EVERYDAY LIFE · SHANG TO QING
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Ming · Money & Society
How Many Strokes for Smuggling Salt: A Ming Statute, Its Sub-Statutes, and a Quota Table
A hundred strokes and three years for private salt, one degree more with weapons, beheading for resisting arrest; the sub-statutes add a 3,000-catty line and exempt the poor who carry salt to trade for rice.
Ming · Money & Society
From Beijing to Nanjing: A Huizhou Merchant's Road Book
A Huizhou merchant spent twenty-seven years compiling a route book of Ming China: stations from Beijing to Nanjing, 4,320 li to Chengdu, sixty li a stage on one frontier road. It records distance and danger, never price.
Ming · Money & Society
Seven Fen Five Li for Fifteen Brooms: A County Ledger from Wanli Beijing
A Wanping magistrate recorded what one county bought for its altars, tombs and processions, down to the fen and li — and the levies that paid for it. Procurement prices, not retail; a register, not a population.