The Hereditary Military Service System Of Wei、Jin And Southern Dynasties And Its Effect On The State Power

Hereditary Military Service System is a kind of major military service system of our ancient society that a certain group of people was marked out and made to undertake the military obligation all their lives and generation by generation. Every step of its evolvement had close relationship to the feudality and also had deep social root cause.The Hereditary Military Service System of the Wei> Jin and Southern Dynasties arose inevitably under the background of the expansion of landlords’power> the development of Mercenary System and Recruiting System’s being difficult to execute. Soldiers undertaking the military obligation all their lives and generation by generation is its major content. However, in order to maintain state power, feudal rulers adjusted the Hereditary Military Service System according to the periods, which made it has different contents in different periods.The social status of soldiers and their families is an important aspect of the Hereditary Military Service System of the Wei、Jin and Southern Dynasties Research. Because of the social stability, feudal rulers increased the burden of soldiers and their families by demanding them not only undertake the military obligation, but also the heavy feudal land rents. This led to the serious phenomenon of soldiers’ escaping. Therefore, feudal rulers added slaves and criminals to soldiers which led to the continuous descending of soldiers and their families’ social status and more serious phenomenon of soldiers’ escaping. Besides, a large number of soldiers and their families flowed into private influential families constantly. These all resulted in the collapse of the Hereditary Military Service System of the Wei、Jin and Southern Dynasties.The Hereditary Military Service System of the Wei、Jin and Southern Dynasties had different effects on state power in different periods. During the period of the end of Eastern Han Dynasty, the Hereditary Military Service System existed as the backbone of the feudal state power which faded during the two Jin Dynasties. And during the period of Southern Dynasties, the Hereditary Military Service System lost this effect.