The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 204 A Small-minded King

Wanli also wanted to bring doctors and craftsmen with him on this expedition.

He even built carriages specifically for doctors and craftsmen and equipped them with weapons and equipment.

Of course, these doctors and craftsmen still need some training before they can become proficient.

You can't just go into this battlefield casually.

If you go to the battlefield without training, you are not helping but causing trouble.

Two hundred young and strong doctors and two hundred young and strong craftsmen were quickly selected.

Their special carriages were directly converted from grain carts, and they were also made very quickly.

Not long after, four hundred doctors and craftsmen began training in the North Arena.

Almost all the young and strong doctors and craftsmen selected here have learned to drive horse-drawn carriages, and the news from Shanxi has finally arrived.

Early in the morning at about noon, Luo Sigong hurried over.

After the emperor and his ministers exchanged greetings, he respectfully presented a thick secret letter.

Wanli opened the secret letter and couldn't help but snort coldly.

It turned out that most of the farmland of Dai Fan was hastily registered in their name when they went to quell the Haobai Rebellion two years ago.

Among them, most of the land donated by Pingyang Prefecture originally belonged to the three major wealthy families in Puzhou!
Almost all the land of the three major families in Puzhou was registered under the names of King Dai, King Shanyin and King Xiangyuan.

Moreover, last year, the three major families of Puzhou did not take away the more than 20 million dan of grain produced from more than 10 million mu of farmland in Daifan. The granaries of all the royal family members of Daifan were full, and some royal family members of Daifan were desperately building new granaries.

As for the millions of acres of farmland of the Jin vassal state, most of them were taken over from the Maitreya Sect during the Jiajing Dynasty. The Maitreya Sect has now been almost wiped out, so the Jin vassal state actually got the Maitreya Sect's land for free.

There was nothing much to say about Shen Fan. Most of those millions of acres of land were donated by local gentry and local tyrants.

It is obvious that the three powerful families of Puzhou wanted to use the grain of Dai Fan to support the enemy, or sell it to the northern barbarians to make money.

However, it would be impossible to transport such a large amount of grain to the territory of the Northern Tartars without being discovered by the border troops.

Therefore, at the end of last year, the Tumed and Kharchin tribes, including the three Doyan guards, assembled an army of more than 100,000 to attack Datong Town.

They wanted to break through Datong Town and transport the grain to the outside of the Great Wall.

Fortunately, Datong Town was not penetrated!

Now he understood why the businessmen from the three major families in Puzhou suddenly disappeared miraculously.

Many of them may have gone to the Northern Tartars, but more of them probably went to the territories of the vassal kings of Shanxi and Shaanxi.

Originally, Shanxi and Shaanxi were the territories governed by the three major families of Puzhou, and they were also engaged in business. The princes of the two places must have had a lot of business dealings with them.

There are three feudal lords in Shanxi and five feudal lords in Shaanxi. The total amount of farmland of these eight feudal lords is at least 50 to 60 million mu, which is tens of thousands of square kilometers of land. If they just hide there, it will be as if they disappeared and cannot be found.

There is no need to think about it, it is absolutely true.

There was a strange phenomenon in the Ming Dynasty, that is, the population had always remained at 50 to 60 million, or in other words, the population listed in the Yellow Book of Taxes and Labor Service had always been 50 to 60 million, with neither a big increase nor a big decrease, and it had been like this since the Hongwu Dynasty.

This is obviously abnormal, because less than twenty years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the population of the Kangxi Dynasty reached 20 million. This population refers to the able-bodied men who are required to perform labor. Logically, a family only needs to provide one able-bodied man, which is about one for every five people.

In other words, the population during the Kangxi period was already over 100 million, and by the Qianlong period, the population had exceeded 300 million.

Why did the population of the Kangxi Dynasty reach over 100 million less than 20 years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty?
Moreover, in just over a hundred years from the Kangxi to the Qianlong reigns, the population soared to more than 300 million!

The Ming Dynasty developed for more than two hundred years, but its population has always been around 50 to 60 million!

This is obviously impossible.

As for the reason, it is because many people in the Ming Dynasty are not on the Yellow Book of Taxes and Services, and in the territories of the vassal kings, most of the population are not on the Yellow Book!

The rice salary for these princes alone was more than twice the land tax revenue of the imperial court, and they still tried their best to annex land and accept donations.

Dai Fan went even further. They knew that the three major powerful families in Puzhou were collaborating with the enemy and selling out their country, but they still helped others manage their fields and grow crops!

This is the remnant of the three major families in Puzhou who are helping the enemy!
Dai Fan is seeking death.

He has not been idle these days and has even investigated Dai Fan's issues.

The Daifan clan had more than just this problem. They had a close relationship with the three great families of Puzhou, because in the fifth year of Tianshun, the Shanyin and Xiangyuan princes of the Daifan clan were enfeoffed to Puzhou.

Immediately afterwards, the Wang and Zhang families, two of the three major powerful families in Puzhou, rose one after another.

Isn't there something fishy going on here?

Even if the rise of the three major families in Puzhou had nothing to do with the Prince of Shanyin and the Prince of Xiangyuan, Daifan also had other problems.

For example, in the 24th year of Jiajing, Zhu Chongzhuo, the general of Daifan and Chuanwangfu, joined forces with Zhu Yunhuochou, the lieutenant of Xiangyuanwangfu, and others to collude with Altan Khan in rebellion.

Under the guidance of the spies they sent out, Altan Khan's men burned down all the grasslands in Pingluwei, Weiyuanwei, Yulinwei, Hunyuanzhou, Yanghewei, Shanyin County and other places in just a few days.

Fortunately, the Governor of Xuanda, Weng Wanda, noticed something was wrong and immediately began to catch the traitor. He soon discovered that General Zhu Chongzhuo of Hechuan Fengguo was plotting to incite Altan Khan's troops to rebel, so the incident did not lead to a major disaster.

Also, when the land was measured in Datong Town in the tenth year of Wanli, many generals, lieutenants, generals and lieutenants from the royal palaces of Daifan obstructed the measurement and even beat the officials who were measuring the land.

Now Dai Fan is actually helping the remnants of the three major powerful families in Puzhou to manage border lands and grow grain for the northern barbarians!
Do you really think I dare not reduce the power of the feudal lords?
This Daifan must be abolished, if not for anything else, but just for the more than 10 million acres of land.

In addition, there are already five or six thousand royal family members who are vassal states. After reducing the number, more than one million shi of rice for the royal family can be saved every year.

More importantly, Dai Fan was now fully stocked with food, while he was in need of military rations.

A person who is petty is not a gentleman, and a person who is not poisonous is not a husband!
In other words, a man of small mind is not a king.

Since Dai Fan is seeking death, then let them have their wish.

He didn't confiscate any property last year, and he might not even be able to collect enough money for the military rewards and compensation for the casualties of this war.

This time, I just managed to get it back and cut down the fattest King Dai!
Wanli thought about it carefully, then asked, "Sigong, how many secret guards did you send to Shanxi?"

Luo Sigong said without hesitation: "This time, I have sent 500 secret guards, Dai and Jin vassal states have sent 200 each, and Shen vassal state has sent 100."

Wanli nodded slightly, and then gave detailed instructions: "Send another 2,000 secret guards to Daifan, 1,000 to Datong Town, and 1,000 to Pingyang Prefecture.
They had two tasks. One was to identify all the royal family members of Daifan and also to find out where these royal family members lived.

Also, find out where Dai Fan stores grain. It would be best if you could find a reason to stand guard near the granary."

What is this for?
Luo Sigong was stunned for a moment, then quickly bowed and said, "Your humble servant obeys your order."

Immediately afterwards, Wanli issued an edict, ordering all the princes to register all the land donated by them and hand it over to the court for processing. Otherwise, their princedoms would be stripped of their power!

When the imperial edict was issued, the court was in an uproar.

Is the little emperor crazy?
Cut off the vassal!

Just kidding?
The young emperor of the Jianwen Dynasty was also ignorant of the consequences and wanted to reduce the power of the princes.

As a result, during the Jingnan Campaign, Cheng Zu directly seized the throne.

Therefore, since the Yongle Dynasty, no emperor dared to propose the reduction of the power of the princes.

Although the princes now seem to be soft persimmons, they have money and food, and they can recruit troops very quickly.

Does the little emperor want to cause chaos in the world?

The Beijing army only has 360,000 troops now, and the little emperor thinks he is stronger than Emperor Jianwen?

What a bullshit!

At that time, the Ming Dynasty had more than one million troops. In the two expeditions against the Prince of Yan alone, the Ming court sent a total of 1.1 million troops.

So what?
Most officials in the court thought that Wanli had become so arrogant that he even dared to propose reducing the power of the princes.

Many officials with ulterior motives even began to rejoice secretly.

If the young emperor reduces the power of the princes, it will most likely lead to the princes' rebellion. As long as they all turn to the prince who is most likely to succeed in the rebellion, they will be the heroes of the rebellion.

By then, you will be prosperous and even hold great power.

Perhaps, it would be a good idea to change the emperor in this way.

Now the little emperor is going against them and there is no way to fool them.

Maybe it will be easier to fool people after a new emperor comes.

(End of this chapter)