5 (Society & Inequality)

In this chapter the Peasants section caught my attention the most. I thought it was inserting to red about how the vast majority of China's civilization population consisted of peasants, living in salt households representing two or three generations. Some owned enough land to support their families and perhaps even sell something on the local market. Many others could barely survive. Nature, the state, and landlords combine to make the life of most peasants extremely vulnerable. Which I thought was very sad to take advantage of those vulnerable people. Famines, floods, droughts, hail, and pets could wreak havoc without warning. Which would be really hard for those people who would go through those hard wreaks. State authorities required the payment of taxes, demanded about a month's labor every year on various public projects, and conscripted young men for military service. During the Handynasty, growing numbers of improverished and desperate peasants had to sell out large landlords and work as tenants or sharecroppers on their estate, where rent could run high as one-half to two-thirds of the crop. I thought I could never image going through something that hard in life. Other peasants would just spend their life begging or joining gangs of bandits in remote areas. I though this section of the chapter was the one that stood out to me because it was interesting to read about peasants and the struggles they had to go through in their lives.

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