Hereditary aristocracy and its domains in the structure and politics of the ancient Qin state during 4th - 3rd centuries bc

The paper discusses the question of existence of hereditary aristocracy in the ancient Chinese state of Qin during the period of 4th - 3rd BC, as well as the question of its role in the domestic political process. The paper shows the dynam-ic of political change on the materials of received sources as well as on that of the paleographic texts. It also shows that the traditional perception of Shang Yang’s reforms is false. This perception is based on the sources, composed largely during the Han era, which predetermined their bias towards the history of Qin. Based on these sources the re-search to date usually depicts the reforms of Shang Yang as an act of dismantling the order based on hereditary aris-tocracy and transforming Qin into a bureaucratic state, divided uniformly into counties and commanderies. However the reality, as shown in the sources contradicts this view, as the hereditary aristocracy after the reforms of Shang Yang neither ceased to exist, nor lost the decisive grip over the political process in the state of Qin. The research shows a dependence of the power transition stability and the ability of the hereditary aristocracy to align with the monarch and also shows that the process of imperial formation put this model of stability in jeopardy. It has also become clear that the very process of reproducing conflict between the aristocratic and bureaucratic groups within Qin’s elites was driven by the changing interest of the monarch, who, in his different period of reign aimed at different goals, thus be-ing the variable that propelled the political change within a framework of constants. This change led inevitably to the transformation of connection between the ruler and the hereditary aristocracy, the initial type of which being that of a hereditary lineage system of ties, and the final being that of an imperial state system, where the groups of heredi-tary aristocracy within the imperial court no longer needed to have kinship with the ruler, but played the role of agents for the local elites, influencing imperial politics.