Majority of the population was poor so there was a lot of farmers, workers, and etc. trying to make money. The people that were not poor didn’t have to work and really didn’t need to worry about their money, didn’t need to worry how they were going to eat tonight, and stuff like that. And how it differs from modern times is that, China is now a very big, and advanced. Now majority of the Chinese population is rich or middle class. China is now very advanced. A lot of products are produced in China. They also have a better army. In ancient China, the army’s were very good and could fight very well, but now the army is trained better, more advanced weapons, and etc.
This is what I can come up hopefully I’m not a few days late to your question!