Judge of the Song Dynasty

Actually, relatively speaking, the Northern Song had few corrupt officials compared to other dynasties, which was mainly due to the already excellent benefits they received.

Secondly, there was no restriction on land consolidation, which was very crucial, because high officials had many privileges – they could legally purchase large amounts of land while being exempt from taxes, making it very difficult for ordinary landlords to compete with them.

Finally, with a prosperous commercial sector, officials with business acumen all became extremely wealthy.

Therefore, to determine whether Northern Song officials had money, one didn’t look at the size of their official position, but rather at their business acumen and desire for wealth.

Officials like Sima Guang, Wang Anshi, Fu Bi, Wen Yanbo, and Zhao Bian – this group of chancellors – actually didn’t have much money at home. It wasn’t that they couldn’t make money, but rather that they simply weren’t interested in such things.

They wouldn’t even take advantage of the benefits the court freely offered them.

However, Gu Ji, who served as Director of the Imperial Treasury, was truly extremely wealthy. Speaking of official rank, his position wasn’t particularly high, and the Imperial Treasury currently only managed some ceremonial supplies – it wasn’t exactly a department with abundant opportunities for profit.

But the Gu family was very wealthy indeed.

This was because his family had originally been an official household and engaged in many businesses – silk fabrics, wine, sugar, grain, and so forth.