Ming society's vigorous market economy had expanded in conjunction with the empire's customary and command economies and even begun replacing the command economy during the sixteenth century, when monetary transactions increased. In the customary economy people bartered goods and exchanged labor services within communities throughout the empire. In the command economy, the military and bureaucracy mobilized resources through direct taxation and corvée labor.

Favorable developments, including irrigating more farmland, planting new food crops, improving cropping intensity, and leasing land under multiple land ownership, enabled the economic core areas of the Lingnan in the southeast, the Kiangnan region in northern Chekiang and southern Kiangsu, and the northern part of the Grand Canal to market their products throughout the Ming empire (see Map 11).

On the supply side, owners of labor, land, and credit in the customary and market economies exchanged these resources with private economic organizations (families, partnerships, associations, and guilds) to produce a variety of goods and services. Such factor and product markets, transacting in kind, money, or by credit, made up the economic life of small and large villages, market towns, and administrative cities. Private organizations targeted their production of goods and services to the market economy, making it easier for merchants and brokers in the economic core areas to interact with markets in the periphery; more counties and provinces became interdependent through trade as well as linked with overseas markets, while they still participated in the customary and command economies.