Ancient and imperial China: institutions, economy and thought
What this domain tests
This chapter reviews selected institutional, economic and intellectual changes in China before 1840. Models and sequences organize the evidence, but should not turn every dynasty into one uniform society or imply that centralization followed an uninterrupted, inevitable path.
Institutions
- Western Zhou: 分封制 enfeoffment and 宗法制 lineage law were one mechanism; kinship ranked politics; resting on 井田制; the outcome is 家国一体.
- Qin: abolished fiefs, installed 郡县, set 三公九卿 at court: the founding frame of 专制主义中央集权.
- Selection: 察举制 (Han, recommendation) → 九品中正制 (Wei-Jin, aristocratic monopoly) → 科举制 (Sui-Tang, examination): the power to select officials moves from local magnates to the central state.
- Chancellery: Tang 三省六部 split the chancellorship three ways; Song 二府三司 split it further; Ming abolished the chancellor for the 内阁; the Qing 军机处 made the emperor his own chief minister.
Economy and tax
Iron plough and ox-tillage; 均田制 allotment; 租庸调 → 两税法 (780, taxed wealth, not heads) → 一条鞭法 (Ming, corvée folded into silver) → 摊丁入亩 (Qing, head tax gone): forms of assessment and collection changed; this does not prove one continuous decline of coercion or the same burden on every household. Song breached the 坊市 wall and issued 交子; Ming-Qing saw silver money and regional 商帮. The economic centre moved south; begun Wei-Jin, accelerated after Tang, complete by Southern Song.
Thought
百家争鸣 → Han 独尊儒术 making Confucianism orthodox → Song-Ming 理学 and 心学 → Ming-Qing critique by 黄宗羲, 顾炎武 and 王夫之, which criticized aspects of autocratic rule or empty learning from distinct positions; assess each thinker rather than assuming identical programs.
Worked example
Source: “The Secretariat drafts the decree, the Chancellery may return it, the Department of State Affairs executes it.” Name the system and its effect. Reasoning: the three offices identify the Tang 三省六部. Drafting, review and execution are separated, and all three heads are chief ministers, so the chancellorship is divided against itself. Answer: the chancellor's power is split and mutually checked, strengthening imperial power, while division of labour improves decisions. Not “strengthened centralisation” alone; that is centre versus province, not emperor versus chancellor.
Traps
Conflating 专制主义 (emperor vs chancellor) with 中央集权 (centre vs locality); calling the Ming-Qing critics bourgeois; reversing 一条鞭法 and 摊丁入亩; listing institutions without their effect.