As mentioned before, under the Great Wei Dynasty's equal-field system, there were theoretically no landlords. In practice, however, because the slave class existed, high officials and nobles could acquire vast tracts of land through the loophole of land grants to slaves, becoming enormous landlords; meanwhile, local magnates used various means to force ordinary people to "lease" their allotted land to them, then "leased" it back out, effectively producing conventional landlords as well.
Yet after spending a year in the Eastern Territories, Zhang Xing knew perfectly well that in the former lands of Eastern Qi, most landlords in any practical sense did not need such complicated, concrete landholding arrangements. This was chiefly because the gulf between the authorities and local communities was too deep, while the court's exploitation of the localities plainly exceeded normal levels. Thus, to secure taxes and land levies far above the standard, the authorities had to rely on powerful local figures-the magnates-and consequently had little choice but to leave their districts half in the hands of these deeply rooted local strongmen.
In other words, the particular breed of magnate found in the Eastern Territories had been spoiled and nurtured by the authorities themselves.
Returning to the matter at hand, Master Lin and the people behind him, whom the middle-aged man and woman fleeing along the Wen River had to face, plainly represented a further development. Troubled times had arrived, and the magnates had risen with the tide: those with titles sought substance, those with substance sought titles, and they had taken control of everything at the grassroots in both name and reality.
Indeed, Zhang Xing vaguely understood that forcibly discussing class at a time like this held little meaning, because the chief cause was the collapse of grassroots order amid upheaval-from the second campaign onward, widespread warfare