In all of Radiance, merchants in every place besides East Sun District were practically low-status members of the bottom rung of society. Although merchants were not bad at making money, unless they were factory owners or other owners of the means of production, they had no military power to protect their property.
Most merchants in Radiance were not so much merchants as officials and the "property managers" of nobles. Merchants had to seek the rulers' protection to survive. A place like East Sun District, where merchants controlled the means of production and overthrew the ruling class, was an extremely rare case of the lower classes overthrowing the upper classes. Everyone agreed that East Sun's current rulers were the worst in history.
That was why almost none of the Imperial Academy students ever considered becoming merchants who engaged in trade. If they wanted money, why not simply become officials or generals? How could someone with power lack money?
For ordinary people, becoming merchants could be explained as having no other choice, but that clearly did not apply to Imperial Academy students. They could obviously change careers to the golden elite professions of "official" or "general," which had higher limits, so why choose the blue excellent profession of "merchant"?
"I'm terrible at studying, and I'm not good at military tactics either." Li Ying knew what Le Yu was wondering and explained simply, "The only thing I'm interested in is doing business. I've made a bit of money here and there over the past six months, so I want to train at your guild and see whether I really have a talent for it... If this line of work suits me, then I'll cling to someone else's coattails in the future, set a small goal, and be satisfied with becoming a wealthy young