The term "
landed gentry," or "gentry," originally used for Britain, does not correspond to any single term in Chinese. One standard work remarks that under the
Ming dynasty, the elite who held privileged status through passing the
Imperial exams were called
shenshi 紳士 or
jinshen 縉紳. These degree-holders, literati,
scholar-bureaucrats or officials, are "loosely known in English as the Chinese gentry." Through education this elite held a virtual monopoly on office holding, and overlapped with an unofficial elite of the wealthy. After the
Tang dynasty, the
Song Dynasty developed the
civil service exam to replace the
nine-rank system which favored nobles. Under the Song dynasty, their power and influence eclipsed that of the hereditary and largely military
aristocrats. They are also called, 士紳 shishen "scholar gentry" or 、鄉紳
xiangshen "local gentry." Attempts have been made to define them as a social class who had passed the examinations and so were eligible to hold office, as well as retired
mandarins or their families and descendants. Owning land was often their way of preserving wealth.