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 exploit the loophole of land grants to their servants to acquire vast tracts and become enormous landlords; meanwhile, local magnates used various forms of pressure to force ordinary people to "lease" them their allotted fields, then "lease" those fields back out. In effect, conventional landlords still emerged.
But after spending a year in the Eastern Territories, Zhang Xing knew perfectly well that, in the former lands of Eastern Qi, most landlords in practical terms had no need for such complicated, tangible relationships over land. This was chiefly because the gulf between the authorities and local society ran too deep, while the court's exploitation of the countryside plainly exceeded normal levels. Thus, to secure taxes and land levies far above the standard rates, the authorities had to rely on influential local figures-the magnates-and consequently had little choice but to half-entrust entire districts to these deeply rooted local powers.
In other words, the magnates peculiar to 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 this middle-aged man and woman fleeing beside the Wen River faced, clearly represented a further development. Troubled times had arrived, and the magnates had risen with the tide: those with reputations sought substance, those with substance sought reputations, and they controlled everything at the grassroots in both name and fact.
Indeed, Zhang Xing dimly understood that forcing a discussion of class at such a time held little meaning. The chief cause was still the collapse of grassroots order amid upheaval-from the second campaign onward, widespread warfare and the subsequent ruthless military sweeps