Chapter 246: The huge hidden danger at the root of the Ming Dynasty
With Zhu Ying's order confirmed, dozens of cavalry set off from the capital.
In order to ensure the speed of information dissemination, all personnel this time have specially approved expedited documents and can be passed through the post station.
At Zhu Ying's request, all the news must be disseminated within half a month.
Two days later.
Zhu Yuanzhang came down from the morning court and felt a little tired.
After thinking about it for a while, he went straight to Kunning Palace.
"Well, your eldest grandson, we are working very hard in the court, but you are fishing here, do you still have my grandpa in your eyes?"
As soon as he entered Kunning Palace, Zhu Yuanzhang saw his eldest grandson fishing in the yard with a fishing rod.
On the other side is Li Weiliang of the Hanlin Academy, who is looking at the memorial.
Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang had known about this for a long time, so he came here specially.
"Grandpa, my grandson is enjoying his temperament. People need to combine work and rest to be happy, healthy and live a long life."
Zhu Ying replied with a smile, without any embarrassment at all.
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he was furious and said: "How old are you? You are only eighteen years old. Now you pay attention to health care. We are already sixty or seventy, and we are still working hard."
"We have already told you to go to the morning court with us early, why are you so lazy?"
Zhu Yuanzhang said this, but he walked to sit down next to Dasun very honestly, and then waved to Liu He, who immediately sent him a fishing rod.
The grandfather and grandson started fishing together like this.
"Grandpa, don't worry. Once the grandson's plan is completed, there will be almost nothing to do in keeping Zao Chao Shang. Now judging from the memorial, those things in Zao Chao Shang are just trivial matters the size of sesame seeds and mung beans."
"There are some difficulties, and they are all clichés. If you talk about them, you will find that they still can't be solved."
"When it comes to people's livelihood, it just means money and grain. When it comes to the civil service level, it means officials administering the Qingming Festival."
"In domestic affairs, development must ultimately be given priority."
Zhu Ying began to tell.
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "What Da Sun said is an idea, but how to implement it is the key to the matter. Many things are not as simple as imagined."
"Some officials, but they are not officials, try their best to cause damage. Sometimes, we don't know what they think. We have to be murderous in order to restrain ourselves."
Zhu Ying nodded and replied: "I just want to make more money. Grandpa, don't blame your grandson for not taking care of these things. These things will never be dealt with."
"All my energy is involved in these daily chores, and I have no time to do anything else. My grandson feels that when looking at things, we need to jump out and look at them and solve them from the root."
Zhu Yuanzhang replied angrily: "How can we not know? We are just waiting for the sweet potato crops you sent us to mature."
"As for the things in this world, as long as the problem of food and clothing for the people can be initially solved, other things will be able to get by."
"Fortunately, this year's autumn harvest is pretty good. You haven't seen it. With the arrival of the autumn grain, the people in the household department have become much tougher in their speeches in the court. This makes us feel at ease."
"The two grain harvests every year are very stressful. If there is a large-scale famine, no one will be able to survive."
Hearing this, Zhu Ying agreed and said: "Grandpa is right, but there is still too much land in the hands of the gentry. If things go on like this for a long time, it will not be a good thing."
When it comes to the land issue, Zhu Ying has many sighs.
Land annexation has always been a problem that each dynasty has always needed to deal with, but it has always been unable to deal with it.
No matter how we try to reform or change the law, it can only be said to treat the symptoms rather than the root cause.
As time goes by, new merger methods will emerge.
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard his grandson talking about the core issues of the country, he immediately became interested.
He did not expect that Dasun would actually study this aspect. He even put down the fishing rod in his hand and asked:
"Dasun, tell us if you have any novel ideas about the land."
"Just tell me, don't worry about anything else."
After finishing speaking, he looked around and waved gently.
Liu He, Jiang Wei and the palace maids and officials retired one by one.
When it comes to such national events, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally has to keep it strictly confidential.
After Zhu Ying pondered for a moment, he began to say: "When my grandson was reading history books, he discovered that land is very important to the country, or in other words, to any dynasty."
“Since the rise of civilization in the Central Plains, land has gone through public ownership, state ownership, and private land ownership.”
"Land private ownership has been the mainstream for two thousand years since the Spring and Autumn Period. The biggest problem faced by all dynasties is that land has begun to concentrate in the hands of a few people."
"Towards the end of the dynasty, more and more land was controlled by the gentry. On the other hand, the land of the court and the land of the common people were constantly decreasing, thus creating huge hidden dangers."
When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he nodded in agreement.
At the same time, I was also a little surprised by Da Sun's performance. This story almost started from the beginning of agriculture, which shows that Da Sun naturally studied a lot of history books in this regard.
Most people don't have such a deep understanding.
"We understand what Da Sun means, that is, this problem will gradually appear after the Ming Dynasty."
"Actually, why don't we know this, but there is no better way."
"From the initial well-field system to the equalized land system before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, since Da Sun has understood it, he naturally understands that these phenomena are completely inevitable and cannot be stopped."
Zhu Yuanzhang said with sigh.
When the Ming Dynasty was first established, Zhu Yuanzhang also racked his brains and tried every means on how to distribute land.
At the same time, many scholars were also recruited to make suggestions together.
To this end, we have innovated through the old and taken great pains to combine land management and grassroots management innovations, and implemented the "yellow book of taxes and levies", the "fish scale book" and the Lijia system.
Zhu Yuanzhang was actually dissatisfied with these systems, but he had no other choice.
He also knew the hidden dangers. Over time, when landlords and officials colluded with each other, big problems would also arise.
"Actually, it's not that there is no way. It's just that it's a little too early to say now. We have to wait until sweet potatoes and other crops bloom everywhere in the Ming Dynasty before we can implement it."
Hearing Da Sun's words, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly became interested and asked: "Da Sun, tell me, what do you think?"
Zhu Ying replied: "The reason why many people sold their fields was entirely because of the famine. Those who forcibly occupied the land were not the majority."
"Those squires are not evil people. They are mostly well-known good people. It's just that there was a famine and the people couldn't survive. They sold their sons and daughters and their fields. This made the squires grow bigger and bigger."
"When the harvest starts later, the farm output of these squires will increase several times or dozens of times."
"Isn't that how the powerful people from Jiangnan came over slowly?"
Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but think of his own childhood.
This is so similar to the situation at his home.
Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang's parents had some fertile land and were completely self-sufficient.
There was also a famine, so after Zhu Yuanzhang was born, he could only herd cattle for the landlords.
This situation is all too common.
"How does the grandson think we should deal with the issue of land being continuously annexed by the gentry?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked after thinking for a while.
Zhu Ying replied: "In fact, it is simple to say, that is to restore state ownership of the land. All land in the world is prohibited from being bought and sold, and it is all under the control of the Ming Dynasty."
"In this way, it is naturally impossible for the squire's land to increase again, and it is difficult to hide it. That's why Sun'er said that we must wait until crops such as sweet potatoes are popularized in the Ming Dynasty."
"The system of equalizing land is not advisable, so my grandson thought of a new way of allocating land, which is to divide the land among households."
"The land is divided and the ownership is vested in the government. The land allocated to households only has the right to operate it and cannot be bought or sold."
"According to the classification of the land, taxation is determined in different grades. The person who owns the land will have more production, and the less production will have to be compensated. If there is a natural disaster, the corresponding tax will be exempted."
"In this way, those who work hard will surely gradually become rich, and when they are close to having food and clothing problems, they can also support their children and grandchildren in education and literacy."
What Zhu Ying described is actually the household contract responsibility system of later generations.
This system, after solving the food and clothing problems of most people during the old man's rule, can be replicated in today's Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Ying's words were like opening a skylight for Zhu Yuanzhang, and his vision became clear.
The more I think about it, the more feasible it becomes.
The most important thing is that unlike the current efforts to unite the gentry and landlords, this method unites the people themselves and completely avoids the shortcomings of the equal land system.
It is absolutely possible to develop in the long term.
The most important thing is to completely solve the problem of land annexation from the root.
However, as Da Sun said, this method is not suitable yet and will easily arouse the dissatisfaction of the majority of the landlord class.
Even Zhu Yuanzhang found it difficult to bear it.
Previously, in fact, as far as the landlord class was concerned, Zhu Yuanzhang had already compromised once, and that was Guo Huan's incident in the 18th year of Hongwu.
Guo Huan, the minister of household affairs, and others collaborated with officials in various provinces to cheat and steal official grain.
The amount of food involved was extremely terrifying. For this reason, Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and executed everyone from the six ministers down to the minister.
In order to recover the stolen goods, countless landlords across the country were ransacked and bankrupted. The landlords were so resentful that Zhu Yuanzhang had to execute the interrogator Wu Yong and others to calm the situation.
It was at that time that Zhu Yuanzhang fully understood the influence of the landlords on the Ming Dynasty.
It was also from the 18th year of Hongwu that Zhu Yuanzhang officially stipulated that the Chinese characters used in accounts must consist of 'one, two, and three.'
Change it to "one, two, three."
This method effectively prevented the number from being tampered with, and this method was continued to be used in later generations.
"Dasun, you are ready to be hostile to the squires in the world."
Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smile. He believed that Da Sun would be very cautious in this regard.
Zhu Ying replied: "In today's world, 80% of the people and 20% of the landlords want to completely win this reform. There is only one way."
"That is to rely on poor peasants and farm laborers, unite with middle peasants, restrict rich peasants, and protect small and medium-sized industrial and commercial workers, so as to completely eliminate the landlord class."
Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes lit up and he said: "What a great idea! What a great idea!"
A simple sentence, but it completely determines the route of reform, which means that this matter has a very specific direction.
When implementing this policy, the purpose will be very clear.
"With Da Sun's method, we can truly get close to the root of the problems that have been difficult to deal with for various dynasties and generations for thousands of years. In this way, our Ming Dynasty will not worry about being able to survive forever!"
"What a great grandson we are. Now that I think about it, these actions of the grandson can be said to be one after another, and one after another."
"If we're not wrong, I'm afraid Da Sun has already thought of all these ideas and is waiting to go to Annan to found the country and implement them."
Finally, Zhu Yuanzhang realized something and asked directly.
Zhu Ying nodded slightly and did not deny it.
From the beginning, this was how he planned to govern Annan.
Now, to a large extent, it is just a matter of applying the methods prepared for Annan directly to the current Ming Dynasty.
The only difference is.
Governing Annan requires hands-on work, which will inevitably involve a bloody storm.
It's much easier here in Daming. You only need to understand it with the old man, and everything that follows will become simpler.
...
The southeast coast was under strong attack from Zhu Di and Zhu Fan.
Almost all Japanese pirates in coastal areas, whether they were fake or real, were wiped out.
More Japanese pirates at sea are no longer on the coast of the Ming Dynasty, but are heading towards Tsushima Island and Goryeo to provide support.
Most of the Japanese pirates were defeated, but they also had feelings for the Japanese country.
Small countries seem to need to be more emotionally united, because only in this way can they survive.
With the departure of the Japanese pirates, both Zhu Di and Zhu Fan seemed to have completed their mission.
But now in comparison, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two.
In terms of credit, King Yan Zhu Di deserves a lot more credit.
Zhu Fan didn't care. When he had nothing to do, he went to the beach to fish leisurely.
Zhu Di, on the other hand, looked a little sad.
According to the usual practice, after the matter here comes to an end, he must return to the court.
Zhu Di also had a certain grasp of the capital's news, especially those related to Zhu Ying.
Although the time is somewhat delayed, it is not difficult to see that the capital has now become Zhu Ying's home court.
On Yao Guangxiao's side, Zhu Di also knew the news that Huncheng's national division commanded an army of 150,000 men.
Half of the plan here has been worked out, and now even the person who made the plan is gone, Zhu Di is also very helpless and sad.
"Even if it's reached this point, just go back to Peiping and stay well."
Zhu Di thought helplessly.
At this time, the imperial edict happened to be conveyed.
Zhu Di accepted the decree with some anxiety, but the content of the decree made him ecstatic.
The edict stated that King Zhu Di of Yan and King Zhu Fan of Jin would continue to station troops along the coast and jointly set out to conquer Japan after the spring of next year.
Zhu Di, who saw the contents of the edict, still didn't believe it.
"Is this what my father means, or what that boy Zhu Ying means? Does that boy just look down on me and thinks that I don't pose any threat to him?"
Zhu Di felt a little angry in his heart. In fact, he knew everything about the issue of the vassal king.
If Zhu Ying strictly guarded him, he would think it was normal.
But trusting him like this made him feel unhappy, as if he was not worthy of being regarded as an opponent by Zhu Ying now.