Chapter 634: Military Organization, Tax Reform, and the Twelve Myriarchies of the Steppe

"Those who learn from me will live; those who merely imitate me will perish" — truly a maxim worth its weight in gold.

From the individual all the way up to the state, the differences between one entity and another are enormous.

So Zhang Zhao never once considered wholly copying the Qing dynasty's Eight Banners system — that would be courting death. Even the Eight Banners military system itself could not be transplanted wholesale.

Besides, he had no way to transplant it. Nurhaci could build the Eight Banners because he was running a bandit gang plus slavery, which fit perfectly with the traditions and cultural level of those fake Jurchen, real Tungusic savages. Zhang Zhao could hardly go play at slavery in the Central Plains.

So what Zhang Zhao wanted to learn was the special bond of dependence between the Eight Banners troops and the imperial house under the Eight Banners system — how high and low shared in the fruits of military victory, the dividends of foreign war, and a mutual small-group identity.

And regarding Zhu Hongwu's weisuo garrison system and the Eight Banners system, Zhang Zhao had also done a great deal of thinking.

Zhu Hongwu's weisuo army system was, for an ancient army, actually already extremely well developed.

Yesterday Zhang Zhao had thought the weisuo army's combat strength collapsed so fast that it was far inferior to the Song dynasty's imperial guard — that was not really apt.

Strictly speaking, the weisuo army merely rotted; it never completely collapsed.

Otherwise there would not be those two darkly humorous jibes: "The Great Ming's heavenly troops, with full pay and provisions, fire three volleys at the battle line and have done right by His Majesty."

The Ming dynasty's weisuo army, after introducing the mercenary recruitment system and improving the channels for advancement, and after the regional commanders and deputy commanders of each garrison began keeping household retainers, still had fighting strength.

But when the battle troops and household retainers fought a single campaign, money truly flowed like water, and the elite troops capable of fighting were all the more limited.

Moreover, the weisuo system was something only the Ming could play at, because after the brainwashing of the two Song dynasties, "civil officials esteemed, military men despised" had become fixed custom — even the Manchu Qing had to practice civil-over-military.

Under the pressure of the great tide of the age, military men had no choice but to bow their heads and keep themselves small, desperately scrambling for money, scrambling for titles for their wives and sons.

But if he tried that in Zhang Zhou, then a garrison commander would not remain a garrison commander — at best he would become a commissioner holding the tally in command of military affairs in a region; at worst he would simply go right back to being a Military Governor.

At the same time, the secret by which the Manchu Qing's Eight Banners system maintained its combat strength was also something he could not copy wholesale.

Because the Manchu Qing's secret for maintaining military force was to seize the Solon people from the old forests of the northeast, raise a mounted force on the Mongolian steppe, and then, for instance, when fighting the Jinchuan campaigns, raise the banners of the local Tibetans, Yi, and other fierce peoples.

These latecomers were then mixed into units with those bannermen who could still maintain their own martial strength, and in this way combat effectiveness was preserved.

This method of the Manchu Qing, combined with the state support of the bannermen, created a system where men entered but never left, and the state's finances were crushed under the unbearable weight.

And because of the restrictions on bannerman status, their numbers could never rise — at most they maintained a scale of a little over ten thousand men, which can only be said to be slightly better than nothing.

It can be said that the methods of the Ming and Qing dynasties each had their advantages and drawbacks, and Zhang Zhao could imitate neither. More importantly, Zhang Zhao now faced two great difficulties.

First, the composition of the troops recently recruited from Hexi made Zhang Zhao somewhat uneasy. Originally, among the sworn follower cavalry and the united archers drawn from Hexi, Han Chinese had accounted for at least sixty percent.

But in the past two years, among the warriors coming from Hexi, Tuyuhun, the various Qiang, Tangut, Tibetan, and other tribal warriors actually outnumbered the Han.

Upon careful investigation, it turned out that from Pei Yuan, the Western Capital Regent in charge of recruitment, to the Bureau of Military Affairs and the Luantai of the Secretariat, everyone preferred non-Han Hexi troops.

The reason this happened was that the various peoples of Hexi were poorer than the Han, so the cost of recruiting them was lower, and their desire to leave Hexi was stronger.

There was also the fact that the Tuyuhun and other peoples were far more devout in their Buddhist faith than the Han, and they believed even more firmly that Zhang Zhao was a living god.

With sufficient compensation and support, these more devoutly faithful peoples fought with extreme ferocity, often not shying away from life or death, and the officers great and small of the personal army and the imperial guard also preferred to use them.

This... foreign ethnicity plus religious faith — was that not the Janissaries?

When the time came, once the personal army and imperial guard were entirely filled with members of this same composition, would the Praetorian Guard election law also have to make a tour of the East?

The second problem was that the central treasury had no money. Historically, Zhao Kuangyin's ability to campaign north and south rested on the foundation laid for him in the era of Guo Wei and Guo Rong.

In those days the Later Zhou treasuries were full, and the people's lives were beginning to settle into stability and prosperity, so the state could support great armies fighting campaign after campaign.

But at this moment, Zhang Zhao himself was playing the role of Guo Wei. The greatest problem now was not campaigning, but rapidly restoring the people's livelihood.

Yet Zhang Zhao was already thirty-five. If he waited any longer, he would be forty or fifty before unifying the realm — what the hell would be the point?

Moreover, in the south, Ma Xifan and Qian Zuo had just died in quick succession, and Gao Conghui did not have long to live either.

Liu Cheng of the Southern Han had not only killed his meritorious ministers Liu Sichao and Chen Daoxiang, but had killed eight of his younger brothers in a single day.

Of Liu Cheng's eighteen brothers in all, fifteen were killed by him; the remaining three either died early or had long since been killed.

You could search all the histories and never find anyone who harmed his brothers more than Liu Cheng, and so the Southern Han realm was in a state of panic.

This was a heaven-sent opportunity! Zhang Zhao did not want to miss this window.

Short of money yet needing to fight, with the Two-Tax Law an irresistible trend, and with the religious element in the personal army and imperial guard beginning to grow, Zhang Zhao could only seek a solution from history.

He planned to take the six million mu in the three regions of Hexi, Longyou, and Guanzhong that had already been granted to personal army and imperial guard households, plus roughly one and a half million mu of land belonging to the imperial house, and separate all of it from the government's land registers, counting it as the private property of the imperial house.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao had already enclosed roughly five million mu of land in the depopulated Guanzhong, and he planned to spend his own money recruiting refugees to cultivate it, likewise making it imperial private property.

And this private property was not for maintaining a life of imperial luxury — it would all be used as office land for the personal army.

With an over-standard land grant starting at three hundred mu per able-bodied man, rent and tax paid according to the ancient one-thirtieth tax, no corvée labor or other service required, and permission to hire tenant farmers to work the land.

The price was that apart from heavy armor, crossbow bolts, and top-grade warhorses, they had to provide their own equipment.

At the same time, every three years they were required to serve one rotation of guard duty, one year in length, completed over two years in spring and autumn seasons. If the Emperor issued a special summons, they had to report at any time.

In personal army households, once the father passed the age of thirty-five, he was required to begin providing a successor as auxiliary soldier.

This auxiliary soldier was designated by the personal army soldier himself, limited to sons and blood nephews. In peacetime he trained as a farmer; in wartime he followed into battle. After turning sixteen, he could also receive rewards from the imperial house according to the four seasons.

If a personal army household had no qualified heir, then after the death of the personal army soldier and his lawful wife, the family property would be reclaimed.

Moreover, the land and all other property of a personal army household could not be divided. Once the sons of the household reached the age of eighteen, they all had to seek their own path.

Of course, Zhang Zhao had already thought of that path for them: after mastering both civil and martial arts, they were to go out and make their way in the wider world. A son who succeeded at neither letters nor arms would lose his status as a personal army dependent.

Zhang Zhao estimated that the personal army would be granted land to ten thousand households in Hexi, and twenty thousand households each in Longyou and Guanzhong, forming a personal army of fifty thousand households.

The composition of the imperial guard was similar, except that their granted land would not be bestowed in Hexi or Longyou, and the scale of the land grants would be much smaller — generally only about fifty mu per grant.

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But all of this was in the Central Plains, Henan, and Hebei, so the output and economic value were certainly far better than fifty mu in Hexi or Longyou.

And in the future, after the territories of Meng Shu, Ma Chu, Southern Tang, Qian Yue, and the Southern Han lands from the Jinghai Army and Pinghai Army were conquered, a considerable portion of the local royal and great clan lands would also be taken out and granted to the imperial guard, similar to the Manchu Qing's Eight Banners garrisons in the provinces, to control and hold the regions.

Zhang Zhao planned to grant land to thirty thousand imperial guard households in Henan, twenty thousand households in Hebei, and roughly thirty thousand households in the remaining places such as Taiyuan, Beiping, Chengdu, Tanzhou (Changsha), Jiangling, and Xingwang Prefecture (Guangzhou).

This was in fact a combination of the Ming weisuo system and the Eight Banners system: in broad principle it followed the Ming weisuo system, while in its relationship to the imperial house it was identical to the Eight Banners system.

The financial and personnel powers of the personal army and imperial guard were not managed by the outer court, but were divided directly between the Luantai Vice Director of the inner court and the Chief Command of the Imperial Guard, with the key powers over men and money held in the hands of the sovereign.

Under this whole system, the personal army and imperial guard were in status effectively the private army of the imperial house, with the Emperor holding sole power and the meritorious nobility assisting, forming a vertical chain of command.

Even a Jiangyuhou commanding a hundred men could reach the imperial ear directly, and at the same time the Emperor's baton could reach down to the level of the Jiangyuhou.

But unlike the Ming dynasty's weisuo system, Zhang Zhou's personal army and imperial guard were wealthier than the Ming weisuo troops, bore lighter economic burdens, held higher status, and correspondingly possessed even more formidable fighting strength.

In terms of personal bonds of subordination, they resembled the relationship between the Eight Banners troops and the imperial house — apart from the Emperor, they were nothing.

Zhang Zhao's ideal was at least to preserve the granted lands of the fifty thousand households of the personal army and the eighty thousand households of the imperial guard, to prevent annexation for fifty years, and to guarantee relatively strong fighting power for fifty years.

Thereafter Zhang Zhao could use the personal army to guard the capital; their granted lands lay far away in Hexi, Longyou, and Guanzhong, so they could not sink deep local roots.

Even if they shared the same religious elements, without local foundations they could not form a personal guard force capable of swaying the imperial house.

The imperial guard, meanwhile, would be dispersed among the major cities and around the capital. They could not directly guard the Emperor, but their families and properties all lay in the Central Plains, giving them the advantage of local solidarity; yet they were cut off from the outside by the personal army and could only form an outer line of defense.

In this way the personal army and the imperial guard could check each other, and neither side could grow overmighty.

So long as the Zhang Zhou court could preserve these one hundred thirty thousand households, in ordinary times it could obtain a standing army of forty to fifty thousand men, in a common war it could mobilize around eighty thousand, and at the extreme limit of mobilization it could at least pull out more than one hundred fifty thousand — and, more importantly, it saved money.

In addition, Zhang Zhao also prepared to spend his own private funds to reclaim another one and a half million mu of land in the Hetao region.

At the same time, the pastures north and west of Juyan Lake — roughly the later Alxa League plus the Altai Mountains and the Irtysh River, and further including Tannu Uriankhai and the like — this vast expanse of grassland would be assigned to Khagan Yinli as his directly administered pastureland.

The various peoples on these pastures would all become the Emperor's own core tribes; their taxes would be lighter, and their rewards would certainly be greater than those of other tribes.

These battle-hardened steppe herders would become Zhang Zhao's most reliable source of light cavalry.

As for the state's other armed forces, Zhang Zhao prepared to implement the Ming weisuo system thoroughly — but before implementing the weisuo system, the administration still had to undergo a major restructuring.

Zhang Zhao prepared to abolish the prefecture and county system that had existed since the Tang. Apart from prefectures that had special reasons to be retained, each prefecture with an ancient name was ordered to restore its ancient name, and those without ancient names were to have a suffix added.

For example, Xuzhou would be renamed Xuzhou Prefecture, and locally a four-tier system of province, prefecture, subprefecture, and county would be implemented.

But subprefectures would rank below prefectures, and only those in strategically important positions or with relatively large populations could be retained; the rest would not be kept.

The old arrangement whereby one subprefecture administered only three or four counties, or even just one or two, would also come to an end, and many small subprefectures would be merged.

Thereafter the chief of a prefecture would be the Prefect, of a subprefecture the Chief Clerk, and of a county the County Magistrate.

Of course, Zhang Zhao preferred the three titles of Prefect, Subprefect, and County Magistrate, but for now he had not yet had time to perfect the civil examinations, nor did he yet have enough officials to allow rotation and promotion at any time.

So he still had to use these offices in which one served for a long time in a particular prefecture or subprefecture.

It might even be necessary to continue appointing a batch of military men to these posts, but that would certainly be temporary.

And after the local administrative units were established, Zhang Zhao prepared to build garrison cities at land fortresses and coastal frontier defenses, similar to the Tang's border garrisons, except that the troops would become weisuo soldiers; at the same time, every strategic point in each prefecture would also retain a weisuo force.

The equal-field distribution expected to begin would also start first among the prefectural and county troops and the local militia braves; once they accepted the equal-field land, they would naturally become weisuo soldiers.

However, because the main combat forces of Zhang Zhou were the personal army and the imperial guard, the burdens of the weisuo soldiers would also be lighter than in the Ming.

Of course, the greater reason was that Zhang Zhao could not now afford to fight the kind of rich wars fought in the Ming era, and did not need to dispatch armies of over a hundred thousand at every turn.

And with this system that used land chiefly as reward for merit in place, the financial pressure on Zhang Zhou would be considerably reduced.

In organization, the personal army and the imperial guard still followed the pattern of army (wei), battalion, du, jiang, squad, and fire.

An army (wei) had three thousand men, a battalion one thousand, a du five hundred, a jiang one hundred, a squad fifty, and a fire ten.

The personal army's officers were General of the Palace Guard (wei), Commander with the rank of General of the Gentlemen (battalion), Du Yuhou (du), Jiang Yuhou (jiang), squad (squad general), fire (fire chief).

The imperial guard's officers were Regional Commander (zhen), Commander (battalion), Du Yuhou (du), Jiang Yuhou (jiang), squad (squad leader), fire (fire chief).

And in the weisuo army, Zhang Zhao simply copied the Ming dynasty's military officer system outright.

A wei generally had three thousand men, with its chief officer being the Wei Commander, and below him Chiliarchs, Vice Chiliarchs, Centurions, Vice Centurions, and Chief Banner Officers.

On the basis of two or three wei, a Troop Supervisor was established, and above that were Troop Commanders and the like, with all authority over the weisuo army handed over to the Bureau of Military Affairs.

As for the Ming offices of Vice Prefect, Assistant Commissioner, and Garrison Supervisor, they would not be established for the time being; they would be set up later as circumstances dictated in actual operation.

At the same time, on the steppe, after Zhang Zhao had originally received the honored title of Nijue Yinli Great Khagan, he had basically not managed steppe affairs much at all; all institutions on the steppe still operated according to their original customs.

The only slight constraint was that Cao Yanlu, Li Congyu, Chen Huiyao, and others in Beiting exercised a certain degree of control through border markets and the export of salt, iron, tea, sugar, wine, grain, and cloth.

But now that the northern Central Plains had been unified, and the Khitan had shrunk back and abandoned their claims to the steppe, from this point on Zhang Zhao would begin to manage steppe affairs.

Zhang Zhao prepared to establish, from Lake Yibo (Lake Balkhash) eastward, in order: the Basmyl Tumen, the Yinli Tumen, the Naiman Tumen, the Kyrgyz Tumen, the Merkit Tumen, the Wugu Dielie Tumen, the Zubu Tumen, the Menggu-Chazhala Shiwei Tumen, the Wolanggai Shiwei Tumen, the Three Jurchen Tribes Tumen, the Upper Khitan Four Tribes Tumen, and the Lower Khitan Four Tribes Tumen — twelve tumen divisions in all.

Of course, this did not mean the steppe had only one hundred twenty thousand households; the tumen was a nominal figure, and below it would be established chiliarch tribes and so on in turn.

Among them, the four tumen of the Basmyl, Yinli, Naiman, and Kyrgyz would serve as the Great Khagan's own core.

For now this was only a rough design; to successfully bring all these tumen under his rule would be no easy matter.

To this end, after the southern campaigns against Nanping and Ma Chu, Zhang Zhao prepared to leave generals behind to prepare for the entry into Shu, while he himself would go again to Chengde Prefecture and convene a grand Dharma assembly of the Six Dharma School there.

At the same time, the sons of the Dunhuang Zhang, Cao, and other families who studied the Dharma, and the sons who had already begun spreading the Dharma on the steppe, would all immediately go into action.

The eminent monks of Anxi Province, Beiting Province, and even Qingtang and the Hexi Buddhist communities would also begin to move.

Zhang Zhao prepared to send back the more than one thousand princes, great and small, and chieftains' hostages from the various tribes who were currently serving at his side.

At the same time, two thousand Buddhist cavalry would be drawn from the personal army, and another five thousand from the imperial guard, and placed under the joint command of Bai Congxin and Huang Yingda to march beyond the frontier.

After Aluozhe of the Naiman tribe and the princes and chieftains' hostages returned, they would also immediately organize a Dharma-protecting cavalry of around fifteen thousand men, making a combined force of twenty-two thousand elite riders.

By means of eminent monks together with swords, they would unify the faiths of the various tribes and persuade the khans, kings, and yabghus great and small of each tribe to come in person to Chengde Prefecture to pay homage to Zhang Zhao.

As for exactly how to knit these tumen together, Zhang Zhao had not yet thought it through, and he was not prepared to achieve the goal of twelve steppe tumen immediately.

At this grand Chengde Dharma assembly, he would be satisfied if the headmen of four or five tumen came.

To this end, Zhang Zhao even prepared during this period to formally add to his own titles the name of Nijue Yinli Khagan.

Even if in the early period it would produce a dualistic Central Plains–steppe empire, Zhang Zhao would not hesitate.

Because only after controlling these twelve tumen could he go on to conquer all of Transoxiana and Persia, regain control of India, and lead them ever westward in conquest; otherwise, relying on the strength of the Central Plains alone, it would be very difficult to achieve in a short time.

Yet however fine the vision, actually pushing it forward was often very difficult.

Even something like abolishing prefectures, merging them into fu, and establishing weisuo was not something Zhang Zhao could decide by imperial fiat alone; he had to discuss it with those below him.

And he would certainly have to make some concessions; otherwise, the vast body of officials could show him what it meant to wave the red flag while opposing the red flag, and the power of passive resistance and slacking off on the job.

So unlike the imagined emperor who reveled night after night, after Zhang Zhao returned he went to stay one night at Dafu's place, then discussed state affairs with his court ministers late into the night for days on end, and afterward rested directly in the Empress's chambers.

On the thirteenth of the ninth month, having not even rested for the Double Ninth Festival, Zhang Zhao finally finished deliberating the great matters with the civil and military officials of the court, and a series of reforms began in succession.

The most important, of course, were the granting of land to the personal army and imperial guard, and the abolition and merger of prefectures into fu.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao ordered the opening of military examinations nationwide — and this was no mere matter of a single examination.

Zhang Zhao's military examinations began at the county level, where each county's patrol inspectors established spear-and-staff societies and archery societies, holding selections once a year, with those chosen entering the county military academies.

At the county military academy, students systematically studied archery, mounted archery, military formations, and gained familiarity with armor and crossbows.

Then every two years, the Bureau of Military Affairs, the Ministry of War, and the troop supervisors of each prefecture conducted prefectural examinations under imperial edict from the Son of Heaven.

Those who passed received the title of Captain. For example, a skilled archer would receive the title of Crossbow Captain, while one proficient in spear and staff would receive the title of Spear-and-Staff Captain.

With this title, one could travel freely using only the Captain's title instead of household registration, without being interrogated by ordinary constables, and without yielding when meeting officials.

Afterward, they studied a certain amount of cultural knowledge — that is, basic literacy — and then took part in the provincial grand examination held every two years.

Those who passed this time, if unwilling to sit further examinations, could serve as deputy company commanders at guard posts, or return to their counties to serve as Captain constables, militia instructors, and the like.

Having reached this point, only by continuing upward could one sit the military metropolitan examination.

This was divided into two tracks. Those pursuing the path of fierce and valiant generals needed only to recognize three hundred characters, understand signal flags, and manage simple troop deployments.

After passing, they could enter the personal army or the imperial guard, with the most outstanding entering the Hanshan Division. Those posted outside became mid-level military officers in guard posts or frontier garrison armies.

The other branch was the Six Strategies commander track, which demanded very high cultural attainment and was for cultivating generals and marshals.

Once passing, one could not only enter military office but could in certain cases transfer to civil service and serve as a regional commander.

Along this entire path, a child could begin participating in the patrol office's grand selection at age ten, and one with true ability could grow into a qualified military officer by seventeen or eighteen.

Moreover, the military examinations had one advantage: the evaluation standards were extremely precise, with no situation where one person said good and another said bad. This also made it convenient for Sage Zhang to select talents willing to conquer outward.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao also prepared to bring the ceremonial rite of the Grand District Archery to the grasslands.

In style, it discarded some of the elaborate formalities that could only be practiced in Han territory, but most of the events were retained.

Then he added wrestling, sumo, and other events beloved by both the Central Plains people and the steppe peoples at this time, using a relatively strict set of procedures to select grassland warriors for the Nijueyinli Khagan.

This was in fact the Naadam festival of the later Mongols. Zhang Zhao prepared to merge it with the Han district archery culture to strengthen their cultural connection.

And to accomplish all this, to get everyone — especially the civil officials — to support it, the price Zhang Zhao paid was the continued implementation of the Two-Tax Law.

Do not underestimate this as merely a simple sentence. Within the Two-Tax Law, there was an extremely important component: the assessment of personal assets.

Because the Two-Tax Law levied taxes according to wealth, this created enormous room for manipulation.

Previously, the Two-Tax Law had been bungled by military men, but now Zhang Zhao was clearly going to fix the tax rates. So the surviving civil officials, led by Zhang Xichong, He Ning, and Feng Dao, very much wanted to seize this power, for it would give the civil officials a foundation to stand on.

Of course, this did not mean the civil officials would necessarily engage in petty schemes to favor their own. In this stage of vigorous rise, they did not yet dare.

What they wanted was this power to fix tax rates — the power to protect themselves when facing the military men.

Zhang Zhao thought it over briefly, then very readily decided that the Ministry of Revenue and the Salt and Iron Monopoly Bureau would jointly determine the new taxes, delegating this power downward.

He Ning and the others were overjoyed, but Zhang Zhao chuckled inwardly, because after the Two-Tax Law, there was actually an even harsher measure: the merging of the poll tax into the land tax.

However, the current economic conditions did not yet permit such an operational method, so Zhang Zhao did not bring it up.

Now was the perfect time — let them use the Two-Tax Law to enrich the state. Once handicrafts and commerce developed further, Zhang Zhao would propose the poll-tax-into-land-tax merger, which was more suited to population growth. In twenty years, it should be able to be put on the agenda.

On the fifteenth day of the ninth month, after long planning, Zhang Zhao's new reform policies began to be issued.

Before this, the Two-Tax Law implemented since the mid-to-late Tang had been wrecked beyond recognition by the military men, and required a major overhaul.

Zhang Zhao first announced the maintenance of the Tang-era Two-Tax Law, with the overall tax rate roughly between one-twelfth and one-fourteenth.

He abolished the farm-tool tax, silk tax, oxhide tax, and other levies that had been concocted under various pretexts since the late Tang and Five Dynasties.

He reformed the house-frame tax, which had evolved out of the Tang system.

The so-called house-frame tax, called the house tax during the Shi Jin period, was in fact a property tax.

It was truly remarkable — collecting property tax in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, and collecting quite a lot at that, frequently charging two or three chi of silk per room.

Zhang Zhao had no money now either, but he was still unwilling to collect money in a manner tantamount to robbery. So he directly reduced the house-frame tax to about thirty cash per year, a reduction of at least eighty percent compared to the original.

At the same time, the late Tang and Five Dynasties also collected a very high transaction tax called the "cash-deduction levy," around five percent in the mid-to-late Tang, and around ten percent in the Five Dynasties.

It might not seem like much, but this was the Five Dynasties, when the commodity economy was underdeveloped!

The great merchants could not be collected from much, but the small peddlers, handicraftsmen, city residents, and suburban farmers were harmed badly. Zhang Zhao therefore directly reduced it to around one percent.

The remaining two items were the abolition of harsh policies dating from the Later Liang.

The first was the abolition of the unreasonable ox rent, a harsh policy that had persisted for over forty years by now.

Its origin was when Zhu Wen campaigned in Huainan and distributed over ten thousand captured plow oxen to the common people for use, then collected ox rent from them. This was originally a benevolent policy that solved the farmers' shortage of plow oxen.

But decades later, the original oxen had long since died, yet the ox rent was still being collected. And as long as your ancestors had rented official oxen, you had to continue paying.

By now, it had spread to nearly all farming households in Luoyang and Kaifeng, imposing an enormous burden on the people. Zhang Zhao therefore ordered the abolition of this tax, which was both outdated and harmful to the people.

The second was the farming colonies. These were agricultural production institutions established in the Central Plains after the late Tang, directly managed by the Ministry of Revenue — the equivalent of the state directly recruiting tenant farmers. The peasants attached to them bore extremely heavy burdens.

This happened to conflict with the land distribution for the imperial guard and guard posts that Zhang Zhao was about to begin. Zhang Zhao directly set aside several plots of land for imperial guard office fields, then recruited the original commoners into the guard army, and granted them permanent use of the fields, houses, oxen, and other farming tools they currently used.

This series of major reforms immediately pushed Zhang Zhao's prestige to its peak.

At this moment, whether high officials above or tenant farmers at the very bottom, everyone understood one truth: in this chaotic age of demons dancing wildly, a benevolent ruler had finally appeared, and someone had finally begun to care about the livelihood of the realm.

On the night of the announcement, the entire Eastern Capital resounded with cheers. Countless people rushed about spreading the news. In that single night, the harsh taxes and levies pressing down on all the common people were swept clean at once.

On the second day after the announcement, large numbers of merchants and commoners from Luoyang, Zhengzhou, and other places traveled hundreds of li to Kaifeng Prefecture, weeping bitterly and kowtowing in gratitude before the imperial palace gates.

The revenue secretaries of the Secretariat's financial office estimated that after the reforms, a farming household with twenty mu of land would have its burden reduced by more than half — nearly approaching sixty percent.

Of course, the court's fiscal pressure would also increase unprecedentedly in the coming year.

Although abolishing harsh taxes and levies would certainly further stimulate the economy, and tax revenue would gradually rise as the economy improved, it would still be too slow — it needed time.

So on one hand, Zhang Zhao began enforcing strict frugality in the palace, releasing large numbers of palace servants to return home, cutting unreasonable redundant officials from the court, and delaying by ten years the salaries for meritorious officials' descendants.

On the other hand, in deploying large armies, he adopted the approach of sending elite troops and minimizing the mobilization of armies of over a hundred thousand.

At the same time, Zhang Zhao cast a covetous, salivating gaze toward the south. Those royal clans had been lording it over the common people for decades, and had long since grown fat and plump.

What fun was there in exploiting the poor commoners? Better to feast on the rich households. One great chomp, and the mouth would be dripping with oil.

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