This source contains a primary source that is written by an unknown author. In it, the author explains the Taiping economic program. It goes into a lot of detail about how the land is going to be sorted between people, and what must be done with this land. For example, it states "the distribution of all land is to be based on the number of persons in each family, regardless of sex." It then goes on to explain how everyone will be looking after and cultivating the land together, and if there is not enough land to go around they will move families until they find the space. It then goes on to explain how the Group Officer is going to direct the sergeants (the ones working the land), and the officer is going to be in charge of keeping a record of the amount of grain produced and the amount of money collected, and this is going to be reported to the 'Treasurers and Receiving and Disbursing Tellers.' Further on in the source, it explains how "pottery‑making, metalworking, carpentry, masonry, and other such skilled work should be performed by the sergeants and militiamen in the off‑seasons from farming and military service. "
All of this is extremely important in getting a better understanding of the kinds of "rules" that were inflicted during this time. The Taiping's wanted equality in the land that each person got, no matter who they were. The only way someone got more is if they had a larger family. They wanted everybody to work on harvesting the land together, there was no independence when it came to this. There were twenty-five families working together at one point. I also found it interesting when they said that if there was not enough land, they would keep moving people and moving people until they found a spot for them. It shows the lengths they would go to, to ensure there was enough land available for everyone. The "sergeants" as they called them, were the ones who were in charge of harvesting the products and they would then have to report this to the Group Officer. He was in charge of keeping all of the information like the amount of grain produced and the amount of money made. This would then be sent to the Treasury and some of this money could then be used by the families for weddings, births and other festivities. It's important to know all this to get a good understanding of the economic program the Taiping's wanted to be following and how they were going to go about this. It was also interesting to see that if the men weren't farming or in military serving (due to being out of season) they would be tasked with other jobs such as pottery-making, metalworking etc. All of this is very important because it shows us what the Taiping rebels wanted out of everybody and how they were going to go about this. If the people were not farming or serving in the military, they were doing something else. This primary source also allows us to see a firsthand example of the Taiping's economic program and how it was written for the people of China to read and understand.