My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 611 The Wandering Merchant Class

If the lower classes, who have no power or influence and little spare money, are in such a state, then it goes without saying that the wealthy, who control more social resources, are in an even worse situation.

If we're really talking about something, the most outrageous ones are the wealthy and powerful businessmen—they lack everything except money.

The common people, powerless and without influence, naturally gritted their teeth and bought a third-rank or fourth-rank noble title when they had the opportunity to improve their social status and treatment by using grain—which was actually money—to 'buy' a title.

Even landlords and rich peasants with more money could at most be promoted to a sixth-rank official or a seventh-rank public official.

At best, it would cost a fortune to get an eighth-class public transport ticket, thus enjoying the privilege of hitchhiking with government officials.

—Gongcheng, as the name suggests, means that one can ride in a government-owned carriage, and it is also the most representative privilege of the eighth-rank Gongcheng nobility.

But for those businessmen who have too much money to burn, a mere Class 8 public transport vehicle is far from enough to give them their already fragile sense of security.

In fact, the real target group of the system of paying tribute in grain and donating titles was these wealthy merchants.

Although the status of the lower classes was low, their class composition as "self-cultivating farmers" made them the pillar group of the Han Dynasty and every feudal agricultural dynasty.

This meant that although the lower classes had little social standing individually, they collectively held a pivotal position in the nation and the dynasty.

If a farmer or a farmer family is bullied by the powerful and wealthy, then it is bullying.
However, when a group of farmers are bullied, or when a peasant uprising is likely to break out, the emperor will most likely step in and support the common people.

Therefore, Emperor Taizong's policy of donating grain and titles was not effective because the common people did not have enough money or grain to buy titles, and they did not have an urgent need for titles.

—Does having a title mean you're no longer a peasant?
Buying a fourth-level official position only means you don't have to perform the required service, it doesn't mean you don't have to pay taxes or levies, or you don't have to perform military service or labor service.
Farming must continue, and agricultural taxes, poll taxes, military service, and corvée labor are all still required.

In this sense, titles of nobility—especially those that the lower classes can buy and afford—are essentially a kind of "chicken rib" for them: it's best to have them, but they're not essential.

If this is the case at the bottom, then the situation of the powerful and wealthy at the top is even more obvious.

In this era, the words "powerful and noble" are inherently associated with high-ranking officials and noble titles.

Furthermore, high-ranking officials do not necessarily have prestigious titles, but those with prestigious titles certainly have the opportunity to hold high-ranking positions and receive generous salaries!

Without a title of rank 15 (Minor Upper Class) or rank 16 (Grand Upper Class), let alone being a nobleman—even if you claim to be from a prestigious family in a prefecture, people will say you're just a monkey in a crown, a frog in a well with a limited view of the sky.

As for the nineteenth-rank Guanneihou and the twentieth-rank Chehou at the very top of the pyramid, they are the top nobles who can attend court to participate in politics at the beginning and middle of the month, and can even have a private audience with the emperor!

Therefore, for the powerful and wealthy, buying a title by donating grain or offering a noble name was actually somewhat beneath their dignity.

Our ancestors worked tirelessly, following Emperor Gao to carve out the titles of nobility with sword and spear, leaving behind the glory of the clan!

Such glory cannot be tarnished by such dirty means as 'buying a title', even for those at the level of 19, 15, or 16!

True nobles with real substance and confidence, even if they only hold the rank of 15th grade Lesser Upper Class or 16th grade Greater Upper Class, would absolutely look down on those so-called 'nobles' who paid tribute in grain to achieve the same rank as themselves.

The lower classes could not afford titles, nor did they need them that much.
The powerful and wealthy already possess titles, and they disdain spending money to elevate them;
Emperor Taizong's policy of donating grain and titles was aimed at solving the food shortage problem for the more than 200,000 troops stationed on the northern border.

The lower classes, who had little money, and the nobles, who were unlikely to be interested, were clearly not Emperor Taizong's primary target group, or rather, his customers, for donating grain and titles.

Merchants are the group that needs titles the most in this era, and can afford them the most.

First, as businessmen, they have money.

Moreover, they have far more money than the average person.

Ordinary farmers, after spring planting and autumn harvest, are busy all year round, but their harvest is no more than 300 shi of grain, which is worth no more than 10,000 coins.

But a merchant, as long as they are qualified to be called a 'merchant' rather than a 'peddler,' let alone family property, capital, and profits;

The trade cash flow within a year alone could not be less than tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The reason is very simple.

Let's take grain as an example again.

The three hundred bushels of grain that a farmer grows after a year of hard work are indeed the entire year's output of a farmer's family, worth several thousand or nearly ten thousand coins.

But for a merchant to do grain business—even if it's just circulating within the same village, buying only from and selling only to the village—he would have to consume grain from at least a few dozen farmers after the autumn harvest.

The grain for one household costs several thousand coins; for dozens of households, it can amount to hundreds of thousands of coins.

For example, 500,000 coins were used to feed 60 farming households;

Now that the grain has been purchased, it still needs to be stored, right?

The grain from the sixty farmers totaled 18,000 shi (a unit of dry measure), which, when piled up, would form a small mountain!
A granary capable of properly storing 18,000 shi of grain would cost at least several hundred thousand coins just to buy suitable land and construct the granary.

The granary is built, shouldn't we start storing the grain now?

How to store it?

They just dump the grain into the granary and then ignore it?

Obviously impossible.

One person in charge, two or three bookkeepers, and seven or eight able-bodied men to guard the granary and prevent bandits and thieves from visiting—these all need to be supported.

Even if only meals are provided for a dozen or so people, that's two shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain per month.

From the autumn harvest to the following autumn harvest, the entire year's supply of food for just these dozen or so people cost about three hundred shi (a unit of dry measure), amounting to nearly ten thousand coins.

This is just eating.

The able-bodied men guarding the granary were not allowed to have their meals improved every few days, or be given a piece of meat or a piece of cloth during festivals.

The person in charge of bookkeeping is, after all, a technically skilled person proficient in mathematics; they certainly wouldn't take the job just because they're paid to eat.

They should at least pay me another salary, right?

As for the person in charge—something so important—it's impossible to trust someone who isn't a family member; they should at least be related. And family members usually have some ability; someone capable of managing a warehouse should be treated even worse, right?

it is good.

Let's calculate each item one by one here;

Let's say a businessman is new to the grain market and enters the market starting with this year's autumn harvest.

Building the granary cost 200,000 coins, and another 500,000 coins were spent on grain. Then came tens of thousands of coins in labor costs—from this autumn harvest to next autumn harvest, the total cost has reached 800,000 coins!
Moreover, this only includes the money spent, not including the cost of capital.

What is the cost of capital?

Even if you do nothing but lend out the 800,000 yuan and collect interest, you can still get back at least one million!

In other words, the total cost for this merchant to enter the grain market in the first year will reach an astonishing one million coins!
At this point, it's not hard to understand why, before Liu Rong advocated for state monopoly of grain, grain merchants so shamelessly inflated grain prices, even selling grain at two or three times the purchase price.

—The cost is very high!
The grain bought for 500,000 coins was stored and slowly sold over a year, but the total cost reached a million!

This means that if the grain collected at 30 coins per shi is sold at 60 coins per shi, it will only result in a break-even point.

If you don't earn any points, you've wasted a whole year of hard work. Instead of wasting a whole year trying to reform and rebuild, it's better to lend the money out in the first place and comfortably lie at home and wait to collect interest.

If you buy in for 500,000 and the total cost is one million, then if you don't sell it for 1.2 million to 1.3 million, then you can't really say you've made a profit.

On average, each shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain would cost 30 coins to buy and at least 70 to 80 coins to sell.

But the truth is that, starting from the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Taizong Emperor, the price of grain in Guanzhong was consistently kept around sixty coins per shi. Whenever there was even a slight indication that the price would exceed sixty coins per shi, the Imperial Treasury would intervene to regulate the market and release grain to stabilize prices.

Therefore, grain merchants can only start by reducing costs—lowering the purchase price of grain.

In addition, the selection of the location, purchase of land and construction of granaries were not annual expenses, but one-time investments. This is why grain merchants were able to make money from the grain business during the reign of Emperor Taizong.

Even if you make money, the profit is only meager.

So much so that in the third year after the Rebellion of the Seven States of Wu and Chu, grain merchants, like sharks smelling blood, recklessly inflated prices, taking risky moves in an attempt to make a quick buck.

It wasn't that the merchants were truly stupid; they gave up their comfortable lives of making a fortune every day to compete with the eldest prince, who was about to ascend to the throne.

Before that, however, the merchants had lived in poverty for far too long, relying on meager profits.

When you finally have a chance to make a fortune, what do a few risks matter?
To put it bluntly, if you do business honestly, you can make a very considerable profit. Who would want to play tricks on feudal rulers as a merchant?
However, there is another point about the above that leaves one speechless.

—The purchase price of grain was 500,000, the construction cost of the granary was 200,000, the maintenance cost was over 100,000, and the capital cost was 200,000.
An investment of up to one million coins a year, equivalent to the entire fortune of ten middle-class families, ultimately did not create renowned merchants or wealthy tycoons.

Instead, it was a small grain merchant with only one small granary that could store about 20,000 shi of grain. He had only about ten people under him, and he could only consume the grain from sixty farmers. He then sold the grain at retail to earn the price difference.

In the eyes of true businessmen—especially big businessmen—such small grain merchants can no longer be called 'merchants'.

Instead, it can only be called: a trafficker.

They were street vendors who carried their wares on shoulder poles and hawked their wares along the streets.

A small grain merchant who can't even be called a 'merchant' but is more like a 'peddler' can invest up to a million coins a year;

Even with meager profits, there are still tens or hundreds of thousands of coins.
It's no wonder that the real target group for the "contributing grain and donating titles" system was merchants.

—They are genuinely wealthy and can afford to buy a title!

Of course, simply having money and being able to afford it was not enough to make the merchant class the largest target group of the grain-for-title system.

Liu Rong has the money and can afford to buy the grain grown by farmers, but which farmer would consider Liu Rong as their buyer?
To put it bluntly, the merchant class became the target group of the grain-for-nobility system, and having money and being able to afford a noble title was merely a prerequisite.
The real core element is that merchants not only can afford titles, but also desperately need and crave them.

The fundamental reason why merchants were attracted to the system of paying tribute for titles was that they had the money to buy titles, could afford them, and were willing to pay for them.

As for why merchants craved titles and were willing to spend lavishly for them, we must mention the peculiar position of merchants in the social system during this era, and indeed during most of the feudal period.

Unlike the lower-class peasants who had no money, no resources, no power or status, and the nobles who possessed wealth, resources, power, and status;
Merchants are like deformed children growing up in the feudal era—they possess enormous wealth and resources, yet they completely lack political power and social status.

And it's very extreme.

Merchants often have more wealth than the so-called "wealth and resources" of the powerful and wealthy, to the point that the powerful and wealthy are envious and come up with the term "unreserved wealth" to complain.

At the same time, the status of merchants is even lower than that of the so-called "penniless" peasants, and they are even systematically discriminated against by the entire society!
The disparity between the wealth and resources at their disposal and their political power and social status led to a natural sense of insecurity among merchants in the feudal era.

It's like a child carrying gold in a bustling market; it could be snatched away without any pressure at any moment, and there's no way to retaliate.

Mainstream social values ​​despise them, and the authorities do not accept them. At the same time, they inexplicably possess enormous wealth and resources that only the powerful and wealthy can have—or even the powerful and wealthy cannot have!
So, naturally, the merchants began to 'find another way'.

Since I can't be both a businessman and a powerful figure at the same time, I'll just be a businessman and find a powerful figure to cooperate with!
Although the cooperation model is a bit undignified—basically, I'm his lackey—with him backing me up, whether he'll actually help or not when something really happens, at least I feel at ease!

If something really happens, even if I'm powerless to stop it, I'll at least understand how I died, and I won't just be taken advantage of without knowing why!

Besides, even though the powerful and wealthy treat me like a dog, they still give me bones to eat!

Many things that I consider 'beyond human capability' can be accomplished with just a few words from someone else!

By following others, I only lost my dignity, but gained security and development!

Is this a bad deal?

I can even sell my self-esteem for a price, isn't that a good deal?

At the same time, the businessmen were also well aware that when trouble really came, the powerful figures and officials they relied on would most likely not protect them to the death—or even be willing to protect them.

Being able to distance themselves from the situation already shows a degree of leniency;
More likely, they are acting on the principle of 'why let outsiders benefit' and will take matters into their own hands.

(End of this chapter)