Zhu Yuanzhang was quite satisfied with the overall arrangement of the Minister of Revenue.

After Zhao Mian finished his speech, Zhu Yuanzhang said:

"The planting of high-yield crops does not conflict with the original rice and wheat fields, so more people, under the guidance of the government, will choose to reclaim new wasteland."

"There are always some people who are selfish and hopeful that the government will not find out, so they conceal the number of new lands reported."

"After the spring ploughing, the work of the Ministry of Households cannot stop. For all areas where high-yield grain seeds are distributed, a new round of soil measurement must be carried out to ensure that all newly reclaimed land is registered."

Zhu Yuanzhang was originally a cowherd working for a landlord, so he was naturally very familiar with the landlord's concealment of land.

The lower-class farmers are not only simple, but also have their own cleverness, especially when it comes to land matters.

The distribution of grain seeds is also accompanied by teaching.

Zhu Yuanzhang knew that when farmers learned that these high-yield crops could become new grain varieties in less than two months, many farmers would secretly open up cultivation.

In this case, the Ministry of Household Statistics cannot be calculated according to grain types, and all surrounding land must be measured.

Anyone who opens up land without permission must be severely punished.

This trend must not be allowed to develop. We must know that crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn can be used as food reserves for the national treasury. Even if they taste a little worse, they can still last a long time.

Taxes have already been halved, and if there is still massive tax evasion, the court will be the one that suffers.

"I will obey your order."

Zhao Mian stood up and bowed again.

Measuring land is no easy task. For the Ministry of Revenue, it requires the full mobilization of all local departments to complete it in a short period of time.

Although His Majesty did not specify a specific time, Zhao Mian knew very well in his heart that if he could not submit all the land documents to His Majesty for review before the summer grain harvest, then his position as Shangshu would be over.

"Minister Ru, you are so secretive, do you have something to say?"

Zhu Yuanzhang was sharp-eyed and immediately noticed that the Minister of War Ru Heng seemed to be hesitant to speak, so he opened his mouth and asked a question directly.

Ru Heng was able to rise to the position of Shangshu, so he must be a very smart person.

Just now, after Your Majesty and Zhao Mian decided on the matters concerning spring ploughing, he deliberately showed some hesitation.

Sure enough, His Majesty noticed it.

Ru Heng stood up and bowed, with a look of hesitation on his face, and said: "Your Majesty, I have received a secret report from the Left Guard of Datong, Shanxi, on the border."

When Zhu Yuanzhang heard this, he frowned and asked, "Why didn't you say it at the morning court?"

Ru Hong shuddered, and said in a somewhat frightened tone, "I dare not."

Zhu Yuanzhang was somewhat surprised when he heard this, and continued to ask: "What is the content of the secret report?"

Ru Hong replied: "It is an impeachment of Li Lin, the commander of the Shanxi Left Guard."

When Zhu Yuanzhang heard the name Li Lin, he had some impression of it.

The position of Commander-in-Chief is insignificant in the capital, but in the local area, it is the highest military commander in the area and has extremely great power.

Anyone who could serve as the commander-in-chief in this day and age must have made certain contributions.

Zhu Yuanzhang recalled that this commander-in-chief named Li Lin was once a personal soldier under the command of Chang Yuchun. Later, he followed Lan Yu to make meritorious services in Buyuer Lake and was proudly rewarded with the official title of commander-in-chief of the Left Guard of Datong, Shanxi.

However, the commander-in-chief was a local military position under the jurisdiction of the Five Military Commanderies Office and was not affiliated with the Ministry of War.

Now, the Minister of War Ru Heng said that there was an impeachment report from the garrison, which was equivalent to bypassing the Five Military Commandery and was a violation of regulations. No wonder Ru Heng did not mention this matter at the morning court.

If I really say this at the morning court, it will definitely arouse the hatred of the Five Military Commanderies.

The incident of the Minister of Personnel Zhan Hui being beaten up by Lan Yu seemed like it was just yesterday.

This kind of overstepping of authority, regardless of the circumstances, the malice coming from the Five Military Commandery alone would be too much for Ru Hong to bear.

"Show it to us."

Zhu Yuanzhang knew that the secret information that could make Ru Hong act like this must not be that simple.

Liu He walked up to His Majesty, took the secret report that Ru Hong took out from her sleeve, and presented it to His Majesty.

After Zhu Yuanzhang took it, he began to look at it carefully.

At first, no one in the hall, except Ru Huang, had any idea about it.

However, as His Majesty's brows furrowed deeper and deeper, the atmosphere began to become solemn and depressing.

“Bang!!”

"How dare you! You are so bold!!!"

Zhu Yuanzhang threw the secret report hard on the table, and even the candlestick fell to the ground.

All of a sudden, all the ministers present, including Liu He, Jiang Lin and others, knelt on the ground.

Your Majesty is furious. This matter is very serious.

"Who gave them the courage? Who gave them the courage? Ah!!"

"The most cruel thing in my life is the corrupt officials. I have established the military household system, which allows us to support millions of soldiers without spending a single grain of food from the national treasury. But how dare they do this!!!"

The roaring sound echoed throughout the Huagai Palace, and even the eunuch guards outside fell to their knees.

It has been a long time since Your Majesty has been so angry.

Even if dozens of ministers were executed at court meetings, even if there were three major cases in previous years, even if there were recent rumor cases.

I have never been so angry before.

It's like a dragon's reverse scale. Anyone who touches it will die.

At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang's face was red, his eyes were bloodshot, and his eyes seemed to want to devour someone.

The violent panting was particularly obvious in the quiet hall.

After a moment's pause, Liu He quietly raised his head, gritted his teeth, and stood up.

He gritted his teeth and brought a cup of hot tea, and said with a slightly trembling voice: "Your Majesty, drink some tea first, don't get angry and get sick. If the Crown Prince knew that we old slaves failed to take good care of Your Majesty, he would definitely punish us severely."

Zhu Yuanzhang was just about to swing his dragon robe and knock away the teacup that Liu He had brought.

I heard the word "Grandson".

The hand just raised stopped in mid-air.

After a moment's hesitation, he took the teacup and drank it all in one gulp.

The warmth spread in the stomach, driving away the anger a little.

Everyone in the audience looked at Liu He with gratitude.

If it weren't for him, no one in this hall would have had a good life today.

snort!!!

Zhu Yuanzhang slammed the teacup on the table and returned to the dragon throne.

"Everyone, please stand up. Can things be done while kneeling?"

After hearing His Majesty's words, everyone felt relieved and stood up, but they did not dare to sit back on the chairs.

Zhu Yuanzhang glanced at Ru Hong.

Just this one look almost frightened Ru Hong to death. Her knees went weak and she fell to the ground again.

"Your Majesty, please forgive me. Your Majesty, please forgive me."

Zhu Yuanzhang glanced over and shouted, "What crime have you committed!"

Ru Huang's lips trembled: "Minister...minister...minister..."

He couldn't explain it for a long time.

Zhu Yuanzhang said angrily: "Don't plead guilty if you are innocent. Am I the kind of person who would easily convict you? Not only are you innocent in this matter, but you have made a contribution. Stand up and speak."

Ru Huang bowed quickly and said, "Thank you, Your Majesty."

Zhu Yuanzhang pointed at the secret report that fell on the ground and said in a cold voice: "You ministers of various departments should also take a good look at these military households and our Datong Guard. What has become of them?"

The secret report fell at the feet of the Minister of Personnel Zhan Hui. Hearing the words of His Majesty, Zhan Hui hurriedly picked it up and read it quickly.

As he read on, his pupils kept shrinking. It was obvious that the content really scared him.

After reading it, I even held my breath, and I understood why His Majesty was so angry.

Then he quickly passed it to Yang Jing, the Minister of Justice who was beside him.

Yang Jing's reaction was exactly the same as Zhan Hui's.

In just a short moment, the four ministers had finished reading the above content.

Finally, Zhao Mian, the Minister of Revenue, who took over from Shen Xi, the Minister of Works, handed the secret report to Liu He with trembling hands.

"Tell me, do you think this is true or is it fake?"

Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

The five ministers looked at each other, and finally their eyes focused on the Minister of Personnel Zhan Hui.

Who said that among all the ministers, only Zhan Hui is closest to His Majesty and the most favored?

Zhan Hui could only take half a step forward and said, "I think this matter is true. Datong Zuowei currently has more than 7,000 soldiers and 40,000 military households. It is impossible to conceal such a major event. With a little investigation, we can find out the situation."

"This secret report must have been submitted by those soldiers. The reason they bypassed the Five Military Commandery was probably because they were afraid of being suppressed for killing their superiors."

After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang's expression became more and more unhappy.

The military household system was what Zhu Yuanzhang was most proud of, and this secret report was clearly a slap in his face.

Datong Zuowei is located on the border, close to the grassland, and has made many contributions.

The content of this secret report was that the soldiers of Datong Zuowei united and killed the entire family of Commander-in-Chief Li Lin.

If it were just this, it would be fine. At most it would be considered a rebellion.

But the description here truly exposes the shortcomings of the current Weisuo system.

The Weisuo system was a system in which soldiers were allocated land. They served as soldiers during war and farmed during their spare time.

Soldiers served in the garrisons and brought their wives with them to live a stable life and have children. Each soldier had a house, land, and monthly rations.

When marching, they were given rations, required to provide their own clothing, and were provided with weapons.

Soldiers in the camp were divided into garrison and farming in irregular ratios, and were rotated on schedule. They had to hand over grain according to their share of the farming to provide for the garrison troops and officials, thus maintaining the troops without consuming the court's financial resources.

It can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

The Ming Dynasty had a total of nearly two million soldiers stationed in farmlands to guard the country and stabilize the Ming Dynasty.

The sergeants were called regular army, and the other sons were called remnants or military remnants.

When a regular army goes to a garrison, at least one extra soldier must accompany them to help with their daily needs.

As the burden on military households was heavy, they were often given land and were exempted from all corvée duties. The remaining men in the camp and one man from their hometown were also exempted from corvée duties in order to guarantee their livelihood and provide for the lives of the regular soldiers.

If a regular soldier died, he would be replaced by an able-bodied man in the household.

However, the soldiers in the garrison lived a hard life. As the saying goes: Good men don’t become soldiers, and good iron is not used to make nails.

Under such circumstances, even in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, there were a large number of deserters.

Therefore, there are methods such as "root compensation" and "gou compensation". The root compensation is to catch the deserters, and the gou compensation is to use the male adults in their households to compensate.

It is these two methods that allow military leaders to engage in corruption.

They often concealed deserters, occupied military farms, and used soldiers as private labor to cultivate the land in order to obtain large amounts of illegal money and food.

This time, Li Lin, the commander-in-chief of Datong Zuowei, was the most ruthless one.

Generally speaking, many commanders would at most collect more grain when harvesting.

The soldiers below are all illiterate. The army is not like the common people in the city. The superiors rule everything, and their life and death are decided by them. Moreover, the news is blocked, and even the news cannot be passed outside.

If any troublemakers appeared, they would be beaten to death to establish the military's prestige and serve as a warning to others.

This has been going on for more than 20 years, so there is no reason to resist.

As the old saying goes, even a rabbit will bite when it is cornered.

Datong Zuowei, because it is separated from other guards by other guards, does not directly border the grassland and is closer to Datong Prefecture.

Moreover, since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the grasslands have been severely damaged, so there have not been many wars.

This also gave Li Lin enough time to fight.

Over the past 20 years, 80% of the land in Datong Zuowei has been registered by officials such as Li Lin.

You must know that under the commander-in-chief Li Lin, there are thousand households and hundred households, who are also in cahoots with each other.

The other soldiers had become the personal slaves of their superiors.

There were a total of 7,000 soldiers in Datong Zuowei, but more than 5,000 of them became farming serfs.

Even the general flags and small flags were mostly like this, and even some centurions could not escape.

The reason why Li Lin dared to be so arrogant was only because he once followed Kaiping King Chang Yuchun, and later made contributions with Liang Duke Lan Yu.

The military has a strong background, and these small soldiers cannot resist.

The cause of the incident is somewhat simple.

A centurion who had expressed objections to this was also demoted to a serf.

Another former enemy of this hundred households raped and killed his wife while she was several months pregnant while he was out farming.

Then he killed his only son and two daughters.

The centurion who was demoted to a serf was tied up, insulted, and whipped when he returned.

He endured it.

He understood that there was no way to fight back now.

Then he secretly contacted his former subordinates and started an uprising together.

After waiting for many days, it happened that high-yield crops were distributed by households, so Li Lin held a banquet to entertain his close associates from each thousand- and hundred-household unit.

After getting drunk, the night was dark and windy, and the sound of birds was the signal.

Hundreds of people holding worn-out spears and lances were determined to kill all the generals who had attended the banquet.

Then they gathered together and roared, like hungry tigers out of a cage, and more and more oppressed soldiers joined the team.

At night, the earth was stained with blood.

When the morning light came up, the scene was desolate and messy, and everyone standing there was covered in blood.

Those who survived were startled into awakening from a dream, looking at the blood on their hands, confused.

"Brother, let's run away."

"Escape to where?"

"Escape to the grasslands, escape to the mountains, even if you gather together to become bandits, so what? You can't live such a miserable life any more."

"How can we go to the grasslands or the mountains in this state? How can we pass the various passes? Once this matter gets out, all the surrounding garrisons will mobilize their troops, and there will be no way for us to survive."

"Then, are we just going to sit here and wait for death?"

Upon hearing this, the captain remained silent for a long time. He looked towards the rising sun with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

After a long time, several knights slowly appeared.