Peasants made up the vast majority of Shang society.
Th ey lived primarily in the region of the Yellow River, and
the food they produced kept the empire fed. When there were
public works projects, such as building roads or city walls,
peasants were conscripted to do the work. Th ey formed the
bulk of Shang armies and were oft en forced into war. Th ose
who marched to a part of the empire far from home rarely re-
turned. It seems that the Shang rulers learned that they were
dependent on the peasants and may have made some eff orts
to care for the peasants, at least well enough to keep the peas-
ants healthy and working. A peasant was expected to devote
his or her life to work, laboring every moment possible.
Like the Shang, the Zhou were warlike. Much of soci-
ety during their dynasty (1045– 256 b.c.e.) is still a mystery.
As with the Shang, nearly everyone was a peasant. Th e Zhou
placed nobles in charge of provinces, creating a feudal sys-
tem in which the nobles had principal authority within their
provinces. Th e lives of peasants were very hard. Nobles of-
ten took their land away from them, forcing them to pay rent
for the land or to work the land as sharecroppers—people
who have to give a share of their harvest to the landowner in
order to be allowed to farm the land. Occasionally, a Zhou
emperor would redistribute the land to the peasants, but the
nobles would retake the land, oft en by making loans to peas-
ants that the peasants could not repay, forcing them to for-
feit their lands. During the second half of the Zhou Dynasty,
the emperors had little military power and could not enforce
their edicts, ending their ability to care for the peasants. Th e
lives of peasants became so dire that some archaeologists and
historians refer to their being slaves, but for all their miser-
ies, peasants were not considered slaves. In fact, they were far
higher on the social scale than were slaves.
During the Zhou Dynasty much of the pattern for Chi-
nese social organization was set. At the top of society was the
royal family, with the emperor ruling because he had been
blessed by the gods. Below him were the nobles, who held
their stations from the authority granted to them by the em-
peror. Th is situation meant that the nobles needed to keep the
emperor even aft er the emperor had lost almost all his power
because the nobles were accepted by the rest of the Chinese
only as a result of the authority supposedly derived from a
divinely appointed emperor. Aft er the nobles came warriors,
most of whom were minor nobility. Aft er them came the
peasants. During the Han Dynasty these would be the only
true people of the nation. Everyone else, wealthy or not, was
not socially recognized, including traders, craft speople, ser-
vants, and slaves.
Perhaps the most socially signifi cant change during the
end of the Zhou Dynasty was the elevation of government of-
fi cials in social standing. Th e period from 453 to 221 b.c.e. is
known as the Warring States Period. During that time China’s
provinces had been combined into several large provinces,
each competing with the others to rule all of China. Th e gov-
ernors of these provinces took to calling themselves kings.
One of these rulers was King Zheng of the Qin province inthe western part of China. Qin had already adopted legalism
as its philosophy of government. In its harsh organization of
life, legalism had become the tool of scholars, men educated
in the intricacies of running a government with complex
rules. Some of these scholars traveled through China looking
for sponsors; in Qin they had attained a standing below only
that of King Zheng himself.
King Zheng became Qin Shi Huangdi, and his enforce-
ment of legalism throughout China made him hated by nearly
everyone. His government offi cials were loathed. Legalism
sought to reorganize society so that no one except the em-
peror was exempt from the law. People would be persuaded to
behave according to legalist principles by severe punishments
for violating the rules and by rewards for obeying the rules.
In theory, anyone could climb the social ladder by obeying
the rules. In practice, legalism was corrupt, with people un-
able to avoid breaking at least a few laws every day, giving
the emperor an excuse to send millions of unfortunate people
into slave labor camps working on the Great Wall or other
construction projects as punishment for their crimes. Th e le-
galist government offi cials became devoted to betrayal and
political scheming.
When rebellion fi nally came, rebels slaughtered the en-
tire royal family, even aft er the emperor surrendered. It is to
Liu Bang’s credit that when he fi nally emerged as emperor in
202 b.c.e., he did not continue the bloodbath, and he did not
slaughter government scholars. He was a rough man with lit-
tle respect for scholars, but he did see the good sense of hav-
ing educated people run government. He chose Confucians.
He oft en made fun of them, but he allowed them to reform
the laws of the empire.
Liu Bang (r. 202–195 b.c.e.) founded the Han Dynasty,
and the basic social organization of the Han remained the or-
ganization of Chinese society through civil wars and new dy-
nasties throughout the rest of the ancient era. Th e basic social
order was the emperor, then the nobles, then government of-
fi cials, and then peasants. When disasters struck, these were
the people who were to be saved because they were deemed
essential to the survival of the nation. Although being a peas-
ant was still usually miserable, the Han instituted new oppor-
tunities for social mobility. One of these was the institution of
20 ranks within society. Peasants had access to the fi rst eight,
while the others were reserved for members of higher social
standing. Th rough contributions to community welfare, hard
work, and acquisition of wealth, a peasant could ascend the
fi rst eight ranks, gaining prestige and rights with each rank.
Whether the government offi cials who devised the 20 steps
intended this result or not, the system was a powerful moti-
vational tool because it gave hope to people in a culture where
respect mattered greatly. A peasant at the eighth level was a
signifi cant member of his community. Further, the ranks al-
lowed for downward mobility. A person in the highest ranks
could lose so many ranks as punishment for a crime that he
fell below the eighth level and could end up beneath the peas-
ants he had once dominated.social organization: Asia and the Pacific 10250895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1025 1025 10/10/07 2:30:48 PM