A Research On The Northern QI Dynasty Imperial Class

The imperial class played an important role as an important part of the ruling class in the Northern Qi Dynasty. Imperial class was involved in most of social conflicts in those times, such as race, class, etc. It's a representative class, so we take the Northern Qi Dynasty imperial class as the object, and this article divides into three parts.First, a series of examination about knighthood system in the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi and its relationship with the Northern Qi imperial class. This paper mainly centers on following questions : Knighthood system evolution from Eastern Wei to Northern Qi Dynasty; specific circumstances of the imperial class' members in knighthoods; discussion and analysis of the Northern Qi Dynasty imperial class for their economic situation ,such as Land-division-dependent system, the privileges they had in knighthoods system ,etc. we can see that the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the early stage of the Northern Qi Dynasty inherited the knighthood system of the later period of Northern Wei Dynasty. In this system, the imperial class established their dignity of peerages; meanwhile they got qualification to be official.Second, imperial class and politics of the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties. We can reach a basic understanding of their political position in the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties from their political career and the role they played in major political events .Leading members of the Northern Qi imperial class played an important political role in history, but along with the historical development, this impact disappeared gradually. Having contrasted Qianming coup (乾明政变) with Gaoyan rebel (琅邪王俨叛乱) , even they had similar background and process, the results were opposite. Because of the ruling class' power was not in proportion since the later period of the Northern Qi Dynasty, the imperial class' power was weakened.Third, social and cultural characteristics of the imperial class. After analyzing their marriage, education, and other inspection, we can see that the Northern Qi imperial class presented a more distinctive character in addition to the ancient Chinese imperial class' general features, or we called it characteristics of the times, which is the reason why my study has its significance.Though this paper takes the Northern Qi Dynasty imperial class as the object, the purport of this paper still is observing and researching further on history of the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi Dynasties.