When you get down to it, feudal corvée labor is nothing but the exploitation of the common people's labor by the court—no payment, yet they work you to death.
Building roads, digging rivers, building dams, various infrastructure projects, and jobs like watching over the homes of officials, and serving as soldiers all fall under the conscription duties of enlisted males, which the government can allocate with confidence.
According to the regulations of the Great Tang, an adult male's corvée duty should only last twenty days a year, but incidents of extended labor demands are all too common.
After all, the roads and cities built are the achievements of the officials, and it costs the government nothing to mobilize the people for corvée labor—it's all unpaid work. Using free labor indiscriminately is deemed sensible.
So, every year when the labor notification arrives, it fills the local people with dread, and the Lin Family Manor is naturally no exception.
