Daming: At the start of the showdown, Lao Zhu was stunned

Chapter 31
A few days later, Fengtian Temple.

Today is Wangri, which is the day of "Shuo Wang Chang Chao" set by Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang.As the morning bell rang, all civil and military officials wore official uniforms, divided into two shifts, and entered in order.

Zhu Yuanzhang is dressed in a leather uniform and sits on a high dragon chair in the north.After the ministers took their positions under the steps of Dan Chi, they were led by Yinban to stand to the north, and then they all bowed and sang salutes: "Your Majesty, all blessings!"

"Pingshen!" The eunuch sang the answer for the emperor.So all the officials thanked Shang En together again, and then turned around, and the civil and military classes were separated, and the two classes faced each other.The scene was orderly and solemn.

Lao Zhu was actually very tired.These days, I spent a few days with Mr. Li and Liu. Both gentlemen are the top wise men in the world. He is also a generation of heroes.

However, facing the chaotic situation after more than two hundred years, he couldn't think of any immediate solution.

But he also found the crux of the problem: the two "curses" mentioned by the fifth child, one is land annexation and the other is natural disasters. To put it bluntly, they actually point to the same problem: lack of food!

Landlords and gentry annexed land → common people lost their land and could not support themselves → lack of food
Natural disasters occur frequently, temperature drops → fertile fields reduce production or even fail to harvest → food shortage
As long as the food is sufficient and the common people have a mouthful of food to eat, no amount of chaos can be suppressed!
Lao Zhu himself was born as a farmer, so he knows the obsession of the people on this land for food: as long as they are given a piece of land, they can grow food, and they are the most simple and good people.

Even if they are exposed to the sun and the wind every day, and they go out early and return late, they are happy with it.

Not planting land for them, forcing them to have no food to eat...

I'm sorry, what good people?
The princes and generals are so kind!

Therefore, knowing that his descendants will be short of food in the future, Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born as an old farmer, first reacted to hoard food!As much as you can stockpile, it is best to leave a big granary for your children and grandchildren that will not be exhausted in 1000 or 1 years!

However, no matter how many ways they tried, they still couldn't think of a way to make the world grow hundreds of millions of fertile fields and fill the world with food in an instant: the land policy in the early Ming Dynasty was already very complete.As early as a few years ago, Liu, Li, and Zhu Yuanzhang combined the farming methods of the past dynasties and came up with policies that suit the current situation.

At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Lao Zhu established that "those who take the fields and houses under the authority belong to the owners".At that time, a large number of landlords attached to the Yuan court were wiped out, and many landlords were destroyed and migrated due to the war.The land left by them, which has been plowed by the peasants, is directly assigned to the peasants.Lao Zhu also exempted the three-year tax and labor, and even never quit the school as a bait to encourage farmers to vigorously reclaim wasteland.

In the third year of Hongwu, he also ordered that the wasteland in the suburbs of northern counties be allocated to the people for cultivation. In the south, there are also similar regulations, such as Taicang, Suzhou Prefecture, which "sees Ding to grant [-] mu of land".In fact, this also changed the situation of over-concentration of land in the late Yuan Dynasty, so that the land ownership system was replaced by the scattered management of the vast number of self-cultivating farmers.

These measures have greatly restored the situation that the land of China had been abandoned during the day due to the war, and added countless arable land to the Ming Court.It made "the mountains and plains gradually populated." Compared with other dynasties in history when they founded the country, it has already done an excellent job.

But how can the current Lao Zhu be satisfied with this?The climate will get colder and colder, and the small glaciers will last for nearly 300 years.His people will rise up in the future.In the future, his descendants would lower their heads like he did when he was in his infancy, begging for alms from the ministers, but only received a humiliating 12!
How could Lao Zhu not be in a hurry?Time is waiting!
But no matter how anxious he is, he can't think of any other way to make this land grow more food.

As for restricting land annexation... The current Ming Dynasty has suffered from wars at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and there are many lands and few lands.

Not to mention the merger of the land, there is still so much wasteland, why bother to grab the land of the poor haha ​​farmers.

Who wants to waste that effort?
This made Lao Zhu feel like "drawing his sword and looking around at a loss": the land annexation has not yet appeared at all, so where should he attack it?

After working hard for several days, I could only barely come up with some trivial statements.In addition, there are still many memorials on weekdays, and he doesn't want to make a backlog, lest he miss some important events of his family and country.

Therefore, we can only negotiate the papers during the day, and stay up late at night to correct the papers, which is a bit more work.

It just so happens that today is the Wangri Dynasty, and it is just to make those newly drafted articles public to the public so that they can be passed on to future generations.

Although thinking about it, it will only scratch the surface, but doing it is better than not doing it well, and it is better than nothing.

Seeing that all the ministers in the ranks had nothing important to report, Zhu Yuanzhang first rubbed the center of his brows, lifted his spirits, and then said:

"Since the ministers have nothing to report, we have an important matter here, which I want to discuss with you."

"At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, we followed the old rules of the previous dynasties, and established state officials, nobles, etc., and exempted them from service."

"We've thought about it these days and think it's not right."

"There are countless battles in one place. If the officials and the family of Zanying are exempted from the rations, they will inevitably be apportioned to the common people."

"If officials abuse the government's favorable policies in the future and wantonly accept donations from the villagers, the villagers will be short-sighted and don't know the harm. They will donate the land to the big households just to avoid the immediate tax and labor."

"Then those honest people who have never contributed have increased corvee out of thin air?"

As soon as these words came out, among the hundreds of officials, some people's expressions became unnatural.

Most of these people are from the south of the Yangtze River.There are many ethnic groups in the south of the Yangtze River, and there is less wasteland than in the north.They had originally planned to wait until those vacant fertile lands were almost exhausted, and then use this privilege to find more familiar land for the family to come back!

I didn't expect that today, the emperor would say it out!
"More." Lao Zhu continued. "If there are shameless people who use their power for personal gain, turn their faces and deny people after a period of time after gaining the people's land, wouldn't the people become refugees without land and property?"

"And those who accept donations can repeat the old tricks and annex the land. Over time, it will become a big cancer that harms the people."

"Therefore, we decided to abolish this discount!"

As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar among the officials, all the officials and workers couldn't help whispering, many people's faces turned pale and looked sad.

"His Majesty."

Wang Guangyang, who was Zuo Cheng at the time, immediately went out to play and said: "I think it is impossible!"

Old Zhu's eyes were fixed, "Why?"

"Exempting them from service is one of the great good governance of the country. We built it in the early Ming Dynasty, which is the time to treat scholars well and make them effective."

"Being an official is a lot of hard work. How can I be taxed? With this policy, I can show the value of a scholar as an official, and I can make the people of the Ming Dynasty yearn for the sages and sages, so that I can maintain the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty!"

"It can also make scholars all over the world be grateful to His Majesty forever!"

Wang Guangyang patted his ass by the way, and then he could not bow for a long time, and only secretly observed Lao Zhu's face from the corner of his eye.

"Oh?"

There was neither happiness nor sadness on Lao Zhu's face, and there was no change at all.He just asked: "Then, how can you guarantee that you officials will not lose your conscience and not embezzle the people's land?"

"I think that it is enough to pay attention to the imperial examination and select truly talented scholars to be officials." Wang Guangyang talked eloquently. "Scholars who have read poetry and books for a long time will naturally know the monarch, minister and minister, propriety, righteousness and shame, so they will not do such things that damage Ming Dynasty."

Among the hundred officials, many could not help but nod their heads.As expected of Wang Xiang, he is really a veteran who seeks the country!

"Heh." Zhu Yuanzhang looked coldly at all the ministers, and couldn't help sneering.What kind of scholar, what kind of monarch, minister, courtesy, righteousness and shame.

Instead of believing that all these scholars know about propriety, righteousness and shame, it is better to believe that a certain descendant of the Zhu family will help the Tartars open the frontier and close it in the future!

He didn't forget what Zhu Su said about those officials in the Chongzhen Dynasty who couldn't ring the bell and embezzled 7000 million yuan, and Qian Qianyi who "the water is too cold and his scalp itches".

Then Qian Qianyi is still the leader of the Donglin Party known for his "loyalty" and "virtuous virtue"!
"But all the ministers misunderstood me." Chongzhen's sad voice full of resentment before his death echoed in the mind of his ancestor!
How could Zhu Yuanzhang forget the lessons of the blood of future generations?

He will never entrust the life and death of the country to these scholars!

(End of this chapter)