This influential family of the Fujiwara, together with a few other nobles of different lineage, including scions of the imperial family, monopolised almost all the wealth and power in the country. They kept a great number of slaves in their households, and held vast tracts of private estates, too. As to the land, they developed and cultivated the fields by the hands of their slaves or leased them for rent. Besides, they turned into private properties those lands of which they were legally allowed only the usufruct. By the reform legislation, the usufruct of a public land was granted to one who did much service to the state, but the duration of the right was limited to his life or at most to that of his grand-children. None was permitted to hold the public land as a hereditary possession without time limit. It was by the infringement of these regulations that arbitrary occupation was realised. Another means of the aggrandisement of the estates of the nobles was a fraudulent practice on the part of the common people. Those who were independent landowners or legal leaseholders of public lands were liable to taxation, as may be supposed, and as the taxes and imposts of that time were pretty heavy, those landholders thought it wiser to alienate the land formally by presenting it to some influential nobles or some Buddhist temples, which came to be privileged, or asserted the right to be exempted from the burden of taxation. In reality, of course, those people continued to hold the land as before, and were very glad to see their burden much alleviated, for the tribute which they were obliged to pay to the nominal landlord by the transaction must have been less than the regular taxes which they owed to the government. Moreover, by this presentation they could enter under the protection of those nobles or temples, which was useful for them in defying the law, should need arise. The number of independent landholders thus gradually diminished by the renunciation of the legal right and duty on the part of the holders, and consequently the amount of the levied tax grew less and less. The state, however, could not curtail the necessary amount of the expenditure on that account. The dignity of the court had to be upheld higher and higher, state ceremonies performed regularly, and the national defence was not to be neglected for a moment. All these were causes which necessitated a continual increase of revenue. In order to fill up the deficit, the burden was transferred, doubled or trebled, to those who remained longer honest, so that it soon became quite unbearable for them also. The hardships borne by the law-abiding people of that time could be compared to those of the Huguenots who, faithful to their confession, were impoverished by the dragonnade. In this way, more and more people were induced to give up their independent stand and take shelter under the shield of mighty protectors. Military service, too, was another grievance for the common people.