Slavery in China

Despite a few attempts to ban it, slavery existed continuously throughout pre-modern China, sometimes serving a key role in politics, economics, and historical events.

Direct equivalents to large scale slavery such as classical Greece and Rome did not exist in ancient China.

The Qin used large scale slave labor for public works such as land reclamation, road construction, and canal building.

Advances in fertilizer, hydraulic, and agricultural technologies allowed the plantation of commercial crops such as medical herbs, mulberry, and cotton.

[5][4][9] Visitors to late 19th century China found little difference between the poor free and the slaves, both of which were treated as hired laborers.

In 100 BC, the Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu advised Emperor Wu of Han to limit the amount of land and slaves whom people could own.

In the 13th century AD, the jurist Ma Duanlin promulgated a policy limiting the number of slaves owned by officials and commoners to 30.

In 1909, the Qing officially abolished slavery, but due to internal turmoil and its demise, the institution persisted until 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded.

[4] The Shang dynasty engaged in frequent raids of surrounding states, obtaining captives who would be killed in ritual sacrifices.

[5]: 147 Beginning with the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), one of Emperor Gao's first acts was to manumit agricultural workers enslaved during the Warring States period, although domestic servants retained their status.

[13] Deriving from earlier Legalist laws, the Han dynasty set in place rules penalizing criminals doing three years of hard labor or sentenced to castration by having their families seized and kept as property by the government.

[19] The period of division from the Jin to the Sui dynasties, Due to years of poor harvests, the influx of foreign tribes, and the resulting wars, The number of slaves exploded.

As stated in The commentary of Tang Code: “Slaves and inferior people are legally equivalent to livestock products”, They always had a low social status, and even if they were deliberately murdered, the perpetrators received only a year in prison, and were punished even when they reported the crimes of their lords.

For example, the famous Tang dynasty female poet Yu Xuanji was publicly executed for murdering her own slave.

[23][21] The female slaves from Yue(ancient tribe in the area of Guangdong) were eroticized in a poem by Tang dynasty literary person Yuan Zhen.

[24] Chan and Zen Buddhist monastic slavery grew in the Tang dynasty as monasteries became increasingly wealthy and acquired more land.

However, a majority were laborers left unemployed during consolidations of estates by the monasteries who sold themselves to earn a livelihood.

[25] The Song dynasty's (960–1279 AD) warfare against northern and western neighbors produced many captives on both sides, but reforms were introduced to ease the transition from bondage to freedom.

[1] The Qing dynasty (1644–1912 AD) initially oversaw an expansion in slavery and states of bondage such as the booi aha.

[1] However, like previous dynasties, the Qing rulers soon saw the advantages of phasing out slavery, and gradually introduced reforms turning slaves and serfs into peasants.

[1] Among his other reforms, Taiping Rebellion leader Hong Xiuquan abolished slavery and prostitution in the territory under his control in the 1850s and 1860s.

Hoise jergi weilengge niyalma) such as Yakov and Dmitri were exiled to the Han banner garrison in Guangzhou.

[9] According to Japanese historians Sugiyama Masaaki (杉山正明) and Funada Yoshiyuki (舩田善之), there were also a certain number of Mongolian slaves owned by Han Chinese during the Yuan.

[41] Korean women were viewed as having white and delicate skin (肌膚玉雪發雲霧) by Hao Jing 郝經 (1223–1275), a Yuan scholar, and it was highly desired and prestigious to own Korean female servants among the "Northerner" nobility in the Yuan dynasty as mentioned in Toghon Temür's (shùndì 順帝) Xù Zīzhì Tōngjiàn (續資治通鑒): (京師達官貴人，必得高麗女，然後為名家) and the Caomuzi (草木子) by Ye Ziqi (葉子奇) which was cited by the Jingshi ouji (京師偶記引) by Chai Sang (柴桑).

After the agreement was made, the slave was then transported, cleaned, trained, inspected and brought to their new master's home to start work.

[44][page needed] Due to the strict patriarchal system in China's history, boys were bought and sold for one of two reasons: to become an heir to a family with no son or to become a slave.

After their servitude, male slaves were either released from the main house to survive on their own, or they could have marriages arranged for them if their masters considered them to be extremely loyal or hard working.

Married women who were slaves were similar to employees; they were paid wages and were free to leave the family house when they were not working.

He is named Wang and is a native of Kansu, living in Kuei-chou in the house of his original master's son, and with his own family of four persons acknowledged to me that he was a slave, Nu-p'u.

It is a common thing for well-to-do people to present a couple of slave girls to a daughter as part of her marriage dowery.