You need to be very careful with these comparisons. First, the numbers aren't contemporary. Since they are for fairly precise dates, they may not be [in fact, IIRC, aren't] either peak or long-term average numbers. They also reflect very different definitions of the terms used. In pre-partition Poland, all land-owners were by definition noble - the terms can be regarded as synonymous. In early modern England, owning land wouldn't even automatically put you into the middle classes, never mind the aristocracy. "Noble" refers strictly to members of the peerage and their families. Likewise, it is often assumed that serf and peasant are equivalent - and there may even have been places and times when that was very nearly true. Certainly, in Eastern Europe, the number of peasants who were serfs actually increased steadily through the late medieval and early modern periods, as the flip side of the equation of nobility and land ownership, the weakening of central authority and consequent pulling of a fast one by the land owners.
From what we've seen so far, in Harchong there are no rich peasants; in fact, it sounds rather like there aren't, at least in practice, very many free peasants. That implies that land ownership does indeed equate to nobility and puts the aristocracy very much at the high end of the range - probably well over 10% of population, very possibly above 15%. Given that the rural population is likely closer to 80% of the total than not... Actually, that number is more likely to be correct for the north than the south, if industry is concentrated as much south of the Gulf as it appears to be. And since we don't know if industrial property is regarded as comparable to agricultural [probably not: it was late in the 19th century before that was true in the UK] we don't know if the smaller role of agriculture in the total economy reduces the nobility, or just the rural population percentage. It probably does not reduce the proportion of 'peasants and workers', and may not increase the free population much if at all. OTOH, it probably does increase the middle classes, which would make the nobility smaller as a proportion of the total.
Hmmm... the more I think about it, the more I realise that we really don't know anything at all about the structure of Harchong society. For that matter, we don't really know as much as some might think we do about Charisian society - I wouldn't even want to take a stab at estimating rural vs urban population there.
OK. I don't think that there are any really good real-world comparisons, but: 10-15% upper class, 5-15% middle classes, 70-80% lower classes, with the bureaucracy drawn from the top 15% except in the Church. A non-aristocratic churchman, though, is going to find advancement to the upper ranks much easier someplace else, so they probably don't stay in Harchong. And no, that low value for the middle classes isn't a mistake - that's one of the places Harchong is probably more like continental Europe than China: a strong middle class only appears where commerce is a major portion of the economy.
Kakai wrote:SYED wrote:We know the harchong have the greatest population, i am wondering how much of htat is free and how much of htat are the nobility.
Well, we can't say for sure, but comparing with real life, the percentage of nobility in society varied between 2 (England) and 10% (Poland). I guess with how overblown the bureaucracy in Harchong is, 5-10% would be a nice guess as to the number of people with "blue blood" and their families (in Japan, which modeled their nobility on China, one of countries Harchong was based on, it was 5%). As to slaves/serfs, their percentage in society of the Imperial Russia (the other country Harchong was based on) was 45% by the end of XVIII century. That would mean that the "freemen" make up between 50 and 55% of society.
Translated to numbers (taking Harchongese population as stated in FAQ at face value) this would make:
nobility:.........~9 700 000 (pretty absurd number - 1-2% would probably be closer to reality)
freemen:......~97 000 000
serfs/slaves:...87 300 000
Even with nobility being 1% of society, it's still nearly 2 million people, so I guess it wouldn't be that easy to finish them all off.
(edited to fix the numbers)