beggars – The two beggars who may have just asked for some food at the entrance of the restaurant are out of luck – the restaurant owner angrily chases them away. It is significant that the painter included these representatives of the many impoverished people who roamed city streets in the mid and late Ming. Though the painting captures a joyful event in flourishing Nanjing, he wanted to remind us of those not favored by luck. Due to falling prices of land many farmers had to give up their profession when they could no longer pay the ever increasing taxes. The plight of the farmers worsened when access to silver became limited and its price increased due to a slackening supply from Manila after an uprising that left many Chinese merchants there dead.