"What I mean, my dear fellow," the Count says, "is that I shall do more by myself with my gold than you and all your people with their daggers, their pistols, their carbines and their blunderbusses. So let me do it." (34.39)
The Count lets Luigi Vampa know that, sometimes, the coin is mightier than the sword. This kind of passive influence is Monte Cristo's stock in trade, and Peppino's rescue seems to prove its effectiveness.
"To me, a good servant is one over whom I have the power of life and death."
"And do you have the power of life and death over Bertuccio?" Albert asked.
"Yes," the count said curtly. Some words end a conversation like a steel door falling. The count's "Yes" was one of those words. (85.119-120)
The power over life and death is definitely the ultimate form of control. That Edmond should need to have it over every servant speaks to his exacting (and ruthless) nature.
"Suppose that the Lord God, after creating the world, after fertilizing the void, had stopped one-third of the way through His creation to spare an angel the tears that our crimes would one day bring to His immortal eyes. Suppose that, having prepared everything, kneaded everything, seeded everything, at the moment when He was about to admire his work, God had extinguished the sun and with His foot dashed the world into eternal night, then you will have some idea…Or, rather, no…No, even then you cannot have any idea of what I am losing by losing my life at this moment." (89.71)
Edmond goes beyond describing himself as a controller or a manipulator and casts himself as a creator. And not just any creator, mind you, but God.