What dynasties in ancient Chinese history were slave societies? How to prove it?

When it comes to the history of China, there is an earlier statement that says that the three dynasties of China, the Xia, Shang and Zhou, were part of a slave society. If this is the case, then the history of China is the same as the history of the West, which is also divided into ? Primitive society, slave society, feudal society and capitalist society? and so on. However, if you pay attention to the progress of historical research, you will find that the argument of this statement has been widely shaken today. The strongest proponent of the claim that slavery was practiced during the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties was Guo Moruo, yet Guo's arguments and theses at the time have largely been disproved by later research and archaeological discoveries.

We say that the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties may not have been slave societies, first of all, the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties did not have a large area of the existence of slavery in the written materials, there is no large number of people buying and selling records. This suggests that although a certain number of slaves existed in the Xia, Shang and Zhou (in fact, the number and percentage of the population was not as large as in the later Han dynasty), they did not form a slave system. As a matter of fact, slavery in the true sense of the word is closely related to the commodity economy. Slavery in ancient Greece and Rome was inextricably linked to a high level of commodity economy. In other words, without a well-developed national slave market and large-scale slave trade, it is difficult to produce slavery. It is unlikely that slavery could have arisen in China's stable small peasant economic state.

Secondly, one of Guo Moruo's main arguments for the practice of slavery in the Shang and Zhou is that human martyrdom and human animals, that is, the killing of living human beings for martyrdom and sacrifices, are often found in Shang and Zhou sites. Guo Moruo said, ? It goes without saying that human martyrdom is a characteristic of slavery? The first is that the Zhou Dynasty was characterized by slavery, and the second is the Zhou Dynasty. From the above, it can be seen that slaves in the Zhou Dynasty were precisely a kind of major property.

However, many people believe that the use of so many people for burial and sacrifice precisely proves that the Shang and Zhou dynasties were not yet slave societies. In a slave society, prisoners of war are usually the main source of slaves, and prisoners of war are predominantly young and strong, which is the best labor force, yet the Shang and Zhou generally killed them and used them for ancestor sacrifices. This suggests that there was no slave society in the western sense in Chinese history.

So how did Chinese society organize productive labor when Westerners used slaves as labor? Or how was Chinese society stratified?

Early Chinese society was also stratified through the criterion of blood. We say that the Zhou Dynasty practiced the first-born system of succession to the throne. In fact, the first-born system did not only exist in the royal family, but prevailed in the whole society. Zhang Zai, a great Confucian scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, described a hierarchical system in his book "Jingxue Ligu" (经学理窟). described a pyramid structure of tiers of feudalism: within the country, the vassals were likewise required to pass the title to the first-born son, while the other sons were appointed to the rank of minister-daifu. The status of minister-daifu, too, could only be passed on to the first-born son, with the other sons relegated to ? Shi? The other sons were relegated to the rank of "Shi" (士). The first-born son of a Shih was still a Shih, but the other sons could only be considered commoners.

Of course this is an over-idealized description, and the actual situation may not be so regular, but it is roughly in line with the social situation at that time. For example, the Ji clan, though sharing the same surname as the King of Zhou, was in a different social stratum because of the difference in bloodline. Whoever was close to the King of Zhou in terms of bloodline was at the upper level of society and became a middle or high ranking nobleman; whoever was far from the first-born son in terms of bloodline was at the lower level of the social status of the extended family and became a scholar or a commoner.

This was the case with the clan of the Zhou Emperor, and it was also the case with other clans. Each clan in the Zhou dynasty was actually a small ? state? , with the first-born son hereditary? Zongzi? The first-born son was the state of the family. The first-born son was the king of the family, and it was for this reason that he was simply honored in the bronze inscriptions as? Zongjun?

Only the first-born son of? Zongjun? was the only one who had the right to preside over the activities of sacrificing ancestors, and only he had the right to take charge of the ****same property of his family. In Western Zhou society, within the clan was the practice of ? blood ****productivism? system. Each clan had a piece of land in common, and the specific form of common ownership was the ? The well-field system. A piece of land was divided into ? well? character, divided into nine, eight families*** plowed it, and the piece of land in the middle was communal land. Of course, there is a lot of debate about the well-field system, and the actual situation could not be so neatly organized, but the general principle should not be far from each other. In this way, the patriarch, the first-born son, or ? Sungun? had the right to control the property of the whole clan. The right to do so was given to the head of the clan.

Thus the Book of Rites? Nei Zi" says that within the family, the most authoritative is the zongzi Why is it said that there was no slave society in Chinese history. The descendants of the collateral line? Although noble and rich, do not dare to enter the house of the patriarchal son with noble and rich. Though many caravans and disciples, they are shed outside the house, and they enter with a small number of appointments. The children are still returned to the ware, clothes, fur, coverlet, car and horse, then must be dedicated to the top, and then dare to take the second also. If it is not dedicated, then do not dare to enter the door of the son of the clan, do not dare to rich and noble added to the father and brother, the clan?

That is to say, if you are low in blood status, even if you have made a fortune for a special reason and are richer than your father's son, you still have to be respectful in front of your father's son, and you must not exceed his father's son in the enjoyment of his clothes, utensils, and carriage. You must not pose before the patriarch, and no matter how good a car you come in, you must park it far away from the door. If you have good clothes, good carriage and horses, then you must offer the best part to the patriarch, and you can only use the second best.

So this led to the characteristic Chinese way of amassing wealth in the ancient times, namely ? First you are noble and then you are rich? : the more honorable your position in the bloodline genealogy, the more wealth you have at your disposal, and the easier it is to get rich. This created the Chinese political power of ? The tradition of "super-economic coercion". tradition.

So, in the Age of Blood, the status of blood and the status of power were completely one and the same. In the Zhou Dynasty, the family and the state were one and the same. The relationship between the center and the locality was not only political, but also blood relationship.? The relationship between the state, which was feudalized by the patriarchal law, and the royal family of the Zhou was on the one hand that of ruler and minister, and on the other hand that of brother, uncle, nephew and uncle. And in its basic sense, the idea of brothers and uncles and nephews and uncles is more important than the idea of ruler and subject.

So we see that since the beginning of the world, the Chinese people have gone from clans and tribes to bonhomie and then to the state, and the blood family has expanded again and again, and in the Zhou Dynasty, this sense of clan reached its peak. It can be said that before the Three Dynasties, the Chinese lived entirely in clans.? In Chinese society before the middle of the Spring and Autumn period, there were no self-conscious and independent people, but only many, many clans with the nobility as their head.