Such a far-reaching administration, that could extend down to and record the lives of Farmer Ye and the slave Hu Sheng, was only made possible by writing. As standardised by the Qin, writing was now used by the state at every level, and so scribes were essential components of an increasingly complex bureaucracy. They were the people who carried the reach of the government into the provinces, towns and villages of the empire. Through them, the state could supervise the population, exploit its labour, control and punish.
