The nobleman who had proposed the fantastic idea of directly giving money to the imperial concubines forgot that the concubines did not necessarily have to spend their money on what was expected of them.
Neither did he take into account the fact that the women he was giving money to were not normal girls, nor that they were in a highly irregular environment.
This was the palace harem among all things, one of the filthiest places in the whole country!
Filled to the brim with men and women who were totally morally bankrupt and full of schemes, how could the regular forces of market demand and supply ever hope to survive?
Especially when many things in the whole empire depended on what happened there.
Crowns literally changed hands, and entire noble families could be taken to the top or dropped to the all consuming abyss just based on a single word uttered into the right ear.
