The Death of Woman Wang

T’an-ch’eng was a very small, poor area. It was mostly agricultural, with very little manufacturing or trade. Like every county in China, it paid two taxes: a land tax and a tax on certain individual men (36). These taxes were paid through money, through corvée (labor for the state), or through objects and produce sent to the government or bought by the government at a low price. Registration for tax purposes was thorough: “[T]he population of T’an-ch’eng county was registered in ascending circles—from the individual household, to the group of ten households, to ten groups of ten, and on to each district within the county” (38). Households had to include every member of the family and each servant and laborer. Nevertheless, T’an-ch’eng failed to fulfill its tax quota to the central government for 13 consecutive years (39). Its financial problems came mainly from the fact that T’an-ch’eng sat on one of the main roads south, so it had to spend a lot of its own money to provide road maintenance and services for traveling officials (40).

The catastrophes that struck T’an-ch’eng also reduced the number of people who could provide the corvée.