2 Shi Liang - Coarse Grains Stamp Yanyuan County, Sichuan

Shi Liang is a traditional Chinese unit of dry measure — one Shi Liang equals roughly 31.25 grams — and these grain ration stamps were the mechanism through which China's planned economy controlled access to coarse staple grains (corn, sorghum, millet) as distinct from fine grain rice allocations. Yanyuan County sits in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, a mountainous area of southwestern Sichuan with a predominantly Yi ethnic population and historically restricted grain supply chains.

By 1982 the national grain rationing system was already beginning to erode under early agricultural reforms, making county-level stamps from this period transitional artifacts — issued under bureaucratic inertia while the policy ground beneath them was shifting.