peasants
Within ancient Chinese society, there were various classes of people. Which class you were put under was determined by your wealth, job, and who you were, eg. The Emperor -He was considered to be in the Gentry. In this chart to the right, you can see the hierarchy of ancient Chinese society. On the chart it states that peasants are ranked 2nd. They are in that position because of their importance to the rest of their society. They provided food for the rest of their community by farming land. Peasants were essential otherwise everyone would have starved to death. In the winter months, they may have had little food to feed their families, due to the fact that if their crops didn't grow or had died due to the cold they still had to pay tax. They should have only had to pay tax for the crops that made it to the market and not for the ones that died during that season. In different people's eyes they were viewed differently, and some people believed that they should have been at the bottom of the social structure. Though some people viewed it like that, most people thought that they were the most important people in their society, due to the fact that they provided food for their whole community.
This is an accurate depiction of what a Chinese peasant looked like when carrying crops.