Fengjian

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Fēngjiàn (封建) is the political ideology of the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China. Fengjian is a "decentralized enfeoffment system of government,"^[1] comparable to European feudalism, though recent scholarship has suggested that fengjian lacks some of the fundamental aspects of feudalism.

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Contents 1 Ranks 2 Four Occupations 3 Zongfa 4 Historiographic Implications 5 References

[edit] Ranks

The sizes of troops and domains a male noble would command would be determined by his rank of peerage:

• gong (duke or prince, ch. 公(爵) gōng),
• hou (marquis or marquess, ch. 侯(爵) hóu),
• bo (count or earl, ch. 伯(爵) bó),
• zi (viscount, ch. 子(爵) zǐ),
• nan (baron, ch. 男(爵) nán).

While before the Han Dynasty a peer with a place name in his title actually governed that place, it had only been nominally true since. Any male member of the nobility or gentry could be called a gongzi (公子 gōng zǐ) (or wangzi (王子 wáng zǐ) if he is a son of a king, i.e. prince).

[edit] Four Occupations

The four occupations, or "four categories of the people" was a social structure developed from Confucian and Legalist philosophers during the latter part of the Zhou Dynasty. The four occupations were the The shi (士) the class of "knightly" scholars, mostly from lower aristocratic orders, The gong (工) who were the artisans and craftsmen of the kingdom who like the farmers produced essential goods needed by themselves and the rest of society, The nong (农) were the peasant farmers who cultivated the land which provided the essential food for the people and tributes to the king, and the shang (商) who were the merchants and traders of the kingdom.

The Fengjian four occupations were different to European Feudalism in the respect the people were not born into the specific classes, that a son born to a gong craftsman was about to become apart of the shang occupation as a merchant.

[edit] Zongfa

Zongfa (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 terms had lost their original meanings nonetheless. Zhuhou (诸侯), Dafu (大夫) and Shi (士) became synonyms of court officials.

[edit] Historiographic Implications

Fengjian is particularly important to Marxist historiographical interpretation of Chinese history, as it signals the passage, in China, from slave society to feudal society.^[2] This kind of feudalism was very different from the kind of feudalism most people are used to describing in China, with the landlord/peasant relationship. This kind of feudalism actually had nobility and titles attached to it, plus real fiefdoms instead of small acres of lands.

[edit] References

1. ^ V MURTHY. MODERNITY AGAINST MODERNITY: WANG HUI'S CRITICAL HISTORY OF CHINESE THOUGHT. Modern Intellectual History, 2006 - Cambridge Univ Press
2. ^ QE WANG. Between Marxism and Nationalism: Chinese historiography and the Soviet influence, 1949-1963 - Journal of Contemporary China, 2000 - Taylor & Francis