As Zhu Ying's order was confirmed, dozens of riders set out from the capital.

In order to ensure the speed of information dissemination, the personnel on this trip all have specially approved expedited documents to pass through the post station.

At Zhu Ying's request, all the news must be spread within half a month.

Two days later.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt a little tired after the morning court session.

After thinking it over for a while, he went straight to Kunning Palace.

"My dear grandson, I am working so hard in the court, but you are fishing here. Do you still have me as your grandfather in your eyes?"

As soon as he entered Kunning Palace, Zhu Yuanzhang saw his eldest grandson in the yard, fishing with a fishing rod.

On the other side was Li Weiliang from the Hanlin Academy, who was checking memorials.

Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang had known about this for a long time, so he came here specially.

"Grandpa, your grandson is cultivating his sentiments. People need to combine work and rest to be happy, healthy and long-lived."

Zhu Ying replied with a smile, without any embarrassment of being interrupted.

Zhu Yuanzhang was furious when he heard this and said, "How old are you? You are only eighteen years old, and you are already focusing on health preservation. I am already sixty or seventy years old, and I am still working diligently."

"I told you to go to the morning court with us earlier, why are you so lazy?"

Zhu Yuanzhang said this, but his body was honest as he walked to sit next to his eldest grandson, then waved to Liu He, who immediately handed him a fishing rod.

The grandfather and grandson started fishing together.

"Grandpa, don't worry. Once your grandson's plan is completed, there will be almost nothing to do during the morning court session. Judging from the memorials, the things that happened during the morning court session were just trivial matters."

"Some of the difficulties are old news. I've talked about them a lot, but they still can't be solved."

"In terms of people's livelihood, it's just money and food. In terms of civil servants, it's clean government."

"In the end, domestic affairs should still focus on development."

Zhu Ying began to tell the story.

Zhu Yuanzhang said: "What Grandson said is to the point, but how to implement it specifically is the key to the matter. Many things are not as simple as imagined."

"Some officials are not officials at all. They try every possible way to cause trouble. Sometimes, we don't know what they are thinking. They have to make us kill them before they will restrain themselves."

Zhu Ying nodded and replied, "I just want to make more money. Grandpa, don't blame me for not taking care of these things. After all, there is no way to deal with all these things."

"All my energy is involved in these daily trivialities, and I have no time to do anything else. My grandson thinks that when looking at things, I have to step back and solve the problem from the root."

Zhu Yuanzhang replied angrily: "How could we not know? Now we are waiting for the sweet potatoes you sent us to mature."

"As for the things in this world, as long as the people's food and clothing problems can be initially solved, other things will be easy to deal with."

"Fortunately, this year's autumn harvest is pretty good. You didn't see that as the autumn grain arrived, the people in the Ministry of Revenue became more confident in their words in the court. I feel relieved."

"The two harvest times every year are very frightening. If there is a large-scale famine, no one will be able to survive."

Zhu Ying agreed and said, "Grandpa is right, but too much of the land in this world is still in the hands of the gentry. This is not a good thing in the long run."

When it comes to the land issue, Zhu Ying has many regrets.

Land annexation has always been a problem that every dynasty has needed to deal with, but it has never been dealt with.

No matter how we reform or change the law, it can only be said to be a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution.

As time goes by, new forms of mergers will continue to emerge.

When Zhu Yuanzhang heard his eldest grandson talking about the core issue of the country, he immediately became interested.

He didn't expect that his eldest grandson was also interested in this area. He even put down the fishing rod in his hand and asked:

"Grandson, tell us if you have any new ideas about the land."

"Just tell me what you want to say, don't worry about anything else."

After saying this, he looked around and waved gently.

Liu He, Jiang Lin, palace maids and officials withdrew one after another.

When it comes to such national affairs, Zhu Yuanzhang naturally had to keep it strictly confidential.

Zhu Ying paused for a moment and began to speak: "When my grandson was reading history books, he found that land is very important to a country, or to any dynasty."

"Since the rise of the Central Plains civilization, land has gone through public ownership, state ownership, and finally private ownership."

"Private ownership of land has been the mainstream for two thousand years since the Spring and Autumn Period. The biggest problem faced by every dynasty is that land has begun to be concentrated in the hands of a few people."

"As the dynasty progressed, the gentry gained more and more land, while the court and the people's land continued to decrease, thus creating a huge hidden danger."

When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he nodded in agreement.

At the same time, he was a little surprised at Da Sun's performance. The story started almost from the beginning of agriculture, which was enough to show that Da Sun had naturally studied a lot of history books in this regard.

Most people don’t have such a deep understanding.

"We know what Grandson means. This problem will gradually emerge in the future of Ming Dynasty."

"Actually, how come we don't know this? But there is no better way."

"From the initial well-field system to the equal-field system before the Sui and Tang dynasties, since you have learned about it, you naturally understand that this phenomenon is an irresistible trend and cannot be stopped."

Zhu Yuanzhang said with emotion.

When the Ming Dynasty was first established, Zhu Yuanzhang racked his brains and tried every possible way to distribute land.

At the same time, he also recruited many scholars to come up with ideas together.

To this end, the government took great pains to innovate, combining land management with grassroots management innovations, and implemented the "Yellow Book of Taxes and Labor Service", "Fish Scale Book" and Lijia system.

In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang was not satisfied with these systems, but there was nothing he could do.

He also knew the hidden dangers. If things continued in the long run, with collusion between landlords and officials, big problems would also arise.

"In fact, it's not that there is no solution. It's just that it's a little too early now. We have to wait until sweet potatoes and other crops are in full bloom in Ming before we can promote it."

Hearing what his eldest grandson said, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly became interested and asked, "Grandson, tell me what happened."

Zhu Ying replied: "Many people sold their land because of the famine. Those who forcibly seized land were not the majority."

"Those gentry were not bad people. Most of them were well-known good people. It was just that there was a famine and the people could not survive. They sold their children and land, which led to the expansion of the gentry."

"When the harvest begins, the output of these gentry's fields will increase several times, even dozens of times."

"Isn't that how those powerful people in Jiangnan came here slowly?"

Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but think of his childhood.

This is so similar to the situation in his family.

Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang's parents had some good land and were able to be self-sufficient.

There was also a famine, so after Zhu Yuanzhang was born, he could only herd cattle for the landlord.

This situation is all too common.

"What do you think, grandson, should be done about the problem of land being constantly swallowed up by local gentry?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked after thinking for a while.

Zhu Ying replied: "It's actually quite simple to say. It means restoring the state ownership of land. The buying and selling of land in the world is prohibited and all land will be controlled by the Ming Dynasty."

"In this way, the land of the gentry will naturally not increase again, and it will be difficult to conceal it. That's why my grandson said that we must wait until crops such as sweet potatoes become popular in the Ming Dynasty before we can do this."

"The equal-field system is not feasible, so my grandson came up with a new way to distribute land, which is to distribute the land to each household."

"The land will be divided up, and the ownership will belong to the government. The land allocated to households will only have the right to operate, and cannot be bought or sold."

"According to the classification of land, different levels of taxation are set. The landowners will keep the excess production for themselves, and those who produce less will have to make up for the deficit. If there is a natural disaster, the corresponding taxation can be exempted."

"In this way, all hardworking people will gradually become wealthy, and after they have enough food and clothing, they can also support their children and grandchildren to study and learn to read."

What Zhu Ying described is actually the household contract responsibility system of later generations.

This system, which was in place during the old man's reign and solved the problem of food and clothing for most people, can be completely replicated in the Ming Dynasty today.

Zhu Ying's words were like opening a window of opportunity for Zhu Yuanzhang, making his vision clearer.

The more I think about it, the more feasible it seems.

Most importantly, unlike the current method of uniting the gentry and landlords, this method unites the people themselves and completely avoids the drawbacks of the equal-field system.

It is entirely possible to develop for a long time.

The most important thing is that the problem of land annexation has been completely solved from the root.

However, as Da Sun said, this method is not very suitable now and will easily cause dissatisfaction among the majority of the landlord class.

Even Zhu Yuanzhang found it difficult to bear.

In fact, before this, Zhu Yuanzhang had already compromised once as far as the landlord class was concerned, and that was the Guo Huan case that occurred in the 18th year of Hongwu.

The Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue Guo Huan and others colluded with officials from various provinces to cheat and steal and sell government grain.

The amount of grain involved was extremely terrifying. For this reason, Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and executed all the ministers below the left and right of the six ministries.

In order to recover the stolen goods, countless landlords from all over the country were implicated and their properties were confiscated and they went bankrupt. The resentment of the landlords was so deep that Zhu Yuanzhang had to execute the judge Wu Yong and others to appease the resentment.

It was at that time that Zhu Yuanzhang fully understood the influence of the lords on the Ming Dynasty.

It was also from the 18th year of Hongwu that Zhu Yuanzhang formally stipulated that the Chinese characters used in accounts must be "one, two, three."

Change it to "One, Two, Three."

This method effectively avoids the falsification of numbers and has been used until later generations.

"Grandson, are you ready to be hostile to all the gentry in the world?"

Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smile. He believed that his eldest grandson would be very cautious in this regard.

Zhu Ying replied: "In this Ming Dynasty, 80% of the people are ordinary people and 20% are landlords. If we want to completely win the victory of this reform, there is only one way."

"That is to rely on the poor peasants and hired farmers, unite the middle peasants, restrict the rich peasants, protect small and medium-sized industrialists and businessmen, and thus completely eliminate the landlord class."

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes lit up and he said, "What a good idea! What a good idea!"

This simple sentence completely determined the direction of reform, which means that this matter now has a very specific direction.

In implementing this policy, the purpose will be very clear.

"With your great grandson's method, we can truly get to the root of the problem that has been difficult for all dynasties to deal with for nearly a thousand years. In this way, there is no need to worry about our Ming Dynasty not lasting for thousands of years!"

"You are truly our good grandson. Now that I think about it, all of his actions are linked one after another."

"If I'm not mistaken, Da Sun has probably already thought of all these ideas, and is just waiting to go to Annan to establish a country and implement them."

Finally, Zhu Yuanzhang realized something and asked directly.

Zhu Ying nodded slightly without denying it.

At the beginning, he planned to govern Annan in this way.

To a large extent now, it is just a matter of applying the methods once prepared for Annan directly to the current Ming Dynasty.

The only difference is.

Governing Annan requires personal efforts, and it is bound to be bloody.

It is much easier here in Daming. You just need to explain it to the old man, and everything will become simple afterwards.

…

On the southeastern coast, under the powerful attacks of Zhu Di and Zhu Gang.

The Japanese pirates in the coastal areas, whether real or fake, were almost completely wiped out.

More Japanese pirates at sea are no longer staying along the coast of the Ming Dynasty, but are heading towards Tsushima Island and Goryeo to provide support.

Most of the Japanese pirates were defeated in the war, but they also had feelings for Japan.

Small countries seem to need to be more united emotionally, because only in this way can they survive.

With the departure of the Japanese pirates, both Zhu Di and Zhu Gang seemed to have completed their mission.

But compared now, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two.

In terms of merit, Prince of Yan Zhu Di deserves a much greater contribution.

Zhu Gang didn't care. When he had nothing to do, he would go to the beach to fish leisurely.

In contrast, Zhu Di looked a little sad.

According to convention, after things here are concluded, he must return to the court.

Zhu Di also had some knowledge of the news in the capital, especially those related to Zhu Ying.

Although there is some delay in time, it is not difficult to see that the capital has now become Zhu Ying's home ground.

Zhu Di also knew the news that Yao Guangxiao, the Imperial Master, was still commanding an army of 150,000.

The plan here was only half completed, and now even the person who could give advice is gone. Zhu Di felt helpless and sad.

"If it has come to this, then just go back to Beiping and stay here."

Zhu Di thought helplessly in his heart.

At this time, the imperial edict happened to be conveyed.

Zhu Di went to receive the imperial edict with some trepidation in his heart, but the content of the edict made him ecstatic.

The imperial edict stated that Prince of Yan Zhu Di and Prince of Jin Zhu Gang would continue to station troops along the coast and jointly march into Japan in the spring of next year.

When Zhu Di saw the content of the edict, he was still a little unconvinced.

"Is this what my father meant, or what Zhu Ying meant? Does he look down on me and think I am no threat to him?"

Zhu Di was somewhat indignant in his heart, as he knew all about the problems of the vassal kings.

He would think it was normal if Zhu Ying kept a close watch on him.

But this kind of trust in him made him feel unhappy, as if he was not worthy of being regarded as an opponent by Zhu Ying.