PATNA WOMEN’S COLLEGE

(AUTONOMOUS)
PATNA UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
ASSIGNMENT OF HISTORY DSE603
TOPIC- CHINESE FEUDALISM

SUBMITTED TO-

SHREYA SINGH SUBMITTED BY-

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR ASHIKI SONI

ROLL NO- 294

EXAM ROLL NO-21HIS00362

REG NO- 21PWC00362

SEMESTER – 6TH
 INTRODUCTTION
China is divided politically into eighteen province : along the northern borders,
facing Mongolia, are Shansi, Shensi, and Chilin (Hopei) : Kansu is in the extreme
northwest, and Shantung, with its conspicuous promontory , faces northeast
toward the Yellow sea . The Yellow River separates these provinces from Honan
(“meaning south of river”). The central provinces lie in the valley of the Yangtze:
close to its mouth are Kiangsu, Anhwei, kiangsi , Yangzte , are Hupeh and Hunan
(“north of the lake”, south of the lake). The western part of the Yangtze Basin is
the huge “inland empire” of Szechuan. The land was isolated from the rest of the
world by the Pacific Ocean to the east, dry deserts to the north and west, and
impassable mountains to the south. This isolation allowed the Chinese to develop
independently from other civilizations. Ancient China was made from different
landforms. To the west of Ancient China there were large mountain ranges and
deserts. The rest of Ancient China was developed by hills, valleys, and rich fertile
plains these hills and plains were home to large farming communities.

CHINESE FEUDALISM
Chinese feudalism was a social hierarchy that lasted from 500 BC–1911. The
system divided society into three classes: emperors, nobles, and commoners. The
majority of the population were commoners. In the case of ancient China that
society followed a hierarchy called Feudalism. The word Feudalism means
“Economy absolutely dependent on land” basically it means the central
authority is not in power . Marxist historians in China have described Chinese
ancient society a largely feudal.

Fengjian is a political ideology and governance system in ancient china whose

social structure followed a decentralized system of confederation like the
government was based on the ruling consisting of the Son of Heaven (king).
Most of the Asian countries followed the Divine Rights of Kingship and nobles
and the lower class consisting of commoner’s categorized into four
occupations(on four categories of the people namely gentries, peasants , laborers,
and merchant’s.

In Fengjian system the king would allocate an area of land to the Nobles
establishing him as the de facto ruler of that region and allowing his tittle and fief
to be legitimately inherited by his descendants .

This created large number of local domains which became autonomous states.
The rulers of these states known as Zhuhou had a political obligation to pay
homage to the king. The Eastern Zhou dynasty they eventually started making
their own kingdoms.

King (the superior authority)

⬇
Nobles(responsible to king)

⬇
Peasants (work on the land of the nobles & the king
and they also need protection)

⬇
Merchants (status was very low)
 The Zhou king formed alliances with
powerful families and promised them land and
protection. In exchange, the families would
manage the land, control the local populations,
and collect taxes for the king. The monarchy
would also reward loyal nobles with large
pieces of land.

Characteristics of feudal system:-

1. Decentralized system of Administration / Authority.

2. Transfer of Hereditary Right (freely hereditary right were given

irrespective of / without evaluating the capabilities and administrative
skills of the ruler.

3. Rise of Autonomous states – Emperor were the head of the

Administrative though power were segregated into nobles. Nobles were
also categorized according to the value of their property. They have their
own tax and legal system. They have their own writing style that means
you are creating little China (multiple little China) in China. This privilege
allowed nobles to develop multiple little China inside huge Chinese
Empire.

In result 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 it
resulted in the increasing power of the nobles lords whose strength eventually
exceeded that of the Zhou kings leading to dwindling central authority.

4. Autocracy creeped up in nobility- Because the central Authority was not

strong enough to solve their personal conflict. Some Thinkers supported
these ideology because according to them it was a ideal system, Kind was
a fraternal figure who signed nobles to govern his people in justified
 manner but all this nobles became autocratic ruler and started subjugating
people to there own selfish weds.

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. ts and traders of the kingdom.

Zōngfǎ (宗法, Clan Law), which applied to all social classes, governed the
primogeniture of rank and succession of other siblings. The eldest son of the
consort would inherit the title and retained the same rank within the system. Other
sons from the consort, concubines, and mistresses would be given titles one rank
lower than their father. As time went by, all of these terms lost their original
meanings, yet Zhūhóu (诸侯), Dafu (大夫), and Shi (士) became synonyms for
court officials.

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:

1. gōng 公
2. hóu 侯
3. bó 伯
4. zǐ 子
5. 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).
Feudalism in China failed due to a number of factors, including:
• Decentralized authority
Feudalism failed because authority was decentralized, weaker, and often
ignored. This created a power vacuum, where power could easily be replaced.
• Power struggles
Bloody court intrigues and power struggles eliminated many established
houses. The new power centers were reluctant to see the process continue and
refused to allow further segmentation and subinfeudation.
• Centralization of power
The centralization of power under the Qin and Han dynasties, the
establishment of a bureaucratic system, and the implementation of land
reforms all contributed to the decline of feudalism in China.
• Fengjian
The Zhou Dynasty's system of fengjian, a semi-feudal system, eventually led
to the de facto independence of the Zhou monarch's vassals.

Failure of Chinese Feudalism

The shadowy Shang dynasty was conquered about the twelfth century B.C by
the Kingdom of Chou whose capital was Hsian (Western Peace) on the Wei,
a western tributary of the Yellow River. The Chou survived to be nominally
 the longest Chinese dynasties, lasting nearly nine centuries until 222B.C ,
twice as long as even the strongest of later dynasties.
The Chou Empire covered most of North China , but failed to occupy the
swampy Huai River Valley to the southeast, or the subtropical woodlands
south of the Yangtze. The Chou rulers introduced, probably from West Asia,
the institution of the imperial harem guarded by eunuch chamberlains. They
developed brass coinage resembling modern cash, practiced irrigation, and
grew surplus of grain for with the nomadic tribes of the steppe, the Turks and
Mongolians.
About 500B.C iron entered China, supposedly through India via Burma, and
there were steel swords and ox-drawn plows imported, or imitated, from
Semitic cultures in the Near East. China was over a thousand years behind
the Near East. China was over a thousand years behind the Near East in iron
metallurgy, but five centuries ahead of Japan.
It was through the China that the Iron Age spread over the
Far East. The Chou emperors soon became ineffective rois faineants,
paralyzed by the incessant wars among their feudal fiefs. They remained mere
onlookers as the number of states fell from eighteen hundred to one hundred,
and then to a handful; Yen in the northwest, Ch’u in the south, and Yueh in
the east. These conspired and campaigned against each other in an anarchy
called Chan kuo, or ”Warring states”.

VARIOUS INTERPRETATION

Feudalism was a form of social organization which arises under certain

circumstances, mainly the deterioration of a centralized form of government
which is replaced by independent feudal states owing only minimal duties and
loyalty to a central ruler.

The second assumption for classifying the Zhou as feudal by Guo Moruo was the
similarity of the essential elements of feudalism that included the granting of land
in the form of 'fiefs' to the knighted gentry, as was the case of European feudalism.
There land fiefs were granted by lords or the monarch to knights, who were
considered the ‘vassals’, who in return promised loyalty to the lord and provided
military support during periods of war. In China, instead of a salary, each noble
was given land by the Zhou ruler along with the people living on it who worked
on the land and gave part of the produce they raised to the nobles as a tax. These
'fiefs' were granted through elaborate ceremonies during the Western Zhou
period, where the plots of land, title and rank were granted in formal symbolic
ceremonies which were incredibly lavish.
These ceremonies in the ancient Zhou dynasty were commemorated in
inscriptions on bronze vessels, many of which date back to the early Zhou
dynasty. Some bronze vessel inscriptions also confirm involvement of military
activity in these feudal relationships.

CONCLUSION

Feudalism came into shape incrementally rather than abruptly. It was

established as a result of sweeping changes at all levels, economic, political,
and social. Anything short of that would have meant a mere inception of
feudalism instead of its entrenchment. Among the less privileged classes of
scholar-commoners, farmers, craftsmen and businessmen, farmers shouldered
the heaviest burden through fulfilling their obligations. They farmed the lands
of their owners and contributed foods in all seasons. The patriarchal clan
system was designed to sustain the feudal system. Fittingly, the collapse of
feudalism was also incremental. The Spring and Autumn Period marked the
beginning of the end of feudalism in China, but the system did not completely
fall apart until Qin unified China. T'ao concluded from his observations that the
feudal system of early Chou had disappeared by the third century B.C. The
overthrow of the feudal nobility in the economic sphere was paralleled by the
entrance of a new group into the political vacuum left by the destruction of the
nobles.