| Most residents of rural villages would have had to decide whether they could produce required tribute without changing their previous manner of working, or if they would need to find alternative means to comply with the demands relayed through their local officials. Only the largest households would already have the labor to draw on to meet demands without change in production, and even there, tribute paid would be goods no longer available for use by the household. In most households, greater production would have been necessary, more work for the spinners and weavers, to make cloth that did not remain in the local sphere as an object of admiration. Other strategies to meet the demand may have included entering into market exchanges of other household products, including prepared foods, again made by the women of the house.
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