Over and over we hear the same familiar story: peasants down on their luck, whether due to natural disaster or the need to pay for a parent’s funeral—would fall into the hands of predatory lenders, who would seize their fields and houses, forcing them to work or pay rent in what had once been their own lands; the threat of rebellion would then drive the government to institute a dramatic program of reforms. One of the first we know about came in the form of a coup d’état in 9 AD, when a Confucian official named Wang Mang seized the throne to deal (so he claimed) with a nationwide debt crisis.
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