EVERYDAY LIFE · SHANG TO QING
Stories
Small questions open a window onto a different world.
Rain Had to Be Reported: The Registered Farmer of Warring States Qin
In late Warring States Qin, statutes required rain, ripening millet, newly broken land and crop damage to be reported in writing by the qing; fodder was levied on allocated land and missed corvée fined in armour.
Spade, Knife, Ring: What Money Looked Like in the Warring States
Warring States coins were cast in the shapes of tools; a Qin statute adds the rules — cloth of legal size, eleven coins to the bolt, no refusing bad coin, a thousand coins sealed in a basket.
How a Spring and Autumn State Counted Its People
In 590 BCE Lu levied armour by the 'qiu'; in 589 Chu counted households before marching; at An, Jin asked for eight hundred chariots. How the counting was done is not recorded.
The Cash Box: How a Warring States Market Ran
A late Warring States statute required officials to drop market takings into a cash box in front of the payer; the Rites of Zhou imagined three markets a day, five levies and a state treasury.