Fenwei is the collective name of family status and family status. It refers to a famous family that has been an official for generations. It is also called family status, clothing, aristocratic family, gentry, powerful family, aristocratic family, wealthy family, etc.
In order to highlight their achievements, ministers and their descendants who made great contributions in history erected two pillars on both sides of the gate. The one on the left is called "Valve" and the one on the right is called "Yue".
The clan system is the most prominent system for selecting officials in Chinese history from the Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Its actual impact is that important national official positions are often monopolized by a few families with surnames. The influence of an individual's background on his or her official career far greater than its own talents and strengths. It was not until the Tang Dynasty that the clan system was gradually replaced by the imperial examination system based on personal cultural level examinations.
Although the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties were in a state of long-term division and confrontation, they made many achievements in the political and economic system and played a connecting role in Chinese history. Among them, the gentry system is a unique historical phenomenon of this period. Its characteristic is to distinguish the different political, economic and cultural statuses of gentry and common people according to their family status.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the social unrest, the division of the country, the weakening of authoritarian centralization, and the melee of local separatist forces were the most basic historical background for the formation and development of the gentry system.
The gentry system was the product of the highly developed political and economic power of aristocratic families, and had begun to sprout during the Eastern Han Dynasty. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the social status of the gentry was unparalleled. They compiled gentry genealogies, monopolized politics, and excluded common people from poor families. Strict distinctions between gentry and common people emerged. The gentry had hereditary official positions and special political and economic status. Completely established.
Politically, during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty, in order to ensure the social and political status of the gentry, a large number of official positions were created to accommodate gentry landowners seeking official positions, so that these gentry children could "advance with the flow, enterprising and sit down" by relying on the talents of their fathers and ancestors. To the Duke." Even if they are all officials, the promotion of the nobles is astonishingly fast, and they can be promoted to important official positions in less than a hundred days. Children of the first-class wealthy families like Wang and Xie, "before their hair is dry, they have paid homage to the princes, and their bodies have not left their infancy. "Be crowned".
Economically, they transformed the land into land and sealed off the mountains and rivers. Control a large amount of land and population, privately own wealth, and do not have to pay taxes, dividing the country's wealth.
In terms of social status, the gentry "viewed the children of poor families as little as servants." In order to maintain the special status of the gentry, they did not marry with the common people. Even though they were nobles, there was a huge gap between the gentry and the common people.
Historically, the gentry system, as a historical phenomenon unique to a specific period, has gone through a long process of germination, development, prosperity, decline, and demise. The evaluation of the gentry system should also be placed in the specific context of that time. Under historical conditions, seek truth from facts and conduct analysis and evaluation in two parts.
The political and economic characteristics of the gentry system determined that class conflicts, ethnic conflicts, and internal conflicts within the ruling class were often particularly acute during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, leading to the political situation of long-term division and separatism between the north and the south. The gentry farm economy strengthened the closed natural economy and hindered the development of the commodity economy. The gentry were a decadent group among the landlord class, and they became even more decadent in later years.
Decline
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