Decades after the Chinese Communists successfully ousted their Nationalist Party rivals and radically remolded the political economy of the countryside, an elderly resident of Guangdong's Zhongshan municipality recounted the onerous burden of taxes imposed under Nationalist rule. In addition to the twenty-six types of taxes exacted from residents by central state authorities, and the twenty excises collected by the provincial administration, he recalled that the local tax office levied fourteen taxes, including a commodity tax imposed on human excrement.