Everything about The Four Occupations totally explained
The
four occupations or "
four categories of the people" (Chinese: 四民, pinyin:
simin) was a hierarchic social class structure developed in
ancient China by either
Confucian or
Legalist scholars as far back as the late
Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE). In descending order, these were the (gentry scholars), the (peasant farmers), the (artisans and craftsmen), and the (merchants and traders). This social class was distinguished by their right to ride in chariots and command battles from mobile chariots, while they also served civil functions. As chariot warfare became eclipsed by mounted cavalry and infantry units with effective crossbowmen in the
Warring States Period (403–221 BCE), the participation of the
shi in battle dwindled as rulers sought men with actual military training, not just aristocratic background. This was also a period where
philosophical schools flourished in China, while intellectual pursuits became highly valued amongst statesmen. Thus, the
shi eventually became renowned not for their warrior's skills, but for their scholarship, abilities in administration, and sound ethics and morality supported by competing philosophical schools.
Under
Duke Xiao of Qin and the chief minister and reformer
Shang Yang (d. 338 BCE), the ancient
State of Qin was transformed by a new
meritocratic yet harsh philosophy of Legalism. This philosophy stressed stern punishments for those who disobeyed the publicly-known laws while rewarding those who labored for the state and strove diligently to obey the laws. It was a means to diminish the power of the nobility, and was another force behind the transformation of the
shi class from warrior-aristocrats into merit-driven officials. The
Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) unified China under the Legalist system, but became infamous for its oppressive measures, and so
collapsed into a state of civil war.
The victor of this war was
Liu Bang, who initiated four centuries of unification of
China proper under the
Han Dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE). One of his later successors was
Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 BCE), who not only cemented the ideology of
Confucius into mainstream Chinese thought, governance, and social order, but also installed a system of recommendation and nomination in government service known as
xiaolian. After the Han period, this system was replaced by the
nine-rank system, a similar means of recruiting officials through recommendation. Both systems favored the wealthy, those of noble background, and the well-connected. It wasn't until the
Sui Dynasty (581–618 CE) that a new beginning of change in the
shi class would present itself by means of the
civil service examination system.
The
civil service recruitment system during the subsequent
Tang Dynasty (618–907) followed the Sui model of partial recruitment of those who passed
standard exams and earned an official degree. Yet recruitment by recommendations to office was still prominent in both dynasties. It wasn't until the
Song Dynasty (960–1279) that the recruitment of those who passed the exams and earned degrees was given greater emphasis and significantly expanded. The
shi class also became less aristocratic and more bureaucratic due to the highly competitive nature of the exams during the Song period.
Widespread printing through
woodblock and
movable type enhanced the spread of knowledge amongst the literate in society, enabling more people to become candidates and competitors vying for a prestigious degree. With a dramatically expanding population matching a growing amount of gentry, scholar-officials needed the gentry to perform local services such as funding public works, prefectural and county schools, or aiding in tax collection.
The nong (农)
Since
Neolithic times in China, agriculture has a key element to the rise of China's civilization and every other civilization. The food that farmers produced sustained the whole of society, while the
land tax exacted on farmers' lots and landholders' property produced much of the state revenue for China's pre-modern ruling dynasties. Therefore, the farmer was a valuable member of society, and even though he wasn't considered one with the
shi class, the families of the
shi were still landholders that often produced crops and foodstuffs. Although soldiers were not highly respected members of society, soldiers traditionally came from farming families, while some were simply debtors who fled their land (whether owned or rented) to escape lawsuits by creditors or imprisonment for failing to pay taxes. Soldiers along China's frontiers were also encouraged by the state to settle down on their own farm lots in order for the food supply of the military to become self-sufficient. Farmers were also encouraged to join peasant
militias to act as supporting units to the official standing army.
By the
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the socioeconomic class of farmers grew more and more indistinct from another social class in the four occupations: the artisan. Artisans began working on farms in peak periods and farmers often traveled into the city to find work during times of dearth.
The gong (工)
Artisans and craftsmen — their class identified with the
Chinese character meaning
labor — were much like farmers in the respect that they produced essential goods needed by themselves and the rest of society. Although they couldn't provide the state with much of its revenues since they often had no land of their own to be taxed, artisans and craftsmen were still given a higher place than merchants. Since ancient times, the skilled work of artisans and craftsmen was handed down orally from father to son, although the work of architects and structural builders were sometimes codified, illustrated, and categorized in Chinese written works. One example of this would be the
Yingzao Fashi printed in 1103, an architectural building manual written by an official put in charge of government agencies for construction. Artisans and craftsmen were either government-employed or worked privately. A successful and highly skilled artisan could often gain enough capital in order to hire others as apprentices or additional laborers that could be overseen by the chief artisan as a manager. Hence, artisans could create their own small enterprises in selling their work and that of others, and like the merchants, they formed their own
guilds.
The shang (商)
The merchants, traders, and peddlers of goods were viewed by the scholarly elite as essential members of society, yet were placed on the lowest of the four grades in the official Chinese social hierarchy. The scholars' attitudes towards commerce and business was almost universally apparent in their writings which denounced the merchant class as greedy and lacking moral character. It was also unacceptable for scholar-officials to engage in personal profiteering outside their official salary, even though by the Song period they were using intermediary agents to handle their anonymous business affairs for them. Merchants were seen as somewhat parasitic to the needs of all other groups in society, since it was acknowledged that they used the goods that others produced and made their own profits from them. In essence, they were seen as business savvy, but not morally cultivated enough to be leading members of society or highly venerated representatives of Chinese culture.
Despite this disdain for the merchants, by the mid
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), many families who produced scholar-officials had members who were merchants or had a merchant as a descendant of some kind. Even more significant was the fact that scholar-officials who had familial ties with merchants from the past or in the present became unabashed about these ties and made it publicly known in the writing of their official family histories. During the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, scholar-officials could derive enough of their own revenues to fund vital public works. By the late Ming Dynasty, they often needed to solicit funds from powerful merchants to build new roads, schools, bridges, pagodas, or engage in essential industries, such as book-making, which aided the gentry class in education for the imperial examinations. Merchants began to imitate the highly cultivated nature and manners of scholar-officials in order to appear more cultured and gain higher prestige and acceptance by the scholarly elite. They even purchased printed books that served as guides to proper conduct and behavior and which promoted merchant morality and business ethics.
Analysis
There were many social groups that were precariously excluded from the four broad categories in the social hierarchy. These included soldiers and guards, religious clergy and diviners, eunuchs and concubines, entertainers and courtiers, domestic servants and slaves, prostitutes, and low class laborers other than farmers and artisans.
The emperor — embodying a
heavenly mandate to judicial and executive authority — was on a social and legal tier above the
gentry and the
exam-drafted
scholar-officials. Although his royal family and noble extended family were also highly respected, they didn't command the same level of authority.
There were motives behind the aristocratic officials and later scholar-officials' classifying of certain groups in the hierarchy and leaving others out. The scholar-officials placed farmers as the second most prestigious group because the aristocratic officials and scholar-officials were
landholders themselves, much like farmers (the ones who weren't
tenant farmers or
serfs). Both farmers and artisans were placed on a higher tier than merchants because the two former groups produced crops and manufactured goods, essential things needed by the whole of society. The merchants were seen as merely talented at business and trading, and were often seen as greedy and even parasitic to the needs of all other groups.
The social category of the soldier was left out of the social hierarchy due to the gentry scholars' embracing of intellectual cultivation (wen) and detest for violence (wu). The scholars didn't want to legitimize those whose professions centered chiefly around violence, so to leave them out of the social hierarchy altogether was a means to keep them in an unrecognized and undistinguished social tier. The court
eunuchs were also viewed with some suspicion by the scholar-officials, since there were several instances in Chinese history where influential eunuchs came to dominate the emperor, his imperial court, and the whole of the central government. In an extreme example, the eunuch
Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627) had his critics from the orthodox Confucian '
Donglin Society' tortured and killed while dominating the court of the
Tianqi Emperor—Wei was dismissed by
the next ruler and committed suicide.
Modern usage
In modern Chinese culture, a similar concept remains called the
Four Shi (四師), since each of the occupations ends with the Chinese character 師, meaning specialist or profession. The four are doctors (醫師), lawyers (律師), engineers (工程師) and accountants (會計師). Often the engineer is replaced with the architect (建築師).
Further Information
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