Bondservants

According to Hudson, the purpose of these decrees was to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened fighting force which could happen if peasants lost the subsistence land or became bondservants due to the inability to repay the debt.

Banner Armies were organized along ethnic lines, namely Manchu and Mongol, but included non-Manchu bondservants registered under the household of their Manchu masters.

On the other hand, slaves or bondservants, entertainers (including prostitutes and actors), and those low-level employees of government officials were the "mean people".

Periodically "clean slate" decrees were signed by rulers which cancelled all the rural (but not commercial) debt and allowed bondservants to return to their homes.