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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gamerprinter" data-source="post: 5695921" data-attributes="member: 50895">Can't say for sure, but most modern observers don't consider empires to be anything, but evil as far as governments go. I don't think historians generally judge the good/bad in historical empires, but put on the spot, I'd hardly think they thought the Roman Empire was a benign entity.  Not true, perhaps land division post Meiji (1868+) might have changed land ownership, but prior to that, all farmer's land was owned by the farmer - Japanese farmers were always land owners and never serfs, their lands being hereditary properties. This has been true at least from the Heian period 790 AD, up to the Meiji Restoration 1868 AD.  I'm saying short of extreme circumstances as in prior to an immediate war that is known to be happening soon so that a gear up of defenses, arms, etc are needed on short notice, there is nothing that requires 24 hours of labor to support a feudal society. The people would have too much leisure time on their hands and feudal society can't support masses of vacationers for example - keep the people working 6 days a week at normal work hours and everything gets done on time anyway. The lack of a 24 work day did not inhibit feudal society growth - it's not something that is needed. Only in a post industrial revolution world requires the kind of manufacturing output that a 24 hour workday enhances.</blockquote>