The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 149: I started to be idle again
Wanli was really troubled.

The princes, nobles, and royal relatives in the capital actually annexed nearly 20 million acres of land!
The key is that he can't deal with these guys.

The dukes and nobles are the basis for his control over military force.

Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen, Duke Dingguo Xu Wenbi and Duke Yingguo Zhang Yuangong are clear evidence of this.

This group of princes and nobles not only took turns in charge of the Five Military Commandery, but more importantly, many officers and soldiers in the Beijing Camp, the Imperial Guards, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and even the border garrisons were their relatives and old friends.

If he dealt with these powerful dukes and nobles, the capital camp, the imperial guards, the Jinyiwei, and the border garrisons would be in chaos.

He can't even deal with the royal family.

The royal relatives in the capital were not the princes and their clans, but the families of the concubines in the harem and the princesses and their husbands.

To put it bluntly, this group of people are his aunts and uncles, sister, brother-in-law, uncle, grandfather, cousins, cousins, etc.

If he dealt with this group of people, he would be annoyed to death.

Not to mention anything else, he couldn't stand his aunts and sisters coming to him crying every day.

The question is, what will happen to the Beijing military farms if we don’t deal with these guys?

It would be fine if it was just a horse ranch, as there is plenty of grassland for grazing horses in Hetao. It would definitely not be possible for the Beijing army to have no military farms.

The monthly salary he gives out now is only two taels of silver. Is this amount of money enough to support a whole family?
If there were no military farming, then the food and salary would have to be increased. The Beijing camp now has 120,000 soldiers. If each of them gets an increase of one tael, that would be 120,000 taels per month, and 1.44 million taels per year.

What's more, he will expand the Beijing camp after the New Year. By then, it will not be more than one million taels a year, but two to three million taels or even four to five million taels a year.

This is just the increase. Adding the original two taels, 120,000 soldiers will get 4.68 million taels a year, 240,000 soldiers will get 9.36 million taels a year, and 360,000 soldiers will get more than 14 million taels!

He doesn't have that much money now, so raising food and wages is not within his consideration. He can only think of ways to develop military farms.

Now, including the military farms recovered from the Wuding Marquis Mansion, the total military farms in the Beijing Army are less than two million mu. Each family of the 120,000 soldiers can only be allocated more than ten mu, which is barely enough to feed themselves.

He had already calculated that if he wanted to ensure that the families of the soldiers in the Beijing camp had enough food and clothing, each family would need at least 30 acres of land.

This is actually not a lot, because during the Hongwu and Yongle dynasties, the garrisons were basically divided into 50 mu per household.

Now he didn't need to distribute fifty acres to each household, because the soldiers of the Beijing camp were not mainly engaged in farming. They needed to train or even go on expeditions for at least half a year every year. The food and wages earned in these few months were almost enough to make up for the income from the twenty acres of land.

Moreover, the soldiers of the Beijing Army had to train and fight, and they could not cultivate too much land at home. Thirty acres per household was almost the limit.

In other words, he did not have to take back all the military farms and horse ranches of the Beijing camp. It would be enough if he could take back about 10 million mu of military farms. As for the horse ranches, the grasslands in Hetao were enough now, and there were plenty outside the Great Wall. If they were not enough, he could just expand the territory.

Can these more than 10 million mu of military farms in Beijing be recovered?
Wanli stared at the long list, frowning and pondering for a long time. Then he raised his hand and said, "Uncle, order someone to summon all the dukes, nobles, and royal relatives on the list to the main hall of the Hall of Mental Cultivation. Tell them that I have something to discuss with them."

In less than half an hour, nearly a hundred people gathered in the main hall of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

These guys have annexed a lot of land. The largest one annexed hundreds of thousands of acres, and the smallest one annexed tens of thousands of acres.

They are all a little confused.

What exactly did Wanli want to discuss with them?
Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen and Duke Yingguo Zhang Yuangong did not know about it.

Only after they were all present did Wanli slowly walk in with the list.

Seeing this, everyone bowed hurriedly.

Wanli didn't say a word. He walked directly to the big armchair in the warm room and sat down. Then he asked Li Xuancheng to hand the list in his hand to Duke Cheng Guo Zhu Yingzhen, and let this guy read it himself before passing it on one by one.

Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen and Duke Yingguo Zhang Yuangong were both embarrassed after reading the list.

The other dukes, nobles, and royal relatives were so frightened after seeing the list that their faces changed.

Is His Majesty going to deal with them?
In fact, they all knew in their hearts that something bad would happen sooner or later after they annexed so many fields.

They had an idea in mind when Zhang Juzheng began to implement the land survey regulations.

The problem is that these fields are all money and grain. Ten thousand acres can harvest at least more than ten thousand stones of grain a year, which is more than ten thousand taels according to the grain price in the capital.

Who would be willing to hand over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels just like that?
This is not the total income, but the annual income!
Wanli waited until everyone had finished reading and the list was back in his hands before he said solemnly: "Everyone should know that I want to expand the Beijing camp. To expand the Beijing camp, we must have enough military farms.

I called you here today to discuss the issue of military farms in the Beijing Camp. Now, the military farms in the Beijing Camp are seriously insufficient, and I want to take back some of the military farms in your hands.

Of course, I don't want your military farms for nothing. For anyone who hands over your military farms to me, I will allow you to participate in the royal business. I guarantee that the income from your military farms will be earned back through dividends, and this will be paid out every year. What do you think?

Upon hearing this, Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen hurriedly bowed and said, "Your Majesty, the hundreds of thousands of acres of military farmland in our Duke Chengguo Mansion should have been handed over long ago. If you hadn't told me, I would have forgotten. Today, I will go and transfer all the military farmland back to the various garrisons in the Beijing camp."

This guy makes a lot of money selling glass.

Wanli nodded slightly and said, "Well, very good, just in time. I also want to expand the glass business to the two capitals and thirteen provinces. Let's discuss this tomorrow."

Oh, I’m going to make a fortune again this time.

Duke Chengguo Zhu Yingzhen bowed repeatedly and said, "Thank you very much, Your Majesty, for your grace."

Upon seeing this, Duke Yingguo Zhang Yuangong hurriedly bowed and said, "Your Majesty, the hundreds of thousands of acres of military farmland in our Duke Yingguo Mansion should have been handed over long ago. I would have forgotten even if you hadn't told me. Today, I will transfer all of this military farmland back to the various garrisons in the Beijing camp."

This guy makes more money.

Wanli nodded slightly and said, "Well, that's right. It just so happens that I was thinking of using wool to spin yarn. We will discuss this tomorrow."

Seeing this, Huaiyuan Marquis Chang Yinxu gritted his teeth and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, I have also handed over hundreds of thousands of acres of military farmland. Today, I will transfer all of this military farmland back to the various garrisons in the Beijing camp."

Seeing this, Ningyang Marquis Chen Yingzhao also hurriedly bowed and said, "Your Majesty, I have also handed over hundreds of thousands of acres of military farmland. Today, I will go and transfer all of this military farmland back to the various garrisons in the Beijing camp."

They have not yet participated in Wanli's business, nor have they made a penny from the royal business.

The problem is that they have to hand over the military farms. If they don't hand it over, they will probably lose their position as the commander-in-chief of the Five Military Commandery.

This is not a big deal. The key point is that if they do not stand on Wanli's side this time, they will probably have no chance in the future. Once they are abandoned by the emperor, the military farms they have annexed will sooner or later be taken away by the princes and nobles who come to power later.

By then they will have nothing and won’t be able to support their family.

Therefore, they had no choice but to be sensible and take a gamble, betting that Wanli could really use the money earned from business to offset the income from their hundreds of thousands of acres of military farms.

These two guys are really sensible.

Wanli nodded slightly and said, "I happen to have two good business opportunities. We will discuss them tomorrow."

Seeing this, Marquis of Linhuai Li Yangong, Marquis of Wu'an Zheng Weizhong, Earl of Guangning Liu Side and others who were related to Duke Cheng and Duke Ding by marriage hurriedly bowed and handed over hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of acres of military farms that they had annexed.

The reason why they were so decisive was that they all knew that doing business with Wanli would bring much greater profits than farming.

When the others saw this, they were all stunned.

What kind of business does His Majesty do to make so much money?

The military farms handed over by these dukes, marquises and nobles who merged into many military farms total several million mu. They must earn at least several million taels this year!

Next, the remaining dukes, nobles, and royal relatives began to hesitate. They heard that Duke Chengguo, Duke Yingguo, and Duke Dingguo made a lot of money doing business with His Majesty.

But there must be a limit to how much money you can make, right?

For them, earning several million taels a year is as difficult as climbing to the sky.

Can His Majesty help them earn more?

Some people believed in Wanli, so they gritted their teeth and handed over the land.

There were also those who did not believe in Wanli or were reluctant to give up those tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of acres of land, so they just gritted their teeth and refused to hand it over.

In the end, they managed to barely gather together 10 million mu of military farmland.

Seeing this, Wanli waved his hand and said decisively, "Alright, those who are willing to hand over their farmland can go and transfer their farmland back to the various guard posts in the Beijing camp. Come early tomorrow morning and we will set off at noon to go to the Summer Resort to discuss business and make money.

If you don't hand over your land to the military farm, that's fine. However, you all must pay land tax on your land. If you don't pay the land tax, don't blame me for being rude! "

Naturally, he would not give any benefits to these ignorant dukes and nobles. Not only did they not get any benefits, but they also had to pay land taxes.

The nearly 10 million mu of military farms they annexed were equivalent to about 1 million dan of grain per year, which was enough to feed 50,000 troops.

If these guys still dare not pay the land tax, he will not be polite.

(End of this chapter)