My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 615 Is this bullying?
Of course, unlike decades ago when businessmen sought the protection of officials, today's businessmen are starting to target the powerful and wealthy elites.

Because businessmen discovered that bureaucrats might 'borrow' their heads for the sake of political achievements.

But it's different for nobles.

Nobles only care about money.

Moreover, officials fear losing their official hats, while nobles have no official hats to lose at all.

When officials deal with businessmen, it often goes like this: I want your money, but I'll leave your life with me for now, and I'll take it back if I need it again.
The money you sent me, I carefully saved, and secretly spent it;

No one should know that you gave me money.

If something happens to you, I'll try my best to let you know in advance so you can run a few hundred meters first, and then I'll lead a team to chase after you.

In fact, I was just saying that; believe it or not is up to you, do it or not is up to me...

But nobles are much more straightforward.

The nobles not only accept the money you offer, but they accept it openly and honestly.

After taking your money, they might try to hide it a little, not out of fear, but because they feel ashamed—they feel that dealing with businessmen is somewhat undignified if word gets out.

But once they've taken your money, they're really going to do their job.

Although the price is that others treat your money—and even your person—as their private property;

But at least there's some protection!
Once these nobles treat your money, or even you yourself, as their private property, they'll protect it with a death-defying rage!
They dare to confront the imperial court and even the emperor!
Who can stand this?
Moreover, compared to the two-faced and untrustworthy bureaucrats, the nobles of this era still retained a strong legacy of the Warring States period.

What is meant by the legacy of the Warring States period?

—Upholding righteousness and prioritizing loyalty!
If a businessman accepts your bribe, he might just choose not to pursue you, or even only temporarily.

But if a nobleman takes you in as a subordinate, then he truly treats you as a servant!
It sounds a bit unpleasant—being treated like a slave;

But as the saying goes: "The prime minister's doorman is a seventh-rank official, while the eunuch holding the pen establishes the emperor."

Being a servant of a nobleman, especially a top noble like the Marquis of Che, is not something just anyone can do.

If you were to ask a farmer if he wanted to become a servant of a certain noble family, would he want to do so?

Those people might still have some concerns, saying that their family background is clean, and that even if they are poor, they are not poor in spirit. They would rather work hard than bring shame to their ancestors.

But if you ask a merchant...
嘿；
They're just lowly merchants engaged in despicable business, what kind of moral high ground are they trying to put on...?

Thus, just a few decades after the founding of the Han Dynasty, the merchant class completed one of the most crucial evolutions in the history of Chinese civilization.

In the eyes of the common people, they are important figures with noble titles, prominent status, power and influence, and are not to be trifled with by ordinary officials.

In the eyes of local officials, they were 'lackeys' with terrifyingly powerful backers, even capable of being linked to the royal family.

It's one thing to curse someone behind their back, but if a real conflict breaks out, then the powerful figures behind them will have to teach those ignorant officials what the evil feudal dynasty is all about.

For nobles, these lackeys who were taken under their wing were also a highly cost-effective option.

As the old saying goes: living in Chang'an is not easy.

Especially for nobles who value pomp and circumstance, the cost of living in Chang'an long-term was terrifyingly high.

Unfortunately, the current Han dynasty almost no longer has the situation of "calling people back to Chang'an to serve as ministers no matter where they are" that existed during the founding period.

Whenever a position of high-ranking official with a salary of two thousand piculs becomes vacant, the meritorious marquises in the capital will pounce on it like sharks smelling blood, each displaying their unique abilities.

For these meritorious marquises who resided in Chang'an—especially those with ambitions who wanted to make a name for themselves in politics—the symbolic meaning of the official positions of dukes and ministers with salaries of two thousand piculs of grain was that if they were slow, they would miss out.

As for the Marquis who bid farewell to Chang'an and returned to his fiefdom, he not only distanced himself from the central government geographically, but also from the political center politically, and even embarked on a path of no return of 'gradually distancing himself from the aristocratic class'.

This led to a very frustrating problem for the meritorious nobles of the Han dynasty.

—If one wants to achieve something and continue the family's glory by serving as one of the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers, then one must stay in Chang'an so that when a position of high-ranking official becomes vacant, one can have the opportunity to "get the moon first from the water tower" (i.e., be close to the water tower and benefit from it).
Moreover, simply staying in Chang'an and being "near" it is not enough.

On a regular basis, we must maintain the relationships that need to be maintained and manage the relationships that need to be managed.

Otherwise, when a high-ranking official position becomes vacant, even if you think you are "close" enough to the court in Chang'an, others will have already reached out to the Empress Dowager in the Eastern Palace or even the Emperor himself. Even if you live in the main hall of the Xuan Room, it will be of no use.

Therefore, the costs that meritorious nobles who stayed in Chang'an to hold high-ranking positions with salaries of two thousand piculs of grain had to bear for "residing in Chang'an" were far greater than the basic expenses that ordinary nobles would have to bear for staying in Chang'an.

In addition to the cost of living for a large family of a hundred or so people, there are also the costs of social obligations and maintaining personal connections, which are many times greater.

Ambitious marquises were like this, and those without ambition or aspiration to become dukes or ministers were no better off.

Because the past few decades have presented a cruel reality to all the nobles and marquises.

The blessings of our ancestors are not inexhaustible.

The first ancestor, the first Marquis of Merit, was a meritorious official who contributed to the state. At most, this would only guarantee that the second Marquis of Merit could hold a high-ranking official position with a salary of 2,000 shi (a unit of grain).

By the third generation, things have to start to be done in a formal, official manner.

If you're truly capable, even if you're not a third-generation descendant of a noble family, you can still become an official with a salary of two thousand shi (a unit of grain).
Those without ability can hardly enjoy the political benefits of being descendants of a meritorious marquis; they can only live off the fiefdom of a marquis and squander their wealth.

If that were all, then so be it.

—If one is merely unable to serve as a high-ranking official with a salary of two thousand shi (a unit of grain), and can only guard the fiefdom of a marquis, spending a dull and tedious life of extravagant nobility, it would not be a bad thing.

The problem is that over the past few decades, almost all nobles who were content with the status quo, willingly left Chang'an to return to their fiefdoms, and were mediocre and without ambition have lost their family lineage.

Either the country will be destroyed due to the extinction of its lineage, or it will be lost due to crimes!
This is really annoying.

Although those nobles who died out of line did not die out because of a particular Han emperor;
Although those meritorious marquises who lost their kingdoms due to crimes were not subjected to unfounded charges of having their property confiscated and their families exterminated.

However, when the surviving nobles discovered that in the past few decades, eight out of ten nobles who returned to their fiefdoms in the east of the pass had either died out or lost their fiefdoms due to crimes, it was difficult not to come to such a conclusion.

—When nobles and marquises leave Chang'an, they are bidding farewell to their noble status.

The farther one is from Chang'an, the farther one is from the emperor in Chang'an, the farther one is from the Han dynasty, and the farther one is from the glory of "sharing the fate of the nation." Only by staying in Chang'an, closer to the court, closer to the emperor—especially closer to the emperor's "heart," and maintaining a certain presence in the central government, can one have a greater chance of avoiding the extinction of the heir, the loss of the kingdom due to crimes, or being "optimized" by the Han dynasty.

Therefore, even if they did not aspire to become high-ranking officials with salaries of two thousand piculs of grain, the meritorious marquises had no choice but to reside in Chang'an, and even had to pretend against their will that they wanted to become high-ranking officials, in order to show that they were not parasites of the state who were just sitting around doing nothing and letting the country fall apart.

This means that even if they did not intend to become high-ranking officials, the marquises still had to stay in Chang'an, pay for their families' living expenses in the capital, and incur unnecessary costs for maintaining personal connections and social interactions.

Even if these connections cannot help him become a high-ranking official or a general, they can at least ensure that these meritorious families are not included in the 'optimization' list.

All of the above has led to an extremely extravagant situation that is completely contrary to the instinctive cognition of later generations, which has become a reality in the Han Dynasty today.

In other words, the group of people who occupy the highest social status, control the most social resources and wealth, and have the most extensive political connections have become the group of people who are most short of money in this era.

To put it more bluntly: the nobles who held the title of Marquis have become the people in the Han Dynasty who are most short of money and most in need of money.

When ordinary people lack money, it's really just a matter of missing a few months' worth of food, a few hundred or a thousand dollars.
If you can manage, you'll have enough to eat; if you can't, you'll just have to eat wild vegetables for a few months, and that'll pass.

When a businessman is short of money, it's just a matter of lacking some capital and cash flow. If he can manage that, he can do big business. If he can't, he can just earn less this year and save up enough money to do big business again later.

But the nobles of Chehou were different.

The Marquis of Che is short of money, and that needs to be resolved immediately. If it can't be resolved, then he will offend people!
For example, on the Empress Dowager's birthday, if a Marquis of Merit had no money to send a gift, and ultimately failed to do so, the Empress Dowager would silently think to herself: I don't know who sent a gift, but I know perfectly well who didn't.

What made the nobles even more upset was that they were already among the richest and wealthiest people of the era.

No one is richer than them, so no one can help them through the difficulties of being short of money.

Thus, a goal and motto that belonged only to the lower classes in later generations became the exclusive domain of the nobility in this era.

make money.

They'll stop at nothing to make money.

They spared no expense and used any means to obtain as much money as possible, all for the sake of maintaining their long-term residence in Chang'an.

As mentioned above, the nobles and marquises were the wealthiest people of the era, and it would be difficult to find anyone richer or with higher incomes to solve their financial difficulties.

Thus, the reasons why noble families and marquises had lost their kingdoms or had their lineages wiped out on a large scale over the past few decades, and why they lost their kingdoms due to crimes, were logically explained at this moment.

—In order to make money, the nobles and marquises will stop at nothing.

In this era, for the aristocracy who controlled social resources, wealth, and even social status, the phrase "any means necessary" was almost synonymous with illegality and crime.

For meritorious nobles in the feudal era who could take whatever they wanted, only breaking the law and committing crimes could be described as: unscrupulous and ruthless.

For example, the feudal lords were very familiar with, yet kept silent about, the practice of exploiting the people of their country beyond the bounds of the law.

In the eyes of the feudal lords, this crime was terrifying, and its allure was only so-so—at most, it would just mean getting more and more free labor, which would not bring them much benefit, but would bring them great risks.

It represents absolutely low returns and high risks.

But for noble families with meritorious titles, it was a different concept altogether.

—In the minds of the feudal lords, the reason why the exploitation of the people to violate the law was "low-return" was because the feudal lords had other sources of income.

Like the imperial court in Chang'an, the feudal kingdoms could collect agricultural taxes from their subjects as funds for the operation of the state.

Just like the emperor in Chang'an, the feudal lords themselves could include the poll tax paid by their subjects into their own feudal treasury as their private funds or personal savings.

With money and a stable and substantial source of income, the feudal lords were naturally too wealthy to care about the paltry sums that could be gained by forcing their people to comply with the law.

However, the nobles and marquises only had the tax revenue from their fiefdoms as their sole source of stable income, and even that income was extremely low.

Even though there have been four Manchu marquises with ten thousand households since the Han Dynasty, their annual income was only 100,000 shi of grain, worth several million coins.

An ordinary marquis's fiefdom consists of no more than two or three thousand households, and his annual grain yield is only three or four thousand bushels, which cannot even be exchanged for a million coins.

This made the low-return, high-risk practice of exploiting the people of the country a viable way for the feudal lords to earn extra money.

Although unlike the feudal lords who had absolute control over their fiefdoms, the noble marquises could still influence the counties where their fiefdoms were located to a certain extent.

For example, a noble family like Chehou might want to build a new courtyard or mansion in their fiefdom;
So, as citizens of the state of Gaichou, how could ordinary people not lend a hand and contribute their free labor?

Although the quota for 'employing the people' stipulated by the court was only about a hundred people per year for Marquis Che, and each person worked for no more than fifteen days;

But it's okay.

As long as one is bold enough, there is no method that these marquises cannot think of.

—Wouldn't it be better to deploy about a hundred people to work for fifteen days at each of a dozen or twenty construction sites at the same time?

Fifteen days later, release this group of people and recruit a new group to continue working for another fifteen days!

One after another, the projects were all taken care of by the nobles for free, without any labor costs.

Once everything is done and the project is completed, the successful candidates can take the finished project and ask the client for payment.

—There's no such thing as working for free.

—The common people work for me for free because they are my subjects and they are giving me face!
—I won over the meritorious official by using my connections, do you also want to win me over by using your connections?

joke;

I am a dignified Marquis of the Han Dynasty, where do you get such a big face?
Take the money!

If you follow this process, even if you calculate based on the market price of ten coins per person per day, and each person works for fifteen days, the nobleman will earn one hundred and fifty coins.

By accumulating small amounts, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of people, each working for fifteen days, could generate millions in revenue for the nobles and dignitaries within a single year.

Of course, the risk is also extremely high—if it gets exposed, it's a death sentence.

But for the nobles and nobles, this was nothing more than a high return with unavoidable high risks.

(End of this chapter)