How clever were the tricks in the Ming and Qing Dynasties?

Since ancient times, there have been many swindlers, but the cultural atmosphere in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties has nourished many superb scams. Their industries are different, but their goal is just to cheat money.

Gold means a fortune teller.

Fortune telling is a common name among the people. The academic title is Zhouyi prediction, and the academic study of fortune telling is called Yi Xue, also called Shu Shu. With theory as the core, the theoretical system is complex and profound.

In a narrow sense, fortune-telling refers to looking at other people's birthdates, while in a broad sense, fortune-telling includes reading Chinese characters, palm reading, gossip, Taoism, geography and geomancy. Ancient divination and divination belong to fortune telling. Its personnel and tactics mainly include:

Blind man: For fortune telling, the blind man is the main force. People believe in blind people, because everyone thinks that it is amazing that blind people can judge good luck just by a birthday.

Rhetoric: the key to fortune telling. A fate (birth time and fate) depends on rhetoric. It can not only make a character come alive in the mouth of a fortune teller, but also resonate with the seeker.

Disaster elimination: the purpose of fortune telling is to seek good fortune and avoid evil. If a disaster is counted and cannot be removed from others, wouldn't it increase people's troubles? So, in the end, if there is a disaster, it must be solved, just like when you go to the hospital for examination and find that there is no cure for the disease. And disaster relief is the place to make money. Often it can't be solved in the street. One is that there are many people in the street. If you say a word, he will often spoil the good thing. Besides, people don't have much money to tell fortune on the street.

Skin, that is, selling wild medicine.

The gourd contains all kinds of Dan medicine, which claims to cure all diseases. For the poor who look down on the disease, this is a life-saving straw, and for the liar, this is a magic weapon to deceive people.

Color is a trick.

Westerners call it magic. A pigeon flies out of the sleeve for a while, smoke comes out of the head for a while, taking things from a distance and spitting white lotus are all deceptive methods.

What's more, slaves were sold and poisoned. Buyers pay, slaves come back at night, and buyers can't find anyone.

This shows how clever ancient deception is.