幹當人酒食作匠之類
DONGJING MENG HUA LU / 卷三
雇覓人力
Hiring the city.
In two lines Meng sketches a matching system for urban work. 行老 stand between demand and several work categories; the search for a female servant is routed separately through a 牙人.
OPEN THE SYSTEM ↓雇HIRE行INTERMEDIARY工WORK
01 / HIRING PATHS
The intermediary sits between demand and work.
The source names roles and routes. Modern institutional labels are kept outside the diagram.
女使SEPARATE ROUTE IN THE TEXT
02 / TERMS
Keep the historical roles visible.
“Intermediary” is a functional gloss. The exact legal, occupational and contractual meanings have to come from wider evidence.
Supplies workers for hire across the categories named by Meng.
Appears in the separate route for finding a female servant.
The short passage does not define its complete occupational scope, so the translation remains cautious.
1. One sentence exposes the matching mechanism.
凡雇覓人力，幹當人、酒食、作匠之類，各有行老供雇。覓女使即有引至牙人。
WORKING TRANSLATION
When people sought workers for hire — including categories such as gandang personnel, food-and-drink service and artisans — each category had hanglao who supplied workers. When seeking a female servant, the customer was directed or introduced to a yaren.
GALOK READING
Demand and labor meet through named intermediaries. The sentence is tiny, yet it reveals a city where finding service workers could be organized by occupational channel.
《夢粱錄》 shows the same vocabulary in a much denser labor market.
Wu Zimu's account of Southern Song Lin'an has its own section titled 「雇覓人力」. Written for another capital and a later century, it dramatically expands the categories behind Meng Yuanlao's compressed Kaifeng note.
Compressed mechanism
幹當人、酒食、作匠 are supplied through 行老. Female servants are sought through 牙人.
Expanded occupational catalog
The later text names restaurant staff, cooks, porters, gardeners, pharmacy workers, household servants and many other positions, repeatedly placing 行老 in the matching process.
The Lin'an parallel adds a layer that Meng leaves unstated: who knows the worker.
《夢粱錄》 says that if a worker fled carrying goods, an original local contact or guarantor could go after them. It also records official and private female brokers and separate intermediaries for hiring travel porters.
Workers across many categories are introduced or led by 行老.
The later source preserves an accountability mechanism tied to people who knew or vouched for the worker.
The later text gives a more detailed brokerage vocabulary for concubines, performers, cooks, needleworkers and female servants.
05 / METHOD
A later parallel can clarify structure without being projected backward wholesale.
The two books share the section title 雇覓人力 and the vocabulary of 行老. That continuity makes comparison productive. Lin'an's much longer list also reflects its own time, institutions and urban conditions.
The comparison supports persistence and elaboration of labor intermediation across Song urban life. It does not prove that every Lin'an role, guarantee practice or brokerage category existed in exactly the same form in Meng Yuanlao's Kaifeng.
DIRECTKaifeng: two hiring routesPARALLELLin'an: expanded categoriesLIMITLater evidence stays later
The title itself has a witness variant.
COMMON雇覓人力
↔SIKU FAMILY雇覔人力
THE CITY ALSO WATCHES.
Entry 25 shifts from matching workers to detecting, reporting and suppressing fire.