How did the nobility in Chinese history disappear?

China’s nobles have actually existed for a long time.

Zhou Dynasty’s feudal rule was based on patriarchal clan system and family, and its "pyramid" was divided into three levels: the highest level was Zhou Tianzi, called the royal family; the next level was the princes of various countries, called the court; the third level was The Shiqing doctor who was separated from the princes and established himself and enjoyed a fief of fiefdom is called a clan or clan, such as the "Sanhuan" (Mengsun, Shusun, and Jisun) of the Lu State, and the Liuqing of the Jin State (Han, Zhao, Wei, Fan, Bank of China, Zhi Liujia). Most of their power status can be hereditary, this is the earliest embryonic form of nobility.

From the Liuqing Zhao clan and Zhongxing clan of Jin during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period, to the "Four Generations and Five Lords" of the ancestors of Yuan Shao in the Eastern Han Dynasty, to the great families in the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, such as the famous Four Noble family Cui Lu Wang Xie: namely Qinghe Cui family, Fan Yang Lu family, Langya Wang family, Chen Jun Xie family, are all famous aristocrats and aristocrats in Chinese history.

Nobles arrived in the Tang Dynasty and even reached their heyday. They are divided into four regional groups: Shandong, Jiangzuo, Guanzhong and Daibei. Jiangzuo refers to the surname of the overseas Chinese in the Southern Dynasty and the Wu family; on behalf of the north, it refers to the noble family with the surname of Xianbei in the Northern Wei Dynasty; Shandong refers to the noble family in the vast area east of the Lingshan Mountain, mainly including Li, Cui, Lu, Zheng, and Wang. It is an authentic lineage of the northern gentry, with deep and lush roots, and still had great social influence in the Tang Dynasty; Guanzhong also included the Longyou gentry, and the Tang royal family claimed to be the Longxi Li family, to be exact, it should be the Guanlong gentry. Therefore, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, himself came from a great nobleman.

Let’s take a look at Li Shimin’s remarkable family background. Li Shimin's great-grandfather, Li Hu: One of the eight great generals of the Pillar State in the Western Wei Dynasty, he was posthumously named Tang Guogong after his death. This is also the origin of the Tang Dynasty title. Li Shimin's grandfather Li Bing: General Zhu Guo of the Sui Dynasty, General Manager of Anzhou. Li Bing’s wife, Li Shimin’s grandmother, is the fourth daughter of Duguxin, the best super father-in-law in Chinese history. The eldest daughter of Duguxin was married to Emperor Yu Wenyu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and the seventh daughter of Duguxin was married to Emperor Yang Jian, the founding emperor of Sui Dynasty. Li Shimin's grandfather Li Jing was their brother-in-law. Li Shimin's father and the founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty Tang Gaozu Li Yuan: the pro-cousin of Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty. When he was 7 years old, he was named as Tang Guogong. He served as Weiwei and Shaoqing in the Sui Dynasty. He was also the supreme officer of the military town of Taiyuan in the Sui Dynasty. Li Shimin himself was the cousin of Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty. It can be said that the Tang Dynasty was a dynasty dominated by emperors and noble ministers.

But the so-called "prosperity must decline" in the world, as early as the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties, the southern aristocracy had already begun to decline. Because many noble children inherited wealth from their ancestors, they can obtain high-ranking officials without hard work, so they do not have the pressure to survive and compete, there are few enterprising people, and most of them pursue hedonism. Many of the real powers of the four dynasties of Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen in the south began to slowly fall into the hands of ordinary people. Many noble children wore tall clogs and high hats on their heads, and their clothes were specially smoked with incense. After that, he shaved his face clean and beard, and also painted powder and cinnabar, claiming to be a "fairy". Some aristocratic children didn’t even dare to ride a horse. They shrank into a ball when they saw the horse shouting loudly. They were shocked and said, “This is clearly a tiger, how can I say a horse!”

Starting from the Sui Dynasty The imperial examination system actually abolished the priority privileges of the nobles’ children as officials, and opened up a political way out for the majority of the poor family members to be officials. As a result, many poor children of ordinary families can slowly enter the center of power.

And the outbreak of the "Anshi Rebellion" is not only the transition from the prosperity to the decline of the Li and Tang dynasty, but also the beginning of the decline of the traditional aristocratic power. The chaos in Heshuo and Shandong controlled by the feudal power is the heaviest, and this area is positive. It is the birthplace of the gentry in Shandong; the second is the Liangjing area where the power and the nobles are concentrated, which is the main stage of the gentry activities. These two places are precisely the places that have been most ravaged by the Anshi rebels!

In the era of Xizong, a survivor of Huang Chao, who fell into the ranks, said, "I will kill a hundred flowers after the flowers bloom." The "Hundred flowers" he killed were the royal family and nobles of the Tang Dynasty.

In 880 AD, the Huangchao peasant uprising army broke through the city of Chang'an, and began a large-scale burning, killing and looting in Chang'an. A large number of nobles and civilians were slaughtered frantically. According to the historical record, Huang Chao "killed the Tang clan in Chang'an," and killed almost none of the nobles of the Li Tang royal family in Chang'an.

In 881 AD, Huang Chao was forced to withdraw from Chang'an due to the counterattack of the troops of King Qin from the Tang Dynasty. The people cheered and encouraged the arrival of the Tang Dynasty officials. Clinker Huang Chao quickly returned to Chang'an City. Because the people who were angry at Chang'an City unexpectedly welcomed the officers and soldiers, Huang Chao once again slaughtered Chang'an: "The angry people in the Chao welcome the king, and they kill 80,000 people. Also, it is called washing the city." Wei Zhuang, a poet trapped in Chang'an at that time, witnessed the tragedy and wrote a long poem "Qin Fu Yin" to record, "The inner palace was burned into beautiful ashes, and the streets of the sky were all the bones of the public". It is a true portrayal of the extinction of the noble family. A large number of aristocratic mansions were burnt to ashes, and Chang'an was full of bones of princes and nobles.

After the defeat of Huang Chao, the nightmare of the princes and nobles not only did not end, but became even more miserable. This is the "white horse disaster".

In the second year of Tianyou at the end of the Tang Dynasty (905 AD), Zhu Wen from the Tang Dynasty was cleaned up, and the Baima Post was changed, and more than 30 people from the Tang Dynasty royal family, Qinghe Cuiyuan, Hedong Peishu, and Longyou Dugu were damaged. Waiting for the noble ministers of the imperial family to kill at Baimayi overnight, and then plunge into the Yellow River. With the fall of the Li and Tang dynasty, tragic things like this happened almost every day. At that time, Chang'an and Luoyang were almost turned into slaughterhouses for wealthy families.

China’s nobles have thus come to a dead end and have come to the brink of collective destruction.

After entering the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the "strongman politics" was rampant, and the wealthy and aristocrats were afraid to avoid it. Don't speak out in the wars of the times. The future generations are even worried about their lives. From then on, these aristocratic classes in China began to break away from the core of Chinese politics. Many aristocratic children were either killed in the war or migrated to the south. In the end, their family line gradually declined and became like a commoner’s family, no longer the glory of the past. .

The Song Dynasty was the beginning of civilian society and the ultimate model of civilian society. Facing the whole society-Note: This is the most fundamental difference between a civilian society and aristocratic society. The Song Dynasty established roughly four ways to enter the officialdom: imperial examination, Guozijian, recommendation and shadow attack. Zhao Kuangyin and his younger brother carried out a comprehensive transformation and upgrading of the imperial examination system. They not only abolished the practice of recommending candidates by the nobles in the Tang Dynasty, but also broke the limit of the imperial examinations in the Tang Dynasty, allowing everyone to enter the examination room. In the Song Dynasty, anyone who was not a disabled person could take the test, and even the butcher who killed pigs and cattle in the market could also go to the test. For the children of poor families who cannot afford to pay for the trip, the government will give them subsidies for taking the test. In addition, the number of people admitted to the imperial examinations in the Song Dynasty also increased greatly. In the Tang Dynasty, Jinshi generally accepted only 20 or 30 students per subject. In the Song Dynasty, the number was ten times higher, with an average of more than 200 students per subject. Because there are no nobles in the world, the imperial power must rely more on the help of the poor.

According to statistics, a total of 1,533 people from the Northern Song Dynasty quoted in "Song History" were analyzed, and it was found that there were 845 of them, or 55.12% of them. They were all civilians, and no one from their ancestors did it. Pass official. This also revealed that the aristocracy in ancient China occupied an absolute majority in the power centers of the Tang Dynasty and before, but by the Song Dynasty, people of civilian origin had already accounted for an absolute majority in the court.

Nobility has since become a historical term and gradually disappeared unconsciously.

A new era of civilians has begun.

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