Lane J. HARRIS

In this painting from the Qing dynasty, men and children transplant new stalks. These farming families would have been governed locally by the Baojia system. Pictures on Tilling and Weaving; from a set of forty-six, ink and color on silk; after Qiao Ping-chen (c. 1650–1726).
The baojia, a subbureaucratic system of hierarchically organized households, was created in the eleventh century to relieve local authorities of law enforcement and administrative functions.