Father can be an enemy country

Chapter 1369 Reward
The next day it was the twentieth year of Hongwu.

During this first month of the year, Zhu Zhen can finally take a good rest, enjoy family happiness, and relax his exhausted body and mind.

Unfortunately, his second and third children were still young, and Miaoqing and Liu Li did not dare to take them on a long journey, so they had not met until now. However, Zhu Zhen had already bitten the old thief to death, and as soon as the army arrived in the capital, he would immediately let him go back to Yunnan.

This time he was determined not to care about anything, and Zhu Yuanzhang was too embarrassed to assign him any more work. He could finally spend every day like an ordinary man, accompany his wife and take care of the children, go to the palace to chat with his mother, and drink with his mother. Then he would go to his eldest brother's house for a meal. When he passed by the Dazongzheng Temple on his way back, he would bring a meal to his fourth brother. His life was simple and fulfilling.

Good times always pass quickly, and in the blink of an eye it was the end of the month. Lan Yu and the King of Qin and the King of Jin finally led their army back to Nanjing City.

On the day the army returned, Boss Zhu went outside the city in person to welcome his invincible army, and personally took off Lan Yu's battle robe. Lan Yu once again led the generals to kowtow to the emperor and shout "Long live the emperor!"

Then came the ceremony of surrendering captives, which had been held many times before and needed no further elaboration.

At the end of the prisoner surrender ceremony, the eunuch read out Boss Zhu's reward for the meritorious soldiers:

"The Grand General of the Jin Dynasty, Duke of Wei, and Grand Tutor Xu Da was appointed as Grand Master, with an additional salary of 2,000 stones, and was allowed to return to the capital for retirement."

"Fu Youde, the Left Deputy General of Jin, Duke of Ying, and Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince, is appointed Grand Tutor, and his iron certificate is changed to hereditary title, and his salary is increased by 2,000 stones."

"Lan Yu, the Right Deputy General of Jin, Marquis of Yongchang, and Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince, is appointed Duke of Liang and Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince, with an official salary of 5,000 dan."

"Wang Bi, Marquis of Dingyuan in Jin, was Duke of Dingguo and Junior Tutor of the Crown Prince, with an official salary of 4,000 dan."

"Guo Ying, Marquis of Jin Wuding, is the Duke of Yingguo, the Prince's Guardian, and has an official salary of 4,000 dan..."

Three dukes were conferred at once. Although none of them were hereditary, it was enough to show how happy Boss Zhu was.

The rest of the marquises were also given additional titles, so there is no need to list them in detail. As for ordinary soldiers, Boss Zhu was even more generous in rewarding them. Now that the country is rich, the rewards and pensions given this time have set a record.

Those who served in the army to Daning were given rewards and pensions in the same manner as the soldiers who went on the southern expedition; those who served in the army to Buyuer Lake could receive double the rewards and pensions; and those who served in the army to Langjuxu Mountain could receive up to three times the rewards and pensions.

Even the civilians who participated in the war received half of the reward, so everyone was happy.

In this wave of spending alone, Boss Zhu spent 40 million strings of banknotes and 6 million pieces of cloth. If it weren't for the help of a certain double-door prince who ate camel meat and squeezed gold and silver, he couldn't afford it even if he wanted to... Since last year, the Ministry of Navy has officially paid taxes and profits to the court. Boss Zhu suddenly had an additional annual income of 20 million taels of silver, which allowed him to spend money so lavishly.

~~
In addition to rewarding meritorious officials, Boss Zhu also conferred titles on Toghon Temur as King of Anle, Nahachu as Marquis of Haixi, and Guantong as Earl of Shunyi. The rest of the people were also rewarded, so there is no need to elaborate.

Zhu Yuanzhang then took the crown prince to the Taimiao to report the good news to his ancestors, and finally held a celebratory banquet in the Fengtian Hall to entertain all the meritorious officials.

The celebration banquet was going fine at first. With Boss Zhu and the prince in charge, no one dared to act rashly. They all sat there properly, and didn't dare to drink too much or talk too much.

Zhu Yuanzhang also knew that he and his ministers had become increasingly distant over the years, and it would not look good to force them to join in, so he called Li Shanchang, Tang He, and Zhou Dexing and said, "They will not feel comfortable with us old guys here, so let's go back to the Qianqing Palace and set up another table so that they can drink as much as they want."

"This last glass is for all the soldiers in the Northern Expedition!" He stood up holding the glass and said to Lan Yu with a smile, "Duke Liang, you come and drink this glass as a representative." "Yes!" Lan Yu stood up excitedly, ran to Zhu Yuanzhang, knelt on one knee, took the glass with both hands, and drank it all in one gulp.

"Hahaha, great! Let's drink as much as we want today!" Zhu Yuanzhang patted his shoulder happily and said, "Today we have asked all the censors to leave, so just drink to your heart's content and don't be afraid of losing your composure!"

After saying this, he left with a few old brothers.

"Your Majesty, we respectfully send you off." The other ministers also hurriedly left the table.

"You don't have to move, just let the prince take us back." Zhu Yuanzhang waved his hand, signaling everyone to stay, and took the prince away.

In the minds of his subjects, the majesty of this executive vice emperor was no less than that of the emperor.

~~
As soon as the emperor and the prince left, the noise in the Golden Palace suddenly rose.

The nobles and ministers left their seats one after another and began to toast others. The three newly promoted dukes, especially Lan Yu, who was in the limelight, naturally became the focus of everyone's attention. Everyone took turns toasting the newly promoted Duke of Liang. Lan Yu also accepted all the toasts and drank until he was red-faced and unrestrained.

He was seen surrounded by Jingchuan Marquis Cao Zhen, Heshou Marquis Zhang Yi, Zhuolu Marquis Zhu Shou and others, boasting as if no one was around. Even though it was so noisy in the Golden Palace, his voice could still be heard from afar.

At this time, Pingliang Hou Fei Ju also came over to toast him and congratulate him on his promotion to Duke.

"What's there to celebrate?" Lan Yu said in a rough voice:
"The Battle of Buil'er Sea...hiccups...hiccups were the greatest contributions in the past 500 years. It wouldn't be too much to give me a hereditary duke title, but I only got a duke for life. How boring!"

When everyone heard this, their faces changed and they started coughing, signaling him to say less.

Lan Yu didn't know whether he was too angry or he had been holding it in for too long, he ignored the warnings from others and continued to complain loudly: "I know the emperor blames me for not keeping an eye on the fourth brother, but I didn't even know he had sneaked into my army! Otherwise I would have tied him to my belt and never untied him even when I was taking a shit or sleeping."

Many people turned pale after hearing this, and involuntarily moved away from this outspoken drunkard, but there were also those who came to watch the fun, and those who had a grudge against the fourth brother, such as Fei Ju and Lu Zhongheng, all laughed and praised Lan Yu for his good words.

Zhu Zhen and his brothers were sitting at a table in the corner of the hall. They had planned to drink a few glasses quietly and then leave, but they did not expect to see this farce.

"This Lan Yu is really an old man who can't change his bad behavior." Zhu Zhen cursed.

“Here we go again…” The third brother slapped his forehead and was about to have a headache, but suddenly he laughed and said, “I just remembered that I’m no longer a military supervisor.”

"Why, did he cause you a lot of trouble along the way?" Zhu Zhen asked softly.

"It's more than just a nuisance, it's almost killing me." Zhu Gang lowered his voice and said, "I'll tell you two things. One is that he almost raped Toghon Temur's concubine. Fortunately, I sent people to keep an eye on him all the time, so he didn't make a big mistake. Later, Toghon Temur gave him eight beauties, and he stopped coveting other people's wives."

"Damn it!" Zhu Zhen cursed.

(End of this chapter)