Quzhou was the first to flap the butterfly's wings. Land rent plummeted all the way from sixty percent and fifty percent to twenty percent, even the downright outrageous ten percent!
Those who farmed the land began to have a way to live, and those who had lost their land also found a way to survive. The only ones who suffered losses were probably the great landlords. Yet before the tide of the age, those landlords who had once run rampant through the countryside and covered the sky with one hand had become mere cornflowers before the rolling flood and the wheels of history...
Naturally, these great landlords refused to sit and await death. They joined forces and went to the Prefect's Mansion, seeking out the prefect to weep out their grievances.
Lin Jialiang received them patiently, smiling as he listened to their pleas. Once everyone had finished, Prefect Lin asked them a question...
"If farmers forcibly cultivate your land, this prefect can punish them. But if farmers simply refuse to cultivate your land, what law have they broken?"
The landlords looked at one another, unable to answer.
A scholarly-looking man among them stepped forward. "Since ancient times, agriculture has been the foundation. Corrupt merchants throw governance into chaos. Today, in Great Cang, The Way of Commerce runs rampant, and the nation is ceasing to be a nation..."
He spoke at great length, stuffing countless sage sayings into his speech...
After he finished, Lin Jialiang answered lightly, "Sir keeps saying that The Way of Commerce disrupts governance and is guilty of every evil. Yet the clothes upon sir's body are products of The Way of Commerce, and the tools used in sir's home are likewise products of The Way of Commerce. Men! Strip every product of The Way of Commerce from