beggars - The two beggars who may have just asked for some food at
the entrance of the restaurant are out of luck – the restaurant owner
angrily chases them away. It is significant that the painter included
these representatives of the many impoverished people who roamed
city streets in the mid and late Ming. Though the painting captures a
joyful event in flourishing Nanjing, he wanted to remind us of those
not favored by luck. Due to falling prices of land many farmers had
to give up their profession when they could no longer pay the ever
increasing taxes. The plight of the farmers worsened when access to
silver became limited and its price increased due to a slackening
supply from Manila after an uprising that left many Chinese merchants
there dead.
