The Study Of Noblemen In Western Han Dynasty From The Qerspective Of Social History

Noblemen was the highest-level of the Twenty ranks of Nobility system in Western Han Dynasty. Noblemen, with its huge number, played an important role and created a significant influence on the development and evolution of the Western Han Dynasty. In this article, it adopts sociological methods, from the perspective of social history, to analyze the internal relations between the Noblemen and the Western Han Dynasty.Noblemen's social status was valued. Noblemen could be classified into work's chancellor marquis, prince marquis, and outer relatives—Enze(恩泽)marquis. In Western Han Dynasty, there were many reasons for the Noblemen's entitlement, such as work, identity, official position, bounties, technique, and dethroned king. Accompanied with the entitlement, Noblemen would be given by the field and people as their financial resource for life. Generally, Noblemen's position was inherited by Hou zi(后子).The confirmation of Noblemen's authrority ignored the family background. Even an ordinary people, who obtained the qualification to be entitled, could become a Noblemen. A person and his descendant's social class would rise when he was appointed as a Noblemen, and get down when he was deprived of the Noblemen position. This kind of social class change was one of the main contents of the Western Han Dynasty's social mobility. Although many Noblemen were born in the internal counties of the state, there was no absolute geographical restrictions for the entitlement.Noblemen was entitled without any limitation such as ethnicity, gender and age.There were some rules for the geographical distribution of the field which belonged to the Noblemen. Noblemen's field was centralized in the Kanto region, without existence around the capital. Most of the Noblemen's field located in the internal counties of the state, but it showed a trend that Noblemen's field spreaded toward the border county. Never was the Noblemen's field be lied at the Noblemen's hometown. Noblemen and his descendants would change their habitation through the government's immigration policy called "entitlement" and "migration". This kind of people's flow was one of the important contents of the Western Han Dynasty's floating people among different regions. Noblemen controled the court when they reached the highest position of the government's administration department. It was helpful for the Noblemen to control the government continuously by the system that only Noblemen could be appointed as Prime Minister, Tai Sima and Tai Situ. Tai Sima, replacing the Prime Minister, became the center of the court of Western Han Dynasty when the number of officials, which were occupied by Noblemen, decreased. The saying, "dethroned noble surely deposed official, but deposed official not necessarily dethroned noble", reflected the political reality of Western Han Dynasty, and it was the main reason for Noblemen to keep their political influence on government.Noblemen's title could be inherited. Seldom could Noblemen's title be handed down more than four generations in Western Han Dynasty. Most of the Noblemen and their descendants were dethroned by their different crimes, such as ethical crime, political crime, economic crime, job-related crime and other else crimes. Noblemen's title could also be deprived through the law principle which named "crime must be penalized" and "imperial power is supreme", and in some extent, it resulted in the protection of ordinary people's interest and social justice. Noblemen enjoyed the legal privilege that they could abate or even be free of criminal punishment. It often occured that "people committing the same crime got different penalties". There were two different kinds of results when Noblemen was dethroned. On one hand, for the government, it was propitious to strengthen the power of the king, helpful to reduce the financial burden of the central government, and to prevent the centralization of land and to maintain the stabilization of social order. On the other hand, for the Noblemen and their families, it would resulted in the loss of a series of political, economic and legal privileges and valued social status which they got by the Noblemen entitlement.