text: In the Ming dynasty, the Royal house was a large and special social stratum. The royal house of Ming includes any descendants of Emperor Taizu of Ming and his nephew Prince Jingjiang Zhu Shouqian. Emperor Taizu had 26 sons and 19 of them had offspring. With the line of Prince Jingjiang, the royal house consists of 20 different cadet branches. Members of the royal house were not allowed to have an ordinary life by laboring. All the expenditures of the royal house were paid by the money taken from the annual tax revenue collected from commoners. Additional perks such as legal privileges and luxury items were given as gifts by the imperial court. In the middle of the 17th century, the population of the royal house was so large that their living expenditures had taken up to 225.79% of the annual tax revenue causing a virtual bankruptcy of the government.
  Qing dynasty
  In the Qing dynasty, the population could be divided into five classes. The top class was the emperor and his immediate family. After that came the gentry (officials of the government). Next came the agriculturalists, landlords, farmers and peasants. Then the artisans and merchants. In last place came the lower classes of vagabonds and criminals. For centuries China had developed its system of social stratification based on the theoretical principles of Confucian philosophy.