In China, the earliest dynasties didn't have currencies. Barter and obligations, occasionally done against an external standard, dominated. During the Warring States vastly more powerful states emerged, as well as markets. Values of taxes were mostly based off of unit of land, when combined with labor requirements were designed to maximize the power of the state, balancing extraction without destroying the ability of peasants to produce in the future.

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The Zhou dynasty was a patrimonial state-the central Zhou court ruled a loose hegemony of states under their control based off of real or fictive kinship ties. Land and farmers would be granted to family and allies (which would often marry into Zhou or just pretend to be related). They would then rule directly over their fiefdom, while owing military allegiance to Zhou. Grants of land and labor would also be given to meritorious officials at court. At smaller scales something similar occurred: peasants and artisans would owe produce and perhaps labor to the local aristocracy, which would in turn protect them, hold occasional feasts, and so on.

Evidence of this period is sketchy, it's just too early. There doesn't appear to have been markets or currency-recorded transactions were purely bartering between nobles, with land transfers getting the approval and recorded by Zhou. However, values were occasionally recorded in amounts of cowrie shells (this never took the form of independent currency, but would be used as a measure of how much something was worth). For the peasantry, things are even more unclear: they seemed to have owed goods and services to the aristocracy, but how this was measured is unknown. Songs from Shijing suggest they would provide seasonal labor as well as silk, the best of their meats, and so on, and be protected and feasted on holidays in turn. It also paints a picture of large noble estates with many farmers laboring under close supervision, but records of transactions paint a picture of much smaller scale farming. Later records would describe an idealized "well field system" where fields were divided into a 3x3 board (similar to the character for well, 井, hence the name). 8 families would be assigned to private fields ringing the center, alternating farming the center whose produce would go to the local lord. Whether that ever actually existed at this time is also unclear, it might just be Confucians making stuff up about an ideal past that never existed.

Unfortunately, outside of the example of cowrie shells where exchanges are mediated by a standard outside good, it is kinda hard to answer your question during this time period.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, constant warfare led to increasing centralization of states, and the rise of military-physiocratic states, Qin going the farthest. The goal of this state model was to increase military power through centralization and improvements in irrigation and agriculture. Peasantry was brought under direct state supervision, manufacturing ran through state run or supervised semi-private workshops with convict labor, and massive armies raised. There was also increasing commercialization, especially in the central plains. This shifted states towards taxation, often in kind, as well as direct corvee labor owed to the state.

The nobility came more directly under the control of the central government, which set ranks. At each given rank a noble would be entitled to certain amounts of land and laborers, as well as the right to pass some of it to his descendants. Proto-industrialists also emerged, under Qin running large scale factories under the supervision of the state, normally using forced convict labor provided by the state. Currencies and markets emerged too, so much of their interactions would be through them or directly with the state.

Outside of forced convict labor, the peasantry became freeholding on land allocated in standard amounts by the state, with the lowest level in Qin being one qing (~4.6 hectares) . The most common type of in kind taxation was based off of these land holdings. For each qing, peasants would be taxed a certain amount of produce. The records found at Shuihudi and Zhangjiashan show that Qin taxed each hectare of land at ~60 liters of hay and ~40 liters of straw per hectare every year. This seems to be calculated on what peasants could reasonably pay without being overly burdened. The other Warring States taxed grain in the same way, occasionally making adjustments based off of quality of land or making exceptions during adverse weather. Qin took this calculation to the next level for grain-local officials updated the central government on local land and weather conditions, available workforce and agricultural equipment, and so on, and the central government decided reasonable rates of tax. The difference here seems to have been the expectation that even in bad years hay and straw should be producible, but the taxes levied on grain would need to be adjusted.

These rates were based on fiscal needs as well as trying not to overly burden the peasantry. This balance is even clearer in corvee labor demands. Each adult male owed a year of military service and a year of labor service(though the first was often used as the later), then a month a year of labor service. This month could be spread across the year, and the excess not taken accrued to future years. Labor was under the direct control of the central government-in order to use it, local governments would have to submit plans with their duration and required laborers and get permission to undertake projects.

This was undertaken to prevent local governments from undertaking projects that only benefited them, though no such restriction existed on the central government, which would build massive palace complexes and tombs. It was also to prevent the disruption of agriculture which would hurt the long term strength of the state. Central authorities only allowed projects using peasant corvee labor during peak demand for farmers in emergencies, in these cases demanded the families of wealthy be conscripted first, and chastised local authorities to use every other available source of labor (mostly convicts) before removing peasants from the land.

This was also true in the case of convict labor, which provided a large source of labor under the Qin. The fruits of the labor of each convict was owed directly to the state, of the proto-industrialists that ran the workshops or nobles than ran the farms they were assigned too. Each laborer provided an amount of food calculated to basically keep them alive, more food was given to men than women, and heavy laborers than artisans, field hands, or servants, at rates set by the state.

After the collapse of Qin, the early Han would reduce corvee requirements and implement a simpler land based tax on grain in place of the complex passing of information and central decision making of the Qin. Already present in the later years of Qin, they would expand allowing paying taxes in cash instead of in kind. Taxes would probably be lower as well-perhaps 1/30 of the output of a farmer instead of up to 1/10, and corvee requirements were also lightened. This seems to be partially ideological-the viciousness of the Qin government was often blamed for their demise (though this explanation is probably not be true), and early Han officials legitimately appeared to have wanted to reduce the burden on the peasantry. That said, the state capacity for running a Qin style system of taxing grain probably no longer existed.

Does this help at all, at least with the taxes example?

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Sources:

"Empire-Building and Market-Making at the Qin Frontier: Imperial Expansion and Economic Change, 221–207 BCE", Maxim Korolkov

"The Economic History of China from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century", Richard von Glahn