China’s feudal society

Slave society Feudal society. . They are all theoretical divisions derived from foreign countries. We can also learn from them, but we may not necessarily be able to get them right. There are people like Xi Ren in Dream of Red Mansions. Can you say that the Qing Dynasty was still a slave society?

Literally, feudalism means establishing a country by enfeoffing land. Specifically, in history, the Eastern Zhou Dynasty implemented a feudal system, and Qin Shihuang implemented a system of prefectures and counties. This is progress, and it is also one of the reasons for Qin Su's death.

The following are some theories

Feudal society

Feudal society refers to the social state in which the feudal system is implemented. It is commonly used by Marxist historians academic term.

The origin of the word feudal is based on the legal argument of Marxist historians, who believe that it mainly emphasizes the division of land ownership. At present, feudal society is generally compared with capitalist society.

Controversy

Most historians believe that China never had a feudal society in the strict sense, or that China's feudal system was limited to the Zhou Dynasty or even the Western Zhou Dynasty (see Feudal System) . However, according to Marxist historiography, most countries and regions in history have experienced the feudal society period. For example, Europe from the 9th century to about the 15th century was considered a feudal society period. Starting from the Warring States Period, China also experienced a long period of feudal society. In addition to emphasizing the division of land ownership, feudal society usually also had a clear class system between top and bottom.

The qualitative nature of feudal society

In feudal society, the natural economy formed was based on land, combined with agriculture and handicrafts, with the family as the production unit, and was self-enclosed and independent. An economic structure that focuses on satisfying one's own needs. Most of the key means of production in this economic structure are in the hands of landlords (or feudal lords), so it can form a class relationship in which "landlords (feudal lords) exploit peasants".

In feudal society, the basis for the landlord class to rule other classes was feudal land ownership. By controlling land as a means of production, the landlord class exploits other classes through means such as extracting land rent and lending usury from farmers who use the land. At the same time, the forms of feudal land ownership are also different. It can be realized through contract leasing, paying land rent, hiring tenants, etc., but its essence is still a relationship of exploitation and exploitation, which will not change the nature of feudal society as a class society. .

Unique feudal ideas

Feudal societies often have quite obvious class systems, such as the patriarchal system in China and the leader-king-lord-jazz system in Western Europe, forming a pyramid structure. The ruling structure, but the relationship between them is not so perfect. Usually the lord's knight will no longer be loyal to the king, so there is a famous saying "The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal". However, the basis for the long-term maintenance of this ruling structure is the ideological concept of feudal society, which is usually a collection of ideas based on the "power of the king" as the skeleton and incorporating some ideas that serve the ruling class. These ideas also contain a small amount of excellent moral values, such as China's "Confucianism."

Changes in Feudal Society

What fundamentally shook feudal rule was the destruction of its production relations. Peasant uprisings and bourgeois revolutions were all aimed at changing feudal land ownership (thus class struggle that changed the entire feudal system). The most typical one is the basic production relationship of capitalism - hired labor.

The earliest capitalism was born in Italy, which had a developed commodity economy at that time, such as Florence, Venice and other regions.

Representing the natural economy of capitalism, it is a commodity economy with commodity exchange and commodity production as its core. Since the purpose of production has changed from sole satisfaction to providing products to society, the production relations will be different from the original feudal system. Due to the development of the commodity economy, the original natural economy was impacted and began to disintegrate. Farmers and craftsmen began to lose their means of production and became the proletariat. Factory owners, the earliest bourgeoisie, signed employment agreements with them to form new production lines. relationships, hired labor.

As the capitalist economy disintegrates the original feudal natural economy, the increasingly powerful bourgeoisie has the ability to eliminate all factors that are contrary to the development of capitalism, such as "natural theocracy" and "three cardinal principles and five permanent principles" ideas, production structures such as men farming and women weaving, etc., eventually overthrowing feudal society and establishing a capitalist country.

The fate of feudal society

Usually feudal society will transform into capitalist society due to the development of productive forces. Based on the various relationships between the bourgeoisie and the feudal class, a constitutional monarchy (Britain, Tsarism, etc.) will be formed. Russia, the Second German Empire, Japan, etc.), the French Republic (the French Republic, the German Federal Republic, the United States of America, etc.).

However, there are also special changes. For example, China transformed from an autocratic feudal society to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and then crossed over from a capitalist society to a socialist society.

Society composed of various production relations can exist at the same period.

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China’s feudal system

Feudalism is a social system. The enfeoffment of territories by the emperor or the central dynasty to members of the royal family, royal families and heroes falls within the scope of the political system.

"Feudalism" means "conferring land and establishing a country", that is, the emperor directly controls the land outside the royal territory, enfeoffs it to the princes, and grants them titles, allowing them to establish feudal states and defend the central government.

In Chinese, for the Central Plains dynasties in ancient China, the land they enfeoffed was called "vassal states" ("vassal states", "confederate states" or "kingdoms"), and the monarchs who ruled the vassal states (kingdoms) were called "King of princes", "jun" or "king of the country" also use the title of "king".

The feudal system in Chinese history

In the past, most people often thought that the feudal system was created by King Wu of Zhou Dynasty. However, Liu Zongyuan of the Tang Dynasty had refuted it in his article "Feudal Theory", believing that: "Feudalism It's not the intention of the saint, it's the power." Liu Yimou said: "From the Tang and Yu to the Zhou Dynasty, there was a feudal era, where the emperors and princes ruled separately."

"Feudalism" simply means that the king enfeoffs the princes with their nobility and land and establishes the country in the feudal area. This is a way of ruling that the victorious tribes in ancient times exercised over the defeated land and population. It can be seen from this that the so-called feudalism has taken shape since there were tribal wars. However, feudalism officially originated in the Zhou Dynasty. Modern scholars have different opinions, but most of them believe that it began in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

In view of the large number of princes at that time, and each of them had their own territory, the Zhou Dynasty would definitely be a trouble for the Japanese rulers in future generations. They wanted to prosper and destroy the country, and in the name of continuing the peerless world, they established feudal princes and used colonial methods to enfeoff them. The Zhou surname and heroes went to various important places and used the original clans and tribes in various places to establish the country. Power spread from top to bottom. Emperor Zhou officially became the emperor of the world, and the feudal scale was officially completed.

It is said that the descendants of the holy kings, the remnants of the Shang Dynasty, and the meritorious soldiers were allowed to serve as "vassals" in the local area, managed in separate areas, and assisted the king of Zhou. The "vassals" who were granted the title were in the "feudal state". Continue to enfeoff, and through this level-by-level enfeoffment, the lower level assumes obligations such as paying tribute, military protection, and obeying orders to the superior.

"Feudal system" is the original meaning of "feudal" in ancient Chinese, that is, "conferring" the land and "building" the country; "feudal" in ancient documents means "feudal system". During the Zhou Dynasty, the "feudal system" was a social system in which the Zhou royal family divided the territorial land into princes. Under the "feudal system", the national land did not entirely belong to the Zhou royal family, but was owned by the princes who obtained fiefs. They had enfeoffments. All resources and income from the land only need to pay a certain tribute to the Zhou royal family to fulfill their obligations, which is equivalent to the relationship between the European kingdoms and the Holy See in the Middle Ages, which is the basis of the federation in the modern sense. The king of Zhou was a leader in nature (a leader is a leader model left over from clan society, and Yu was the last clan leader). The land of the princes can theoretically be recovered and redistributed by the Zhou royal family after their death, but it is generally hereditary. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, with the disintegration of the well-field system and the development of wars for hegemony, the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty declined. The situation of "the conquest of rituals and music came from the emperor" was replaced by "the conquest of rituals and music came from the princes". The king of Zhou became the "lord of the world". Status was lost and the "feudal system" began to break down. After Qin Shihuang unified China, he abolished the "feudal system" and implemented a single "prefecture and county system" throughout the country.

The Han Dynasty inherited the administrative division management system of the Qin Dynasty's "prefecture and county system". The difference from the Qin administrative division is that while implementing the "prefecture and county system", it also implemented the feudal system. Including kingdoms and vassal states, these two parallel systems are also called "prefecture-state systems." During the Han Dynasty, although prefectures and states existed in parallel, the "prefecture-county system" was still the dominant one. In the early days of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang faced the patchwork of princes' forces and the background of the Six Kingdoms after the fall of Qin. His first task was to try to maintain a stable situation, eradicate princes and kings with different surnames, and reconcile the princes and kings with different surnames with the system of prefectures and states by enfeoffing their children. Bipolar deviation, when Liu Bang and Xiang Yu were fighting, they successively enfeoffed seven kings with different surnames. After he proclaimed himself emperor, he also enfeoffed nine kings with the same surname, which caused the conflict between the central government and the feudal states to continue for a long time. In the early Han Dynasty, the feudal system was restored and the system of prefectures and counties was implemented at the same time, which mixed the prefectures and states to check each other, which played a positive role in maintaining centralization of power and national unity.

In Chinese history, from the Three Kingdoms to the last dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, the "feudal system" was implemented to varying degrees in the management of national administrative divisions in each period, but enfeoffment was not the mainstay; after the political power of each dynasty was stable, the feudal system and the feudal system were The country actually became one of the administrative division systems, or formally enfeoffed; even if there were warlord separatist regimes, in most cases, they had to receive canonization from the Central Plains dynasty. For example, Ma Yin, the king of Chu, one of the ten kingdoms in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, although The country was founded in 907, and in 927 (the second year of Tiancheng), he was canonized as "King of Chu" by the Later Tang Dynasty of the Central Plains Dynasty.

Feudalism of the Western Zhou Dynasty

King Wu of Zhou implemented the first feudalism for three reasons: firstly, to appease the Yin people and monitor them at the same time; secondly, to carry out armed immigration to expand his power; The purpose is to win over people's hearts and consolidate the rule of Zhou Dynasty.

▲The first feudalism

Feudalism is actually the enfeoffment of princes, that is, allocating land to princes to establish their jurisdiction. The process and content of the first feudalism in the early Zhou Dynasty mainly include the following items: After King Wu of Zhou destroyed Shang, he voluntarily withdrew from the capital of Yin, and King Wu Geng, the son of King Zhou, went there to continue to manage the remnants of Shang; King Wu of Zhou was near Yin , he enfeoffed his three younger brothers Guan Shu, Cai Shu and Huo Shu for the purpose of monitoring Wu Geng, called the "Three Supervisors"; after King Wu of Zhou established his capital in Haojing, he also enfeoffed relatives and meritorious officials as princes. These feudal lords Most are concentrated on the south bank of the Yellow River.

▲Zhou Gong conquered the east to quell the chaos

Two years after the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Wu of Zhou died.

His son, King Zhou Cheng, succeeded to the throne at a young age, and King Wu's younger brother, Duke Zhou Ji Dan, acted as political administrator. This practice was called "regency". The three eunuchs were dissatisfied, so they spread rumors that the Zhou Guild was unfavorable to King Cheng, and encouraged Wu Geng and others to rebel together, which was known in history as the "Rebellion of the Three Escorts".

The Duke of Zhou personally led the troops to the east to deal with the three supervisors. It took three years to calm down the chaos. Later, he built the eastern capital in Luoyi (now Luoyang, Henan), moved the "Yin stubborn people" who participated in Wu Geng's rebellion there, and stationed heavy troops to supervise them, making Luoyi the political and military center for ruling the eastern region. In addition, Duke Zhou also formulated rituals and music to maintain the order of the country and society.

▲The second feudalism

Zhou Gongdan put down the rebellion of the three prisons and implemented the second feudalism. There are three purposes: to divide the Yin remnants and prevent the Yin people from rising in rebellion again; to consolidate the rule of the Zhou Dynasty and serve as a shield for the royal family; to expand the scope of rule and strengthen local control.

The content of the second feudalism in the early Zhou Dynasty mainly included: dividing the old land of the Yin people into Song and Wei kingdoms to facilitate their rule; enfeoffing relatives and meritorious officials as the shield of the royal family; Some of the sub-feudal feudal states moved eastward, some even further to the eastern seaside, thereby expanding the scope of their rule and surrounding the Yin people's feudal states to prevent them from revolting.

▲The role of enfeoffing the princes

King Wu of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou enfeoffed more than 70 countries, among which the princes surnamed Ji accounted for 53. This shows that there were two great feudalisms in the early Zhou Dynasty. , most of the princes who were enfeoffed were the descendants of the King of Zhou with the same surname, followed by the heroes. Under the feudal system, the King of Zhou was also called the "Son of Heaven" and had supreme authority. The role of enfeoffing the princes was to serve as the central vassal.

In addition, the titles of princes are divided into five levels: duke, marquis, uncle, son and male. The princes must obey the emperor's orders, pay tribute to the emperor, meet with the emperor regularly, and lead troops to fight with the emperor.

▲Patriarchal System

The Western Zhou Dynasty also established a patriarchal system to coordinate and maintain the development of the feudal system. The patriarchal system stipulates that only the "eldest son" is eligible to inherit the positions of emperor and princes, while other sons are enfeoffed into lower-level positions, that is, princes, ministers, officials, or scholars. These two systems were closely integrated to further consolidate the rule of the Zhou Dynasty.

▲The disintegration of the feudal system of the Zhou Dynasty

“During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, feudalism gradually changed into counties and counties.” There were only one hundred and twenty-four states left. In the Spring and Autumn Period, small and weak states were annexed, and most of them established counties because of the destruction of the country. They appointed special officials because of the establishment of counties, and the feudal system gradually became the system of counties and counties. "Qin destroyed the six kingdoms, abolished feudalism, established prefectures and counties, and established a centralized monarchy system.

Feudalism of the Western Han Dynasty

▲Feudal states and counties go hand in hand

At the beginning of the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty named seven heroes who assisted him in fighting Xiang Yu as kings with different surnames ( princes and kings with different surnames from the royal family); later these feudal states were flattened on charges of rebellion or other methods, and the royal family's children were granted the title of seven kings in their old lands. As for other places, the prefecture and county system of the Qin Dynasty is still adopted.

This situation of "parallel prefectures and states" made the vassal kingdoms pose a threat to the central government and laid the foundation for the political crisis of the Western Han Dynasty.

▲Suppressing the rebellions of the seven kingdoms of Wu and Chu

During the reigns of Emperors Wen and Jing of the Han Dynasty, the economy recovered and developed, people's livelihood improved, and the country prospered. However, the power of the princes and kings became increasingly powerful and they gradually became arrogant and domineering. In order to strengthen the central power, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty implemented the policy of reducing vassals, which aroused the dissatisfaction of the princes and kings, which led to the rebellion of the seven kingdoms of Wu and Chu. Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty sent general Zhou Yafu to quell the rebellion and reduced the power of the princes and kings, making them idle members who only lived on salary and no longer governed the people. As a result, the foundation of centralized rule became more solid.

▲Reduce the power of the princely kingdoms

After the rebellion of the seven kingdoms of Wu and Chu subsided, the power of the princes has been weakened, but they still have vast territories and great economic power. After the death of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty inherited his father's policy of reducing vassal status and issued the "Extension Order", allowing the princes to entrust the land of the kingdom to their children, which made the power of the princes and kings smaller and smaller, and their influence was greatly weakened. From then on, "a big country is no more than ten cities, and a small prince is no more than ten miles away" and no longer poses a threat to the central government.

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European Feudal System

Feudalism (Feudalism/Feudal system) originated from the corresponding legal status and corresponding legal status of European noble warriors in the Middle Ages. Military responsibilities revolve around three centers: lords, vassals and land.

Defining feudalism requires many conditions, because there is currently no widely recognized definition. For a person who is just beginning to understand the feudal system, a practical definition is needed. The definition described in this article is the oldest and classic definition, and is still agreed upon by many historians.

However, there are other definitions of feudalism. Since the 1960s at the latest, many historians of the Middle Ages have included in the feudal system a wider social sphere, including the peasant class bound to the manorial system, and called it "feudal society". Still others, starting in the seventies, re-examined previous evidence and concluded that feudalism was an unworkable term that needed to be removed from academic and educational discussions.

Or at least use it with strict restrictions and warnings.

Outside of Europe, the concept of feudalism is generally used merely as an analogy (called "semi-feudal"), most often when discussing Japan under the rule of shoguns, and sometimes also in the Middle Ages and Ethiopia during the Gondar period. However, some draw analogies to feudalism even more broadly, including ancient Egypt, the Parthian Empire, feudal India, and even the nineteenth-century American South.

Etymology

The earliest use of the word "feudal system" was in the 17th century (1614). At that time, it was used to express the meaning of disappearing quickly or completely. During the period when the feudal system was prevalent, no author had ever used this word. The word has a pejorative connotation and is used to describe any law or custom that is considered unfair or outdated. Most of these laws or customs are more or less related to the medieval fief system (Latin: feodum, first appearing in a Frankish document in 884 AD), and are thus combined into this single noun. Feudalism comes from the French ‘féodalisme’, a word coined during the French Revolution. The British novelist Tobias Smollett mocked this word in his work "Humphry Clinker" (1771): "Every policy, custom, and even eccentricity of character can be traced back to this ( Feudal) origin... I expect to see that men's shorts and buttered ale will be attributed to the influence of the feudal system. ”

Features

The feudal system has three most basic characteristics: lords. , vassals and fiefs; the structure of the feudal system was coordinated by these three elements. Lords were nobles who owned land, and vassals were people who owned the land assigned to them by the lord, and these assigned lands were fiefs. Vassals were required to fight for their lord in return for fiefs given to them by the lord. The relationships and responsibilities between lords, vassals, and fiefs formed the basis of the feudal system.

Before a lord could grant land to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This requires a formal symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, which consists of two parts, the act of homage and the oath of fealty. In the oath of obedience, the vassal promised to obey the orders of his lord and fight. "Fealty" comes from the Latin "Fidelitas", which means loyalty; the oath of fealty thus became a guarantee that the vassal would be loyal to his lord. Once the commendation ceremony is completed, the lord and vassal have established a feudal relationship with mutual obligations and responsibilities recognized by both parties.

The lord's main obligation to the vassal is to give a fief or its income; the fief is the main reason why the vassal establishes a feudal relationship. In addition, lords sometimes had other obligations. One of them was to maintain the fief. Since the lord did not cede the land but merely leased it, it was still the lord's responsibility to maintain the fief. The vassal had the right to receive the income from the fief's output. Another responsibility of the lord was that he had to protect his fiefs and vassals from harm.

The main responsibility of a vassal is to provide "aid" to the lord, which is to perform military service. Vassals used the output of the fief to equip their own weapons and equipment, and responded to the lord's call for military service to ensure the lord's rights and interests. This military security mechanism was the main reason why lords established feudal relationships. In addition, vassals sometimes have other responsibilities to their lords. One of them was to give "advice" to the lord. In this way, when a lord faces a big decision, such as whether to enter a war, he will summon all his vassals and hold a council. Vassals may also be required to surrender a portion of their fief's output to their lord. Vassals were also sometimes required to grind grain and bake bread in mills and ovens owned by the lord and pay taxes to the lord.

Therefore, there were many different "levels" of dominion and fiefdom. The king was a lord who leased fiefs to nobles, who were his vassals. At the same time, nobles were lords over their vassals, the peasants who worked their lands. Finally, the emperor was the lord who provided fiefs to the kings, who were the emperor's vassals. This tradition formed the basis of 'monarchy' as an imperial alliance with the world order.

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Modern meaning

The word feudal in spoken language now also refers to conservative and backward thinking.

The feudal society described in Qu Tongzu's "Feudal Society of China" is the real feudal system, that is, the feudal system.

The society after the Qin Dynasty is no longer a feudal system, but a centralized system or a monarchy;

Feudalism is usually said in a derogatory sense, and is a conservative and conservative system. Synonyms for backwardness, such as feudal thought, feudal superstition, etc., are completely different from the original appearance of the word feudal. I am afraid there is still a long way to go before the original appearance of the word feudal is restored.