Landed gentry in China

Song Dynasty

artist Ma Yuan, c. 1200–1230.

The "

mandarins or their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.^[2]

Confucian classes

See also: Scholar-official and Junzi

The Confucian ideal of the four occupations ranked the scholar-official above farmers, artisans, and merchants below them in descending order, but this ideal fell short of describing society. Unlike a caste this status was not inherited. In theory, any male child could study, pass the exams, and attain office. In practice, however, gentry families were more able to educate their sons and used their connections with local officials to protect their interests.
Members of the gentry were expected to be an example to their community as
late imperial China, merchants used their wealth to educate their sons in hopes of entering the civil service
. Financially desperate gentry married into merchant families which led to a breakdown of the old class structure.
With the abolition of the exam system and the overthrow of the Qing dynasty came the end of the scholar-official as a legal group.

20th century attacks on landlords

Further information:
Mass killings of landlords under Mao Zedong

The imperial government and scholar-official system ended but the landlord-tenant system did not.
Communist organizers
promised agrarian reform and land redistribution.
After the
class struggle trials and the class as a whole was abolished. Former members were stigmatized and faced persecution which reached its heights during the Cultural Revolution. This persecution ended with the advent of Chinese economic reform under Deng Xiaoping
.

"Viewing the Pass List", attributed to Qiu Ying (c. 1494–1552), Ming dynasty. Handscroll, ink and colors on silk, 34.4 × 638 cm

See also

Chinese nobility

Society and culture of the Han Dynasty

Cabang Atas, the Chinese gentry of colonial Indonesia

References

ISBN 052135594X

^ Chang Chung-li [Zhongli Zhang], The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955).

Sources

Elman, Benjamin A. (2009), "Civil Service Examinations (Keju)" (PDF), Berkeshire Encyclopedia of China, Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire, pp. 405–410

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[1] ISBN 052135594X

[2] Chang Chung-li [Zhongli Zhang], The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955).

[2]