The Study On The Royal Clan Of The Chin Dynasty

In Chin Dynasty the royal clan was a special group and a privileged class which attracts much attention. It is not an isolated presence but an important and organic integral part of Chin's society. Its development is a multifaceted process where many places are noteworthy. Studying the royal clan will not only benefit us on obtaining an overall knowledge of the Chin society, but also help us to understand the history of Chin's rise and fall with a new perspective. In this thesis, I plan to investigate the royal clan in Chin Dynasty based on the royal class political system, income, administrating institution, marriage, cultural achievements and so on. Besides the introduction and epilogue, the main body of the thesis has been divided into eight chapters:Introduction: Here I introduce the significance of the topic of this thesis, comb the present research and sum up its shortcomings; the research ideas and methods. The creativity and difficulties are also described.Chapter I: Definition of the royal clan in Chin Dynasty and its related problems. In this chapter, the scope of the royal clan is defined; the royal clan is regarded as the descendants in"Wufu"of Primogenitor Hanpu and the following emperors. This was the right origin that the royal clan in Chin Dynasty come from. Royals in Chin Dynasty was also referred to as "Zongshi" or "Neizu"; in addition many scholars argue that royals in Chin Dynasty can also be referred to as"Langjun"because the SanChaoBeiMengHuiBian said"royals in Chin Dynasty were all called Langjun". In fact, the opinion that"royals in Chin Dynasty were all called Langjun"is not correct; I think that in Chin Dynasty Langjun refered to two contents: one includes young masculine nobility; the other includes the low-grade officials who served in"ShangShu sheng"or royal palace and were engaged with guarding, checking documents, managing stationery or something else. Furthermore, in this chapter,I correct a wrong opinion: two scholars argued that the"Poluhuo"was not a member of royal but"Tudan Poluhuo"; however, I find that the"Poluhuo"was only a Jurchen name and in Chin Dynasty there were at least five people with the same name. Besides what mentioned above, basing on the previous studies, I have completed the Chin History Zongshi Tablet according to the available historical records.Chapter II: Official nomination and privileges for royal clan in Chin Dynasty. In this chapter, I discuss the ways by which the royal members became an official. The main ways were mainly inheritance, examination, conferred privileges on descendent, war contribution and so on. Because of the special status, royals can become an official in more channels and be promoted faster than ordinary people. And once they become an official, they can enjoy a variety of privileges. In this chapter, the serving situation for royals in the institution of administration, military affairs and supervisal is also studied. In a word, although in the central institution there were less and less royals, they all had real power. In the prophase of Chin Dynasty in the central institution were mainly the next of kin royals; after Hailing many distant relative royals joined; while after Zhangzong royals in central institution were mainly distant relative ones. In order to show praise and favor, the officials from royals would be bestowed on some official titles after death. Anyway, as royals, they had born status which was different from ordinary people. For royals who were kin to the rulers of Chin Dynasty, they became the base of the dominion for the kingdom and had quite a lot of power.Chapter III: The social life and economic resources of the royal clan in Chin Dynasty. In this chapter, I investigate the situation of the social life for the royal clan in Chin Dynasty. It is found that after Chin built their regime in the Central Plains, royals had changed their traditional lifestyle like"having no rating, sharing the happiness and wealth"; in the same time by studying and contacting the culture of Han nationality, they formed their rating and learned to live a life of luxurious as royals of the Han nationality in food, clothes and habitation. However, not all royals lived a luxurious life. There were different causes which made quite a lot of royals led a hard life. In this chapter, the economic resources of royals are also studied. As a result of having privileges in economy, royals could have incomes in many channels, of which the normal ones were mainly such as salary, estovers and ground rent and abnormal ones are such as largess, bribe and capture. In a word, as a special social class the royal clan contributed to the development of Chin's financial income; however, in the same time, they also made some passive influence. They took advantage of their special statuses and powers to obtain a variety of financial behalf; as a result, they burdened the country, tyrannized the labors in the bottom of society and sharpened the class conflicts.Chapter IV: The management and prevention against the royal clan. In this chapter I mainly discuss the special management agency—"Dazongzhengfu", the pluralistic management agency—"Yushitai"and"Taichangshi", and also other relevant agencies. The"Dazongzhengfu"and other agencies cooperated with each other and also fulfilled their own duties, so that they can manage royals from different aspects. Because of the special status of the royal clan, there were some difficulties in executing the management. In this chapter, I also study crime types of royals and their punishment on them. Since royals were kin to the rulers, royals'crime (if only the crime did not damage the ruler's power) were always convicted slightly; the main punishments were warning or something like this. Some scholars argued that there was no punishment of exile in Chin Dynasty; I disagree with them and argue that there were many cases in which royals were exiled. Because of the special status royals were also a minatory factor to the ruler's power. In fact, in the whole history of Chin, there were three cases in which royals attempted to seize the power of the ruler. In order to defend all this, the rulers took some methods such as, nominating nominal official, restricting nomination, giving munificent treatment, slaying or exiling the opponents.Chapter V: The marriage of royals in Chin Dynasty. In this chapter, I discuss the marriage of royals, marital status, distinguish the marriage of emperor, Princess and ordinary royals, and also summarize some characteristicss of royals'marriage. It is found that royals'marriage was intensively involved with political purposes; most royals got married to the noble or the ministers of great power."Shou-Ji"and"double-kined"marriage were also noteworthy characteristics for the royal clan's marriage.I also introduce the marriage convenance and the meaning of royals'marriage. As a result of the marriage generation after generation, the royal clan allied with the noble and further took the whole society in control, which was very similar to what the royal clan in Xizhou did. In Xizhou, the royal chan only married those with different surnames, and using this method they allied with those nobles and leuds with different surnames and made them admit and obey the ruling of Xizhou. This was right that Chin stabilize its regime through an enormous group of relative. This was also a unique characteristic of the royal class'marriage.Chapter VI: The education and culture achievements of the royal clan in Chin Dynasty. In this chapter, I introduce the methods and contents of the royal clan's education. The education methods mainly included education in school, special official for education, regular or instant education in family and contacting the people of Han nationality and learning from them. As for the education contents, they were mainly the culture of Han, ethics, the traditional culture of Jurchen, riding and shooting, kingcraft and so on. In this chapter, I also briefly comb royals'main achievements in literature, historiography and art, and the cause of all this is also analyzed. It is argued that besides Chin attaching importance to royals'education, all the achievements also resulted from the rulers themselves'advocating studying culture, the members themselves being thirsty for culture, the superior living conditions and the influence of the literators of Han nationality. By analyzing royals'culture achievements, I argue that they had the following characteristics: completeness, phases, household and region. As the culture hardcore of the ruling class, the royal clan's culture promoted the development of Chin's culture; it also contributed a lot to the spreading and intercommunion of Chin's culture, and had important influence on following dynasties. It must be pointed out that the culture achievement is the uppermost criterion by which to evaluate the culture level of a nation; the royal clan's culture achievement which represented Jurchen's culture is unequalled by others among the north nations.Epilogue: Here the privileges of the royal clan are combed and summed up based on the previous chapters. As a matter of fact, the royal clan had a passive influence on society as well as contributions. Also in the process of doing the research the royal clan, I think it necessary to establish two basic principles:1)The proximity degree of the royal clan; 2)the knowledge on the phases of the royal clan's development in all the aspects.