land he gave to members of his own branch-clan for their use without
transferring rights of property, thus creating new sub-fiefs and
sub-lords. In much later times the concept of landed property of a
_family_ developed, and the whole concept of "clan" disappeared. By 500
B.C., most feudal lords had retained only a dim memory that they
originally belonged to the Chi clan of the Chou or to one of the few
other original clans, and their so-called sub-lords felt themselves as
members of independent noble families. Slowly, then, the family names of
later China began to develop, but it took many centuries until, at the
time of the Han Dynasty, all citizens (slaves excluded) had accepted
family names. Then, reversely, families grew again into new clans.

Thus we have this picture of the early Chou state: the imperial central
power established in Shensi, near the present Sian; over a thousand
feudal states, great and small, often consisting only of a small
garrison, or sometimes a more considerable one, with the former
chieftain as feudal lord over it. Around these garrisons the old
population lived on, in the north the Shang population, farther east and
south various other peoples and cultures. The conquerors' garrisons were
like islands in a sea. Most of them formed new towns, walled, with a
rectangular plan and central crossroads, similar to the European towns
subsequently formed out of Roman encampments. This town plan has been
preserved to the present day.

This upper class in the garrisons formed the nobility; it was sharply
divided from the indigenous population around the towns The conquerors
called the population "the black-haired people", and themselves "the
hundred families". The rest of the town populations consisted often of
urban Shang people: Shang noble families together with their bondsmen
and serfs had been given to Chou fiefholders. Such forced resettlements