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The Zhou fengjian system was termed as being 'protobureaucratic' [30] and bureaucracy existed alongside feudalism, while in Europe, bureaucracy emerged as a counter system to the feudal order. Therefore, according to some historians, the term "feudalism" is not an exact fit for the Western Zhou political structure [ 2 ] but it can be considered ...
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 ...
To maintain Zhou authority over its greatly expanded territory and prevent other revolts, he set up the fengjian system. [27] Furthermore, he countered Zhou's crisis of legitimacy by expounding the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven while accommodating important Shang rituals at Wangcheng and Chengzhou. [28]
Once the Zhou had established themselves, they made grants of land and relative local autonomy to kinfolk in return for military support and tributes, under a system known as fengjian. The rulers of the states were collectively the zhuhou (諸侯; 诸侯; zhūhóu; 'many lords').
The Zhou dynasty grew out of a predynastic polity with its own existing power structure, primarily organized as a set of culturally affiliated kinship groups. The defining characteristics of a noble were their ancestral temple surname (姓; xíng), their lineage line within that ancestral surname, and seniority within that lineage line.
The Duke of Zhou then launched a second "eastern campaign" to put down the rebellion, and defeated the rebels in three years, killing or disempowering their leaders. In doing so, he also further expanded the authority of Zhou kingdom into East China, [18] [1] transforming it into an empire using the new Fengjian system. [21] [24]
The Spring and Autumn period (c. 770 – c. 481 BCE [1] [a]) was a period in Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou (c. 771 – 256 BCE), characterized by the gradual erosion of royal power as local lords nominally subject to the Zhou exercised increasing political autonomy.
The social system of the Zhou dynasty is sometimes referred to as the Chinese feudalism and was the combination of fengjian (enfeoffment and establishment) and zongfa (clan law). Male subjects were classified into, in descending order of rank: the landed nobles – Zhuhou (諸侯 pinyin zhū hóu),