After the cooperation in the past to deal with the cool officials, the political situation in the court that let go of the contradictions between each other and the harmony immediately fell apart, and Wu Chengsi and Wu Sansi brothers and Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong brothers united and scolded Wei Xi!

Everyone had a quarrel because of the uneven distribution of pork, for the vacated position of prime minister and local official Shangshu (household department) vacated by Guo Zhiju!

His recommendation before leaving, Wei Xi's sponsorship, was succeeded by Lou Shide of the Western Military System, who thought that Lou Jiu was in charge of logistics, proficient in business, and must be competent.

As a result, this proposal was recognized by the samurai brothers as important to the household and not to be in the hands of the family for a long time.

Du Xianyan, who was recommended by the Zhang brothers, moved to the left to become the prime minister, and concurrently served as the official Shangshu, which was strongly approved by the Wu brothers.

As for Li Dan, this guy has never been indisputable, and his decision is to be the eighth king of ten thousand years... Kill his mother!

Wei Xi couldn't fight the two forces alone, so Wu Zetian issued an edict, and Du Xunyan took over Guo Beiju's position, and the Zhang brothers won a complete victory, and they looked at Wei Xi with smug and provocative eyes.

The household department changed its master, which led to a large loss of officials, one of the squires returned to his hometown, and the other squire invited himself out of the customs and went to the shogunate of Princess Taiping, and a group of familiar officials also ran away with him.

Du Xianyan didn't think so, but thought that it was a good walk, which was convenient for him to install people.

Soon after taking office, he began to implement the will of the Zhang brothers: raise taxes!

Guo Beiju was in charge of the household department, and was seriously influenced by Wei Xi, and implemented the policy of "releasing water to raise fish" in the Guannai, and actively cultivated industry and commerce, and the tax rate was not high. (In contrast, the taxes outside the customs are higher, after all, Wei Xi needs military expenses to go to war).

By the time Du Xianyan came to power, the tax rate had generally doubled, and the tax rate was even higher than 50 percent for Wei Xi's monopoly industries such as wine, soap, glass, steel, and cotton!

Then there is an increase in the types of taxes, including taxes, salt taxes, stamp duties, wine taxes, cocoon taxes, tea taxes, sugar taxes, production taxes, mining taxes, tooth taxes, pawn taxes, steel taxes, land taxes, house taxes, livestock taxes, slaughter taxes, grain taxes, grain taxes, and deed taxes.

There are many types, and it is also clearly stipulated: 5% to 15% of the tax is charged for the transit of goods in Yumen Pass, and there is also a poll tax, which is taxed regardless of entering and exiting the customs. ”

In the past, Guo Zhiju was in charge of the household department, and every year he played the military expenses of 200,000 soldiers allocated by Wu Zetian to Wei Xi, and changed the name, and obtained a large number of "special funds" (special appropriations) from the imperial court, such as "the cost of drilling wells and water diversion for the people of the Western Regions", "the cost of transportation and construction in the Western Regions", "the maternity and infant health hospital in the Western Regions", etc., which were sent to the account of Princess Taiping and used by her to promote the holy grace of the imperial court.

But since the beginning of this year, after the military expenditure of 100,000 soldiers was issued in the first half of the year, the second half of the year is the second half of the temple people... Gone!

The special funds have also been suspended, and the Ministry of Households has stated that because of the country's financial difficulties, it will be strictly reviewed in the future, in other words, it is gone!

The country's financial difficulties?!

The silver mines of the overseas Japanese have always had a stable income, and Shandong Gold has produced a lot of gold after Xu Yougong's rectification, and more gold has been mined in the previously concealed mining areas.

The most powerful thing is taxation, after the reform of the household system, the tax revenue has increased greatly!

According to the current situation, doubling this year will not be a problem.

Due to the long-term peace, the private economy has developed, and tax revenue has soared.

However, Du Xunyan said that the family has a big business, and she collects and uses a lot, and the aspects of expenditure are: first, Wu Zetian's offerings, wherever she wants, she has to spend money.

For example, the imperial court cast Jiuding and moved it to Tongtian Palace. Yuzhou Ding is one foot eight feet high and can accommodate 1,800 stones; The rest of the states are each one zhang and four feet high, and can hold 1,200 stones; Respectively, the image of the mountains and rivers was cast on the ding, and more than 560,070 catties of copper were shared.

When it was cast, Jiuding was dragged in from the Xuanwu Gate, and Wu Zetian ordered the prime minister and the kings to lead more than 100,000 people from the northern and southern yajane guards and the big bulls and white elephants in the honor guard to drag them into the Tongtian Palace, and Wei Xi also went to make a force.

So much copper, it's all money!

Second, the income of 100 officials has increased by 10 to 50 percent.

In the past, the salaries of the civil and military generals in Xifu (referring to the Taiping Princess Shogunate and Wei Xi's Military Mansion outside the Guan) were very envied by their counterparts in the Guannai, because it was a double salary!

An official in the customs earns 1,000 guan a year, and he has 2,000 guan outside the guan.

You can also make meritorious deeds outside the customs, get bonuses, and have more fields... Farming and development were not a big problem, there were a large number of slaves, and those were the people who had been captured by the defeated countries.

Now Kannai has raised salaries, which has weakened the attractiveness of Kannai.

At the same time, the tax on goods outside the customs will be raised, which will increase their economic pressure.

The two-pronged approach is to improve the dominance of the Guannai.

Third, expand armament warfare!

Wei Xi is unscrupulous, and dares to say "As long as Your Majesty is here, my Western Army will not enter the customs", in fact, he is the biggest thief, and even the cool officials can't move him (the words are said by Wu Chenghe), what does he rely on?

The imperial court has always had a very strict control over the soldiers, and the law has "no emperor orders to transfer more than 10 soldiers without permission for rebellion!" ”

Wei Xi started with military merits, and he had absolutely no chance in Guannei, and he couldn't fight against the imperial court at all.

The people's minds are stable, Li Tang has not lost his morality, and civil and military officials will not follow Wei Xi.

None of his brothers would have followed him at that time!

But he was in the Western Regions, the mountain was high and the emperor was far away, when he had to control the strings with 400,000 cavalry, such as Cao Cao got 300,000 Qingzhou soldiers, those Turks only recognized him and did not recognize the imperial court, and things went off the rails, and he embarked on the road of rebellion.

After that, he went west, got more and more cities, accepted the people, and his power continued to increase, and finally broke away from the control of the imperial court.

Now that the military officials under his command have followed him to the end, they are worried that he will not rebel!

Inflated ambitions grow with an inflated army.

Wei Xi relied on his millions of people to threaten the imperial court,

Only if the military strength of the imperial court is superior to Wei Xi's army, can he be subdued and obedient.

Therefore, the Zhang brothers should reorganize the army and eliminate Wei Xi's influence!

The point in reorganizing the army is on cavalry, the key is on strengthening the supply of horses!

Most of the horse farms in ancient China were distributed in the north, from west to east were Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Northeast, Hebei, etc., specifically Qinghai Lake, Hexi Corridor is Lanzhou to Dunhuang and Qilian Mountain, Hetao Plain is Ningxia and Baotou (the Yellow River in Baotou section of Inner Mongolia is also called Yunsu, that is, Yunzhong, Sufang County), North China is south of Yinshan to Datong and along the Great Wall (including Beijing, that is, Youyan area), Northeast is Liaoning.

The main production area of horses in the Tang Dynasty was Longyou, that is, the area around the Hexi Corridor, but the Hexi Corridor was also the base of Wei Xi's family, and his power there was extremely large, and it was difficult for the imperial court to carry out the decrees.

Defeat is him, success is also him, because of his strong combat power, the situation around the Wu Zhou Dynasty is now quite good.

The Hetao Plain and even Monan, Youyan, and Liaodong are emerging horse farms, and the imperial court collects income tax, supports horse politics, and raises a large number of war horses.

There were also steel mills built to build weapons and armor.

The other is the development of gunpowder.

Over the years, no matter how secret Wei Xi is, there are always a lot of technologies leaked out, such as soap and wine, which have been followed by Wu Sansi, but fortunately, the glass is well protected, and the workshop is good in the Western Regions.

In addition, new recruits were trained, and the training methods were all copied from Wei Xi's methods, and four general departments were set up: the General Staff Department, the General Logistics Department, the General Political Department, and the General Armament Department.

Then there are martial arts, military schools, and so on.

The Zhang brothers are ambitious and vigorously engaged in pretensions (it is not feasible without Wu Zetian's nod, Li Dan supports them, after all, he knows that he wants to succeed to the throne, and he must not let his old sister and brother-in-law be so rampant, not to mention the martial brothers, they have long wanted to say goodbye to Wei Xi.