On the morning of May 15, 2026, Professor Wang Yanhui delivered a lecture entitled “The Zhou-Qin Transformation and Basic Features of the Social Structure in the Qin and Han Dynasties” in Room 111, Building 400, Suiyuan Campus. Professor Wang is a Distinguished Professor of the Changjiang Scholars Program of the Ministry of Education, a Distinguished Professor of the Changbaishan Scholars Program of Jilin Province, and a recipient of the Special Government Allowance of the State Council. He is a Professor and PhD Supervisor at the School of History and Culture, Northeast Normal University, and concurrently serves as Vice President of the Chinese Society for Qin-Han History and Vice President of the Jilin Provincial Society of History. The lecture was chaired by Professor Jin Wen from the Department of History, and attracted faculty and students both on and off campus.
Firstly, Professor Wang discussed the establishment of a unitary national administrative system from the central government down to the grassroots level in the Qin and Han dynasties. The central government adopted the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers system, where officials were appointed and dismissed by the emperor without hereditary rights. The imperial power held legislative, administrative, and judicial authority in its hands. Locally, commanderies and counties acted as agencies dispatched by the court, with their administrators possessing no independent political power and obeying orders from the center. Grassroots governance overturned the misconception that imperial power did not extend below the county level. Village officials such as “xiang youzhi”（乡有秩） and “xiang sefu”（乡啬夫） were formal functionaries with salaries, offices, and seals, overseeing household registration, taxation, litigation, and other affairs. The “sanlao” （三老）at county and township levels were appointed by the government to take charge of moral education and public communication. State power reached directly into villages, forming a tight network of administrative control.
Secondly, Professor Wang traced the evolving relationship between clan organizations and state power in the Qin and Han dynasties, from alienation to gradual integration. In the Qin and early Western Han, the court enforced the “Fenyi Ling”（分异令） to split extended families and implemented a long-term policy of relocating powerful clans to curb their influence, resulting in prolonged alienation between clans and state power. In the mid-to-late Western Han, the exclusive veneration of Confucianism gave rise to scholarly and bureaucratic lineages. After Emperor Yuan of the Han abolished the relocation policy, local powerful families developed into magnate clans. Nevertheless, magnate clans in the Eastern Han were still on the rise, without institutional privileges, and their activities complied with state authority. Villages were mostly mixed settlements of multiple surnames, and a "society dominated by magnate clans" never took shape.
Thirdly, Professor Wang conducted a detailed analysis of the folk organization “Dan”（单）, arguing that it was a mutual-aid group attached to state administration rather than an independent autonomous force. Organized at the “li” （里） level, Dan focused on mutual assistance, production, sacrifices, and funerals. As a spontaneous folk organization, it used non-official seals, and its posts were filled by folk appointment, making it a parallel structure to village administration. The “Zhengwei Dan”（正卫弹） organized by the government in the late Eastern Han, despite bearing the name "Dan", was in fact an administrative tool for the state to control corvée and taxes. Overall, folk organizations were always integrated into the state governance system and never escaped unitary administrative domination.
Finally, Professor Wang summarized the fundamental social transformation from the feudal system to the prefecture-county system during the Zhou-Qin transition. The Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods adopted a decentralized enfeoffment system, where aristocratic clans were deeply integrated with state power, and hereditary officials and salaries solidified social hierarchy. Reforms in various states during the Warring States period aimed at "de-aristocratization". The Qin Dynasty laid the foundation for centralization through Shang Yang's reforms. After unification, the First Emperor of Qin abolished enfeoffment and implemented the prefecture-county system nationwide, completing the shift from aristocratic decentralization to centralization. This transformation strengthened central authority and grassroots control, establishing a long-term governance paradigm for unified dynasties in ancient China.
In the interactive session, Chair Professor Jin Wen summarized the lecture and shared insights for academic research. He emphasized that research should start from a macro perspective and proceed with micro details, arguments must be rigorous and evidence-based, and judgments should be made contextually. These require diligent study, constant writing, and deliberate cultivation of academic capabilities.
Subsequently, students raised questions on topics including the application of the village community concept in periodized research, historical forces behind the oscillation between aristocratization and de-aristocratization, the concepts of the Qin system and Zhou system, the relationship between blood ties and geographical bonds, and the rigidity of institutions and flexibility of implementation in political practice. Professor Wang responded to each question in detail.
With heated discussions and interactions, the lecture drew to a close. Professor Jin Wen highly commended Professor Wang Yanhui’s achievements in the study of Chinese history and extended sincere gratitude again. The lecture concluded successfully with warm applause.

(Text: Wang Mingyang/Photo: Li Xinyi)