noun
Archaic literary term for the general populace, found in classical Chinese-influenced texts. In modern Japanese, 民衆 or 大衆 are the usual words.
古典では「蒸民」は広く人民を指す語として使われた。
In classical texts, '蒸民' was used as a term broadly referring to the people.
From classical Chinese 蒸民 (zhēngmín), where 蒸 means 'multitude' and 民 means 'people'. The exact historical derivation into Japanese is uncertain; it is a literary borrowing.