Fēngjiàn (Chinese: 封建; lit. 'enfeoffment and establishment') was a political ideology and governance system in ancient China, whose social structure formed a decentralized system of confederation-like government based on the ruling class consisting of the Son of Heaven (king) and nobles, and the lower class consisting of commoners categorized into four occupations (or "four categories of the people", namely gentries, peasants, laborers and merchants). The system dated back at least to the Shang dynasty, but was formally coined during the Western Zhou dynasty when the Zhou kings enfeoffed their clan relatives and fellow warriors as vassals. Through the fengjian system, the king would allocate an area of land to a noble, establishing him as the de facto ruler of that region and allowing his