In ancient China, apart from tilling their land and paying the land tax, farmers must also render labor to the state. However, farmhands were one of the most important resources of agriculture. The government often subjected the common people to too heavy and lengthy service levies, and the excessive labor and military services would impose a destructive burden on the livelihood of the farmers. The Qin Dynasty perished as a result of unbearable corvée labor. In the Han Dynasty, each farmer was subject to one month’s unpaid labor to the state each year. However, one could pay a fee, called gengfu (更赋, rotating labor tax), to the government in lieu of one month’s labor.