Древний Китай. Том 2: Период Чуньцю (VIII-V вв. до н.э.)

The first p'a was Huan-kung of Ch'i with his assistant Kuan Chung, a renowned reformer. They both successfully ruled in T'ien-hsia in 80-40-s of the 7th century ВС, called conventions of chu-hou and dictated their will, supporting it by considerable force. After that the functions of p'a were fulfilled by the rulers of Chin kingdom, the first of whom was a famous Wen-kung. Like wangs, p'a rulers acted as suzerains towards chu-hou rulers, who had to pay them certain contributions for maintaining order in T'ien-hsia. A wang did not receive any regular contributions from the vassals, who in the best case restricted themselves to sporadic presents or deferential gifts. Still the status of a p 'a was not equal to the status of a wang. And when some p'a wanted to equal himself to the Son of Heaven or replace him, he met the unwillingness of the wang and, moreover, of the chu-hou to change the habitual and universally convenient state of affairs, not to mention the fact that the mechanism of replacing the Mandate of Heaven was in reality non-existent.

As far as kingdoms and princedoms were concerned, each of them had its internal hierarchy, generally of a similar type. Places of distinguished high officials and ministers in it were usually occupied by ch 'ings, heads of hereditary patrimonial estates. They were, as a rule, not so numerous, usually about 3–6 unless it was a big Chin. They were of different origin. Some came from the ruling house, others were aristocrats not related to the rulers. But that had no noticeable effect on the stability of the political structure since in both cases ch'ings were powerful and their increased influence sometimes undermined the absolute power of the ruler. That is why the chu-hou after the allotment of the first sub-appanages-ancestral lands, usually refrained from further land division even when it concerned their favourite sons. Since sons were mentioned: each of chu-hou and ch 'ings (this refers to wangs as well) had the right to pass the throne to one of his sons, whom he himself selected. That often led to a lot of murderous intrigues. Women from the harem fought defiantly to have their sons selected. Let us remember that the last West-Chou ruler lost his throne and life exactly because he conceded to his favourite concubine and replaced his elder son from inheriting the throne. Such episodes repeated themselves in different kingdoms and princedoms more than once. The game was worth it: it was only one who could get all. The rest of the sons, who were quite a few in harems, could only expect a knight status {ta-fu\ i.e. a warrior-aristocrat on a chariot. In the best case some ta-fu received a town as conditional benefice-alimentation. But many remained even without this and worked for their master only for pay. Ta-fu numbered several thousands in a big kingdom and several hundreds in a medium one. At the end of the Ch'un-Ch'iu period huge numbers of aristocrats of the lowest rank, shih, appeared. These were descendants of ta-fu or common people promoted during their service, especially from successful warriors and servants.