31 pages • 1 hour read
Jonathan SpenceThe Death of Woman Wang
Jonathan SpenceNonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
Chü-jen
Chü-jen was the traditional civil service examination used in premodern China. The exam was open to any male and tested them on writing and knowledge of literary classics. People like Huang Liu-hung would become scholars and receive government posts like magistrate based on how well they did on their exam (13). Chin-shih was the highest rank one could achieve on the exam, as demonstrated by Feng K’o-ts’an, the chief editor of the Local History of T’an-ch’eng (2).
Corvée
One way of paying taxes in 17th-century China was through labor on public works. This system is referred to as corvée. Any “adult male aged between sixteen and sixty” was “liable to corvée labor” (38).
T’an-ch’eng
T’an-ch’eng is the county in southern China in which the history Spence explores takes place. Spence describes it as “a small, poor county” and “[a]n oddly shaped administrative area” (34). The county had two towns: the capital T’an-ch’eng city and the market town of Ma-t’ou. A fertile valley that could have improved T’an-ch’eng material condition was instead registered as part of the neighboring county I-chou (34).
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