When did the feudal state system appear?

In the 11th century BC, the surname Ji gradually became more and more powerful in the Western Shang Dynasty. Finally, the son of the patriarch Ji Chang united with nearby small and medium-sized tribes to attack the merchants, occupied the merchant capital, and went on a pilgrimage to establish the Zhou Dynasty. Founded on Monday, large-scale nation-building began.

China’s feudal concept began in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The essence of feudalism is the granting of feudal fiefs, that is, the establishment of a large number of vassal states governed by special surnames throughout the country. He enfeoffed his sixteen brothers in Guan, Cai, Cao, Huo, Mao, Bi and other places to establish the country and rule the people.

Wang Wu's sons, his brother Zhou Gongdan and King Zhou Cheng's third brother also received fiefs. In addition, 40 nobles with the same surname, as well as some important heroes with different surnames who fought alongside him and made meritorious deeds, also received their respective fiefs.

In order to appease the people and consolidate their rule, King Wu of Zhou granted the old capital area of ??the Shang Dynasty to the Shang Dynasty. King Zhou was the younger brother of Wei and established his own surname. The descendants of Yu Shun, Hu Gongman, had a surname of Chen and a given name of Chen. Descendants of Yu Xia were granted the title of Qiu Yongdong Tower, and their surname was Jiguo. The descendants of Shennong were granted the title of Jiaoyi, and their surname was Jiang. In this way, the Zhou Dynasty established seventy-one new territories, called seventy-one kingdoms, covering almost all the areas it ruled at that time.

Although most of these princes who were granted titles by Zhou Dynasty were descendants of Ji, they established their own ancestral temples one after another, and their descendants took the name of the country as their surname, so they often became the ancestors of new surnames.

According to the system of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the princes of various countries who were awarded by the Emperor of Zhou also had the same situation in their own fiefs. They were entrusted with descendants and ministers, and were granted territories, making them second-level clansmen. Some of them take their surnames after their titles or official positions, some take their ancestors or ancestors as their surnames, and many of them take their surnames after their fields, such as Feng, Liu, Bai, Cui, Lu, Bao, Nie, Fei, and Fan. wait.

These officials can also entrust new surnames downwards. As a result, the number of surnames in China suddenly expanded. The essence of this large-scale feudal patronage in the early Western Zhou Dynasty was to implement the rule of the Ji surname clan over the newly occupied vast areas, establish an effective management form, colonize and immigrate to newly developed and primitive areas or tribes, and spread cultural influence.

At the same time, he also consciously re-established the large clans of tribes that had declined and distributed land, and enabled them to hold the sacrifices of their ancestors, consolidating and stabilizing their clans, and showing the emperor's favor.

The perished and eliminated clans were recognized and granted by the Emperor of Heaven, regained their political and economic rights, entered the political arena, reduced the instability of the Zhou Dynasty, and became the Zhou Dynasty. auxiliary rules. Through these measures, the Zhou Dynasty established its own overall governance model. After the great feudalism in the early Zhou Dynasty, for seven to eight hundred years, there was basically no state-level enfeoffment and surname conferment. This fully proves that since the feudal clans were granted enfeoffment in the early Zhou Dynasty, a relatively stable ruling framework was indeed established.

Under this basic ruling framework, the Zhou Dynasty gradually established and improved a set of behavioral norms and systems from top to bottom, such as inheriting surnames, worshiping interpersonal ethics and social classes, which were later called Zhou Li. Its core is the establishment of feudal system and inheritance system. The Zhou Dynasty stipulated that the emperor should be named by his surname. In the so-called world, the British king and the African king no longer needed to divide specific interests by surname. Instead, they had the right to name princes with national surnames and draw out their areas of interest.

The princes also have the right to grant titles to ministers, and the fiefdoms are in their own territory.