Smuggling Daming

Wang Qiong's method is actually to divide the camp of scholars, use the situation of lowering the standard of becoming a petty official to draw most of the scholars to his side, and then give preferential treatment to those scholars who have the ability to pass the imperial examination. Most of the scholars have benefited, and although a small number of scholars are dissatisfied, they are already out of luck.

Although the resistance to breaking the barriers of officials was broken by Wang Qiong with ingenuity, the last thing stumped everyone. This thing was to expand the powers of the taxation department of the Ministry of Households and completely separate the taxation of various places from the yamen. As long as the local government is no longer responsible for collecting taxes, then most of their opportunities for corruption will be reduced. After all, most of the gray income in the officialdom comes from taxes. Although there are many other sources for the rest, they are only a minority after all.

However, wanting to snatch the taxation rights from the local government is a deeply involved matter. After all, the local governments have already used local taxation as their own small treasury, and now someone wants to snatch this small treasury away , that would simply kill them, so as soon as this reform came out, it was immediately opposed by almost all local officials.

In fact, these officials who opposed it were not all for their own personal gain. Some officials felt that local tax revenue could enter the government and withhold part of it according to the usual practice. This part of the tax revenue would become the administrative funds of the local government. The place of money can also be more convenient, there is no need to ask the court for instructions on everything, but if they don’t even have the power to tax, they need to ask for instructions from their superiors if they need to spend money in the future, which is too troublesome up.

Strip local governments of their power to tax.This may be the biggest resistance that Zhou Zhong has encountered since his reform.After all, all local officials are against it.Even the ministers in the court are not very optimistic about this matter. If Zhou Zhong enforces it, it may cause a big mess, which makes Zhou Zhong very hesitant.

The officialdom is a place of constant compromise and being compromised. Zhou Zhong was mentally prepared at the beginning of the implementation of the reform. He knew that although his ideas were good, the reality would make some of his ideas impossible to realize.Especially things that involve the interests of too many people will be opposed by countless people.It was also under such circumstances that after discussing with Jiao Fang, Wang Qiong and others, Zhou Zhong finally made some amendments to the reform of taking back the local government's taxation power.

First of all, the duties and powers of the tax department still need to be expanded. All localities must establish a unified tax agency under the unified jurisdiction of the tax department. After all, the taxation in Daming was too chaotic in the past, and there were countless exorbitant taxes in various places. Arbitrarily increasing tax items and amounts not only increases the burden on the people.At the same time, it also hindered the circulation of goods, so the establishment of a unified taxation department has become a top priority for Ming Dynasty.Zhou Zhong will never compromise on this point.

However, after the establishment of taxation agencies in various places, Zhou Zhong no longer required these taxation agencies to be independent from the administrative system, but still belong to the subordinate agencies of the government at all levels. , the rest can be used as administrative funds for governments at all levels, but if they want to use these funds, governments at all levels need to submit an application, listing the reasons and amount of funds needed, and in the process of using them, they also need to have The local supervisory censors send people to supervise. Only in this way can we ensure that these taxes will not be used indiscriminately.

Although Zhou Zhong has taken a step back, there are still many people who oppose this tax reform, but this time Zhou Zhong's attitude is very firm. He used Beijing, Nanjing and Nanyang as pilots to forcefully implement the reform. , as a result, he soon ran into overt or covert obstacles in the officialdom. For those who blocked his reform behind the scenes, Zhou Zhong was ruthless this time. When Jin Yiwei found out the identity of the other party, Zhou Zhong used thunderous means He captured more than a dozen mid-level and high-ranking officials. As a result, he beheaded all of these people except for a few who committed minor crimes and were exiled.

In this world, it is impossible to reform a country without shedding blood. Although Zhou Zhong tried his best to avoid this situation before the reform, he soon discovered that his retreat would only arouse the opponent's arrogance With arrogance, only when you show enough toughness, even when you raise the butcher knife, will the other party listen to you honestly.

It was Zhou Zhong who stepped on those rolling heads and finally deterred those officials who opposed the tax reform, making the tax reform in the three places in Beijing proceed very smoothly. For this reason, especially after the taxation was unified, the people in the three places obviously felt that the burden on them was lightened, and the merchants were also pleasantly surprised to find that when their goods passed through the three places, they had to pay a lot less tax, and it was easier Without the difficulties of the local government, this situation made them feel as if they were dreaming.

With the successful cases in Beijing and these three places, Zhou Zhong will be more confident in promoting tax reforms throughout the country. Generally speaking, Ming's taxes are divided into two types, the first is agricultural tax, the second is commercial tax, In the past, the agricultural tax of Ming Dynasty was the most important tax. After all, Ming Dynasty established the country with agriculture, and the tax levied on agriculture was also very heavy. In addition to being responsible for taxation, farmers also had corresponding labor labor every year. To put it bluntly, they worked for the government for free. In addition, there are some miscellaneous taxes that have to fall on the farmers. It can be said that heavy taxes are one of the root causes of the poverty of the people of Ming Dynasty.

However, after the tax reform, farmers no longer have to perform hard labor. Although they have to pay a certain amount of tax every year, it is relatively small. As for other miscellaneous taxes, they are completely exempted. It can be said that Just one reform has benefited hundreds of millions of people in Ming Dynasty, and this has also won the support of a large number of people for the tax reform.

As for the reform of the commercial tax, it is more complicated. Speaking of which, the commercial tax rate stipulated in the laws of Ming Dynasty is extremely low, only one in twenty, but this is only on the surface. They all have to collect taxes, and every time they pass a checkpoint, they have to collect a tax. With so many taxes added up, even if it is to transport a bag of rice from Nanjing to Beijing, the price will increase several times, even ten times. , From this we can see how unreasonable the Ming commercial tax is.

However, after the tax reform, the power to collect taxes was completely transferred to the taxation departments established in various places. Although these taxation departments still belong to the local administrative organs, they are directly under the jurisdiction of the taxation department of the Ministry of Households, and the taxation department is responsible for the taxation of various places. There are uniform regulations, no one is allowed to increase or decrease taxes at will, and the commercial tax is only collected once, instead of being collected once every place, which not only reduces the burden on the merchants, but also avoids Local governments make money from commercial taxes.

It can be said that the entire tax reform has benefited farmers and business people, but only local officials have suffered huge "losses", because the exorbitant taxes in the past were their main targets, and now they are all taken over by the tax department. Now they can't stretch out their hands even if they want to. This is the main reason why so many people opposed the tax reform when it was first promoted.

Just as Zhou Chong was in full swing, Ming was rectifying the administration of officials and carrying out reforms, but Liaodong was caught in the flames of war. Earlier, Daming had increased troops to the east and south of Duoyan Sanwei at the same time. As a result, Duoyan Sanwei was panicked. Duoyan Sanwei asked them to break away from Tatar's control and return to Ming Dynasty.

Originally, this kind of thing was nothing to a fool like Duoyan Sanwei. Anyway, they have always attached themselves to the strong. Now that Daming is strong, it doesn't matter if they surrender, but this time is different, because Daming asked them to surrender their troops , At the same time, Ming Dynasty will also send officials to the grassland to manage the tribes instead of the tribe leaders.

Huadang, the leader of Duoyanwei, is also an ambitious person, so naturally he can't easily hand over the army he relies on, so he met and discussed with the envoys of Daming several times, but failed to make Daming change the conditions. He was also furious, and immediately drove out the envoys of Daming, and then blew the horn to start preparing for the battle.

Zhengde, who had already arrived at Xifengkou, had already expected Huadang's reaction, so when the envoys of Ming Dynasty came back, Zhengde immediately led the army from Xifengkou to the grassland from south to north. His enemy is Duoyanwei, the most powerful of the three guards of Duoyan.At the same time, the Liaodong Guard and Li Anliang's [-] Japanese servants also rushed into the grassland from east to west. Standing in front of them was the Taining Guard, who was the weakest of the three guards of Duoyan, but was born with the support of Duoyan Guard.

Although most of Ming's troops were infantry, it was a bit of a disadvantage to enter the grassland to fight against Duoyan Sanwei's cavalry, but this time Daming mobilized an astonishing 15 troops, of which 7 were from the South Route Army led by Zhengde, all of whom were among the frontier troops. In addition, the West Route Army reached 8 people, mainly because Li Anliang's [-] Japanese servants also participated in the war.

Such a huge army marched into the grassland from two routes, and together with the Ming cavalry patrolling around, this made it impossible for Duoyan Sanwei to rely on cavalry to attack the Ming army. They traded with Daming all the year round, and were influenced by Daming, which made them settle down. For example, Duoyanwei's lair was in the former Great Ningwei.

Zhengde had checked the situation of Duoyan Sanwei to the bottom of the sky long ago, and naturally knew that Duoyanwei was entrenched in Daning, and even Duoyanwei expanded the original Daning City, apparently wanting to treat it as his own. However, now this royal city has become Duoyanwei's weakness. With the approach of Zhengde's army, Duoyanwei has only two options left, either to give up Daning and flee northward, or to try his best to defeat Daming. The army repelled. (To be continued..)