For these foreign nobles, although they were accustomed to lording over their own domains, they avoided pushing things to extremes for the sake of "sustainable development." But here in Midland, though they had seized the territory, they still did not psychologically regard it as truly their own. Consequently, they unhesitatingly exploited the local populace. The tiny fraction of people who were already powerful, influential, and wealthy had it somewhat better; they barely qualified as members of the gentry, and by paying a sufficient price, they might even manage to secure a place among the new masters.
The truly tragic ones were the citizens, commoners, and farmers who had always occupied the bottom rungs of exploitation. Crushed externally by the brutal threat of the Kushans massacring cities, internally by the frantic exploitation of foreign nobles, and plagued by occasional monsters roaming outside the towns and villages, their lives could no longer be described as being in dire straits—they were simply agonizing beyond endurance.
Along Hao Qi's way into the city, he saw massive crowds of people dragging their families toward this town. The wealthiest among them traveled with throngs of bodyguards, luxury carriages, and plenty of horses, though these were extremely few in number—mostly local gentry and minor nobles. The vast majority of the refugees, however, were destitute commoners in tattered clothes: peasants, fleeing mercenaries, wandering beggars, or those vultur…
Chapter 555