284 LAND REFORMCh'aeji (Fief~ of the Feudal Vassals) and the SadaebuIt would be a mistake to think that the well-field system only represented a scheme
for the equitable (if not equal) distribution of wealth for the whole population
because the eight families who were guaranteed uniform IOo-myo plots were
all peasants, and provisions for the Chou ruling class were somewhat different.
Yu subscribed wholeheartedly to the Mencian dictum that society should be
divided between the rulers and the ruled. The rulers were those who worked
with their minds, governed those who worked with their hands, and were enti-
tled to support from them. Mencius's ideal ruling class was of course a moral
elite (not the real feudal elite), and he referred to them as men of superior virtue
or moral capacity (kunja), as opposed to "the men of the fields" (yain), or the
ordinary farmers who tilled the land and provided military service. The well-
field modeL therefore, also guaranteed financial support for the ruling class.
In the various classical descriptions of the Chou system, the well-fields were
not characterized as ubiquitous. They were supposedly employed outside the
capital or ducal domain in areas called tobi which were the loci of the ch 'aeup
or ch 'aeji, the fiefs of feudal vassals usually referred to as "the feudal lords"
(chehu). subdivided into dukes, marquises, viscounts. counts, and barons. But
they were also called the sadaebu or taebu, which included kong, kyong, taebu,
and sa, which corresponded respectively to ducal petty feudal rulers, high min-
isters, officials, and retainers or knights. The distinction between the two sets
of terms is not altogether clear and there was considerable overlap in termi-
nology, but in general taebu or sadaebu connoted some form of service in the
bureaucracies of the Chou king or the ducal rulers. These terms seem also to
have referred to a hierarchy of feudal families who possessed the status quali-
fications to hold posts of certain rank in the service of the lord, something in
the manner of the hierarchical divisions within the samurai class in late Toku-
gawa Japan. Sadaehu thus indicated the Chou ruling class defined simultane-
ously in terms of moral quality, officeholding, and feudal status. Although elite
social status and officeholding overlapped, they were supposed to remain dis-
tinct in concept and terminology, and also in the mode of support and remu-
neration due each category.21
The chehu or feudal lords also were supposed to have controlled lands far-
ther out from the capital or ducal domain in more autonomous fashion than the
ch 'aeji, but Yu believed that the ch 'aeup (or ch 'aeji) were the prime means of
support for the taebu while incumbent officials (sija) were entitled instead to
"hereditary salaries" (serok).24 Since this distinction only makes sense if the taebu
are concei ved of as something different from incumbent officials, the terms taebu
or taebusa (or sadaebu) must have designated a social elite eligible for official
service but not necessarily performing that service or holding posts at any given
time. Since Yu also remarked that the ch 'aeji in ancient times "combined over-
lordship over its people" (kyom chu ki inmin), suggesting political autonomy
over it by a feudal vassal, it must have resembled a fief even if the provision of