 The number of people counted in the census of 1381 was 59 873 305 ; however , this number dropped significantly when the government found that some 3 million people were missing from the tax census of 1391 . Even though underreporting figures was made a capital crime in 1381 , the need for survival pushed many to abandon the tax registration and wander from their region , where Hongwu had attempted to impose rigid immobility on the populace . The government tried to mitigate this by creating their own conservative estimate of 60 545 812 people in 1393 . In his Studies on the Population of China , Ho Ping @-@ ti suggests revising the 1393 census to 65 million people , noting that large areas of North China and frontier areas were not counted in that census . Brook states that the population figures gathered in the official censuses after 1393 ranged between 51 and 62 million , while the population was in fact increasing . Even the Hongzhi Emperor ( r . 1487 – 505 ) remarked that the daily increase in subjects coincided with the daily dwindling amount of registered civilians and soldiers . William Atwell states that around 1400 the population of China was perhaps 90 million people , citing Heijdra and Mote . 
