Chapter five hundred and thirtieth grace and power
The Datang Tax Inspection Team, with its explosive combat effectiveness, fought from north to south, all the way from Guizhou to Guangxi, following the steps of the Datang Army and stationed in every captured state capital.
They acted efficiently and took great initiative, and were often able to quickly assist higher-level tax forces in completing tax collection tasks. As a result, the agricultural autumn tax and various industrial and commercial taxes collected by the Tang Dynasty in Guangxi were almost ten times more than the increase in revenue of the Ming Dynasty.
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For example, in Wuzhou Prefecture, in previous years, the Ming Dynasty could only collect tens of thousands taels of tax at most. However, the officials of the Taxation Department of the Datang Cabinet despised this. We, the Datang Taxation Bureau, were in the remote and poor place of Huaiyuan County.
It was possible to plunder, no, collect taxes worth at least tens of thousands of taels of silver, and this was only the autumn tax among the agricultural taxes and the industrial and commercial taxes that only lasted for a few months.
If it lasts for a whole year, it will be no problem to break through 20,000 taels of silver easily.
Most of these taxes were paid in kind, but not much in real gold and silver, because the Tang Dynasty adopted a parallel tax system of physical objects and cash.
As for agricultural taxes, they are mainly collected in kind. Although this process is a bit more troublesome, Li Xuan knows that in ancient times, if taxes were collected directly from farmers, farmers would suffer in disaster years and farmers would suffer even more in bumper years, because
The former has little output and cannot eat enough for itself and cannot sell the excess grain to pay taxes. In a good harvest year, grain merchants will lower the price, resulting in the grain not being sold or not even being able to resell the original cost.
Therefore, Li Xuan personally ordered that all agricultural taxes must be levied.
When farmers grow grain, they collect grain. When farmers grow cotton, they collect cotton. When farmers plant mulberry trees, they collect mulberry leaves. When farmers raise chickens and ducks, they collect chickens and ducks. If anyone dares to force farmers to pay money or force farmers to sell their harvested crops at a low price,
Li Xuan wanted his head, but he also wanted to confiscate his house and destroy his clan!
After driving all the peasants to death, who will pay taxes to Li Xuan to support the army?
Of course, if farmers have extra money on hand and are willing to pay in cash, they can. The price will be based on the market price.
The industrial and commercial tax is mainly collected in cash. If a businessman is willing to use goods to offset the tax, that is fine, but the discounted price will be relatively low.
In a small and remote place like Huaiyuan County, after the tenacious battle of the tax inspection team, they were able to get tens of thousands of taels of silver and all of it was given to Wuzhou Prefecture. The tax officials shouted that Wuzhou would not charge him dozens of dollars a year.
The tax revenue of ten thousand taels of silver was used to pay for the thousands of soldiers who died under Wuzhou City!
Xunzhou Prefecture also has the same treatment. Although Xunzhou Prefecture does not have decent industry and commerce, who allowed it to have a grain-producing plain? As the most suitable area for production in Guangxi, the predetermined amount of agricultural tax will not be small.
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Nowadays, the tax inspection team, which has made great contributions to the Tang Dynasty, has been stationed in Wuzhou City and its subordinate counties one after another, and has carried out vigorous taxation work. According to Mr. Wang Chuanyong, Guangxi Division of the Ministry of Taxation: The tasks of Wuzhou taxation work
It’s very arduous, but the future is bright!
In addition to Wuzhou and Xunzhou in Guangxi, Guilin is actually a good place, if only because Guilin's grain output is higher than Wuzhou's these days, and Wuzhou Prefecture only produces about 100,000 shi of grain a year.
The output in Guilin can reach hundreds of thousands of stones.
Although the development potential is not very great, Guilin has developed relatively maturely and its fields have been fully developed.
For such a place, because its strategic position was not very important, it did not receive the attention of the Tang Dynasty. So it sent a partial division to go there. After several months, this partial division was organized into the temporary first regiment.
Then it slowly increased to 3,000 people.
But even so, its combat effectiveness is still relatively weak. To put it bluntly, although the temporary first regiment now has two reserve battalions called regular troops, its actual combat effectiveness is probably not even that of a garrison regiment under the third garrison brigade.
Not comparable.
Although the Third Garrison Brigade is a garrison, it was fought out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. It made great contributions under Wuzhou City. Except for the main infantry regiment in the regular army and the freak Liuzhou Independent Regiment, other garrison troops
Neither the army nor the temporary regiment can compare with this third garrison brigade.
However, although the temporary first regiment was not very strong, it still successfully controlled most of the western and southern areas of Guilin. The Ming army could only huddle in the city of Guilin.
Now when the Fourth Army goes north to Guilin, it doesn't have to fight all the way up. It can march directly north to the capital of Guilin. It can also receive support from local states and counties along the way. The rule of the Tang Dynasty was also established in these places.
Even the city of Guilin was not captured, but the prefects of Guilin appointed by the Tang Dynasty had already taken office.
Major General Chen Keqiao, commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade and commander of the 4th Army, led the 4th Army on a wild run, first heading north along the Guijiang River and heading straight for Pingyuefu.
According to intelligence, the current garrison strength of Pingle Prefecture is very weak, because most of the former defenders of Pingle Prefecture have been transferred to Wuzhou. Now, in every state and county of Pingle Prefecture, there are at most only a few Ming troops and young men guarding them.
There were not many regular Ming troops in Yuefu City.
But even so, in order to capture Guilin as quickly as possible and then enter Huguang, Chen Keqiao still did not waste any time in Pinglefu. He led his troops north along the Guijiang River and only attacked Zhaoping on the edge of the Guijiang River.
That's all, even Yonganzhou, which is not far away, is too lazy to pay attention to it.
If it were not for ensuring the logistics line, Chen Keqiao would not even attack Pinglefu City, but Pinyuefu City is located right on the edge of the Guijiang River. If Pinglefu City is not destroyed, even if Pinglefu City is bypassed
, but the logistics line is also unable to transport through Guijiang.
Therefore, Chen Keqiao would only attack the cities along the Guijiang River. As for other places, he was too lazy to deal with them. Anyway, there were no Ming troops elsewhere, and any troops he sent later would be able to defeat them.
The Privy Council Operations Department has already designated relevant plans to dispatch some of the garrison troops from Wuzhou Prefecture, mainly the garrison, and a very small number of regular troops to control those states and counties that are still under the control of the Ming Dynasty, including Yong'anzhou and Hexian.
, Fuchuan, Gongcheng and other places.
There are basically no large Ming troops garrisoned in these places. There are only a few hundred people at most, and they are basically old, young, weak or young and strong. Because the regular guard troops and even recruitment troops in Guangxi basically recruit soldiers.
The puppet Tang rebel army suffered heavy losses in many battles.
Therefore, just like ripe fruits in these places, there is no need to climb the tree to pick them. If you shake the tree casually from below, it will fall off by itself.
This is also the reason why Chen Keqiao ignored other parts of Pinglefu. His Fourth Army shouldered a heavy responsibility, but he had no time to waste on such trivial matters as conquering ordinary prefectures and counties.
Rushing all the way, they also defeated Zhaoping. Well, it is wrong to say that they destroyed it, because after seeing the thousands of enemy troops led by Chen Keqiao, the defenders in the city dispersed in a rush.
There has never been a serious siege campaign.
After passing Zhaoping, Chen Keqiao continued to lead his troops northward. It took only a few days to reach Pinglefu City. The defenders in Pinglefu City were very courageous. Although they had no troops, they still resisted. In the end, Chen Keqiao
The only way is to attack directly.
Because the defenders' will to resist was not weak, and in the rush, the artillery units at the rear had not yet caught up. In order to avoid excessive casualties, they fought more cautiously, and it took three days to capture the victory.
the city.
In other words, the vanguard of the Fourth Army was blocked here for three days, and now the Huguang Army is besieging Xingquan Prefecture, and even traces of the Ming Army's partial divisions have appeared in Liping Prefecture. This is in eastern Guizhou
The fight was extremely hard, and as the reinforcements of the Fourth Army, every day's time was extremely precious.
However, three days were wasted under the inconspicuous Pinglefu City. Chen Keqiao was quite angry about this.
Regardless of the obstruction of the Ministry of War officials who came with the army, when the city was captured, he ordered: "No prisoners will be taken in this battle."
As a result, among the nearly two thousand defenders in the city, except for more than a thousand who escaped, the remaining seven to eight hundred people were all killed in battle.
This led to the situation where the Tang Dynasty King's Division failed to capture prisoners in a victorious battle for the first time!
This incident was naturally brought to the attention of Li Xuan by officials from the Ministry of War who accompanied the army. They read a book about Chen Keqiao and believed that Chen Keqiao's move destroyed the preferential treatment of prisoners that the Tang Dynasty had worked so hard to establish, thereby attracting more
The impact of the Ming army's surrender had a major negative impact.
At this, Li Xuan smiled slightly and said to Zeng Ziwen: "It is necessary to spend thousands of gold to buy horse bones, but occasionally killing chickens to scare monkeys is also necessary."
Treating the Ming army who were willing to surrender on their own initiative, naturally they needed preferential treatment, but those in Pinglefu City knew clearly that they could not resist, but they still resisted. In the end, they had to surrender after the city was broken, and they also caused great harm to the army.
If there is a huge loss or negative impact, it is okay to use appropriate tough measures.
A combination of firmness and softness is the best. Being too firm or too soft is not a good thing!
This can effectively deter latecomers and let them know that resisting the King of the Tang Dynasty requires paying the price with life. It does not mean that you can fight if you want and surrender if you want to.
After solving Pinglefu City, the vanguard of the Fourth Army continued to advance north, and they soon entered Guilin Prefecture.
Then they successfully reunited with the troops of the temporary first regiment outside Guilin Mansion.
When they saw thousands more puppet Tang rebels arriving outside the city, a group of officials and generals in Guilin had ugly expressions on their faces.
"So many thieves are here again, what should we do?"
"Yes, I heard that Wuzhou was captured by the bandit army. There are tens of thousands of troops in Wuzhou city. Our Pinglefu is just a small town with only three thousand soldiers!"
"I heard that Mr. Zhang, the Superintendent of Huguang, has mobilized all the troops in Huguang. Maybe he will be able to send troops to reinforce us soon!"