It's just a letter with no content, so what's the fun? Nishino thought.

"Well...how should I put it..."

Ebina lowered his head and pondered, as if thinking.

At this time, Ichinose intervened:

"To put it simply - not long ago, we found out that a Kazashi named Phoenix House Yataro was having an affair with the Fozhu Party. And the handwriting of this Kazashi is exactly the same as the handwriting in this letter."

Whether it was intentional or unintentional, Ichinose changed into a contemptuous tone when he mentioned the word "Jashi".

The surname contains the word "house"...a very typical business surname.

"The Laws of the Wu Family" stipulates that children of the Wu family are not allowed to engage in business.

Those who do business are basically civilians or "original civilians" who have changed their place of origin to samurai through various means.

The vast majority of civilians do not have surnames, so businessmen with certain financial resources often regard the name of their shop as their family name.

Anyone with the surname "XX House" is basically a businessman.

Nishino raised his eyebrows fiercely and muttered:

"Zha Cha...?!"

Satashi - the collective name for a special type of merchants in Edo.

To the millions of residents of Edo...especially to the samurai of Edo, Sashimi was a terrifying existence.

The salary of the samurai is called "lu".

According to different status, there are three types of "lu" - knowledge, support, rice and gold.

"Zhixing" - refers to the enfeoffed territory.

For example, "the knowledge and practice of one hundred thousand koku" means that the total rice production of the territory owned is one hundred thousand koku.

Those who can possess knowledge and practice are without exception high-ranking samurai who are in the top ranks, such as the feudal daimyo and Daishen Hatamoto.

"Support rice" - basically the salary payment method for middle-level samurai. As the name suggests, this is to give rice directly.

Regardless of whether it is Qing Teng, who pays the thief for fire and becomes a captain, my grandson, or Nishino, who pursues the same goal, the salary he receives every year is to support rice.

The distribution of support rice is not a one-time event, but is distributed at relatively fixed times three times a year.

Take a salary of 100 taels as an example: 25 taels will be paid in spring, 25 taels in summer, and the remaining 50 taels in winter.

This method of distributing money in installments is called "cutting rice".

Samurai who can hold rice are generally similar to the modern middle class.

The amount of support rice given is approximately between 30 taels and 400 taels.

100 taels of rice can be exchanged for about 18 taels of gold after paying taxes.

In other words, the annual income of a samurai who can receive support rice is between 5 taels of gold and 72 taels of gold.

In the Edo period, this was an income level that everyone envied.

"Give money" - just from the name, you can tell that this method of payment is a direct payment of cash.

The samurai who received the payment were all lower-class samurai with lower social class.

The lowest status samurai can only get 3 taels per year.

One point is equivalent to 1/4 tael.

This kind of samurai, who can only get a meager salary of 3 taels and 1 cent a year, is despised as the "Trinity Samurai".

The living standards of the "Trinity Warriors"... can only be described as appalling. Not to mention getting married and having children, it is difficult to support themselves, and their living standards are basically the same as those of poor peasants.

The Trinity warriors, who were starved of food and barely clothed, even went so far as to eavesdrop on Yun Yu's affairs outside the walls of their dormitories (hotels) because they could not afford to go to the cheapest underground brothels.

laughing stock.

The economy of the Edo period adopted the "rice standard", that is, the price of rice was the pricing benchmark for all commodities.

To put it simply, rice in the Edo period is equivalent to gold in the 21st century, a real hard currency.

Regardless of whether they are "knowing warriors" or "supporting rice warriors", they must convert tribute rent and lumi into currency in order to maintain their daily livelihood.

It is impossible to carry a rice bag every day and use rice to purchase daily necessities such as firewood, rice, oil, and salt in the primitive way of "barter exchange."

Therefore, the warriors who had knowledge and received support rice naturally had to find ways to convert the rice into money, and then use the money to buy goods.

As a result, a special kind of businessman specialized in paying tribute to the daimyo and samurai salaries, such as the "Jazashi" in Edo, the "Kurayashiki" and the "Kakeya" in Osaka, etc. came into being.

"Zha" is the certificate for the samurai to receive Lumi. The recipient's name is carved on a piece of bamboo with a knife. The word "cha" in Japanese means "stuff, insert", and the name "zha" has this meaning.

This kind of merchants used money to collect rice from samurai, and then collected the rice and sold it to rice merchants.

Of course, when the samurai exchanged rice for money, they had to pay a certain handling fee.

Take the Edo sashimi as an example: the sashimi's rate for buying rice is 1 cent for every 100 tatami.

When Zha Chai sells rice to rice merchants, he also charges a handling fee, and the rate is 2 cents per 100 taels of rice.

In other words, for every one hundred taels of rice handled by the agents, they can earn 3/4 of the taels in handling fees - the so-called "huge profits", nothing more than that.

On the bank of the Sumida River near Asakusa, there are 51 large granaries of the shogunate. This is also the place where the shogunate distributes rice.

In order to facilitate transactions, Zha Chai opened a shop called "Zangsu" in front of Zangmae.

"Zang" means warehouse in Japanese. Zangmae means in front of the warehouse.

Tibetan accommodations are lined up along the street near the shogunate's granary.

Every time when it comes to Froumi, the banks of the Sumida River are in full swing.

After receiving the rice, the samurai could walk two steps to the nearby Zangshuku and exchange the rice for money.

These special businessmen who monopolize the "rice trade" are the most typical and at the same time the most despised privileged businessmen.

They can be called the financial professionals of the Edo period, the "big crocodiles of Wall Street."

Rice was the hard currency during the Edo period.

In any era, those who monopolize hard currency transactions... would be extremely terrifying.

Compared with ordinary civilians, samurai have a lot of expenses.

Maintaining a samurai sword, purchasing costumes, hiring servants, drinking and socializing...each of the above is a big expense.

Therefore, even a samurai with an annual income of dozens of gold would find it difficult to live a comfortable and luxurious life.

With a huge amount of hard currency in his hands and a wealthy Zha Zai, he would naturally not let go of this huge business opportunity.

As a result, this group of "Wall Street predators" used the annual tribute and rumi of daimyo and samurai as collateral, and also engaged in loan sharking, accumulating an exaggerated wealth of gold and jade.

Especially in the middle and late Edo period, inflation intensified.

Although the money the samurai exchanged for rice was still the same, their expenses were getting bigger and bigger. More and more samurai were borrowing money by pledging their lumi to "Zha Chai", and some even lost their lumi after two years.

The mortgage is gone.

In order to limit the expansion of Zhazai's wealth, the shogunate stipulated that only 109 designated people could work as Zhazai, and formed an organization similar to a guild. It was strictly forbidden to earn more than 15% interest in a year.

However, the samurai could not do without Zhacha after all.

If you want to convert rice into money, you still have to rely on Zha Chai's connections and financial resources.

After the number of Zha Chai was restricted, his status became even higher.

Although the shogunate limited the interest on loans, there were still ways to collect more money.

For example, when borrowing money, you need to receive an extra gift.

Or if the repayment is overdue, an extra penalty equivalent to one month's interest will be charged.

At that time, wealthy people who spent a lot of money and frequented theaters, Yoshiwara and other sensual places were called "tongren".

Most of the most famous "Eighteen Datong" are Zhacha.

From this we can see how rich and extravagant the yakuza in Edo were.

If you work hard for a year, you can earn more than a dozen taels of gold, or dozens of taels of gold; while others spend more than a thousand gold in one night in Yoshihara, theaters and other places of sensuality.

You can't bear to ride a bicycle, but others stand up and pedal as hard as you can.

The female artist who is ice-cold and snow-clad in front of you can only be watched from a distance but cannot be played with. In front of others, she is like a bird and clings to others, and she is humbled.

The samurai had no dignity at all in front of this group of privileged businessmen who took advantage of their strength and made their fortunes.

A penny makes a hero die - the status of the samurai slowly declined in the constant exchange of rice and money.

"Money" and "power" are twins that are inseparable.

There is no doubt that this group of privileged and privileged businessmen have always had a decisive social status since Tokugawa Ieyasu established the shogunate in Edo.

Without their "rice-for-money" connections and the layers of usurious exploitation, more than half of the daimyo and samurai in the country would be in a difficult and embarrassing situation.

As a result, both the high-ranking officials of the shogunate and the daimyo of various local vassals were willing to make friends with privileged businessmen, and at the very least they would not offend each other.

This is how the evil collusion between government and businessmen came about.
To be continued...