collected, in the form of grain, from the peasants through the agents of
the lesser lords. Now that there were only a few great states in
existence, the old system was no longer effectual. This gave the
merchants their opportunity. The rulers of the various states entrusted
the merchants with the collection of taxes, and this had great
advantages for the ruler: he could obtain part of the taxes at once, as
the merchant usually had grain in stock, or was himself a landowner and
could make advances at any time. Through having to pay the taxes to the
merchant, the village population became dependent on him. Thus the
merchants developed into the first administrative officials in the
provinces.

In connection with the growth of business, the cities kept on growing.
It is estimated that at the beginning of the third century, the city of
Lin-chin, near the present Chi-nan in Shantung, had a population of
210,000 persons. Each of its walls had a length of 4,000 metres; thus,
it was even somewhat larger than the famous city of Lo-yang, capital of
China during the Later Han dynasty, in the second century A.D. Several
other cities of this period have been recently excavated and must have
had populations far above 10,000 persons. There were two types of
cities: the rectangular, planned city of the Chou conquerors, a seat of
administration; and the irregularly shaped city which grew out of a
market place and became only later an administrative centre. We do not
know much about the organization and administration of these cities, but
they seem to have had considerable independence because some of them
issued their own city coins.

When these cities grew, the food produced in the neighbourhood of the
towns no longer sufficed for their inhabitants. This led to the building
of roads, which also facilitated the transport of supplies for great