Business In Ancient China

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Kuang sponsored a conference to inquire into the grievances of his emperor's subjects. Invited to the conference were government officials of the Legalist school and worthy representatives of Confucianism. The Legalists argued for maintaining the status quo. They argued that their economic policies helped maintain China's defenses against the continued hostility of the Hsiung-nu and that they were protecting the people from the exploitation of traders. They argued in favor of the government's policy of western expansion on the grounds that it brought the empire horses, camels, fruits and various imported luxuries, such as furs, rugs and precious stones.
The Confucianists, on the other hand, made a moral issue of peasant grievances. Also they argued that the Chinese had no business in Central Asia and that China should stay within its borders and live in peace with its neighbors. The Confucianists argued that trade was not a proper activity of government, that government ...

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of " study hard for officialdom ".
During the late traditional period another group of scholars developed. These came from different classes. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, what learning there was had been monopolized by the nobles; they alone could use the books and documents stored by the government, and other people could not share this right. The great political and social changes during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods broke the monopoly of learning by the nobles. At all levels of society-declining nobles, new landlords, free citizens, even poor people-there were people who made an effort to study and turn themselves into scholars. When rulers of states ...

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