During the Jianzhong era, the military governors of Youbei withheld tax revenue, leaving the imperial treasury empty and the unpaid Shence Army on the brink of mutiny. The court designated Yunzhou as a pilot region for the Two-Tax Law, auditing the hidden lands of aristocratic families to fill the fiscal deficit.
Powerful clans secretly blocked the canal routes and drove up grain prices to obstruct the reforms. Officials charged with surveying land crossed the fields with bows and measuring rods; retired soldiers stood their ground and argued their case; merchants who had long kept their heads down concealed evidence of crimes; and itinerant physicians recorded the harsh realities of life. A struggle over land taxes and the fate of the nation slowly unfolded between the imperial court and the countryside.
