Two Lives of the Rich: The Shiji's Merchants and the Hanshu's

The most quoted sentence in the Shiji's chapter on merchants runs: 'all under heaven, bustling and busy, come for profit; all under heaven, crowding and jostling, go for profit' (天下熙熙，皆為利來；天下壤壤，皆為利往 — the page writes 壤壤, where the usual quotation has 攘攘). The Hanshu has a chapter on the same subject, and the sentence is not in it. The absence is the way in: these are not two copies of one text. They share people and numbers; they do not share a title, an opening, or a verdict.

Titles, and two openings

The titles differ first. One is 貨殖列傳, 'traditions of those who increase goods', chapter 129 of the Shiji; the other is 貨殖傳, without the 列, chapter 91 of the Hanshu. The openings differ more. The Shiji begins with Laozi's perfect age — neighbours in sight of one another, 'to old age and death not going back and forth' — then pushes it away: 'to take this as the task would be to smear over the ears and eyes of the present age; it would hardly work' (必用此為務……則幾無行矣). The Hanshu begins with the institutions of the former kings: from the Son of Heaven down to the gatekeepers, 'rank, salary, support, palaces, carriages and dress, coffins, sacrifices, the rules of life and death each had their grades; the small might not usurp the great, the base might not exceed the noble' (小不得僭大，賤不得逾貴). One opening is a rebuttal; the other an order.

The openings produce two judgments. The Shiji says the trade runs itself — 'each man uses his ability and exhausts his strength to get what he wants' (人各任其能，竭其力) — and ranks wealth in three grades: 'the wealth of the root is best, the wealth of the branch next, the wealth of rascals worst' (本富為上，末富次之，姦富最下). The Hanshu closes on another note: the rich 'all fell into the crime of extravagance and usurpation' (皆陷不軌奢僭之惡), and this 'wounds the transforming influence and ruins custom — the way of great disorder' (傷化敗俗，大亂之道也). It says what it is writing: 'I set out their deeds, to transmit the changes of the ages' (故列其行事，以傳世變雲). One chapter writes human nature; the other writes decline.

The same people, handled differently

Take Ji Ran, who is in both: Goujian of Yue, besieged at Kuaiji, employed Fan Li and Ji Ran. The Shiji's version is full of prices: 'six years of harvest, six of drought, one great famine every twelve years… for grain, twenty harms the farmer and ninety harms the merchant… above eighty and below thirty, and farmer and merchant both profit' (六歲穰，六歲旱，十二歲一大饑……上不過八十，下不減三十，則農末俱利). The Hanshu keeps only the maxim: 'if you know the contest, prepare; if you know the season, know the goods… when dry, stock boats; when wet, stock carts' (故旱則資舟，水則資車) — the grain-price passage is gone. The number differs too: Fan Li sighs that 'Ji Ran's policies were seven; Yue used five of them and succeeded' (計然之策七，越用其五) in the Shiji, while the Hanshu has 'ten, and five were used' (十用其五).

Bai Gui shows it more plainly. The Shiji has him say 'when others discard, I take; when others take, I give' (人棄我取，人取我與), and follows it with a calendar of harvests and droughts keyed to the planet Jupiter; the Hanshu keeps the maxim — with 予 for 與 — and drops the calendar. In the same sentence the two texts even name a different man: the Shiji's contemporary is 'Li Ke did his utmost for the land' (李克務盡地力), the Hanshu's is 'Li Shi' (李史). And the widow Qing of Ba: in the Shiji she 'used her wealth to defend herself and was not invaded' (用財自衛，不見侵犯); in the Hanshu 'people did not dare to offend her' (人不敢犯). Neither page explains these differences; both are given here, and neither is adjudicated.

What each chapter alone has

Only the Shiji has the geography. It lists what each region yields — west of the mountains, timber, bamboo, grain, hemp, hair and jade; east of them, fish, salt, lacquer, silk and 'sounds and colours'; from the south, nan-wood, catalpa, ginger, cassia, gold, tin, cinnabar, rhinoceros horn, tortoise shell, pearls and hides; north of Longmen and Jieshi, horses, cattle, sheep, felt, sinew and horn. Then it tours the great towns: 'Handan is also a meeting place between the Zhang and the Yellow River'; 'Yan is also a meeting place between the Bo and the Jieshi'; 'Linzi is also a meeting place between sea and Tai' — each with its customs. None of this is in the Hanshu chapter; neither are the sixteen characters about all under heaven, nor the three-grade ranking of wealth.

Only the Hanshu has the frame, and a longer chronology. Its first pages cover rank and restraint, then collapse: 'rites and righteousness were not enough to bind the gentleman, punishments were not enough to overawe the petty man' (禮誼不足以拘君子，刑戮不足以威小人). It sets the contrast of rich and poor: the rich 'draped earth and wood in brocade, and fed meat and grain to dogs and horses', while the poor 'had not a whole short coat, and drank water with their beans' (富者木土被文錦，犬馬餘肉粟，而貧者短褐不完，含菽飲水). And it carries the story past the Shiji's horizon, into the Cheng and Ai reigns — Luo Pou of Chengdu, Xing Wei of Linzi, Zhang Changshu and Xue Zicu of Luoyang, Fan Jia of Duling — names the Shiji does not have.

Numbers and goods, as written

Both chapters carry the same extraordinary inventory of what a great city absorbs in a year: 'wine: a thousand 釀; vinegar and sauce: a thousand 瓨; thin syrup: a thousand 甔; slaughtered cattle, sheep and pigs: a thousand hides; grain sold: a thousand 鐘; firewood: a thousand carts; boats: a thousand zhang of length; timber: a thousand logs; bamboo poles: ten thousand… money lent: a thousand strings' (酤一歲千釀……子貸金錢千貫). The units are copied as they stand — 釀, 瓨, 甔, 鐘, 石, 鈞, 匹 — with no price attached. Just before it stands the ranking of trades, also in both: 'to seek wealth from poverty, farming is not as good as craft, craft is not as good as trade, and embroidery is not as good as keeping a shop door'.

The 'uncrowned marquis' passage is in both as well, counting wealth in animals and trees: 'on dry land, two hundred hooves of horses, a thousand horns and hooves of cattle, a thousand feet of sheep, a thousand feet of pigs in the marsh, a thousand shi of fish in a pond, a thousand trunks of timber on the hill; a thousand date trees at Anyi; a thousand chestnuts in Yan and Qin; a thousand oranges in Shu, Han and Jiangling…' (陸地牧馬二百蹄……安邑千樹棗). The Hanshu has small variants: 牛千蹄角 for 牛蹄角千, 魚波 for 魚陂, 千大鬥 for 千斗, 千合 for 千荅. Both readings stand here; neither is made the correct one.

Two endings

Set the endings side by side and the difference is plain. The Shiji closes with 'this was all the doing of sincerity and single-mindedness' (此皆誠壹之所致), and adds that 'a household of a thousand in gold ranks with the lord of a city; one of ten thousand with a king' — the tone is acknowledgement. The Hanshu closes with 'they all fell into the crime of extravagance and usurpation', and adds 'wounding custom and ruining the age — the way of great disorder' — the tone is a verdict. What neither page gives: the merchants' dates, a conversion of its units into money or modern measure, or any statement that one chapter derives from the other. This article sets them side by side: one people, two books.

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