Yuan Dynasty "status Law"

Based on their ethnical identities, people in Yuan Dynasty were classified into four groups-Mongolia people, Semu people, Han people and Nan people, to whom Yuan Dynasty applied different political, economical and military policies accordingly. Such is called "Four Ranks" System by researchers who consider the so-called "Four Ranks System to be a tool used by the ruling class to create conflicts between different groups to balance their powers. Present researches mainly focus on the content and the causes of this system; hardly has anyone done research on its forming process, neither has anyone evaluated the social effect of this system fairly and impartially.As is said by Professor Xiao Qiqing, this system is apparently based on ethnicity. Therefore,"Ethnicity Law", as a more neutral expression, is adopted hereafter in place of "Four Ranks" System. Based on present research, this paper pays more attention to the dynamic evolvement and social effect of this phenomenon in hope of establishing a solid and thorough understanding of the "Ethnicity Law".In this paper, the development of the "Ethnicity Law" was roughly divided into three periods-the period of power sharing, the period of privilege surging, the period of reinstating. When it comes to the causation of this system, Mr. Meng Siming proposed the theory of "established interest". In sharing his point of view, this paper looks into this question in some other perspectives, pointing out that the following factors together lead to the formation of "Ethnicity Law":influence of nomadic people's convention of preemption, the mutual needs between Mongolia people and people with other ethnic background, influence of orthodox Confucian thoughts on the Mongolia ruling class, keeping the need of administering according to the customs and maintaining Mongolia people's privilege in balance. Meanwhile, this paper pointed out that the ruling class took "Ethnicity Law" as a way of removing instead of creating conflicts among the four groups. The execution of "Ethnicity Law" undermined the traditional organizational structure of government officials, deteriorating social conflicts, deviating from its original intention and finally leading to the fall of the empire. As for "Ethnicity Law" per se, it's undeniable that it treated the four groups differently. However, there does exist some kind of limitation in present researches as they didn't look at the political configuration of Yuan Dynasty with an integrated view, hence leading to the conclusion that people were divided into four ranks in Yuan Dynasty. Last but not least,"Ethnicity Law" showed different focus on political interest in different periods, it's inappropriate to see it as innate discrimination against Han people and Nan people by Mongolia people and Semu people as a whole.