A Dream of Red Mansions was written in the eighteenth century during the reigns of Emperors Kang Hsi, Yung Cheng, and Chien Lung, during the so-called Kangschien Golden Age. During this period, China was governed by Manchu aristocrats, using the social turbulence for their own selfish ends and for consolidating their political positions.
It was during this period that a vast amount of land was annexed and concentrated in the hands of the royal families, the aristocrats, the bureaucratic landlords, and big businessmen, while the peasants who lost their lands were destined to become the landlords' tenants. This social division became a terrible abyss. Even small landlords were often on the brink of bankruptcy. This critical social and economic situation can be seen in the very first chapter of A Dream of Red Mansions: after a devastating fire, a small landlord, Chen Shih-yin, is bankrupt and must seek refuge with his father-in-law.
Many monopoly groups emerged during this period, exploiting the peasants politically and economically. The authors description of the four major families of Chia, Shih, Wang, and Hsueh in the novel (the Chia family being representative of the group as a whole) is deeply rooted in the social reality of the time; this is not a fictional background for the love story which is threaded throughout the novel. Racketeering and extortion flourished in this era. There were corrupt officials at every level, and the usury and heavy levies from the landlords were so unfair and unbearable that the peasants could do nothing but take a fearful gamble: They were forced to revolt. They had no choice. They had to rise up in rebellion against their oppressors — especially in the Hunan and Guichow provinces. Not surprisingly, these torrential peasant uprisings, springing up here and there behind the superficial prosperity of the Kangchien heyday, dealt a heavy blow to the Ching Dynasty.
The people's dissatisfaction with the political corruption of their country can also be found in the historical records, particularly those describing the textile workers' strikes in Soochow and Nanking, where Tsao Hsueh-chin spent his childhood after rising capitalism gained its prominent position in the country's economy.
