Shang Yang Reform

As the commercial economy developed, the businessmen in Qi and Lu were differentiated. Many were middle and small tradesmen doing retail business. Not a few were magnates whose feats were recorded in historic literature.

　　In the Warring States period, the rather laissez-faire commercial policies advocated in the Qi State pushed forward considerably the commercial economy there. There were 70,000 households in Linzi. There the marketers’ “sleeves raising and sweat splashing” formed a spectacular sight, which owed much to such policies. At the Qin State in the west, a merchants-checking policy formulated by Shang Yang was promoted. This policy led to a full-fledged development of agriculture and to a limited development of commercial economy at the intervention of the government. This increased the synthetic strength of Qin and made it a “wealthy and powerful state, capable of conquering the other six states and finally building the empire”.