The role of the institutional reform of the Kaienji Department is still very obvious. Because of this change, the scholars who are interested in entering the official career have increased their attention to strategy theory a lot. You should know that in the past, although the imperial examination was divided into two aspects: Mingjing and Policy theory, the Mingjing subjects that determine the scores of candidates were still Mingjing subjects, namely the Four Books and Five Classics and Eight Essays. However, with this exception, the candidates dare not be as sure as before. If they follow this in the autumn examination and future scientific examinations, they may not be able to get good results by relying so many people have also changed their strategies.

This is exactly what Tang Feng hopes to see. The strength of a country actually depends on the power of elites. At this time of the Ming Dynasty, scholars were elites, and those who could be ranked on the list in the imperial examination were even more elites. If these people could really go further in their knowledge and not be trapped by books like the Four Books and Five Classics, it would not be difficult for the Ming Dynasty to develop further.[]

Most of the more than 100 Jinshi selected in the Qiuwei Institute were talents that satisfies Tang Feng. In addition to their excellent grades in the Mingjing exam, they also had great skills in governing the country and becoming officials. Generally speaking, these newly promoted Jinshi could not be awarded real-time officials immediately. They may be placed in the Hanlin Academy to continue their studies, or return to their hometowns to wait, and wait until there is a vacancy, they will be appointed to the office as officials. However, this time, Tang Feng was very different from usual, and appointed these people, together with the scholars who were among the top in the previous Encausin exam, to Shaanxi and other places as officials.

This is also caused by the current situation in the Ming Dynasty officialdom. Although many years have passed, the yamen in Shaanxi and other places have not yet been fully paid. On the one hand, many people do not want to go to the poverty-stricken place, and on the other hand, the court cannot find suitable candidates for the time being, so they can only order local officials to hold several positions. Now there are new Jinshi who have a theoretical basis for governing the people, so Tang Feng naturally will not let them go back. It just so happens that these very dilapidated places are used to verify the abilities of these people.

From these hundreds of people, Tang Feng selected fifty-six outstanding achievements and arranged various positions such as county magistrates and county magistrates for them, all of whom were real officials. On the day of his tenure, Duke An Guo, who was busy with all kinds of trouble, also took the time to meet them in person. One was to cheer them up, and the other was also a reminder.

Seeing the sudden appearance of the Duke in a python suit really flattered these new Jinshi. Although many of them were still worried about Tang Feng's changes in the imperial examination before, when they had become officials of the Ming Dynasty, they were only grateful in their hearts, and naturally they respected great people like Tang Feng.

Seeing that everyone was nervous when they saw him coming, Tang Feng smiled: "Everyone, if you talk about it carefully, you should call me senior, so there is no need to be too polite here." He refers to his identity as a Jinshi. Although this has nothing to do with him now, it also revitalizes the atmosphere well.

Seeing that the Duke was so kind, the nervous look on his face disappeared. They smiled and said, and some people called Tang Feng a senior according to his words. Seeing that everyone was a little relaxed, Tang Feng continued: "But the regulations of the court cannot be ignored. This time, I strongly advocated that you go to other places as new Jinshi, but do you know what it is for?"

Everyone was a little puzzled about this, so they looked at Tang Feng and waited for his explanation. Tang Feng smiled and said, "Just because in my heart, you will become the pillars of the future of the Ming Dynasty. This time, you will be the county magistrate and other officials. I just want to try your skills. If you can achieve success in these official positions, you will definitely take revenge after returning to the capital in the future. But..." He paused and glanced at the young faces with excitement and expectant eyes and said, "If you become an official, not only do nothing but make any mistakes, my country will never show mercy. I will not be able to show your mercy because you are the ones I value."

"We'll write it down!" The young officials nodded repeatedly. They were all full of confidence, believing that with more than ten years of knowledge, they would definitely achieve something in their post.

"Okay, I will wait and see. Three years later, my Duke hopes that all of you have achieved success. I want to tell you another thing, although the chaos that year has passed, in Shaanxi, the people are still very wary of officials. When you go there, you must not only manage the place well, but also grasp a certain degree. You must not make the local people dissatisfied with the court again. Otherwise, in less than three years, I will ask the court to remove your position." This vaccination must be given, otherwise Tang Feng would be afraid that these people will be too arrogant and the situation in those places will be even more unbearable.

Although there are not many people from Shaanxi provinces among these dozens of people, they also know the chaos at that time. With Tang Feng's reminder, they naturally dare not be careless and quickly said: "We will definitely live up to the high expectations of the court and the Duke. We will definitely manage the territorial areas in office well so that the people there will know the benefits of the court again!"

"It's so great. OK, I won't say much about other Dukes. I have ordered people to prepare some wine and food for you in the hall next to you. I'll just treat it as a farewell to you and wish you all success. Please!"

After sending away all the people he values, Tang Feng continued his own reforms. With the successful experience of the previous series of reforms, Tang Feng became much more familiar with the original system of the Ming Dynasty. With the opening of the maritime ban and the development of business, the status of merchants was naturally improved, and in this way, the original tax rate of 30 taxes is naturally no longer suitable for development. Tang Feng issued a new commercial tax rate in the autumn and winter of the fourth year of Zhengyuan, reaching the height of 15 taxes.

Although the merchants have to pay more money to the court, because business has developed greatly in recent years, the profits earned by merchants far exceed those of the past, which makes them affordable. In addition, the increase in tax revenue also symbolizes the improvement of the status of merchants. It turns out that it is precisely because of their humility that Zhu Yuanzhang set a low tax rate. In this way, many big merchants not only did not object to this change, but instead expressed their approval with both hands.

Although some stubborn forces in the people still have a lot of opinions and complaints about this, these voices can no longer change the occurrence of this. Moreover, in general, those who are famous locally have a businessman background or have some connection with the businessman. For their own interests, they will naturally try their best to make a difference, and those who oppose it will not be possible to make a difference. This is just as Tang Feng hoped at the beginning, when more people are tied to their own interests, the inherent conservative thoughts will not prevent the arrival of change.

In addition to merchants and commercial taxation, Tang Feng also investigated the fundamental stability of the Ming Dynasty, the officers and soldiers of the garrison station. Over the past hundred years, the number of officers and soldiers of the garrison stations in various provinces has dropped sharply, and even if the remaining ones are mostly old and weak, this is the key to the successful rebellion of the gangsters like Li Zicheng. If it were the strength of the Ming army in the early Ming Dynasty, even if there were natural disasters, it would not be possible for these clowns to have a day of success.

Although Tang Feng knew about this problem before, he temporarily endured it because he had more important things to deal with and did not want to fight on both sides. But now the officials in the court have been subdued, and many people have been sent to accumulate experience, laying the foundation for the continuation of future policies. He can finally free up his hands to deal with this matter.

During this period, Tang Feng did not ignore the ills of this garrison. He had already secretly asked the spies of the Jinyiwei to conduct a secret investigation of hundreds of garrisons across the country. Now that the evidence is complete, it is time to settle the accounts after autumn. A series of garrison orders and imperial edicts were continuously sent out from the center of the Ming Dynasty, and the action to rectify the garrison began.

Tang Feng knew that in comparison, the style of the government army in the north was stronger than that in the south, so this time he was difficult and then easy, and he first attacked the two provinces in the south. Because there was no Japanese pirate disaster during the Jiajing period, the troops in the two provinces were no longer too many. In addition, the occupation of land by some generals caused the government army to escape. The troops in these two provinces were less than two, which was the best target for the operation.

However, in order to prevent the generals of these two provinces from taking risks when they see the situation is not good and doing something that makes the local chaos, Tang Feng also ordered people to issue orders to the Nanjing garrison to send troops at any time to prevent accidents. After all, Nanjing is not as big as other provinces, prefectures and counties, and no one dares to falsely report the number of its garrison troops, so with the suppression of the troops there, the officials and troops of the garrisons in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces would not cause too much damage even if they really cause trouble.

Sure enough, after seeing the imperial court's orders, the local officers and generals were a little panicked. Although some of the bravest people wanted to do something, they were immediately intimidated by the army eyeing them in Nanjing. These people were found to be embezzled more than tens of thousands of taels of silver, so the court naturally would not let these people go. They were quickly escorted to the capital, and the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of War jointly convicted them.

As the garrisons in several southern provinces were rectified, the court's focus was placed on the north. At this time, the generals of the garrisons had already learned about this matter, and they quickly began to recruit troops, hoping to cover up everything before the court found out the exact evidence.

They obviously underestimated the ability of the court. Long before they started attacking them, the court had already obtained their evidence of their crimes through the spies of the Jinyiwei. Now they just want to find some people to fill in the number of troops, which is completely a kind of act of stealing the bell. The officials who were ordered to come to the court to inspect showed the flaws after investigation.

With conclusive evidence, these generals naturally could not make any more quibbling. In order to prevent them from jumping into the wall, all the soldiers and horses in important cities such as Liaodong were on the side. Not to mention that most of the generals had no intention of rebelling, even if they had, they could only give up this kind of thinking. You should know that there seemed to be a large number of people in their hands, but the actual number was a big shortage. Some of them were newly recruited, so how could they be the enemy of elite soldiers who had been through the battlefield for a long time? Moreover, the families of these generals were still under the control of the court, and the only thing they could do was to surrender.

So soon, nearly half of the generals from hundreds of garrisons in the north and south were escorted back to the capital and heard the conviction.

However, Tang Feng did not start a big killing this time. He knew very well that the disadvantages of today were actually that have existed for a hundred years. It is really no wonder that the generals were. However, the military discipline must be serious and the later generations must be alerted. Only in this way can the combat power of the Ming army be improved. Therefore, he made a relatively safe way to deal with it. Except for the most serious people and those who still had ill-hearted intentions after the incident, the others were just removed from all positions and sent back to their hometowns to be ordinary people. Of course, a few people also killed, and those who focused on propaganda were typical to give an explanation to the exploited soldiers.

After doing this, the court issued another clear text to recruit soldiers from the people to defend their country. This time, the military household registration system was no longer implemented when Zhu Yuanzhang was used, but instead it was changed to a recruitment system. Not only could the soldiers leave the army at any time, but the army could even send soldiers away due to the differences in the quality of the soldiers. Of course, the treatment of soldiers is much higher than before. In addition to sufficient land, there is also a considerable military salary available, which is enough to make ordinary people excited.

In fact, this recruitment system was quietly popular during the Jiajing period. At that time, in order to deal with Japanese pirates, Qi Jiguang and other famous generals recruited their own troops from the southeastern provinces. This was much stronger than the combat power of the military officers at that time. The Japanese pirates were driven overseas and had to protect peace in the southeastern region. However, the court would not admit this at all, so soon these troops named "a certain army" eventually disappeared.

However, because the quality of the soldiers obtained by the soldiers was far higher than that of the military household registration system of the son and father, this was still inherited by those who were interested, such as the previous Liaodong Army. Sun Chengzong had understood this level at the beginning, so he recruited local young and strong soldiers in Liaodong to form Liaodong elite soldiers, and had been guarding the country's gate for many years.

This point is very clear, whether it is Tang Feng's modern thinking or the guidance he received when he followed Sun Chengzong to study. So when he reformed the army this time, he pushed it out without hesitation.

People with insight in the army understand the inappropriateness of the military household system, so although there are some complaints, there is not much resistance. After the end of the spring of the following year, this new military system was promoted and was pursued by all provincial garrisons.

The premise of having the freedom to enter and exit the army, and the income from joining the army is much richer than before, which makes the people who have an opinion on the army feel at ease to let their men become soldiers. Moreover, all the foreign enemies of the Ming Dynasty have been eliminated, and the risk factor for joining the army has been greatly reduced. Naturally, the people are not afraid of their children getting into the army because of joining the army. However, there are still many people with prejudice, and there are almost no children joining the army in some wealthy places, which is also a bit of a headache.

Tang Feng was able to grasp these situations through various channels. He knew that it was not easy to reverse the views of the Ming people on the army for more than a hundred years. It was already very rare to make them less resistant. So he stopped pulling out seedlings and just waited to use time to make this system completely accepted by the people of the world.

While solving military problems, Tang Feng's attention was also on a bigger thing - agriculture. China has always regarded itself as an agricultural power, and in the earlier Ming Dynasty, more than 80% of the people were farmers, and nothing was more important than giving farmers benefits.

Although the planting of some new crops introduced from the coastal areas in the southeast was very optimistic in the Central Plains, due to deep-rooted ideas, these new crops have not been trusted by the people. Their ancestors have made a living by planting grains for generations. Now, these crops that have never been seen have suddenly emerged. How can the people plant them with confidence? So although the seeds of these crops have been spread throughout the Central Plains, in fact, they are only a few.

Tang Feng also understood the conservative ideas of the people, but he knew more clearly that in order to make breakthroughs in grain production, he had to plant these new crops on the same large scale. But he was not able to use tough means to order the people to do what they said, so he could only use some tactful methods.

Fortunately, with the opening of the sea ban and the prosperity of commerce, the Ming Dynasty's treasury was sufficient, so Tang Feng made a decision. He asked all local government officials to pass on the word that as long as there were those who were willing to try to grow new crops such as corn and sweet potatoes, the government would provide them with enough silver and grain needed for a year, and would also reduce some of the taxes accordingly.

As a result, the interest of the people in various places has greatly increased. Since the government can bear everything and pay less taxes, many of the people are brave enough to try. They have obtained seeds of corn and other crops from the government and signed documents. In this way, agricultural reforms have begun.

Perhaps God also wanted to promote Tang Feng's reform to be successful. It didn't rain a few times this year, but the weather was very cold, which caused the original crops to be poorly harvested. However, the sweet potatoes and other products that were very easy to feed were not affected, and the yield was far higher than that of wheat and other grains in normal times.

This time, the two crops with sharp contrasts naturally gave the people an objective understanding. The following year, without the government's publicity, most of the people consciously chose new crops, and the court's guarantee was not yet available.
Chapter completed!