shake the pagoda tree—(UK hist.) make a fortune rapidly in India:
- Many a Banya or Brahman who had helped to “shake the pagoda tree” retired quietly to his ancestral village.
shake the plum tree—(U.S.) appoint applicants to public offices as a reward for their loyalty to the party in power:
- As chairman of the Republican Party, Quay “knew how to shake the plum tree” and spent a lot of money in getting Benjamin Harrison elected president in 1888.
Note: Neither expression is related in meaning to the phrase shake someone’s tree—arouse a person to action or reaction; dis turb smb.:
- The lead investigator called the fraudster and shook his tree a bit. The person who was defrauded got her money back.