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Gentry (China)
The "landed gentry, gentry", or "landed gentry" in China was the elite who held privileged status through passing the Imperial exams, which made them eligible to hold office. These literati, or scholar-officials, (''shenshi'' 紳士 or ''jinshen'' 縉紳), also called 士紳 ''shishen'' "scholar gentry" or 鄉紳 ''xiangshen'' "local gentry", held a virtual monopoly on office holding, and overlapped with an unofficial elite of the wealthy. The Tang dynasty, Tang and Song Dynastys expanded the Imperial examination, civil service exam to replace the nine-rank system which favored hereditary and largely military Chinese nobility, aristocrats. As a social class they included retired mandarin (China), mandarins or their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.Chang Chung-li [Zhongli Zhang], ''The Chinese Gentry: Studies on Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1955). Confucian classes The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Imperial China
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapters, 11th century BC), the '' Bamboo Annals'' (c. 296 BC) and the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' (c. 91 BC) describe a Xia dynasty before the Shang, but no writing is known from the period, and Shang writings do not indicate the existence of the Xia. The Shang ruled in the Yellow River valley, which is commonly held to be the cradle of Chinese civilization. However, Neolithic civilizations originated at various cultural centers along both the Yellow River and Yangtze River. These Yellow River and Yangtze civilizations arose millennia before the Shang. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is among the world's oldest civilizations and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization. The Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC) supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
