Although Park Fan executed Xiong Lan's order without fail, he was still a little worried about surrendering to the Ming army again. In the past, Park Fan was not very clear about how powerful the Qing court was. However, after surrendering with Xiong Lan this time, Wang Mingde's officers told Park Fan a lot about the strategic situation of the Ming army: Although Sichuan is large, Shaanxi does not have to be small, and its population is even larger than Sichuan. The governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi Li Guoying has already taken all of Shaanxi, and Sichuan also accounts for half, and the victory and loss are already obvious. One officer even said that Governor Li, who controls such a large territory, is nothing compared to the imperial court. Now the territory of the imperial court has to go from south to north, at least two or three years.

Park Fan felt that it was already far away from Wanxian to Chongqing, or Wanxian to Fengjie. It took more than ten days to walk, and Sichuan was even more overwhelming. In addition, friends and relatives who had been to the army, even near Wanxian had never left. At that time, if someone had been to Shaanxi, it would be similar to those from outside the sky. Although Park Fan's knowledge increased a lot after joining the army, he still felt unimaginable when he heard the Qing army officers say that the Qing government's control of the territory would be about spring and autumn to walk for several years. He still felt unimaginable. How big is this territory?

Since the Qing court controlled such a large area of ​​land, Pu Fan would inevitably feel fear, thinking that the emperor of the Qing court was much more powerful than the Wenshou in Fengjie and Sanxia. Therefore, after detaining the prisoners, Pu Fan raised a question to Xiong Lan and Qin Xiucai, that is, was it too dangerous to fight such a huge Qing court?

Qin Xiucai felt that it was best to fool ordinary soldiers. Most of the soldiers could not tell whether Beijing was far from Sichuan, whether it was Yunyang County or Shandong Province. Because of their ignorance of the world, they did not have much fear of the Qing court; but officers like Pu Fan were a little troublesome, and because they did not know anything about the comparison of strength, they would think randomly.

"It is because it is too far away that we have to surrender to Mr. Deng." Qin Xiucai immediately explained for Xiong Lan: "It takes several years to walk from Sichuan to Beijing, and it takes half a month for Mr. Deng to come from Fengjie. Do you think this is the power of the Tartar Emperor or wait for the power of the Tartar Emperor?" Seeing that Park Fan was still a little confused, Qin Xiucai shook his head and said, "If we don't surrender to Mr. Deng, it will take several years for the Tartar Emperor to know that Mr. Deng has come to attack Wanxian. After knowing that, the Emperor always asks again. How many people did Mr. Deng bring to fight Mr. Qian Xiong? You must ask?"

"Yes, yes." Park Fan nodded quickly and agreed with Qin Xiucai's words.

"It will take several years to walk from Beijing. After asking clearly, it will take several years to walk back. Even if you only ask once, it will take ten years to go." Qin Xiucai asked Park Fan and said, "Do you think we can last ten years to Mr. Deng?"

"Ten years?" Park Fan was shocked. In the battle of Deng Ming's Wanxian, Tan Yi was killed in blood, and hundreds of corpses covered the mountains and fields outside the city. After seeing that scene, Park Fan's calves shivered. Until now, sometimes in the mountains and forests in the north of Wanxian, you can still see the bones left after the war. Tan Yi's army had more than 5,000 people, more than twice the current Xiong tribe of Wanxian. It was killed by Deng Ming in two hours. The news of Qing army officers sometimes talked about Huguang and Nanjing. The news did not touch Park Fan much, but he still remembered the story of Wanxian's battle. When he went to Yunyang to meet Deng Ming this time, although Park Fan was much better than before, he was still very scared: "Not to mention ten years, even ten days, well, even one or two days can't stand it."

After blurting out these words, Park Fan immediately realized how stupid his worries were. He apologized to Xiong Lan and Qin Xiucai with shame: "Thank you for your advice, Master, I am really confused."

"It's okay, come and ask me if you don't understand, or ask Master." Xiong Lan waved her hand generously and asked Park Fan to go out. Xiong Lan was very satisfied with this person: because Park Fan did not ask about right or wrong, and would do everything according to his instructions. Just like this time, she was obviously worried, but she still ignored Xiong Lan's instructions and then raised questions. She was relieved to use this kind of subordinate. As for the issue of ability and knowledge, this was not what Xiong Lan was concerned about. He was very capable. Besides, there was a master Qin Xiucai who could discuss it. It would be best if he had to be a hardworking person like Park Fan.

As far as Qin Xiucai knows, the Wanxian Army was far more fearful of Deng Ming and Wang Mingde. Although Qin Xiucai did not admit it, he was actually the same. When he met Deng Ming for the first time, Qin Xiucai was next to Tan Hong. After thousands of troops were defeated by Deng Ming and a group of scattered soldiers, Qin Xiucai no longer had the courage to fight against Deng Ming, and felt that he had no power to fight back in front of the other side. It was precisely because of this mentality that Qin Xiucai had opposed surrendering to the Qing army before, and this time he agreed with Xiong Lan.

Anyway, other people's knowledge is not as good as Qin Xiucai, and Tan Hong's status is higher in their minds. Since these people, who were originally regarded as gods, were tied up by Deng Ming, their fear of Deng Ming had already begun. The second is that the battle of Wanxian gave these people a huge visual impact. After that war, many of Tan Hong's officers collapsed to the ground, and most of them had killed more chickens in their lives than Deng Ming killed that day.

Gao Mingzhan and Wang Mingde obviously did not appear in such a momentum. Xiong Lan had figured out their movements before they arrived, and the preparations for surrendering to the Qing army had been completed. When thousands of Qing troops arrived at the city, many of the Wanxian defenders even had such associations: they were similar to Tan Yi's troops at the beginning. If Mr. Deng was there, they would have been sent out in another afternoon.

After Pu Fan returned this afternoon, he brought back the news that Deng Ming was not far from the city to the Wanxian garrison. As a result, Xiong Lan no longer had to do any incitement. Everyone immediately reached an agreement and immediately turned against him to make meritorious service. These Wanxian officers vented all their fear of Deng Ming on the Qing army.

Afterwards, some officers were as scared as Park Fan, thinking that if Deng Ming left again and the Qing army came again, they would not be easy to surrender and save their lives. Xiong Lan did not agree with this at all. He said to Qin Xiucai: "If Mr. Deng came to attack the city, my men would definitely not resist. Even if they muster up the courage to fight, their soldiers would be able to run away first."

"The boss is right!" Qin Xiucai knew that what Xiong Lan said was indeed the truth. In a real fight, he could only count on the Qing army left by Wang Mingde, but most of them were strong men, who wanted to block Deng Ming with hundreds of armor. If it were so easy, how could the Qing army in Huguang and Nanjing be defeated thousands of miles? Even the governor was killed by two? Although the Sichuan-Shaanxi Governor's Office tried hard to promote and claimed that Deng Ming was seriously defeated in Wuchang, Xiong Lan and Qin Xiucai obviously didn't see it like this: "If you can't pass the hurdle before you, what's the use of what will happen in a few years?"

In order to comfort Xiong Lan, as if to comfort herself, Qin Xiucai said: "Mr. Deng rushed back quickly when he heard that Sichuan was in danger. This means that Mr. Deng would not give up on Sichuan. With Mr. Deng here, why are you afraid of Tartars?"

Xiong Lan nodded. When he heard that Deng Ming had gone to Huguang, he felt very disappointed and felt that the other party would not pay attention to Sichuan. Xiong Lan was also deeply afraid of Deng Ming, and knew that if he was not an opponent in war, he also had similar considerations to Qin Xiucai, and he had to try to overcome the difficulties in front of him first. However, in addition to these two points, Xiong Lan would occasionally have a strange idea, which he had not mentioned to any of his confidants, including Qin Xiucai and Pu Fan.

"Although I am a concubine and a son, my father, mother, and legitimate mother are both Han people. Although this hair and clothes are not worth changing with this life,..." Everything has been done. When Xiong Lan was waiting for Deng Ming to come to Wanxian, this idea suddenly came out again: "But if there are any choices, it is better to keep your hair." Thinking of this, Xiong Lan reached out and touched her light head. But as usual, this idea only existed for a moment. Xiong Lan immediately kicked it out of her mind and said self-deprecatingly: "I don't want to cut off my head and leave my hair."

Xiong Lan couldn't help but feel ridiculous when he had such a pedantic thought. This is also the reason why he never mentioned this idea to his confidant subordinates - Xiong Lan couldn't believe that he would think so, let alone subordinates.

...

Deng Ming once again came to Wanxian Town. Xiong Lan brought Wanxian defenders out of the city and greeted him with the traditional Xiong etiquette, that is, everyone tied their hands and knelt on both sides of the road according to the official position.

After seeing Deng Ming arrive, the Wanxian officers who were proficient in Xiong's etiquette shouted in unison: "Death crime!"

"Okay, let's get up. Didn't it be agreed in advance? Anyway, I don't care." Deng Ming did not personally release Xiong Lan's bondage like Wang Mingde, but instead greeted the soldiers behind Xiong Qian: "Let your Qian Zheng loosen your bondage."

Last time when Xiong Lan surrendered to Deng Ming, she even tried to tie a buckle, but this time he tied a real buckle, which was tightly tied. The soldiers struggled for a long time before untiing it for President Xiong Qian.

"President Xiong Qian did not make any contribution in the last battle of Wanxian, so there was no reward afterwards. He just gave the title of President Qian." After Xiong Lan's rope was untied, Deng Ming said in front of everyone in Wanxian. Although this reason is nothing wrong, it is actually not the main reason. In the final analysis, Xiong Lan's origin is despised. Everyone knows this: "But in fact, General Xiong Qian is the leader of Wanxian. He immediately manages the army and the people. I have already said that from now on, General Xiong Qian will be the magistrate of Wanxian and the rank of guerrilla."

Xiong Lan hurriedly thanked her. Under normal circumstances, officials who received official positions should swear to be loyal to the court. However, Xiong Lan was not so shameless and only said that she would work hard and not disappoint Wen Anzhi and Deng Ming.

Deng Ming knew this and nodded to express his satisfaction with Xiong Lan's statement. As for the captives captured by Xiong Lan, Deng Ming also made a decision on the spot: all the officers were sent to Fengjie to be detained and waited for Wen Anzhi's disposal; as for ordinary soldiers, they were handed over to Xiong Lan, whether for the reclaiming or replenishing war soldiers, he could make a decision.

Next, Deng Ming inspected Wanxian again. Then this opportunity, Xiong Lan took the opportunity to show Deng Ming his governance ability. Although Wanxian only had two thousand troops to settle the army, Xiong Lan reclaimed a small 10,000 mu of military troops and sold more than 15,000 stones of grain this year. The yield per mu is already comparable to Fengjie and other places. Considering that Xiong Lan only took office this year and Wanxian had just changed hands, Deng Ming felt that this achievement was good.

The efficiency of military camps has always been relatively low. Whether it is Fengjie or Sanxia, ​​the yield per mu of military camps is generally just over one stone, which is about half of the civilian land. Moreover, the land that soldiers can be responsible for is relatively small. On average, one reclaiming soldier can only cultivate two or three acres of land. The land area responsible for the reclaiming soldiers in Wanxian County is more than twice, and the yield per mu is still OK. Deng Ming asked Xiong Lan about his experience. If it is good, he can introduce his experience to Fengjie and other places.

Xiong Lan naturally cheered up and listed all the reward and punishment regulations he had thought hard this year, and carefully explained them to Deng Ming.

After hearing this, Deng Ming thought it was very good, so he praised Xiong Lan for a few words, and then studied the matter with the guards.

Although these guards have experience in war, except for Nin Tang, others have no experience in how to manage internal affairs and are not very interested.

The so-called experienced Ren Tang is actually half a bucket of water. Fortunately, there are many Fengjie soldiers accompanying him. Deng Ming finally found a few people who had worked in reclamation from them, told them Xiong Lan's regulations and asked them what they had to say.

The officer who had been in charge of the settlement obviously disagreed with Xiong Lan's regulations, but at first he didn't want to tell Deng Mingming why it was not feasible. He couldn't withstand Deng Ming's repeated inquiries, and finally said: "Admiral, there are only two thousand people in Wanxian County, so of course everything is easy to do."

According to these Fengjie officers, the main reason for the low output of military camps is that the garrisons are lazy. For this problem, the talented people in the past racked their brains and designed a variety of rewards and punishments, but the results are not very effective. For example, the simplest problem of water carrying is that only when the officers supervise, the garrisons will be honest in carrying water, and they will be lazy in places that the officers cannot see. In order to solve this problem, regulations have to be formulated to stipulate how many buckets of water the garrisons responsible for carrying water must carry every day, and if they fail to complete it, they will be punished; as a countermeasure, the garrisons will try to use small buckets to reduce the amount of labor; if the size of the barrel is specified, the garrisons will try not to fill it.

In the mouth of the Fengjie officer, this is actually a competition where the road is one foot taller and the devil is one foot taller. Xiong Lan just took over Wanxian and was determined to drive out some results for the above. It is normal for the yield per mu to be slightly larger; and there are not many people in Wanxian, so Xiong Lan can go directly to the front line to supervise, so it is not easy for people below to be slick in their heads and shoulders.

"No one has ever thought about these ideas. They are more and more detailed than Wanxian's methods, but in the end they are useless." Fengjie officer claimed that this was just the reason he said to Deng Ming on the surface, and some reasons were tacitly understood by the people below. That is the complex network of human feelings. Friends and relatives need to turn a blind eye and close their eyes. The officers in charge also need to make some of the oil and water they use. Wanxian may now have a little less loss, so it seems to be more efficient, but in the long run, the efficiency will definitely decrease continuously.

However, even if there is such a thing and such reason, military camps still have many advantages over civil camps, which is also a method commonly used in Kuidong. However, Fengjie's reclamation officers did not mention Deng Ming's residency because they had heard rumors that Deng Ming did not intend to adopt the military camp model in western Sichuan. There are not many experienced people, and no one is willing to make big people unhappy, especially those who control the future of the people below and life and death.

...

Guiyang.

In recent months, Wu Sangui has been in a bad mood. After receiving the promise to enfeoff Yunnan, Wu Sangui has been trying hard to make progress, take back Kunming as soon as possible, and get his fief. For this reason, Wu Sangui even adopted the model of fishing in the dry pond and levied half of the output in Guizhou as a tax.

When Wu Sangui decided on this policy at the beginning of the year, he thought that such high taxes would not last long. After harvesting this year, he would definitely be able to bring a large amount of supplies from the Qing court. After taking Yunnan and driving Li Dingguo away, the military expenditure required by Wu Sangui could be greatly reduced. Wu Sangui originally planned that he could continue to ask the court for a large amount of supplies on the pretext of unstable borders, and then reduce taxes in his fiefdom so that the vassal states could be quickly restored.

But as the war in Huguang began, Hu Quancai intercepted and misappropriated a large amount of supplies that should have been given to Wu Sangui without saying a word. What’s even more annoying is that the incompetent Hu Quancai was defeated and died. Wu Sangui thought sadly that all the things that should belong to him were cheaper than Deng Ming.

After learning that Zheng Chenggong had invaded the Yangtze River, Wu Sangui concluded that he was unlikely to receive more supplies this year. Regardless of whether the Fujian army succeeded or not, the Qing court would no longer want to invest a lot of resources in the southwest: even if Zheng Chenggong could be defeated, the Qing court's taxes would be disrupted. If the Fujian army succeeded, Wu Sangui would probably receive an order to withdraw from the southwest and counterattack Jiangnan.

The situation did develop in the direction Wu Sangui expected, and Deng Ming also went to the southeast to get involved. When he saw the long row of duty-free areas listed in the newspaper, Wu Sangui sighed, knowing that the southwest could not get any supplement this year, even if it was hard to say how much it would be next year.

Since Wu Sangui couldn't get anything from the Qing court, he had a great resistance to the 100,000 troops that supported Guizhou: Although Wu Sangui had tried to bombard many reinforcements such as Geng Fan and Shang Fan, there were still too many troops left. After the Qing court did not replenish them, these people were consuming Wu Sangui's fiefdom.

Today, Wu Sangui found Zhao Liangdong and took out a letter to him: "Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, wrote a letter. He said that Deng Ming had returned to Huguang..." Now Li Guoying has not yet obtained the exact news of Deng Ming's whereabouts, and he is just speculating about Deng Ming's next actions. However, Wu Sangui said it firmly: "Deng Ming will definitely draw Sichuan. If it is drawn to Sichuan, it will inevitably take Chongqing and connect western and eastern Sichuan into one. If Deng Ming succeeds, the court will have to pacify Sichuan."

A few months ago, Wu Sangui had always wanted to pass on some of the troops' expenses to the surrounding provinces. Although he successfully sent them to some people in Guangdong and Guangxi, he had never been able to make a breakthrough with Zhang Changgeng, Huguang. Although he lost half of Hubei, Zhang Changgen refused to ask for help from the court. Zhang Changgeng also claimed to Wu Sangui that if he sent reinforcements privately, Huguang would never bear the food and pay for the reinforcements. They needed to bring their own dry food, and Huguang would not use silver and grain to repay the King of Pingxi for this.

Wu Sangui's comment on this was that he wanted money but not life. In his anger, he was full of hope that Deng Ming would kill Zhang Changgeng, and to replace the governor of Huguang who valued his life more, he came to power. Unfortunately, Deng Ming disappointed him.

"Li Guoying asked us to send troops to help him. He has already made a request to the court for help. Guizhou and Sichuan are neighboring provinces, so it is appropriate to watch over each other." Wu Sangui said while observing Zhao Liangdong's face: "Can you want to go to Chongqing?"

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