Dao Jian (刀間) | 24 Histories

Overview

The translated histories identify Dao Jian as a merchant. This record brings together 5 passages from 1 chapter across 1 history, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Dao Jian	刀間	Dao Jian
Personal name	Dao Jian	刀間	Dāo Jiān

Identity

Historicity: Historical
Identification: Named
Sex: Male

Sex: male
Strongly inferred · hanshu:103:s0099

Roles

Merchant

Life and dates

Attested activity

Source Date: Text: 刀間…起數千萬 · Western Interval: Start: BC 150 · End: BC 50
Explicit event contextual date · hanshu:103:s0100

Career and standing

Label: merchant using skilled slaves / 魚鹽商賈
Explicit · hanshu:103:s0100

Places and affiliations

Place: Qi / 齊
Explicit · hanshu:103:s0099

Events and relationships

Kind: commercial · Role: merchant · Action: rose-to-tens-of-millions
Explicit · hanshu:103:s0100

Assessments and attributes

Assessment: irregular-extravagant-usurping · Provenance: Mode: historian-judgment
Explicit · hanshu:103:s0129

References in the histories

Open any source group to read the Chinese and English passage in context.

Book of Han, Chapter 103Volume 91: Usurers · 5 passages

Open chapter

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.