In ancient China, titles consisted of dukes, marquises, uncles, sons, and males, and further up were kings. In ancient times, kings were generally not easily granted to outsiders, unless they had a great contribution to the country, they would be awarded the title of kings, and kings with different surnames were awarded, such as the Song Dynasty Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin once strictly prohibited the division of kings with different surnames, which shows how difficult it was for kings to be granted in ancient times.
There is also a lot of learning about the succession of titles, the succession of each title is based on adhering to the inheritance system of the eldest son, in the Zhou Dynasty before the Qin Dynasty and the Warring States Period to implement the sub-feudal system, that is, the meritorious ministers or people with the same surname family are divided into titles and fiefs, in addition, the princes in the fiefdom have absolute fief control, and even have an independent army. However, the system of sub-feudalism was also ended along with the unification of the six kingdoms by Qin Shi Huang.
In addition, in order to prevent the situation of the division of princes again, Qin Shi Huang adopted the opinion of The Chancellor Li Si to adopt the county system to strictly manage the world.
In the Han Dynasty, during the han dynasty Of Han Gaozu Liu Bang, it was the implementation of a parallel system of dividing feudalism and counties, and only dividing the princes with the same surname, but it was not carried out on the basis of cutting down the princely states, which led to the strengthening of the princely states with the same surname, resulting in a great constraint on the imperial power.
In the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to strengthen the centralization of power, he introduced the Tui En Order to weaken the power of the princes in disguise, and the Tuien Order stipulated that after the princes were succeeded by the eldest son of the concubine after their deaths, it was necessary to divide the power of the princes among other sons, so that the power of the princes was dispersed in disguise and gradually reduced, thus strengthening the centralized power.
During the Tang Dynasty, the actual power of knighthood became smaller and smaller, and the title gradually became a title on honor, and there was not much real power, and only the crowned prince was allowed to provide some private soldiers for defensive purposes in the army, and the nature of the prince gradually formed the so-called high society at that time, the children of the princes.
In the Song Dynasty, in order to prevent the family from becoming dominant, Song Taizu proposed that after the marquis who was knighted was inherited by the eldest son of the concubine, he should cut the first-class title, for example: the father is a prince, but the son's generation can inherit the father's title but must cut down the first-level inheritance, and the prince will become a duke, and so on.
Such a system caused the Song Renzong period, the entire imperial court, whether it was the emperor's relatives or heroes, all the princes disappeared, so Song Renzong had to re-knight to ensure the existence of the princes in society.
In ancient times, all dynasties attached great importance to the right to inherit, no matter which dynasty regarded the succession of the crown prince as the foundation of the country, but with the problem of "li chang" or "li xian" appeared because the king had too many heirs, such a problem also gave birth to a phenomenon of party strife, like the "nine sons and nine sons and concubines" in the Kangxi period is a distinct representative.
Ancient society was dominated by direct clan lineage, and the direct descendants would directly inherit the titles left by their fathers, and would only be selected from the collateral lineage if there were no direct heirs.
However, with the development of the knighthood succession system, many social problems have also been derived. For example, if the eldest son is knighted for meritorious service, can he still inherit his father's title if he already has a title?
In fact, this also needs to be determined according to the actual situation, under normal circumstances, the eldest son can inherit the title of his father at the same time, but if there is a special situation, it may also lead to the inability to inherit, what if this happens? This can only be inherited by the father's own choice of the other heirs.
In addition, through the approval of the emperor or the clan, the eldest son can also inherit the so-called double title. If the eldest son has talent or great merit and then receives the emperor's reward and has his own title, it is still more frequent in ancient times, for example, in the Tang Dynasty, the emperor would reward the son of a courtier with great merit, so some people may be born as a baron, and he can still inherit his father's title. In fact, these two titles will not have much conflict.
Therefore, from the perspective of the ancient inheritance system, the inheritance system of the eldest son is the mainstay, and the eldest son cannot inherit the title by other heirs in the line, if there is no heir, he will select the title of a talented person from the collateral lineage to inherit.