Northern & Southern Dynasties
Money & Society
Work, trade & social life
Northern & Southern Dynasties · Money & Society
Six Mu and Nine Islands: Raising Carp in Northern Wei
A Northern Wei farming manual copies an old fish-pond recipe: six mu of water with nine islands, twenty carp in February, turtles to keep the fish, and a promise of a million and a quarter cash.
Northern & Southern Dynasties · Money & Society
A Table a Zhang Wide, and a Dish of Chives: Money and Power in Luoyang's Monasteries
Prince Yuan Yong kept six thousand servants and five hundred singers and capped a meal at tens of thousands of coins; Li Chong, rich beyond measure, ate chives, and the joke about his 'eighteen dishes' was a pun.