The nature of the political systems of Mexico in 1519-21 and China in the 17th century was one of imbalanced distribution of wealth, customs that enforced oppression of a lower class, women within any class, and a circular widespread corruption due to an ineffectual government and political system. The customs can be examined as a cause or support of each respective political system in China and Mexico. The main problem of these two societies was the distribution of wealth to the powerful and the impoverishing of the majority of the societies' people. In each society, the women were looked on as subject moreso to the men's use of power. With each society's imperfections, the government in place sometimes even served to reinforce the criminal element of society. With the foreign invasions from Spain to Mexico and the Manchus to China, the systems were thrown more into chaos-like conditions.

Chaos is what T'an-ch'eng, China, seemed to go through the 17th century, enduring earthquakes, floods, other natural disasters, and the onslaught of bandits and crime (Spence 26). Such was the nature of this supposed worst-off city. At the least, it can be used as an example of

ng themselves, the poorest people who had few ties with any gentry. This was all known to the township head, yet basically overlooked, because he didn't want to compete with the powerful people and start trouble. He was not free from their power. The poverty of the lower classes was nearly inescapable unless they passed an exam whereby they could be degreed and so attain better jobs. To attain this, though, they practically had to be schooled, which was for them an unaffordable cost. In the Mexican society, the system of taxation likewise impoverished those under Montezuma, although probably not to such an extent. Those worse off were Montezuma's enemies, the Tlascalans, whom were raided frequently although they really would have preferred peace. In Tlascala, the situation was illustrated as "themselves being so poor that they did not possess a cotton cloak among them" (Diaz 170). The towns that complained about Montezuma and his tax collectors were part of his empire. Their c!

was even the possibility of leaks of an arrest and he had to announce different intentions to do so (Spence 95). The final arrest took some fighting likewise. The inept political system that couldn't control its criminals face to face without a magnificent affair was an example of the Chinese problem. To note, the Mexican government was not too powerless at all. The only real negative about it was that it was corrupt and squandered the poor people's money on lavishness for the prince Montezuma. The money collected as taxes and the methods were corrupt. No real mention was made, but it is likely that the same corruption of the wealthy existed in Mexico at the time, as it may be said always happens where power exists.

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In the areas of legal matters the officials of the political system did not perform well and in fact helped create its corruption. The pao-lan system previously described contributed to the officials overlooking corruption due to self-interests and thus the increasing hardships of the life situation of the common people. Thus the poverty of the lowest class with little power was circular in the struggle of its problems. To cite taxation further in an example of oppression, P'u Sung-ling knew "commoners would usually pay out of fear... but with gentry there was always delay... this could lead to local antagonisms" (Spence 56). The antagonisms came about because the gentry had privelege to do so and even harassed staff. Elsewhere, the police had problems controlling the leaders of

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Approximate Word count = 1727
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)