his action should be judged by the decisions of Confucius and not by the
code compiled for the common people, for Confucius had expressly stated
that his rules were intended only for the upper class. Thus, right down
to modern times an educated person could be judged under regulations
different from those applicable to the common people, or if judged on
the basis of the laws, he had to expect a special treatment. The
principle of the "equality before the law" which the Legalists had
advocated and which fitted well into the absolutistic, totalitarian
system of the Ch'in, had been attacked by the feudal nobility at that
time and was attacked by the new gentry of the Han time. Legalist
thinking remained an important undercurrent for many centuries to come,
but application of the equalitarian principle was from now on never
seriously considered.

Against the growing influence of the officials belonging to the gentry
there came a last reaction. It came as a reply to the attempt of a
representative of the gentry to deprive the feudal princes of the whole
of their power. In the time of Wen Ti's successor a number of feudal
kings formed an alliance against the emperor, and even invited the
Hsiung-nu to join them. The Hsiung-nu did not do so, because they saw
that the rising had no prospect of success, and it was quelled. After
that the feudal princes were steadily deprived of rights. They were
divided into two classes, and only privileged ones were permitted to
live in the capital, the others being required to remain in their
domains. At first, the area was controlled by a "minister" of the
prince, an official of the state; later the area remained under normal
administration and the feudal prince kept only an empty title; the tax
income of a certain number of families of an area was assigned to him
and transmitted to him by normal administrative channels. Often, the
number of assigned families was fictional in that the actual income was