ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the allodium of fief owners. The owners of big fiefs would grant their land to their relatives and subordinates, thus turning them into owners of smaller fiefs. Such re-enfeoffment became an important element in the practice of enfeoffment in the feudal system. After Mencius, the arguments on the "Nine Squares" land system began to develop and become more elaborate. It suffices to say that Mencius was utterly ignorant of the land system in the Zhou Dynasty, for he inferred the existence of a system from a single line in a poem. Such evidence is flimsy at best. Accepting the existence of the communist land system is one thing, but affirming the existence of the "Nine Squares" system is another, for it was very difficult to agree on whatever ancient Confucianists said about the "Nine Squares" system. A clear understanding of the feudal land-allotting system certainly helps us examine the features of the land system in feudal China.
