Fengjian in the context of "Son of Heaven"

The nobility of China represented the upper strata of aristocracy in premodern China, acting as the ruling class until the late seventh to ninth centuries during the Tang dynasty, and remaining a significant feature of the traditional social structure until the end of the imperial period.

The concepts of hereditary sovereignty, peerage titles, and noble families existed as early as the semi-mythical and early historical periods, but the systems of enfeoffment and establishment only developed in the Zhou dynasty, by the end of which a clear delineation of ranks had emerged. This process was a function of the interface between the ancient patriarchal clan system, an increasingly sophisticated apparatus of state, and an evolving geopolitical situation. While the imperial peerage system described here refers to noble titles formally conferred and inherited under state authority, the so-called “aristocracy” discussed in relation to the medieval period (roughly the 3rd to 9th centuries) was not defined by such titles. Instead, it denoted a broader social stratum of powerful lineages whose elite status derived primarily from pedigree and bureaucratic officeholding rather than from imperially sanctioned noble ranks.

Qin's wars of unification were a series of military campaigns launched in the late third century BC by the state of Qin against the other six states remaining in China – Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu and Qi. Between 247 and 221 BC, Qin had developed into the most powerful of China's Seven Warring States that coalesced in the wake of the declining Zhou dynasty, which had been reduced to a weak and merely ceremonial position during the Warring States period. In 230 BC, Ying Zheng, the King of Qin, began the sequence of campaigns that would bring the Warring States period to a close, setting out to conquer each of the six states one by one. This was completed in 221 BC with the fall of Qi, which further led to a more centralised form of government replacing the fengjian system of the Zhou dynasty. Ying Zheng declared himself the First Emperor – or Shi Huangdi – of a unified China under the Qin dynasty.

The historiographical term "Eighteen Kingdoms" (Chinese: 十八國), also translated as "Eighteen States", refers to the eighteen fengjian states in China created by military leader Xiang Yu in 206 BCE, after the collapse of the Qin dynasty. The establishment and abolishment of the Eighteen Kingdoms marked the beginning and end of a turbulent interregnum known as the Chu–Han Contention.

The details of the feudal division are as follows:

Ancient Chinese states (traditional Chinese: 諸侯國; simplified Chinese: 诸侯国; pinyin: Zhūhóu guó) were dynastic polities of China within and without the Zhou cultural sphere prior to Qin's wars of unification. They ranged in size from large estates, to city-states to much vaster territories with multiple population centers. Many of these submitted to royal authority, but many did not—even those that shared the same culture and ancestral temple surname as the ruling house. Prior to the Zhou conquest of Shang, these ancient states were already extant as units of the preceding Shang dynasty, Predynastic Zhou or polities of other cultural groups. Once the Zhou had established themselves, they made grants of land and relative local autonomy to kinfolk in return for military support and tributes, under a system known as fengjian.

The rulers of the states were collectively the zhuhou (諸侯; 诸侯; zhūhóu; 'many lords'). Over the course of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046–256 BCE), the ties of family between the states attenuated, the power of the central government waned, and the states grew more autonomous. Some regional rulers granted subunits of their own territory to ministerial lineages who eventually eclipsed them in power and in some cases usurped them. Over time, the smaller polities were absorbed by the larger ones, either by force or willing submission, until only one remained: Qin (秦), which unified the realm in 221 BCE and became China's first imperial dynasty.

The Chinese ritual music is the music used in the rituals of traditional Chinese religion. It is also described as the ritual and music system (Chinese: 礼乐制度; pinyin: Lǐ yuè zhìdù) because of its perceived importance in Chinese culture since the Zhou dynasty— particularly within Confucianism—to establishing and maintaining social order. Together with the patriarchal system, it constituted the social system of the entire ancient China and had a great influence on the politics, culture, art and thought of later generations. The feudal system and the Well-field system were two other institutions that developed at that time. According to legend it was founded by the Duke of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou.

The Ritual Music System is divided into two parts: ritual and music. The part of ritual mainly divides people's identity and social norms, and finally forms a hierarchy. The music part is mainly based on the hierarchical system of etiquette, using music to alleviate social conflicts.

The four occupations (simplified Chinese: 士农工商; traditional Chinese: 士農工商; pinyin: Shì nóng gōng shāng), or "four categories of the people" (Chinese: 四民; pinyin: sì mín), was an occupation classification used 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). These were the shi (warrior nobles, and later on gentry scholars), the nong (peasant farmers), the gong (artisans and craftsmen), and the shang (merchants and traders).The four occupations were not always arranged in this order. The four categories were not socioeconomic classes; wealth and standing did not correspond to these categories, nor were they hereditary.

The system did not factor in all 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 occupations. The definition of the identity of the shi class changed over time—from warriors to aristocratic scholars, and finally to scholar-bureaucrats. There was also a gradual fusion of the wealthy merchant and landholding gentry classes, culminating in the late Ming dynasty.