Forced labor meant providing manual labor for military service—constructing city walls and water conservancies, producing weapons and armor, patrolling the inland counties, and transporting money, grain, and military supplies to the front lines to rotate the border troops.
As one would expect, the major civil engineering project of expanding Liqiu Palace had been apportioned through forced labor. Moreover, the bulk of the project's funds naturally went straight into the pockets of the contracting eunuchs in charge, while the people of Changsi City were saddled with mandatory labor. If they didn't want to toil with bricks at their doorstep, they had to deliver military provisions to the frontline. And, of course, such tasks would never be assigned to powerful families like the Guo Family; it was always the common folk from the southwestern district who bore the burden.
