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A painting of a gentry scholar with two courtesans, by Tang Yin, c. 1500. The four occupations (simplified Chinese: 士农工商; traditional Chinese: 士農工商; pinyin: Shì nóng gōng shāng), or "four categories of the people" (Chinese: 四民; pinyin: sì mín), [1] [2] was an occupation classification used in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the ...
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 ...
A Chinese dragon seen floating among clouds engraved on a Ming-era golden canteen (15th century). The economic history of China covers thousands of years and the region has undergone alternating cycles of prosperity and decline. China, for the last two millennia, was one of the world's largest and most advanced economies.
Academician Zhang Guangzhi, in his book The Bronze Age of China, was the first to clearly point out that the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties were the heyday of the Bronze Age, followed by the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period. The Houmuwu ding is the largest and heaviest bronze vessel ever found in China.
The imperial examination was a civil service examination system in Imperial China administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy.The concept of choosing bureaucrats by merit rather than by birth started early in Chinese history, but using written examinations as a tool of selection started in earnest during the Sui dynasty [1] (581–618), then into the Tang ...
Scholar-official as a concept and social class first appeared during the Warring States period; before that, the Shi and Da Fu were two different classes.During the Western Zhou dynasty, the Duke of Zhou divided the social classes into the king, feudal lords, Da Fu, Shi, ordinary people, and slaves.
After describing lavish Chinese ships holding palatial cabins and saloons, along with the life of Chinese ship crews and captains, Batutta wrote: "Among the inhabitants of China there are those who own numerous ships, on which they send their agents to foreign places. For nowhere in the world are there to be found people richer than the Chinese".
Although navies had been used in China since the ancient Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), [217] China's first permanent standing navy was established by the Southern Song in 1132. [216] The Jurchen launched an invasion against the Southern Song along the length of the Yangtze River , which resulted in two crucial Song victories at the ...