Zhu Yunying was a diligent emperor, but whether he was a good emperor is hard to say; that's for posterity to judge. Right now, he has no time for such matters, and he doesn't have much left for posterity to judge.

Sitting on the dragon throne, Zhu Yunying watched the civil and military officials report on various matters, and he was already aware of many of them.

At this moment, Yu Xin stepped forward. As the Minister of Revenue, he still wielded considerable power, and he was indeed a key figure in the Ming Dynasty. As for whether he was a confidant of Zhu Yunying, that was no longer important. After all, Zhu Yunying was now the emperor, and all the civil and military officials were his subjects. He no longer needed to cultivate a faction like he did during the reign of the crown prince.

"Your Majesty, the court has been opening up trade routes frequently, allowing merchants to transport grain and provisions to the border," Yu Xin reported at this time, his expression serious. "Now that the court is stable and border conflicts are almost nonexistent, I request that the trade routes be abolished!"

The "open market" method was a system implemented by the imperial court that used salt and tea as intermediaries to recruit merchants to transport military supplies such as grain and horses. This was also necessary in the early days of the Ming Dynasty when the border regions urgently needed military provisions, and merchants were the only option for these tasks.

It can be divided into three steps: reporting the central point, guarding the branch, and market trading.

The term "reporting" refers to salt merchants transporting grain to designated granaries in border areas in accordance with the Ming government's recruitment notices, and exchanging it for salt permits from the government; "guarding the salt permits" refers to salt merchants waiting at designated salt fields after obtaining the permits; and "market trading" refers to salt merchants transporting the obtained salt to designated areas for sale.

These measures did indeed provide considerable assistance to the Ming Dynasty, resulting in relatively ample grain reserves on its borders. However, some problems have also arisen. For instance, some members of the imperial family, nobles, and civil and military officials, seeing the potential profits in salt permits, have petitioned for them, subsequently reselling them to salt merchants for personal gain.

These actions not only disrupted the opening of the market, but more importantly, they severely impacted the imperial court's fiscal revenue.

As soon as Yu Xin finished his report, the court officials began to discuss the matter. The reform of the imperial examination system was a matter of great importance, influencing the course of the court and affecting all civil and military officials.

"Lord Sun Yat-sen, you must not leave the Central Plains!"

"Lord Zhongshan, not one of these scholars is any good! The war just ended, and they're already plotting against our military merits!"

Xu Huizu, who was granted the title of Duke of Zhongshan, was immediately surrounded by a number of military officers, all of whom were indignant at the same thing. They were all quite agitated about the removal of the Sino-French alliance.

Putting aside the fact that those military officers generally hold military power, if the border troops are short of supplies, it will naturally affect the court's military strength. Although they may know that the Open Market Law will have some impact on the court's tax revenue, they can't care about that. Maintaining the Ming Dynasty's military strength is what they care about.

Moreover, many military officers actually profited from the Grain Supply Program, as they held military power. Under such policies, they cultivated "front men" to transport grain to the border and exchange it for salt permits; some clever military officers had already learned this trick.

Although they have a salary and their own fiefdom, who would complain about having too much gold and silver? There's no harm in earning more.

Moreover, many military officers were also quick to fall into depravity. They were not stingy with bloodshed and sacrifice on the battlefield, but in times of peace, they all knew how to enjoy life to the fullest. Those landlords, wealthy landowners, or learned civil officials dared not compete with the military officers in terms of wealth and status.

As a leading figure in military achievements, Xu Huizu's status was naturally exceptionally special and transcendent. His influence was so great that it had a significant impact on the formulation of some court policies.

Xu Huizu, who was at the head of the military merit platoon, didn't hold back and scolded in a low voice, "Back to your platoon! What kind of behavior is this, making such a racket!"

Guo Ying seemed to realize something at this moment, stroking his white beard and saying, "Are you all so impatient?! Go back now, don't let those scholars laugh at us!"

Xu Huizu was the most meritorious military officer, so his words naturally carried a lot of weight. Guo Ying, the Marquis of Wuding, was originally a confidant of Zhu Yuanzhang, and now he was also related to Zhu Yuanzhang by marriage, so his words also carried some weight.

The main concern is that we are currently in the imperial court, where many censors are also keeping a close watch, recording matters such as misconduct during the morning court session.

Looking at it now, although the civil officials were also discussing it, they weren't as unruly as the military officials. At least they restrained themselves a bit, while the military officials gradually started to swarm around, and they really were a bit unruly.

Sitting on the dragon throne, Zhu Yunying naturally witnessed all of this and indeed felt that many of the military officers were somewhat unruly. However, such things were quite normal; many military officers were inherently rough men, and there were still quite a few military officers in the court who had fought alongside Zhu Yunying to establish the empire.

Originally, they were mostly from humble backgrounds, or their education hadn't kept up. So it's normal that it takes three generations for nobles to emerge. They haven't even fully learned the rules and regulations of martial arts yet, so it would be strange to expect them all to be well-behaved.

Xu Huizu glanced cautiously at Zhu Yunying on the dragon throne, but remained silent, choosing to hold back. He had not yet figured out His Majesty's attitude.

Having already received some reminders from the Empress, Xu Huizu naturally knew what he should do at this time; he didn't want to jeopardize His Majesty's important affairs.

Zhu Yunying was somewhat surprised. He had originally wanted to find a suitable opportunity to bring up the land reform issue, but he didn't expect Yu Xin to jump out.

Of course, what Yu Xin said, while seemingly unrelated to land reform, was actually somewhat related to taxation. These were, in fact, Yu Xin's duties; as the Minister of Revenue, these matters were naturally within his purview.

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