take advantage of sb . 's being in a weak position to overcharge him(qiāo zhū gàng)

take advantage of sb . 's being in a weak position to overcharge him

Blackmail refers to taking advantage of other people's weakness or making excuses to ask for property or raise prices, and taking advantage of other people's weakness or disadvantage to profit from it. It's from Chapter 17 of officialdom.

brief introduction

Chapter 17 of Li Baojia's officialdom in the Qing Dynasty: "brothers can be regarded as blackmailers. Is there still a blackmail here?"

origin

Statement 1

In the past, the transport workers used to use the bamboo bars. They put the silver and copper dollars they got from their hard-earned money into the bamboo bars that they could not leave for a moment. When the head and the bully came, they would know how much they earned a day just by knocking on the bamboo bars. This is the origin of the proverb "rip off" which is now popular all over the world.

Statement 2

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, opium smuggling was very serious. In order to avoid the inspection, the smugglers tried their best to hide opium. Smugglers hide drugs in bamboo boat poles and ship them to different places by water. One day, a merchant ship sailed to Shaoxing Wharf in Zhejiang Province. The anti smuggling officer took people on board to inspect the ship. After checking every corner of the cabin, no opium was found. At this time, a master, smoking a long pipe, carelessly went to the boatman and knocked the ash on the pole of the boat, which made the pole "beep". No one else responded, but the owner changed his face. Knowing that the master had seen through the secret, he hurriedly invited the master to the back cabin, took out a lot of silver and quietly stuffed it to him, asking him to take care of him and stop knocking the pole. The master didn't say anything when he got the silver, so he went off the ship with the anti smuggling officers. Since then, "blackmail" has become the pronoun of blackmail property, and has been used down.

Statement 3

There is another saying: at the end of the Qing Dynasty, small transactions in the market took copper money as a unit. After receiving the money, the shop owner threw it into a cash bin made of bamboo bars, and then poured it out at night when checking out. This is called "panqian", also known as "inventory". At that time, there was a shop in Shanghai. The boss was very dishonest. When new customers came in, they often raised their prices at will. Whenever the clerk is receiving customers, the shopkeeper will blackmail and signal to raise the price.

Statement 4

At the end of Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xianzhong's peasant uprising army entered Sichuan. The local corrupt officials, gentry and bullies were killed one by one, which was praised by the people. When local corrupt officials, gentry and bullies heard the news, they took advantage of the chaos that the rebel army had just invaded Sichuan and fled out of the city one after another with the silk, gold, silver and jewelry, bundles and costumes they had seized. When Zhang Xianzhong got the report, he immediately ordered to send someone to guard the gate of the city and strictly inspect the boxes and parcels of people who went out of the city. Anyone who dares to let go his valuables will be killed. the magistrate of Chengdu, Sichuan, does all kinds of evils, squeezing the people's fat and cream, and accumulating thousands of wealth. Now Chengdu is occupied. Looking at the gold and silver jewelry at home can not be transported away, anxious. When the magistrate was resting in his back garden, he saw the bamboo planted in the garden and suddenly had a plan in mind. He ordered his servants to saw off the bamboo, cut it into a long bamboo stick, cut through the middle of the bamboo, and put the gold, silver and jewelry into it. After sealing the bamboo bars, he disguised his family and himself as ordinary people, hoping to transport the bamboo bars with gold, silver and jewelry to the countryside for a while. when the car with bamboo bars came to the gate, it was stopped by the rebel guards guarding the gate. "What do you do?" the rebel asked The magistrate quickly came forward and bowed his head and said, "we are in small business. We sell some bamboo and are ready to transport it back to our hometown." A rebel came forward and looked at the car carefully. Seeing that the car was loaded with bamboo sticks and nothing valuable, he wanted to wave them out of the city. at this time, an old rebel smoking a dry cigarette nearby felt strange. While smoking, the old rebel army thought: Nanzhu is produced in the countryside. People in business pull bamboo from the countryside to sell in the city. How can they pull bamboo from the city to sell in the countryside? Thinking of this, he picked up the cigarette pole and went to the side of the car. He raised the cigarette pole to the bamboo pole on the car to knock off the ash in the pot. When the magistrate saw this, he was surprised. He quickly took the old rebel army by the hand, gave him two ingots of silver, and said, "you two have worked hard. This is a small idea. Please have tea." As soon as the old rebel army saw it, they even felt that there was a ghost in the bamboo stick. They had to beat the magistrate away. At this time, Zhang Xianzhong came to inspect. As soon as the magistrate saw him, a villain came to complain and knelt down in front of Zhang Xianzhong. He said the old rebels extorted money from him. On hearing this, Zhang Xianzhong burst into a rage. Seeing this, the old volunteers went up and whispered to Zhang Xianzhong. On hearing this, Zhang Xianzhong pulled out his sword and divided the bamboo stick into two parts. Gold, silver and jewelry were scattered on the ground. therefore, it left such a story of "blackmail"!

Chinese PinYin : qiāo zhū gàng