeit the number of fiefs in the Qing dynasty was drastically reduced.
Four occupations
The four occupations were the shì (士) the class of "knightly" scholars, mostly from lower aristocratic orders, the gōng (工) who were the artisans and craftsmen of the kingdom and who, like the farmers, produced essential goods needed by themselves and the rest of society, the nóng (农/農) who were the peasant farmers who cultivated the land which provided the essential food for the people and tributes to the king, and the shāng (商) who were the merchants and traders of the kingdom.
The four occupations under the fēngjiàn system differed from those of European feudalism in that people were not born into the specific classes, such that, for example, a son born to a gōng craftsman was able to become a part of the shāng merchant class, and so on.
Beginning in the Han dynasty, the sizes of troops and domains a male noble could command would be determined by his rank of peerage, which from highest to lowest were:
- gōng 公
- hóu 侯
- bó 伯
- zǐ 子
- nán 男
While before the Han dynasty an aristocrat with a place name in his title actually governed that place, it was only nominally true afterwards. Any male member of the nobility could be called a gongzi (公子 gōng zǐ), while any son of a king could be called a wangzi (王子 wáng zǐ, i.e. prince).
Well-field system
The well-field system (
While all fields were aristocrat-owned,[citation needed], the private fields were managed exclusively by individual families and the produce was entirely the farmers'. It was only produce from the communal fields, worked on by all eight families, that went to the aristocrats, and which, in turn, could go to the king as tribute.
As part of a larger fēngjiàn system, the well-field system became strained in the Spring and Autumn period[10] as kinship ties between aristocrats became meaningless.[11] When the system became economically untenable in the Warring States period, it was replaced by a system of private land ownership.[10] It was first suspended in the state of Qin by Shang Yang and the other Chinese states soon followed suit.
As part of the "turning the clock back" reformations by Wang Mang during the short-lived Xin dynasty, the system was restored temporarily[12] and renamed to the King's Fields (王田; wángtián). The practice was more-or-less ended by the Song dynasty, but scholars like Zhang Zai and Su Xun were enthusiastic about its restoration and spoke of it in a perhaps oversimplifying admiration, invoking Mencius's frequent praise of the system.[13]
"Feudalism" and Chinese Marxism
Marxist historians in China have described medieval Chinese society as largely feudal.[14][15][16] The fengjian system is particularly important to
Comparisons
Under the Zhou fengjian society, the delegation of authority was based on kinship and there was a single direction of obligation, whereas in the European model, the lord and vassal had clearly specified mutual obligations and duties.
Moreover, in Europe, feudalism was also considered to be a hierarchical economic system in which the lords were at the top of the structure, followed by the vassals, and then the peasants who were legally bound to the land and were responsible for all production. In Zhou rule, the fengjian system was solely political and was not responsible for governing the economy.
Furthermore, according to China-A New History by
Regardless of the similarities of an overwhelmingly agrarian society being dominated by the feudal lords in both societies, the application of the term 'feudal' to the society of the Western Zhou has been a subject of considerable debate due to the differences between the two systems. The Zhou fengjian system was termed as being 'protobureaucratic'[24] and bureaucracy existed alongside feudalism, while in Europe, bureaucracy emerged as a counter system to the feudal order.
Therefore, according to some historians, the term "feudalism" is not an exact fit for the Western Zhou political structure but it can be considered a system somewhat analogous to the one that existed in medieval Europe. According to Terence J. Byres in Feudalism and Non European Societies, "feudalism in China no longer represents a deviation from the norm based on European feudalism, but is a classic case of feudalism in its own right."[25] According to Li Feng, the term "feudalism" is not at all an apt descriptor for the Western Zhou political structure, due to differences in the relationship between the monarch and regional lords, differences in governance of regional states, contrasts in military organization, and the absence of an ordered system of ranks.[26]
See also
- Ancient Chinese states
- Spring and Autumn period
- Warring States period
- Eighteen Kingdoms
- Chinese nobility
- Zhou dynasty nobility
- Agriculture in China
- Economic history of China
- Ejido
- Equal-field system
- Sharecropper
- Tenancy
- Indian feudalism
- Feudal Japan
- Feudalism in Pakistan
- Ritsuryō
References
- S2CID 144009226.
- Cai Shu Du) were not in accord with him. That is why he enfeoffed (封; fēng) and established (建; jiàn) kinsmen and relatives as a hedge and a screen for Zhou
- S2CID 162159081. Archived from the original(PDF) on 18 November 2017.
- ISBN 0-520-01440-5.
- ^ "Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BC) – Chinese History: Ancient China Facts". 9 May 2011.[unreliable source?]
- ^ "History of Zhou Dynasty". China Education Center. 2004. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
- ^ Ulrich Theobald. "Chinese History - Zhou Dynasty 周". chinaknowledge.de. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
- ^ a b c Roberts 1999, pp. 9–12
- ^ Fu 1981, p. 7
- ^ a b Fu 1981, p. 9
- ^ Lewis 2006, p. 142
- ^ Fu 1981, p. 12
- ^ Bloom 1999, pp. 129–134
- ^ Dirlik 1985, pp. 198–9
- ^ "The History of Zhou Dynasty". China Scientific Book Services.
- ^ "奴隶社会——夏、商、西周、春秋". 中央政府门户网站.
- .
- ^ Roberts 1999
- ^ a b Byres & Mukhia 1985, pp. 213, 214
- JSTOR 25066693.
- ISBN 0-674-01828-1.
- ^ Yan Qinghua (严清华); Fang Xiaoyu (方小玉) (2009). "Xian Qin liang Han shangren fenzhan zhi bianqian ji qi zhengce fenxi" 先秦两汉商人分层之变迁及其政策分析 (PDF). Wuhan University Journal (in Chinese). 62 (3): 346–352.
- ^ Fairbank & Goldman 1992
- ^ Roberts (1999).
- ^ Byres & Mukhia 1985, p. 218
- ^ Li (2008), p. 290.
Bibliography
- Bloom, I. (1999). "The evolution of Confucian tradition in antiquity". In De Bary, William Theodore; Chan, Wing-tsit; Lufrano, Richard John; Adler, Joseph (eds.). Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press.
- ISBN 0-7146-3245-7.
- ISBN 0-7146-3245-7.
- Lewis, Mark Edward (2006). The Construction of Space in Early China. Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Fu Zhufu (1981). "The economic history of China: Some special problems". Modern China. 7 (1): 3–30. S2CID 220738994.
- ISBN 978-0-521-88447-1.
- ISBN 0-674-00074-9.
- Wu Ta-k'un (1952). "An Interpretation of Chinese Economic History". Past & Present. 1 (1): 1–12. .
External links
- Encyclopædia Britannica
- http://totallyhistory.com/zhou-dynasty-1045-256-bc/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20130531215622/http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Zhou/zhou-admin.html