TERMBASES
In feudalism, the lord granted titles of nobility, fiefs, and people to his relatives and officials and allowed them to establish dukedoms. A fief was smaller than the territory under the direct control of the lord. While obeying the rule of the lord, a dukedom enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in its military and administrative affairs. Dukedoms checked each other in the protection of the lord. A dukedom might be passed down genetically upon the approval of the lord and was required to pay tribute to him. As a political system, feudalism is believed to have started in the era of the legendary Yellow Emperor, and became established in the Western Zhou Dynasty. Feudalism was akin to the patriarchal clan system based on blood ties and gave rise to a hierarchy system. After the first emperor of Qin（259-210 BC）
reunified China, he abolished feudalism in favor of the system of prefectures and counties. From the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, centralized government or imperial autocracy was dominant in China, rendering feudalism, which existed overtly or covertly, supplementary.
Family-state referred to the land owned by feudal lords and officials in ancient China. The land of a feudal lord was called “state” and the land of an official was called “family.” In ancient China, family, clan and country shared common structural features, all founded on the basis of blood relationships. This is the so-called “commensurability of family and state.” Family-state later referred to the entire territory of a country. In modern times, the term is also used to denote a polity encompassing a territory, a people, and a government.
This system was central to life in ancient China; it was a system of principles and measures by which a clan, a state, or society was run, based on bloodline or whether a son was born from the wife or a concubine. The feudal clan system evolved from the patriarchal chiefs system. Taking shape during the Western Zhou Dynasty, this system and the feudal system were mutually dependent and complementary. The feudal clan system had two levels: one was the familial level, where the eldest son by the wife was the first in line to inherit the family’s property and thus enjoyed the greatest authority. Other members of the clan were allotted their status and authority according to their closeness of kinship, ancestry, or seniority. In the families of the emperor, kings, and other nobility, this pattern was extended to the state or national level. It had a decisive impact on the inheritance of the imperial throne and on state politics. The feudal clan system greatly influenced the Chinese way of life and thinking for several thousand years.
This term referred mainly to all the land under the name of the Son of Heaven and the right to rule on such land. The ancient Chinese held that the rule of senior officials was over their enfeoffed land, and that of dukes and princes was over feudal states. The rule of the Son of Heaven was over all the land. Literally, tianxia (天下) means “all under heaven.” It actually refers to all the territory embracing the enfeoffed land and feudal states under the rule or in the name of the Son of Heaven, as well as all the subjects and the right to rule. The term has later evolved to refer to the whole nation or the whole world.
This concept places importance on the unity of national ideology and law. It was put forward by Dong Zhongshu (179-104 BC) of the Western Han Dynasty as an underlying theme of The Spring and Autumn Annals. In his view, the state needs a uniform legal system, but to achieve such unity, different schools of thought must be unified first. Without a unified ideology, people will not know which one to follow. Dong believed that Confucianism should be the one and only governing ideology for a nation. In his opinion, the unity of law and ideology should be an enduring principle .
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