Zhu Yuanzhang looked at Gu Zhengchen who agreed with him, and the anger aroused by the imperial censor disappeared a lot. He patted his clothes and said in a deep voice: "We are just buying some land for our children. We can't talk about harming the people, right?"
Gu Zhengchen nodded and replied naturally: "No way."
Zhu Yuanzhang's expression turned from gloomy to clear.
Gu Zhengchen hesitated, then took a step forward and said, "Your Majesty, I think that setting aside one hundred hectares of land for each vassal king is too little."
Queen Ma was a little surprised, and Zhu Biao was also surprised and quickly winked at Gu Zhengchen.
Zhu Yuanzhang burst out laughing and patted the handle of the chair: "You are right, we think it is less. How much land do you think is appropriate for them?"
Gu Zhengchen became serious: "I think that the vassal king should be given three million hectares of land."
Zhu Yuanzhang's smile suddenly froze, his eyes became cold, he stood up and walked towards Gu Zhengchen, walked around Gu Zhengchen, and asked sternly: "What do you mean?"
Zhu Biao came over quickly: "Father, it must have been a slip of the tongue by Mr. Gu. We may not have three million hectares of farmland even if we have calculated everything in the Ming Dynasty. Haha, Mr. Gu, please admit your mistake quickly."
Gu Zhengchen shook his head slightly, looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, and said fearlessly: "Your Majesty, what I said was exactly three million hectares of land!"
Zhu Biao was sweating anxiously.
Three million hectares of your land were all given to the vassal king's younger brother. When you take over as emperor in the future, won't you lose even an acre of land?
Queen Ma looked at this scene and was a little confused. She didn't know why Gu Zhengchen said such an obvious thing.
Zhu Yuanzhang snorted, the flesh on his cheeks trembling slightly, and then his tone became cold: "Gu Zhengchen, if you can't tell me why, I can't forgive you!"
Gu Zhengchen was a little innocent: "Isn't that what your Majesty is doing to buy three million hectares of land for each vassal king?"
Zhu Yuanzhang tossed his sleeves and shouted angrily: "I said one hundred hectares for the vassal king, not three million hectares! As a scholar and the chief of a county, you can't even tell this clearly?"
Gu Zhengchen looked at the angry Zhu Yuanzhang, lifted up his clothes and saluted, and said seriously: "Your Majesty rewarded the vassal king with one hundred hectares of land, which was only the income of one generation of vassal kings. I dare to ask your majesty, if the vassal king gets married and has descendants in the future, should the court continue to reward him?" , the crown prince should be given one hundred hectares, the princess should also be given one hundred hectares, and the princess should be given one hundred hectares as a dowry when she gets married."
Zhu Yuanzhang stared at Gu Zhengchen, his eyes as sharp as an eagle: "How much land can be given to the vassal prince, prince, and princess? It's only a few thousand hectares, which is far away from the three million hectares you mentioned. !”
Gu Zhengchen knew that Zhu Yuanzhang did not understand exponential explosion, and did not know the horror of doubling, so he took out a copper coin and placed it on the ground.
"What do you mean?"
Zhu Yuanzhang was puzzled.
Zhu Biao and Queen Ma watched, not knowing how to intervene.
Gu Zhengchen pointed to the copper coin: "Your Majesty, with this one copper coin, one hundred hectares of land will be cultivated. Every other day, such as every generation, your majesty will reward you with two copper coins, which will be doubled every day. If your majesty The reward is thirty days, that is, thirty generations of descendants. If you look at how many copper coins there are, you can tell whether it is thousands of hectares of land or millions of hectares of land."
Zhu Yuanzhang chuckled, his eyes still cold: "Gu Zhengchen, if you are proven wrong in the end..."
Gu Zhengchen was not afraid: "I am willing to accept the punishment."
Zhu Yuanzhang snorted and looked at the eunuch Zhao Xun: "Don't bother counting the days. Go and bring a few boxes of copper coins and give them to him here. As for you, just kneel down and watch."
Gu Zhengchen was a little depressed. His legs hurt from kneeling all the time. Fortunately, he wore thicker clothes in winter. If it were summer, his legs would not be bruised from kneeling.
But we have to stop Lao Zhu from dividing the land like this. If you give land today, you will directly determine the salary the next day. In the late Ming Dynasty, the taxes of a province were not enough to support the vassal kings. Some emperors gave land rewards to the vassal kings. Henan had no land to reward. With a stroke of a pen, Hunan looked for compensation. This method of providing land across regions was really flexible. To the extreme...
At least a quarter of the financial crisis in the late Ming Dynasty was due to feeding these descendants of the Zhu family. You must know that by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the old Zhu family had hundreds of thousands, and some even said it was nearly one million!
Why other dynasties didn’t have financial crises caused by clans? It’s because after a few generations, the blood ties in other dynasties weakened and they just did whatever they had to do.
But Lao Zhu really loves his descendants too much. Even after the eighteenth generation, he has to take care of food, names, and marriages. So in the end, there are a lot of people without names who are still unmarried when they are old. stay single.
There is no way, there are only a few people in the Zongren Mansion, and there are hundreds of thousands of you, and it is really impossible to control it. If you, my dear friend, will not be around for decades, then you can only stare...
Thinking about the tragic situation that followed and the tragedy of the Ming Dynasty, Gu Zhengchen had to exert influence at the starting point of the matter.
If we wait for Lao Zhu to finalize everything, it will be more difficult to change his will, and it will easily make him unable to get off the stage. When the time comes, a group of sons will complain that their father does not follow through on his words, crying and asking for land and money, and Lao Zhu will also Not stable.
Zhu Yuanzhang sat back, holding a tea bowl and preparing to read a joke.
Zhu Biao walked up to Gu Zhengchen and asked in a low voice: "You really shouldn't offend my father so much. It's just a matter of thousands of hectares of land, so why bother."
Gu Zhengchen rolled his eyes: "A few thousand hectares? You'll find out later. I'll give you a suggestion."
"What?"
Zhu Biao leaned over and asked.
Gu Zhengchen whispered: "Go out for a walk and make some room. There won't be any place for you to stay here in a while."
Zhu Biao looked at Zhao Xun and brought two boxes of copper coins, and said to Gu Zhengchen: "It's not that exaggerated, but don't worry, I will plead for my father, but don't be so reckless in the future."
Seeing that Zhu Biao didn't believe it, Gu Zhengchen stopped explaining.
Queen Ma handed over a futon. Gu Zhengchen didn't even think about it. After thanking him, he took it and felt much better after putting it on.
The eunuch Zhao Xun came over with a smile, asked someone to open the money box, and then took out two copper coins and placed them on the ground in front of Gu Zhengchen: "Mr. Gu, this is the second day. Do you want to take care of these two copper coins?" ”
Gu Zhengchen nodded slightly and said to Zhao Xun: "Minister Zhao, please don't get tired after a while. It's best to invite a few more eunuchs to come over."
Zhao Xun disagreed, and took out four more copper coins and placed them on the ground: "We can still get these copper coins. This is the third day, and now it is the fourth day. Eight copper coins..."
As Zhao Xun continued to take out copper coins, when he took out sixteen copper coins on the fifth day, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but said: "Gu boy, do you know you were wrong now?"
Zhu Biao quickly winked at Gu Zhengchen.
Gu Zhengchen pretended not to see Zhu Biao's gesture, and said to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Your Majesty, the country lasts for thousands of years, and the fate of the country is all in the fields. If the fields are all returned to the royal family, then there will be no taxes for the court, and the people will not be able to pay taxes." All the generals will become tenants of the clan, and by then, the Ming Dynasty will be dead!"
Zhu Yuanzhang snorted and shouted: "Give it to him. I want to see how many fields I can have in thirty generations. If there is only a little, I will shoot you to vent my hatred!"
