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Four occupations
The four occupations or "four categories of the people"〔Brook, 72.〕 ( ) was a hierarchic social class structure developed in ancient China by either Confucian or Legalist scholars as far back as the late Zhou Dynasty and is considered a central part of the Fengjian social structure (c. 1046–256 BC).〔Fairbank, 108.〕 In descending order, these were the ''shi'' (gentry scholars), the ''nong'' (peasant farmers), the ''gong'' (artisans and craftsmen), and the ''shang'' (merchants and traders).〔 In some manner this system of social order was adopted throughout the Chinese cultural sphere. In Japanese it is called ''mibunsei'' (身分制) and is sometimes stated as , in Korean as "Sa, nong, gong, sang" (사농공상), and in Vietnamese as "Sĩ, nông, công, thương (士農工商). The main difference in adaptation was the definition of the shi (士).
The system did not figure in all other social groups present in premodern Chinese society, and its broad categories were more an idealization than a practical reality. The commercialization of Chinese society in the Song and Ming periods further blurred the lines between these four hierarchic social distinctions. The definition of the identity of the ''shi'' class changed over time, from an ancient warrior caste, to an aristocratic scholarly elite, and finally to a bureaucratic scholarly elite with less emphasis on archaic noble lineage. There was also a gradual fusion of the wealthy merchant and landholding gentry classes, culminating in the late Ming Dynasty.
== History ==
From existing literary evidence, commoner rankings in China were employed for the first time during the Warring States period (403–221 BC).〔Barbieri-Low (2007), 37.〕 Despite this, Eastern-Han (AD 25–220) historian Ban Gu (AD 32–92) asserted in his ''Book of Han'' that the four occupations for commoners had existed in the Western Zhou (c. 1050 – 771 BC) era, which he considered a golden age.〔 However, it is now known that the classification of four occupations as Ban Gu understood it did not exist until the 2nd century BC.〔 Ban explained the social hierarchy of each group in descending order:
Scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants; each of the four peoples had their respective profession. Those who studied in order to occupy positions of rank were called the ''shi'' (scholars). Those who cultivated the soil and propagated grains were called ''nong'' (farmers). Those who manifested skill (''qiao'') and made utensils were called ''gong'' (artisans). Those who transported valuable articles and sold commodities were called ''shang'' (merchants).〔Barbieri-Low (2007), 36–37.〕
Anthony J. Barbieri-Low, Professor of Early Chinese History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, writes that the classification of "four occupations" can be viewed as a mere rhetorical device that had no effect on government policy.〔 However, he notes that although no statute in the Qin or Han law codes specifically mentions the four occupations, some laws did treat these broadly classified social groups as separate units with different levels of legal privilege.〔
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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