Fengjian

Fēngjiàn (Chinese: 封建; lit. 'demarcation and establishment') was a governance system in Ancient China and Imperial China, whose social structure formed a decentralized system of confederation-like government.[1] The ruling class consisted of the Son of Heaven (king or emperor) and aristocracy, and the lower class consisted of commoners categorized into four occupations (or "four categories of the people", namely scholar-officials, peasants, laborers and merchants). Elite bonds through affinal relations and submission to the overlordship of the king date back to the Shang dynasty, but it was the Western Zhou dynasty when the Zhou kings enfeoffed their clan relatives and fellow warriors as vassals. Through the fengjian system, the king would allocate an area of land to a noble, establishing him as the ruler of that region and allowing his title and fief to be legitimately inherited by his descendants. This created large numbers of local autonomous dynastic domains.[2][3]: 7–8 

  1. ^ Murthy, Viren (2006). "Modernity against modernity: Wang Hui's critical history of Chinese thought". Modern Intellectual History. 3 (1). Cambridge Univ Press: 137–165. doi:10.1017/S147924430500065X. S2CID 144009226.
  2. ^ "Xi 24". Zuozhuan. Translated by Steven Durrant; Wai-yee Lee; David Schaberg. University of Washington Press. 2016 [c. 300 BCE]. pp. 380–381. ISBN 9780295999159. 昔周公弔二叔之不鹹,故封建親戚以蕃屏周。"
    "Formerly, Duke of Zhou grieved that the two younger brothers (Guan Shu Xian & Cai Shu Du) were not in accord with him. That is why he enfeoffed (; fēng) and established (; jiàn) kinsmen and relatives as a hedge and a screen for Zhou
  3. ^ Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (2000). "Ji 姬 and Jiang 姜: The Role of Exogamic Clans in the Organization of the Zhou Polity" (PDF). Early China. 25. Cambridge University Press: 1–27. doi:10.1017/S0362502800004259. JSTOR 23354272. S2CID 162159081. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 November 2017.