On the twenty-first day of the seventh month in the first year of Longhe, the Gengxu day, the Chancellery of the Book of Documents drafted an edict, and the Secretariat issued the decree: land registration reviews would begin in every province, commandery, and county throughout the country, with a comprehensive inspection of households and strict enforcement of legal prohibitions. Within the forty days from Gengxu to Wuzi, each province, commandery, and county was to conduct its own inspection. Where Great Clans illegally concealed households and the commandery and county officials lacked the power to deal with them, the matter could be reported to the Tuduan Bureau for stern action.
The edict was dispatched by urgent mounted relay covering four hundred li a day and could reach every province and commandery of Eastern Jin within ten days. From the day they received the decree, each province and commandery was to begin the land registration review as prescribed, with no negligence permitted. Officials who accomplished nothing during this review would be the principal targets when Merging Offices and Reducing Posts.
Under the regulations, the Tuduan Bureau was based in Jiankang and subordinate to the Minister of Works' Office. Beneath it were Household Registration Inspection offices stationed in the six provinces of Liangzhou, Yi Province, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Jiangzhou, and Xiangzhou. The Neishi of these six provinces would concurrently serve as heads of their Household Registration Inspection offices, taking responsibility for all Tuduan matters within their respective provinces and promptly reporting any issues to the Tuduan Bureau.
Eastern Jin nominally possessed twenty-three provinces, but Si Province around Luoyang and Yan Province around Linqui had been recovered and lost several times. No Provincial Governor of Si Province had ever taken up his post, so naturally no Tuduan would be carried out in these two provinces.