To get a picture of how slavery in early Imperial China (Qin and Han dynasties) worked, it is important to understand the role of the imperial authority in terms of meaning labor relations within realm. There are two broad premises to keep in mind here: First is that the imperial authority assumes the monopoly of the legitimate use of bonded labor within its territory, not only within the junxian / 郡縣 (imperial provinces), but also in the domains of its ennobled clans. Second is that for all practical purposes, freedom of movement and labor as we understand today simply did not exist throughout Imperial China. This is particularly the case in early Han dynasty, where by law all classes of people within the Empire, from common farmers to members of the literati or even the highest ranking nobles, are by default confined within their designated line-of-work and domicile. Unauthorized travel and change of profession are not only frowned upon, but considered to be outright criminal and seditious. There is also mandatory fixed term conscript “labor tax” required for all adult male civilians in good standing (shumin / 庶民), known as the yaoyi system, which I will discuss further in paragraphs below. On top of this, there are also various penal labor systems, including the rather odd “voluntary” self-enslavement system in place (more on this later). In short, in early Imperial China (or really much of the entire Imperial Chinese history), it is very difficult to draw a clear line and say this is where “free” labor ends and slavery begins.

The Qin and Han dynasties inherited two main forms of involuntary labor systems from the Warring States Period (403 BC - 221 BC): Yaoyi / 徭役 (“conscript service”) and nubi 奴婢 (“penal serfs”). Institutions of yaoyi and nubi in fact persisted throughout Imperial Chinese history (only to be formally abolished in the early 20th century). Furthermore, yaoyi service and literati bureaucracy altogether are considered the backbone of Chinese imperial power structure.

Yaoyi is a state managed conscript labor system emerged during the Spring and Autumn period (776 BC - 403 BC), and was adopted by virtually all major Chinese states by the mid to late Warring States Period. Prior to Ming Dynasty, Yaoyi has always been framed as a form of taxation, a duty all male shumin (庶民, “commoners”) in good standing are expected to pay in the form of their labor. If you are wondering what about those who are not “in good standing,” they are of course covered by penal labor systems which I will get to later. Now back to yaoyi, it is considered one of the three main forms of taxes collected by the state. The following quote from Mengzi succinctly captures such taxation system which Han dynasty adopted:

孟子 曰「有 布縷 之 征 粟米 之 征 力役 之 征 君子 用 其 一 緩 其 二 用 其 二 而 民 有 殍 用 其 三 而 父 子 離」(Here’s my rough translation: “Master Meng said, 'There are three types of taxes, there is the taxation of textile and silk, the taxation of grain, and taxation of labor service. When the prince collects one type of tax, he shall defer the collection of the other two taxes. If he collects two types of taxes at once, then his people will suffer from hunger. If he collects all three taxes at once, then the basic social cohesion will be disrupted.'”

The yaoyi system during the early Han period was almost identical to the one used by its Qin predecessors, and was used to provide the manpower for the Imperial army as well as unskilled labor for various civilian and military projects (canals, roads, dams, fortifications etc). As its name suggests, yaoyi laborers are conscripts, it is involuntary in nature, but nonetheless they are paid and are usually provided with adequate housing and food. While the Book of Han claims that its preceding Qin dynasty operated a much harsher yaoyi system with mostly unpaid laborers and high casualty rates, current archaeological findings from the Qin period reveal a quite different picture. Textual records from Qin periods shows that their Yaoyi system was nearly identical to their Han counterpart. For example, one of the surviving《云梦睡虎地秦简》Qin bamboo slips from 217 BC contains the following lines stipulating laws regarding payment for drafted laborers:

“有罪以貲贖及有責於公 以其令日問之 其弗能入及賞 以令日居之 日居八錢 公食者 日居六錢” (My rough translation: “For those conscripted by the state for overdue debt or tax payments, all of their workpay must go towards their outstanding debt or tax balance, and they shall receive no bonouses. For regular conscripted laborers, the pay would be 8 qian per day if he commutes from his home everyday, and 6 qian per day if his lodging and meals are already provided by the state.”).

While the length and frequency of yaoyi services varied from time to time, generally all Han adult males outside of the elite literati and nobility classes are required to serve three categories yaoyi services: **Zhengzu / 正卒, Gengzu/更卒 and the infamous Shubian/戍边. Zhengzu (“main service”) is a single two year military service all male civilians are quired to serve at age fifteen. Han law allows delaying the draft for those households with elderly parents and the son to be drafted is the only adult child. The first year of zhengzu service begins right after the final fall harvest each year, where the county commissioner would assign new adult males of his jurisdiction into a local Wu /伍 (“platoon of fives”), and they will be drafted to the local Jun (prefecture) military camp for one year of basic military training, then one more year of service near the Capital as the reserve force. This is the system of which the Han empire maintains its regular standing army. All male commoners in good standing in Han are regimented into Wu’s throughout every aspect of their adult life. Members of the Wu must be non-relatives, rotating on an annual or biannual basis, with the most senior member assigned as the Wu leader. Under Han law, when when a single member of the Wu commits a crime, all five of them will be punished collectively (almost always in the form of penal labor, which I will discuss in the next post).

Gengzu/更卒 are shorter local conscript services lasting from a few days up to a month. They are for all sorts of local civilian projects, such as road maintenance, digging canals, expanding irrigation systems, clearing lands, repairing a bridge and so on. Gengzu are issued throughout the year by the local county government on a need based basis. Starting from the reign of Emperor Xuan (91 BC), Han law would restrict gengzu service to no more than a total of 30 days per person per year. Finally there’s the dreaded and widely despised Shubian/戍边, literally “borderland assignments,” which was formally introduced into the yaoyi system during the reign of Emperor Wu, to provide a steady stream of manpower for his expanist campaigns. Unlike Zhengzu reserve service, Shubian conscripts will be deployed to far reaching frontiers of the Empire outside of the reaches of Jun garrisons, most often to the Hexi corridor in central Asia, but also the Southwestern corridor in present day Yunnan/Myanmar region. Prior to Emperor Wu, borderland military garrisons were mostly reserved for penal laborers rather than regular yaoyi draftees. Emperor Wu however, and not without great controversy (which almost costed his reign, but that’s a whole different story which I will not discuss here), decided to mandate all healthy adult males of the empire who have already completed their zhengzu basic training, to be drafted for a single one-year military term involving combat deployment in lands outside of China proper. While according to the law on the paper (as recorded in the Book of Han), the maximum duration of Shubian/戍边 is one year per person per lifetime, overtime deployment were practically a matter or norm, especially for those Hexi campaign deployments in central Asia (as far as to present-day Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan).

So I will pause right here for just a moment. So far what I have covered is only a fairly high altitude overview yaoyi, which is just one of the two main involuntary labor institutions in Early Imperial China. In the next post, I will focus on the institution of nubi 奴婢, encompasses both the state managed penal labor system as well as the “gray market” of indentured servitude, and at times (especially during famine and instability) also includes the so called zimairen or “self-enslaved serfs,” which was a euphemism by the Imperial authority to thinly veil an entirely darker reality. So stay tuned.

《孟子 - 盡心下:》 孟子曰：「有布縷之征，粟米之征，力役之征。君子用其一，緩其二。用其二而民有殍，用其三而父子離。」 孟子說：「征賦之法，每年都有常數，有在夏季徵收布縷稅的，有在秋季徵收米糧稅的，有在冬季徵民力，給國家做工的。君子治國，只徵用其中的一種，而緩用其他兩種；如果同時用兩種徵法，人民就有餓死的了，如果三種征法同時並用，人民就要父子離散了。」

《荀子, 王霸》 關市幾而不征，質律禁止而不偏，如是、則商賈莫不敦愨而無詐矣。百工將時斬伐，佻其期日，而利其巧任，如是，則百工莫不忠信而不楛矣。縣鄙則將輕田野之稅，省刀布之歛，罕舉力役，無奪農時，如是、農夫莫不朴力而寡能矣。

《史記 - 平準書》: 杜周治之，獄少反者。乃分遣御史廷尉正監分曹往，即治郡國緡錢，得民財物以億計，奴婢以千萬數，田大縣數百頃，小縣百餘頃，宅亦如之。 食貨志上: 諸侯王奴婢二百人，列侯、公主百人，關內侯、吏民三十人。期盡三年，犯者沒入官。 ...(王莽) 今更名天下田曰王田，奴婢曰私屬，皆不得賣買。 《王莽傳中》: 於是邊民流入內郡，為人奴婢 《王莽傳下》: 民犯鑄錢，伍人相坐，沒入為官奴婢。 說文解字： 奴、婢，皆古之辠人也。《周禮》曰：「其奴，男子入于辠隸，女子入于舂藁。」从女从又。 《高帝紀下》: 民以飢餓自賣為人奴婢者，皆免為庶人。

徐幹著: 《中論 - 佚文》: “往昔海內富民、及工商之家，資財巨萬，役使奴婢，多者以百數，少者以十數，斯豈先王制禮之意哉！夫國有四民，不相干黷；士者勞心，工、農、商、者勞力；...建議令畜田宅奴婢者有限，時丁傅用事

Part II: The Institution of Nubi

In the previous section I have discussed yaoyi or conscript labor system of which the Han dynasty inherited from its Qin and Warring States progenitors, and was legally considered a basic form of taxation. Major defense and infrastructure projects throughout Imperial Chinese history, including the Great Walls and the Grand Canal, were built and maintained by yaoyi laborers, and the institution of yaoyi persisted far beyond the Han Dynasty, only to be formally abolished with the fall of the Qing Dynasty by the early 20th Century. Although yaoyi is still forced labor, conscripts for the most part are paid and well-fed, and there are fix terms limits for various types of mandatory yaoyi services.

There is, however, another state managed penal labor system in place, of which the captive laborers are labeled as 奴婢 (nubi) or “penal serfs” (the two logograms making up the phrase nubi literally refer to male and female criminals). In official Han dynasty written records, the phrase nubi was both used in a narrow sense as convicts and prisoners of war held captive by the state to penal labor, and (less commonly) in a broad sense to include those privately owned slaves and indentured servants at large. Officially, the state under Han law assumes exclusive control over the penal labor system, and privately owned chattel slaves are technically against the law. In practice, there has always been a “gray market” of chattel slaves and/or indentured servitude throughout the Han dynasty, especially among the civilian population. Whereas the Han imperial authority generally tolerated this “gray slave market” (there are exceptions, more on this later) among the civilian population, private slaveholding by members of the aristocracy (e.g. landed nobles and literatis) is considered usurpation of imperial authority, and therefore is much more strictly enforced. For example, in 122BC, Emperor Wu executed his uncle Liu An, the King of Huainan (also a renowned scholar who authored the philosophical treatise Huainanzi) and one of the most powerful members of the imperial family, for the crime of “keeping large numbers of unregistered guests and privately raised laborers at his residence, presumably for seditious activities.”【《漢書：淮南衡山濟北王傳》】

So how do people become nubi during the Han period? The Book of Han (official historical record of the early Han dynasty) lists three sources listed below (and my rough translations):

[1] 民 犯 伍 人 相 坐 沒入為 官 奴 婢 (“Those convicted of serious crime, their fellow Wu members and household members will be held by the state as nubi”)

[2] 邊 民 流 入內 郡 為 人 奴 婢 (“Those displaced civilians from borderlands fled to interior provinces and sold as privately owned nubi”)

[3] 民 以 飢 餓 自 賣 為 人 奴 婢 者 (“Those civilians due to hunger and poverty, sold themselves (or by their parent) into privately owned nubi).

As mentioned in the previous section, the Han criminal penal system works on a “circle of accountability” basis. Under the Han law when a person is convicted of a serious crime, the entire household (barring those older than sixty or younger than ten years of age) and sometimes the entire Wu (the smallest administrative unit under Han law composed of five households) will be condemned into penal labor. The male members of the convicted “circle of accountability” are usually assigned to hard labor in places considered too harsh for regular yaoyi conscripts, such as state operated metal and salt mines, military posts near the frontline, construction projects in remote, disease-ridden areas. Female and child convicts are usually assigned to work as servants at all levels of imperial governance. In fact, house servants for ennobled aristocracy and government officers at all levels are centrally distributed by the Imperial authority, and Han law is very meticulous in specifying the maximum number of nubi servants allowed for holders of various governmental and aristocratic ranks:

《漢書：食貨志上》 諸侯王奴婢二百人，列侯 公主百人，關內侯 吏民三十人 年六十以上 十歲以下 不在數中 官奴婢五十以上，免為庶人。 Here's My rough translation, from Hanshu, Shihuozhi-shang: “A prince of the rank of Wang (king) shall have no more than two hundred nubi to his service. A landed prince or princesses of all lower ranks shall have no more than one hundred nubi to his or her service. A non-landed prince (usually a civilian officer with an awarded non-hereditary noble title), regardless of rank, shall have no more than thirty servants. No one older than sixty years or younger than ten years shall be kept in the (nubi) workforce. All state held nubi (those not assigned as house servants for nobles and state officers) shall be released as common civilians when turning fifty years old.

Only the first source is officially sanctioned and managed by the state. The latter two sources of “privately owned” nubi are usually mentioned in the Book of Han as a symptom of an economic crisis or lapse of local governance. Records from early Han period show that Imperial decrees had to be issued from time to time ordering the crackdown of privately owned nubi (known as 為 人 奴 婢 ), and during the reign of Emperor Gaodi and Wang Mang regency, centrally appointed auditors were regularly dispatched to noble households to monitor their compliance of nubi laws. Auditing officers would show up unannounced, with a band of imperial marshals, arrest house nubi servants and interrogate them to see if any of them are non state convicts. Those house nubi found to be “self-sold (自賣人)” due to hunger and poverty are ordered to be arrested and released elsewhere as common civilian per Emperor Gaodi’s decree (民以飢餓自賣為人奴婢者，皆免為庶人). And very harsh penalties are regularly handed to those nobles and officers found to keep non-state assigned private nubi serfs (often result in the strip of peerage and, for higher ranking nobles, condemned into state penal labor).

By the time of Emperor Guangwu took the throne (5 BC), following decrees have been issued to expand legal protections of nubi captives (again, my own translation, as no English translations of complete Hanshu exist):

《光武帝紀下》 吏人沒入為奴婢不應舊法者，皆免為庶人。(When a person is condemned as nubi by the imperial authority for violating a particular law or edict, if the law or edict in question is repealed or expired, that person shall be released as a common civilian without exception.

《光武帝紀下:》天地之性人為貴。其殺奴婢，不得減罪。(The fundamental law of Heaven and Earth dictates that all human life is precious. As such, a person who murders a nubi shall receive the full extent of the punishment expected for committing murder.)

《光武帝紀下》: 敢灸灼奴婢，論如律，免所灸灼者為庶民。（He who dares to torture and brand nubi shall be punished in accordance with the law, and the nubi who is victim to torture and branding shall be released immediately as a common civilian.）

While we already know from official Han records that not-exactly-legal “gray” market for private slaves do exist in Han society, contemporaneous textual evidence suggests private nubi ownership became more prevalent and less regulated in the late Han period. We have, for example, an stone tablet unearthed in present-day Xipu (犀浦東漢殘碑) with property ownership details of local village households inscribed on it, dated and signed by the county magistrate’s office. While property ledger tablets from this era are quite common, on the Xipu fragment lists one farmer named Wang Cen, who not only owns five nubi (two male, three females), but the tablet even stated Mr. Wang Cen purchased his nubi under-the-table from another local farmer whose name broke off from the fragment. Late Han poet and Cao Wei minister Xu Gan, in his political essay collection Zhong Lun 中論 also records a petition letter to Cao Cao written by an anonymous local official, voicing his moral outrage over the fact that it has become increasingly commonplace to see wealthy merchants riding down the street followed by an entourage of dozens, or even hundreds private nubi servants, and local governors are doing nothing to stop such transgressive displays.