Who carried the grain? Class, coercion and hired labour in the Ming grain fleet, c.1470–1620

Who carried the Ming empire’s tribute grain, and who profited from that labour? Drawing on veritable records, statutes and memorials, this article examines class relations in the grain fleet between the 1470s and the 1610s. Transport soldiers shared a hereditary military status, but their resources and obligations differed. Officers controlled rations and personnel rolls; creditors enforced claims against future payments; military households bore the costs of grain shortfalls, freight and boat repairs. Reports describe flight, grain sales and petitions in response to these burdens. Regulations sought to restrain exactions and sustain transport through debt relief, disciplinary measures and adjustments to hiring. Local accounts also show unequal opportunities to leave transport duty and efforts to link service to household resources. Hiring drew on soldiers’ contributions and, under specified rules, the rations attached to vacant posts. These hiring arrangements separated the performance of work from responsibility for the cargo, while hereditary households remained answerable for losses. Class analysis follows the relations through which labour, resources and liabilities were distributed. The case shows how wage labour could expand within compulsory service, and how the institutions that bound households to transport also helped finance and organise hiring without ending their obligations to carry grain.