Society and Inequality in China

Mikayla, Erica, Brian, Shaleia

Chinese Society and StateThe society of ancient China was shaped by

actions of the state. Chinese state officials held high social prestige and power (218).

124 B.C.E, Emperor Wu Di established the world’s first civil service (219) as he created an imperial academy to train potential officials, immersing them in math, literature and the arts.

This group of elite male bureaucrats were not selected to preside over their individual provinces based on familial affiliation, rather they were selected on the basis of their merit and morality(218).

Modern painting of the Han Dynasty state official, Wang Mang.

Chinese Society & State (Continued)

Although the system was “open to all men”, it favored the wealthier families who could afford to send their sons to be educated. However some wealthy landowners were willing to sponsor promising poor village boys, fostering a “rags to riches”conducive society (219-220).

Those who accomplished much as students were entered into the realm of bureaucratic prestige.

Many officials were transported in carriages, dressed in fine robes, crown in elaborate headdresses and spoke with an air of distinctive sophistication

Han Dynasty painting of one of the civil service examinations in Kaifeng

Chinese LandlordsCame into play with the unification of the Qin

Dynasty around 210 B.C.E

The more land that you owned the more wealthy that you were considered

Many landowners became peasants with the growth of the Qin Dynasty, and had to sell their land

People who acquired these large pieces of land were called landlords, because they were in control of so much property.

This landpower helped them avoid taxes, pushing them onto the peasants and weakening the economy.

Some landlords were so powerful that they used their own military forces to challenge the emperor.

Wang Mang became emperor and launched reforms to counteract growing landlord powers.

Scholar gentry men meeting to discuss prominent issues

Chinese Landlords (continued)Families that owned a large piece of land

were the central part of Chinese society, when all of Wang Mang’s rules proved impossible to enforce.

Individual families’ fate fluctuated because the crops could flourish or be destroyed causing the time in power to rise or fall.

The class as a whole benefited from wealth that their estates provide, and the power that came from their societal class.

The word scholar-gentry reflected their privilege sources, by using their money to get an education

The scholar-gentry had many luxuries such as silk clothing, carriages, private orchestras, high stakes gambling, etc.

A powerful landlord riding on a luxurious chariot.

Wang Mang

Chinese Peasants The vast majority of population consisted of peasants.

They lived in small households which represented two or three generations.

Some peasants owned enough land to support families and sell something on the local market, whereas many others could barely survive.

Chinese Peasants

Nature, the state, and landlords combined to make the life of most peasants extremely vulnerable.

During the Han Dynasty, growing numbers of impoverished and desperate peasants had to sell large amounts of land and their work as tenants or sharecroppers in their estates, where rents could run very high.

Other peasants fled, and lived a life of begging or joining gangs of bandits in remote areas.

Chinese Peasants continued…

This poem to the right by Li Shen reflects the life and the hardships peasants faced.

The cob of corn in springtime sown

In autumn yields a hundredfold.

No fields are seen that fallow lie:

And yet of hunger peasants die.

As at noontide they hoe their crops,

Sweat on the grain to earth drown drops.

How many tears, how many a groan,

Each morsel on thy dish did mould!

Chinese Peasants continued…. These conditions provoked periodic peasant

rebellions.

Wandering bands of peasants began to join together as floods along the Yellow River and resulting epidemics compounded the misery of landlessness and poverty.

This was known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion. This was because peasants wore yellow scarves around their heads.

This movement found leaders, organization, and a unifying ideology in a popular form of Daoism.

This featured supernatural healings, collective trances, and public confessions of sins.

The downfall…

Although the rebellion was suppressed by the military forces of the Han dynasty, the Yellow Turban and other peasants upheavals were negative towards the civilization.

This devastated the economy, weakened the state and contributed to the overthrow of the dynasty a few decades later.

Peasant movements registered the sharp class antagonisms of of Chinese society and led to the collapse of more than one ruling dynasty.

Peasants Daily life

This a picture of the clothes

Peasants wore and what their

work day looked like. They are

dressed in rags as clothing.

Teacher Note

- Elite officials viewed peasants as a “solid productive backbone of the country”

- thought they worked hard and deserved praise

- however, they were still exploited

- sweat and sacrifice of the masses to support/ uphold the few

- social pyramid

Chinese Merchants

- China’s “cultural elites” did not like the Chinese Merchants.

- Widely thought they were “unproductive” and that they were “making a shameful profit” off of other’s works.

Chinese Merchants

- Negative views of merchants were fostered by governments trying to control the merchants

- For example, early in the Han Dynasty they forbode merchants from wearing silk clothing, riding horses, or carrying arms.

- States had monopolies on certain goods like salt and iron which hurt the merchants

- Merchants still became rich quite often, even with the government trying to prevent that.

Chinese Merchants (Cont.)

- Some tried to achieve higher elite statuses by purchasing large amounts of land and educating their sons for civil service

- Many merchants had relationships with state officials and landlords because they found merchants to be useful

- Hid the relationship due to the bad reputation of the merchants

The Mandate of Heaven

Questions on the Chinese Society

1. What did the Scholar Gentry think of the Chinese Merchants?

2. What did the rest of the Chinese Population think of them?

3. Despite the government's efforts, what did merchants achieve quite often?

4. What was the system that tested young men to become state officials?

5. What was the Yellow Turban Rebellion?

Questions (Continued)

6. What were some of the hardships that Chinese peasants faced?

7. What were some of the ideologies of Daoism?

8. What is the significance of the word scholar-gentry?

9. Who tried to stop the landlords from getting too powerful?

10. What was second stage of The Mandate of Heaven?

Answers for Questions

1.The Scholar gentries liked them and thought of them as a “solid productive backbone”. NOT!!!! They viewed them as RATS - were despised & resented

2.They were not liked by the Chinese Population, other than the Scholar Gentries.

3.Merchants were still able to obtain wealth and become rich.

4.The civil service examinations established by Emperor Wu Di, created a system where young men were selected to be state officials based on morality and merit rather than familial connections.

5.The Yellow Turban rebellion was an upheaval orchestrated by the Chinese peasants who were provoked by a series of epidemics along with harsh conditions brought on by their systematic oppression and destitution.

Answers (Continued)6.They made the life of peasants extremely vulnerable and never stopped work.

7. Daoism was one of the two great religious/philosophical systems of China.

8. The word scholar-gentry reflected their privilege sources, by using their money to get an education.

9. Wang Mang tried to stop the landlords from becoming too powerful.

10. The second stage in the Mandate of Heaven was “everything works better in the empire for a little while.”