Overview
Dao Jian was a Merchant.
IdentityHistorical · Male
Life and dates
Attested activity
Events and relationships
Rose to tens of millions
Commercial · Merchant
Assessments and attributes
- Assessment irregular-extravagant-usurping · Mode historian-judgment
References in the histories
No matching passages.
Book of Han, Chapter 103Volume 91: Usurers · 5 passages
齊俗賤奴虜，而刀間獨愛貴之。
Qi folk scorned bondservants, yet Dao Jian alone prized them like talent.
桀黠奴，人之所患，唯刀間收取，使之逐魚鹽商賈之利，或連車騎交守相，然愈益任之，終得其力，起數千萬。
Everyone feared clever, vicious slaves; Dao Jian bought them up, set them to squeeze the fish-and-salt trade, even let them ride with magistrates—and the more rope he gave, the harder they worked until he sat on tens of millions.
故曰「寧爵無刀」，言能使豪奴自饒，而盡其力也。
Hence the proverb, "Men would sooner give up a noble stipend than lose Dao Jian": his bondsmen grew rich on his errands yet still drove themselves to the bone for him.
刀間既衰，至成、哀間，臨淄姓偉訾五千萬。
When Dao Jian's star faded, a Linzi magnate surnamed Wei, in the reigns of Cheng and Ai, sat on fifty million cash.
至於蜀卓，宛孔，齊之刀間，公擅山川銅鐵魚鹽市井之入，運其籌策，上爭王者之利，下錮齊民之業，皆陷不軌奢僭之惡。
But houses like the Zhuos of Shu, the Kongs of Nanyang, or Qi Dao Jian seized rivers, mines, salt flats, and city tolls, spun private cartels that rivaled royal monopolies, and squeezed ordinary trades flat—open rebellion against both law and sumptuary decency.