Much like today, most of the Han Chinese people were farmers. Han farmers worked the fields together and lived in mud houses arranged in villages. Wealthy farmers had strong oxen to pull their carts and iron-tipped plows, and they watered their fields using simple machines. Poor farmers had no oxen, used wooden hand tools, and watered their fields by carrying buckets of water. Farmers in the north ate wheat and millet, while farmers in the south ate rice. They cooked their meals in a boxlike stove or steamed it over boiling water.
Rich and poor lived in the cities, which were centers of government, education, trade, and entertainment. The rich lived in huge houses that were decorated with rugs and draperies.
How were the lives of
China's wealthy farmers different from lives of poor
farmers?