This article uses a case study of the Qin Empire to explore the ecology of an agrarian political system, analysis that has become possible because of the archaeological excavation of Qin administrative documents. Qin's power derived from photosynthesis, and its empire mobilized this energy and used it to conquer territory and expand its productivity. The state's power was based on its ability to extract taxes in grain from its subjects, store it in granaries, and then use it to feed laborers working on state projects. Grain and most other taxable materials were too bulky to move very far, so the government relied on a subcontinent-wide system of information gathering and processing that allowed officials at the capital to make decisions about local resource use. Qin's centralized bureaucratic system became the standard model of political organization in China, so it offers clues into the effects subsequent empires would have on their environments.

This article examines the development of early imperial ancestral shrines by exploring the Liye and Yuelu 嶽麓 Qin slips, along with other excavated texts and historical documents. It argues that Qin Shihuang's 秦始皇 court was the first to specify the regulations for the early imperial ancestral shrine, a crucial part of which was the establishment of the Taishang huang 太上皇 shrines throughout the realm, making the imperial ancestral cult part of the daily local administrative affairs. The Western Han courts largely adopted the regulations stipulated by Qin Shihuang in their commandery and kingdom shrines until late Western Han, when ritual reforms brought the imperial ancestral shrines closer to what Michael Loewe calls the Reformist vision, entailing potential conflicts between bloodlines and the hereditary order of succession. By no means did the early empires simply continue in the stipulations for the imperial ancestral shrines the royal practices of the pre-imperial period; instead, the precedents transmitted to Eastern Han reflected two major ritual reforms, with local ancestral shrines and personal participation by the emperor key subjects of debates.

In Qin and Han times, the establishment of a complex legal system that applied to every member of the empire brought about an unprecedented transformation of the husband–wife relationship, changing it from a bond largely determined by custom, ritual, and family concerns to one regulated by law. Laws recorded in the Zhangjiashan bamboo legal texts reveal that women's legal status in Qin and Han times was far higher and allowed for greater autonomy than previously imagined. Their increased legal standing may be traced to reduced household size, a policy set to counteract the mounting death toll and social chaos that followed Qin expansion and the transition from Qin to Han rule. I analyze exemplary cases to demonstrate how the small family system in conjunction with a legal order that empowered women as household heads created a new space for widows and wives to exercise their autonomy.