These tenant farmers were, in reality, the "subjects" of the great families. Their retainers, political influence, and even their private armies, all fundamentally stemmed from the population of tenant farmers on their lands.
This was akin to the later-era adage, "What belongs to the public is easily wasted, but what is one's own is treasured."
To imperial court officials, the common people under the court's rule were much like public property. However, once these people became tenant farmers on a great family's land, they were considered private property, and attitudes towards them naturally differed.
