Alongside this collection there was another book that came to be regarded and used as a book of precedences.  The great Confucianist philosopher Tung Chung-shu (179-104 B.C.), a firm supporter of the ideology of the new gentry class, declared that the classic Confucianist writings, and especially the book Ch’un-ch’iu, “Annals of Spring and Autumn”, attributed to Confucius himself, were essentially books of legal decisions.  They contained “cases” and Confucius’s decisions of them.  Consequently any case at law that might arise could be decided by analogy with the cases contained in “Annals of Spring and Autumn”.  Only an educated person, of course, a member of the gentry, could claim that 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 from far fewer families.  This system differs from the Near Eastern system in which also no actual enfeoffment took place, but where deserving men were granted the right to collect themselves the taxes of a certain area with certain numbers of families.