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Text Chapter 499 Tax Reform

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    Wang Qiong's method was actually to divide the camp of scholars, draw most of the scholars to his side by lowering the standard for becoming a minor official, and then give preferential treatment to those scholars who had the ability to pass the imperial examination. In this way,  Most of the scholars benefited. Although a small number of scholars were dissatisfied, it was no longer the case.  Although Wang Qiong cleverly broke down the resistance to breaking down the barriers between officials, the last thing that stumped everyone was to expand the authority of the Taxation Department of the Ministry of Household Affairs and completely separate local taxation from the yamen.  As long as local governments are no longer responsible for collecting taxes, their opportunities for corruption will be reduced by half. After all, most of the gray income in the officialdom comes from taxation. Although there are many other avenues for the rest, they are only a minority after all.  However, trying to wrest the right to tax from local governments is a very involved matter. After all, local governments have already used local taxes as their own small treasury, and now someone wants to take this small treasury away.  , it would simply kill them, so as soon as this reform came out, it was immediately opposed by almost all local officials.  In fact, not all of these opposing officials are seeking personal gain for themselves. Some officials feel that local tax revenue can enter the government, and they withhold part of it as usual. This part of the tax will become the administrative funds of the local government. What will the local government use it for in the future?  Money can also be used more conveniently. There is no need to ask the court for instructions on everything. But if they don't even have the power to tax now, they will need to ask for instructions from their superiors whenever they want to spend money in the future. This is really troublesome.  .  Stripping away the tax power of local governments may be the biggest resistance Zhou Chong has encountered since his reform. After all, all local officials are opposed to it.  Even the ministers in the court were not very optimistic about this matter. If Zhou Zhong pushed it forward, it would probably cause a big chaos, which made Zhou Zhong very hesitant.  The officialdom is always a place of constant compromise and being compromised, when Zhou Zhong was at the beginning of implementing reforms.  He was already mentally prepared. He knew that although his ideas were good, the reality would make some of his ideas impossible to realize, especially those that involved the interests of too many people and would be opposed by countless people.  It was under this situation that Zhou Chong discussed with Jiao Fang, Wang Qiong and others.  Finally some modifications were made to the reform to take back the taxing power of local governments.  First of all, the powers of the Taxation Department still need to be expanded. A unified taxation agency must be established in all places, under the unified jurisdiction of the Taxation Department. After all, the taxation in Ming Dynasty was too chaotic in the past. There were countless exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes in various places. Some local officials could even  Arbitrarily increase the items and amounts of taxes.  This not only increases the burden on the people, but also hinders the circulation of goods. Therefore, the establishment of a unified tax department has become a top priority for the Ming Dynasty. Zhou Zhong will never compromise on this point.  However, after the establishment of tax agencies in various places, Zhou Zhong no longer required these tax agencies to be independent of the administrative system. Instead, they were still subordinate agencies of the government at all levels. In addition, the tax department must hand over a certain proportion of the tax collected.  .  The rest can be used as administrative funds for governments at all levels. If they want to use these funds, governments at all levels need to submit an application and list the reasons and amounts of funds needed. In addition, there needs to be a place for use during the use process.  The supervisory censor sent people to supervise. Only in this way can we ensure that these taxes will not be misused.  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 pilot projects and forcibly implemented this reform. As a result, he soon encountered overt or covert obstacles in the officialdom. For those who blocked his reforms behind the scenes, Zhou Chong this time  It was a cruel move.  When the Jin Yiwei found out the identity of the other party, Zhou Zhong used thunderous means to capture more than a dozen middle- and high-level officials. As a result, except for a few of these people who had minor crimes and were exiled, 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, he soon discovered that his retreat would only inspire the other party's arrogance.  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 finally frightened those officials who opposed tax reform by stepping on those rolling heads, making the tax reform in the three places in Beijing proceed very smoothly. After the reforms in these three places were completed, the official atmosphere in the three places also changed.  In order to clear it up, especially after the unification of taxes, the people in the three places obviously felt that the burden on them was lighter. The merchants were also pleasantly surprised to find that when their goods passed through the three places, they had to pay much less tax, and they also  Without the trouble from the local government, this situation made them feel as if they were in a dream.  With the successful cases in these three places in Beijing, Zhou Zhong canIn addition, we have the confidence to promote tax reform across the country. Generally speaking, the taxes in Ming Dynasty are divided into two types. The first is agricultural tax, and the second is commercial tax. In the past, agricultural tax in Ming Dynasty was the most important tax. After all, Ming Dynasty  To build a country based on agriculture, agricultural taxes are also very heavy. In addition to being responsible for taxes, farmers are also required to pay corresponding labor every year. To put it bluntly, they work for the government for free. In addition, there are also some miscellaneous taxes that all fall to farmers.  It can be said that heavy taxes are one of the fundamental reasons for the poverty of the people of Ming Dynasty.  However, after the tax reform, farmers no longer have to perform labor service. 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 benefited hundreds of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty, which also made the tax reform gain support from a large number of people.  As for the reform of commercial tax, it is more complicated. It is said that the commercial tax rate stipulated in the laws of the Ming Dynasty is extremely low, only one tax per twenty, but this is only on the surface. Governments in various parts of the Ming Dynasty can set up checkpoints on the roads. These checkpoints can  Taxes are collected, and every time you pass a checkpoint, you have to collect a tax. With so many taxes added up, even if you transport a bag of rice from Nanjing to Beijing, the price will increase several times, or even ten times.  , from which we can see how unreasonable the Ming Dynasty¡¯s commercial tax was.  However, after the tax reform, the power to collect taxes was completely transferred to the tax departments established in various places. Although these tax departments still belong to the local administrative agencies, they are directly under the jurisdiction of the Tax Department of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the Tax Department is responsible for the tax collection of various places.  There are unified regulations. No one is allowed to increase or delete taxes at will. Moreover, commercial taxes are only collected once and are no longer collected every time they go to a place. This not only reduces the burden on merchants, but also avoids  Local governments make money from commercial taxes.  It can be said that farmers and businessmen have benefited from the entire tax reform, but only local officials have suffered huge "losses" because the previous exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes were the main targets of their efforts. Now these have all been taken over by the tax department.  Now they can't reach out even if they want to. This is the main reason why so many people opposed the tax reform when it was first promoted.  Just when Zhou Chong was in full swing and the Ming Dynasty was reorganizing the government and implementing reforms, Liaodong was caught in the flames of war. Previously, the Ming Dynasty had increased troops to the east and south of the Duoyan Three Guards at the same time. As a result, the Duoyan Three Guards were panicked, and then the Ming envoys arrived  The three guards of Duoyan asked them to break away from Tatar control and rejoin the Ming Dynasty.  Originally, this kind of thing was nothing to the wallflowers like Duoyan Sanwei. Anyway, they had always relied on the strong. Now that the Ming Dynasty was strong, it didn't matter if they surrendered. But this time it was different, because the Ming Dynasty asked them to hand over their troops.  , and at the same time, the Ming Dynasty would also send officials to the grasslands to manage each tribe on behalf of the tribal leaders.  The leader of the Duoyan Guards, Hua Dang, was also an ambitious man. Naturally, he could not easily hand over the troops he relied on. Therefore, after several meetings and discussions with the Ming Dynasty envoys, he failed to get the Ming Dynasty to change his conditions.  He was also furious, and immediately drove out the Ming Dynasty's envoy, then blew the horn and began to prepare for war.  Zhengde, who had already arrived at Xifengkou, had already expected Huadang's reaction. Therefore, as soon as the Ming Dynasty's envoy returned, Zhengde immediately led his army from Xifengkou into the grassland from south to north. What they faced was  The enemy is none other than Duoyan Guard, the strongest among the three Duoyan guards.  At the same time, Liaodong Guard and Li Anliang's 50,000 Japanese servants also marched into the grassland from east to west. Standing in front of them was the Taining Guard, which was the weakest among the three Duoyan Guards but was dependent on Duoyan Guard.  Although the Ming Dynasty's army was mostly infantry and suffered some disadvantages when entering the grassland to fight against the cavalry of the Three Guards of Duoyan, the Ming Dynasty mobilized an astonishing 150,000 troops this time, of which 70,000 were in the Southern Route Army led by Zhengde, all of whom were among the frontier troops.  The elite of the army, and the West Route Army reached 80,000 people, mainly because Li Anliang's 50,000 Japanese servants also participated in the war.  Such a huge army marched into the grassland from two directions, and the Ming cavalry was patrolling around. This made it impossible for the three Duoyan guards to rely on cavalry to attack the Ming army. What was even worse was that although the three Duoyan guards were nomads, they  They have been trading with the Ming Dynasty all year round and have been influenced by the Ming Dynasty, which has led them to settle down. For example, the home base of Duoyan Wei is in the original Daning Wei.  Zhengde had already investigated the situation of the three Duoyan guards beforehand, and naturally knew that Duoyan guard was entrenched in Daning. Duoyan guard even expanded the original Daning city, apparently because he wanted to treat it as his own.  However, this royal city has now become the weakness of Duoyan Guard. With the approach of Zhengde's army, Duoyan Guard has only two ways left. Either abandon Daning and flee north, or use all their strength to destroy the Ming Dynasty.  The army fought back.
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