Royal Fields and Private Dependants: Slaves and Two Edicts in Han China

Two edicts, two men, two different acts. Wang Mang's, in the Book of Han's treatise on the economy: 'the fields of the realm are now renamed royal fields, and slaves private dependants, none of them to be bought or sold' (今更名天下田曰王田，奴婢曰私屬，皆不得賣買). Emperor Guangwu's, in the Book of the Later Han: 'of the nature of heaven and earth, man is the most precious; those who kill slaves may not have their punishment reduced' (天地之性人為貴。其殺奴婢，不得減罪). One renames and bans sale; the other changes a penalty. They are not the same thing, and they are kept apart here. Only the texts, the conditions and the years are written; no theory of a slave society, and no humanitarian verdict.

Emperor Ai: A Cap Never Carried Out

The Book of Han first records a proposal to limit slaves. When Emperor Ai came to the throne and Shidan was in charge of the government, Shidan argued from antiquity that the sage kings had all set up the well-field, and urged that 'some limit should be set'; the chancellor Kong Guang and the grand secretary He Wu then proposed: 'the slaves of a king two hundred; of a marquis or a princess one hundred; of an interior marquis, an official or a commoner thirty; within three years, offenders to have them confiscated by the state' (諸侯王奴婢二百人，列侯、公主百人，關內侯、吏民三十人。期盡三年，犯者沒入官). A cap by rank, three years to comply, the excess confiscated.

It was never carried out, and the page says why. The proposal itself moved the market: 'at that time the price of land, houses and slaves fell' (時田宅奴婢賈為減賤) — one sentence, no figures. 'But the Ding and Fu families were in power and Dong Xian was high in favour, and all of them found it inconvenient'; so 'the edict was put off, and in the end the matter was dropped' (詔書且須後，遂寢不行). The cap is a limit on how many one may hold, not a count of slaves; no total is given on either page.

Wang Mang: Royal Fields and Private Dependants

Wang Mang's order: 'the fields of the realm are now renamed royal fields, and slaves private dependants, none of them to be bought or sold. Where a household has fewer than eight males and holds more than a well of land, the surplus is to be divided among the nine branches of kin and the village' (其男口不滿八，而田過一井者，分餘田與九族鄉黨). And after it: 'offenders were punished with death, the rules were unsettled, clerks took advantage, the realm was in uproar, and those who fell under the penalty were many.'

'Private dependant' (私屬) is a term of this one order; it is not a general name for slaves in the Han, and this article uses it only inside this order and says slaves elsewhere. Nor did the ban last: 'three years later, knowing the people's distress, he issued an edict that royal fields and private dependants might all be bought and sold, without applying the law' (後三年……下詔諸食王田及私屬皆得賣買，勿拘以法). Both the ban and its lifting are printed; the page offers no reason for the change beyond 'knowing the people's distress'.

Guangwu: The Manumission Edicts

In the Book of the Later Han the freeing of slaves and the changing of penalties come as a series, each with its own scope. In the eleventh month of the sixth year: 'those made slaves under Wang Mang by officials and people, where this did not accord with the old law, are all freed as commoners' (詔王莽時吏人沒入為奴婢不應舊法者，皆免為庶人) — only that batch, and only where the old law did not allow it. In the seventh year: 'people who fell into slavery or concubinage through famine and disorder or were taken by the rebels of Qing and Xu may go or stay as they wish; any who detain them and do not return them will be dealt with under the law on selling persons' (敢拘制不還，以賣人法從事).

In the eleventh year a group of edicts changes penalties and the treatment of persons: 'of the nature of heaven and earth, man is the most precious; those who kill slaves may not have their punishment reduced'; 'those who burn slaves with moxa are punished according to law, and the burned are freed as commoners' (免所灸灼者為庶民); and 'the law executing slaves who wound others is abolished' (詔除奴婢射傷人弃市律). Three items, each more specific than the last.

From the twelfth year the manumissions are divided by region and by ground. In the third month of the twelfth year: 'people of Long and Shu who were seized and made slaves and who bring their own case, and those whose cases the prison officers have not reported, are all freed as commoners' (一切免為庶民). In the twelfth month of the thirteenth year: 'the people of Yizhou who since the eighth year have been seized and made slaves are all freed as commoners; those who have taken refuge as another man's concubine may go if they wish.' In the twelfth month of the fourteenth year: 'slaves of Yi and Liang who since the eighth year have brought their case before the offices are all freed as commoners, and the seller gets no refund' (賣者無還直) — five characters that matter most: the seller does not get his money back.

Keeping the Two Edicts Apart

Three moves must be kept separate: under Emperor Ai a cap, which was never carried out; under Wang Mang a renaming and a ban on sale, lifted three years later; under Guangwu a series of manumissions and penalty changes, each edict with its own condition (not according to the old law, seized, self-reported, since the eighth year). They cannot be gathered into a Han slave system; 私屬 belongs to one order only and is not a general term. The condition words are the hinge of each edict and are printed, not summarised away; nor does either page say how many people any of these measures touched.

What Neither Page Gives

Neither page gives a slave price — only the one sentence that prices fell, with no figure; no total of slaves; no statistics on how people became slaves (crime, debt, seizure, purchase are all mentioned, none counted); and no detail of a private household's daily life with slaves. No sum or head-count is converted into modern terms or extrapolated. No theory of social formations and no humanitarian verdict is offered here.

What can be established is this: a proposal under Emperor Ai to cap slaves by rank, never carried out; Wang Mang's renaming of slaves as private dependants with a ban on sale, lifted after three years; and Guangwu's repeated edicts from the sixth to the fourteenth year freeing specified groups and changing the penalties for killing, burning and wounding slaves. How the slaves themselves lived, neither page says.

Related reading：One in Thirty: Land Tax in Han China · When Coins Ran Short: Small Coins and a Proposal to Abolish Money · The State's Bookshelf: Four Editors, Six Divisions, and a Grand Total