Wang Qiong's method is actually to divide the camp of scholars, and use the situation of lowering the standard of becoming a small official to draw most of the Xiucai to his side, and then give those who have the ability to pass the imperial examination a preferential treatment, so that most of the scholars benefit, although a small number of scholars are dissatisfied, but it is no longer a climate.

Although the resistance to breaking the barriers of officials was broken by Wang Qiong with skill, the last thing was to stump everyone, this matter is to expand the authority of the Ministry of Household Taxation, and completely strip the taxes from the yamen, as long as the local government is no longer responsible for collecting taxes, then it will reduce most of their chances of corruption, after all, most of the gray income in the officialdom comes from taxes, and although there are many other ways to do the rest, but after all, it is only a few.

However, it is a matter of great concern to snatch the right to collect taxes from the hands of the local government, after all, the local government has already used the local tax revenue as its own small treasury, and now some people want to snatch this small treasury, it is simply their life, so as soon as this reform came out, it was immediately opposed by almost all local officials.

In fact, these opposing officials are not all for their own personal gain, some officials feel that the local tax can enter the government, and according to the practice to withhold a part, this part of the tax will become the administrative funds of the local government, in the future there is a place to use the money, it can also be more convenient, do not need to ask the court for instructions on everything, but now if they don't even have the power to collect taxes, they need to ask the head for instructions if they have anything to spend money in the future, which is really too troublesome.

Strip the local government of the power to collect taxes. This is perhaps the biggest obstacle since the Zhou Heavy Reform. After all, all local officials are against it. Even the ministers in the court are not very optimistic about this matter, if Zhou Chong forcibly implements it, it is likely to cause chaos, which also makes Zhou Chong very hesitant.

Officialdom is a place where there is constant compromise and compromise, and Zhou Zhong was mentally prepared at the beginning of the reform, knowing that although his ideas were good, the reality would make some of his ideas unrealizable. In particular, things that involve the interests of too many people will be opposed by countless people. It was also under this circumstance that Zhou Chong, after consulting with Jiao Fang, Wang Qiong and others, finally made some changes to the reform of recovering the tax power of the local government.

First of all, the functions and powers of the tax department should be expanded, and all localities should establish a unified tax agency, which will be under the unified jurisdiction of the tax department, after all, the tax revenue in Daming was too chaotic in the past, and there were countless harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes in various places, and even some local officials could arbitrarily increase the items and amounts of taxes, which not only increased the burden on the people. At the same time, it also hinders the circulation of goods, so the establishment of a unified tax department has become an urgent need for the Ming Dynasty. There is no compromise on this.

However, after the establishment of the tax agencies in various places, Zhou Zhong no longer requires these tax agencies to be outside the administrative system, but still belong to the subordinate institutions of the government at all levels, in addition to the tax collected by the tax department to hand over a certain proportion, the rest can be used as the administrative funds of the government at all levels, just want to use these funds, the government at all levels need to apply, list the reasons and amount of the funds needed, in addition to the use of the process, there is also a need for local supervision of the imperial history to supervise, only in this way, to ensure that these taxes will not be misused.

Although Zhou Chong has taken a step back, but there are still many people who oppose this tax reform, but this time Zhou Chong's attitude is very resolute, he took Beijing, Nanjing and Nanyang as a pilot, forcibly carried out the reform, and soon encountered the obstacles in the officialdom or covertly, for these people who prevent their own reform behind the scenes, Zhou Chong was ruthless this time, when Jinyiwei found out the identity of the other party, Zhou Chong used thunderous means to catch more than a dozen middle and senior officials in one fell swoop, As a result, all but a few of them were exiled for lesser crimes, and all the others were beheaded by him.

In this world, it is impossible to reform a country without bloodshed, although Zhou Zhong tried his best to avoid this situation before the reform, but he soon found that his retreat would only stimulate the arrogance of the other party, and only when he showed enough toughness and even raised the butcher's knife, the other party would honestly listen to his own words.

It is also Zhou Zhong stepping on the heads of those rolling people, and finally deterred those officials who oppose the tax reform, so that the tax reform in the three places of Beijing is carried out very smoothly, and after the completion of the reform of the three places, the officialdom atmosphere of the three places is also clear, especially after the unification of taxation, the people of the three places obviously feel that the burden on their bodies is lighter, and the businessmen are also pleasantly surprised to find that when their goods pass through the three places, the taxes to be paid are much less, and there is also less difficulty for the local government. This situation makes them feel as if they are in a dream.

With the successful cases of these three places in Beijing, Zhou Zhong is more confident to promote tax reform in the country, Daming's taxation is generally divided into two kinds, the first is agricultural tax, the second is commercial tax, before Daming's agricultural tax is the most important tax, after all, Daming is based on agriculture, the tax levied on agriculture is also very heavy, and farmers are not only responsible for taxes, but also have corresponding labor every year, to put it bluntly, it is free to work for the government, and there are some miscellaneous taxes, all of which have to fall on farmers. It can be said that heavy taxation is one of the fundamental reasons for the poverty of the Ming people.

However, after the tax reform, the farmers no longer have to serve in labor, although they have to pay a certain amount of taxes every year, but relatively speaking, it is not much, as for other miscellaneous taxes, it is completely exempted, it can be said that just a reform, let the Ming hundreds of millions of people benefit, which also makes the tax reform has been supported by a large number of people.

As for the reform of commercial taxation, it is more complicated, speaking of the law of the Ming Dynasty stipulates that the commercial tax rate is very low, only twenty taxes one, but this is only on the surface, the Ming Dynasty can set up checkpoints on the road, these checkpoints are to collect taxes, and every time you pass a checkpoint, you have to collect a tax, so many taxes add up, even if you transport a bag of rice from Nanjing to Beijing, the price will increase several times, and to more than ten times, which shows how unreasonable the Ming commercial tax is.

However, after the tax reform, the power to collect taxes was completely transferred to the tax departments set up in various places, although these tax departments still belong to the local administrative organs, but they are directly under the jurisdiction of the tax department of the Ministry of Households, and the tax department has uniform regulations on the taxation of various places, and no one is allowed to increase or delete taxes at will, and the commercial tax is only a one-time collection, no longer every place is levied once, which not only reduces the burden of businessmen, but also avoids the local government from making money from commercial taxes.

It can be said that the entire tax reform has benefited farmers and businessmen, but only local officials have suffered huge "losses", because in the past, the harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes were the main goals of their hands, and now these have all been taken over by the tax department, and now they can't reach out if they want to, which is the main reason why there are so many people who oppose the tax reform when it was first promoted.

Just when Zhou Chong was in full swing of the Ming Dynasty to rectify the rule of officials and implement reforms, Liaodong fell into a war, before the Ming increased troops in the east and south of Duoyan Sanwei at the same time, which caused Duoyan Sanwei to panic, and then the envoys of the Ming Dynasty arrived at Duoyan Sanwei, asking them to break away from the control of the Tatars and rejoin the Ming Dynasty.

Originally, this kind of thing is nothing to the wall grass like Duoyan Sanwei, anyway, they have always been dependent on the strong, and now that Daming is strong, it doesn't matter if they surrender, but this time it is different, because Daming requires them to hand over the army, and at the same time, Daming will also send officials to the grassland to manage the tribes instead of the head of the tribe.

Hua Dang, the leader of Duo Yanwei, is also an ambitious person, and naturally it is impossible to easily hand over the army he relies on, so he met and negotiated with the Ming envoy several times, but after the result failed to make the Ming change the conditions, this made him also angry, and immediately drove the Ming envoy out, and then blew the horn and began to prepare for war.

For Huadang's reaction, Zhengde, who had already arrived at Xifengkou, had already expected it, so as soon as the messenger of the Ming Dynasty returned, Zhengde immediately led the army from Xifengkou to the north to kill the grassland, and the enemy they faced was the strongest Duoyan Wei among the three guards. At the same time, Liao Dongwei and Li Anliang's 50,000 servants of the Japanese State also fought into the grassland from east to west, and in front of them was Taining Wei, the weakest of the three guards of Duoyan, but who was born dependent on Duoyan Wei.

Although most of the Ming army's troops were infantry, and they suffered some losses when they entered the grassland to fight with the cavalry of Duoyan Sanwei, the strength mobilized by the Ming Dynasty this time reached an astonishing 150,000, of which the Southern Route Army led by Zhengde had 70,000 people, all of whom were the elite of the border army, and the Western Route Army reached 80,000 people, mainly because Li Anliang's 50,000 Japanese servant army also participated in the war.

Such a large army marched into the grassland from two roads, coupled with the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty cruising around, which made it impossible for Duoyan Sanwei to rely on cavalry to impact the Ming army, and what was worse was that although Duoyan Sanwei was a nomadic people, they traded with Daming all year round and were influenced by Daming, which made them have begun to settle down, such as Duoyanwei's lair is in the original Daningwei.

Zhengde had already checked the situation of Duoyan Sanwei in advance, and naturally knew that Duoyanwei was entrenched in Daning, and even Duoyanwei also expanded the original Daning City, which seemed to be his own royal city, but now this royal city has become Duoyanwei's weakness, with the approach of Zhengde's army, Duoyanwei only has two ways left, either abandon Daning and flee north, or try his best to repel the Ming army. (To be continued......) u