What is the Twelve Level Cap in regards to Confucianism?
Twelve Level Cap and Rank System The Twelve Level Cap and Rank System (冠位十二階 , Kan'i Jūnikai ) , established in 603, was the first of what would be several similar cap and rank systems established during the Asuka period of Japanese history. It was adapted from similar systems that were already in place in Sui dynasty China, Paekche and Koguryŏ. The officials wore silk caps that were decorated with gold and silver, and a feather that indicated the official's rank. The ranks in the twelve level cap and rank system consisted of the greater and the lesser of each of the six Confucian virtues: virtue (徳 , toku ) , benevolence (仁 , jin ) , propriety (礼 , rei ) , sincerity (信 , shin ) , justice (義 , gi ) and knowledge (智 , chi ) .
Fengjian Fēngjiàn (封建) was a political ideology developed from Confucian and "Legalist" philosophers during the latter part of the Zhou dynasty of ancient China, its social structure forming a decentralized system of government based on four occupations, or "four categories of the people." The Zhou kings enfeoffed their fellow warriors and relatives, creating large domains of land. The Fengjian system they created allocated a region or piece of land to an individual, establishing him as the ruler of that region. These eventually rebelled against the Zhou Kings, and developed into their own kingdoms, thus ending the centralized rule of the Zhou dynasty. As a result, Chinese history from the Zhou or Chou dynasty (1046 BC–256 BC) to the Qin dynasty has been termed a feudal period by many Chinese historians, due to the custom of enfeoffment of land similar to that in Europe. But scholarship has suggested that fengjian otherwise lacks some of the fundamental aspects of feudalism.