Travel back to AD 17, during the fourth year of the reign of Wang Mang
of the Han dynasty, a vibrant and innovative era full of conflicts and
contradictions. But as different as the Han culture might have been to
other great ancient civilizations, the inhabitants of ancient China
faced the same problems as people have for time immemorial: earning
enough money, coping with workplace dramas and keeping your home in
order . . . although the equivalent in this era was more about bribing
inspectors, avoiding bullying from abusive watchmen and trying to keep
your house from being looted by Huns. In each chapter we meet one of 24
citizens of this ancient culture, from the midwife to the soldier, the
priest to the performer and the blacksmith to the tomb looter, and see
what an average day in ancient China was really like.