Xiong Lan couldn't come up with any better solution for a while, and Liu Jinge had no idea. Seeing this, Deng Ming asked them to go back and think about it again. Anyway, Deng Ming must maintain the credit of the banknotes.

A few days later, Deng Ming summoned his confidants to discuss matters again. Xiong Lan also had the opportunity to participate this time. Although the guards all seemed a little contemptuous of him, Xiong Lan didn't care.

The first thing we talked about was economic issues. Seeing that Deng Ming was so embarrassed, some people proposed to use a monopoly method to collect the IOUs sent out. Needless to say, salt and iron, all living materials and means of production, including agricultural tools, cloth, and clothes, are produced by the government office. No civilians are allowed to buy or sell them by themselves, and all these materials must be collected by IOUs.

Before he finished speaking, Ren Tang took the lead in opposing: "It's fine if salt and iron are not enough, but how can we organize the production of other things? If the clothes are not made enough, then the people will be frozen; if the farm tools are not enough, it will affect production. What should we do if we do too much?"

"Everyone must buy it, count it on the head." The guard who made the suggestion was a little dissatisfied.

Ren Tang sneered, and at this time the others also realized that it was inappropriate: "Isn't this a disguised tax collection? Isn't collecting heavy taxes contrary to the admiral's meaning?"

"Not only has this problem, we have limited iron and cloth now. Cotton also has to rely on smuggling armor and weapons supplied to the army from Huguang. It is different. It is a lot of unusable things. Do we have so much pig iron and cotton to waste?" Ren Tang retorted loudly, turned his head to Deng Ming and said, "This is a must-have to play with."

Deng Ming felt that this sounded a bit like a rationing system. He felt that it was not completely unfeasible when the materials were quite scarce, but it required quite precise calculations, and the bureaucratic system responsible for execution also required experience and efficiency. However, whether it was mathematical talents or official talents, Deng Ming was now lacking in pig iron and cotton.

Zhao Tianba hesitated for a moment and expressed his opinion: "Sun Kewang used similar methods to govern Yunnan and Guizhou..."

According to Zhao Tianba, Sun Kewang had built a large number of workshops. If the equipment and tools of soldiers and people were damaged, they would be sent to the workshop for repair. The craftsmen would repair them within the specified time; if a certain household needed agricultural tools, the workshop would also be responsible for the production.

"But Sun Kewang implements military camps." Sun Kewang's governance of Yunnan and Guizhou is equivalent to an enlarged military camp system. He does provide Xiying with a large amount of military equipment and production tools, but the output is all owned by Xiying, which is completely different from Deng Mingsheng's system: "And Sun Kewang is also completely different from the system. Whether it is the craftsmen in the workshop or the peasant soldiers in the military farm, if they cannot meet Sun Kewang's requirements, they will definitely kill people. Can the admiral be cruelly determined to be the same as Sun Kewang? If the quantity or texture required is not good, they will be punished from whipping to skin." Zhao Tianba said: "I doubt whether the admiral can do it."

"I can't do it," Deng Ming immediately replied, "You don't have to doubt it, and are there so many people in the capital now killing me?" After pausing for a moment, Deng Ming asked again, "When the Qing army attacked Guizhou, these craftsmen and peasants should not fight desperately and defend the court to the death, right?"

"I don't know about this humble position." Zhao Tianba shook his head and said, "At that time, the humble position was already in Fengjie."

"Yes." Deng Ming stopped asking, but talked about another topic: "Liu Shuai and the others have agreed to my request and agreed to accept five thousand prisoners of war, and at the same time, they have discharged the five thousand auxiliary soldiers under their command."

When Xiong Lan proposed to exchange prisoners of war for military auxiliary soldiers, Deng Ming was not sure about it. After all, this is an army and should theoretically be composed of more reliable people. So when Deng Ming proposed to Liu Yao to exchange personnel, he was worried that the other party would disagree. Unexpectedly, Liu Yao, Yang Youcai and others thought that this proposal was quite reasonable. In the eyes of military generals, it was more dangerous to let these newly captured prisoners work in the fields because the people were difficult to control and were easy to connect privately; and in the army, these auxiliary soldiers were originally coolies and were subject to various military regulations. For these auxiliary soldiers, the military camp was more like a large prison, and it was safe to as long as the war soldiers holding weapons were composed of reliable soldiers. Then, through differentiation and disintegration, promoting activists who were eager to the Ming army, they naturally gradually transformed after a period of time.

Although Liu Yao and Yang Youcai were not as experienced as He Zhen, they also sounded like they knew a lot of ways to deal with prisoners. After listening to them, Deng Ming, who was a little worried about the safety of the army, turned to sympathize with the prisoners who were about to join the army. However, Deng Ming also knew that he had no capital yet and could not be overwhelmed with sympathy, so he decided not to ask how Liu Yao and the others planned to govern the army for the time being.

"There is no solution to the military camp for the time being, and I can't afford such troops, so I still have to station the generals." Now the military still has more than 11,000 troops, and Deng Ming completely gave up his earlier package of solutions: "I told them that the settlement land distributed to them cannot conflict with the land reclamation of the capital. At least half of them will go to the near Dujiangyan to build military camps. In addition to the settlement, they also have to help clean up water conservancy."

"The captives have been accepted by Liu Shuai and the others. The five thousand auxiliary soldiers who were scheduled to be converted into nationality have also been placed in the camp. I plan to have a live chat with them and then let them go out to open up the land." Deng Ming said that the five thousand people not only include Liu Yao, Yang Youcai's subordinates, but also people from Jiange, Jiangyou and Mianzhu.

"Interview?" Ren Tang asked curiously.

"Yes, I have prepared some questions." Deng Ming took out some papers and distributed them to everyone. After a long period of hard work, the guards under his command can finally understand the words on the paper. Among the people present, Xiong Lan has the lowest level of education. At least one of the two words is unknown, but Deng Ming also gave him one. Deng Ming will read them one by one. After the meeting, Xiong Lan can also be taken back by his master Qin Xiucai to help deepen his memory.

Deng Ming’s questions are all about agricultural production, such as asking the auxiliary soldiers how much land they plan to reclaim, what tools they need, how much seed and food they need to borrow from the yamen, what difficulties they have, and what kind of help they need to provide to them.

"Does five thousand people ask?" Li Xinghan asked in surprise as he looked at the question full of pages.

"Yes," Deng Ming replied seriously: "So I can't be busy alone. I need every literate person to ask me. You need to prepare a few more sheets of paper and use correct words to record the number of answers to each question so that I can have a clear idea. As for the difficulties and special help you need, you should also write them down as much as possible. If different people make the same request, you can also record them in correct words, so that I can also know what the auxiliary soldiers need most."

"Well, yes, your situation should not be unique. Maybe I should run an agricultural science and let experienced people teach you." Deng Ming asked: "What do you think?"

"Yes, it's great, thank you for the admiral." Lu Huan replied quickly. Although Lu Huan was happy, he was still a little worse than others. The other auxiliary soldiers had long dreamed of owning their own land one day, and now they finally had a dream come true. But Lu Huan felt a little afraid. It was good to own his own property, but he was afraid that he would not know how to plant and would rather starve without a harvest.

"Well, I've written it down." Deng Ming wrote a row of words on a piece of paper, picked up a tax-free certificate like other ones and handed it to Lu Huan: "You can take this first, I will find a way for you. Within ten days, you will come to the yamen again, and there will be a list of documents prepared for your situation."

"Thank you, Admiral." Lu Huan put away the evidence and stood up. He had learned the interview procedure from the people in front of him, knowing that this was the end of the conversation.

"The court thanks you for your years of service."

...

After three days of busyness, Deng Ming finished all the interview work and sorted out the information for a few days. Deng Ming once again summoned all his confidants to discuss.

There is nothing to say about assisting retired soldiers in the field of land reclamation. Deng Ming decided that except for leaving some combat reserves, the rest should be used to help the auxiliary soldiers engage in production: "I am very poor now, so I can't give grain and agricultural tools for free, so I can only lend them, but no interest or rent is charged. For the time being, I can do this for the retired soldiers."

Although there are not many people, there are some people who are very similar to Lu Huan. They are not good at farm work, but have some other skills.

"I decided to adopt a monopoly system, not only salt and iron, but everything must be monopoly." Without immediately talking about how to help these people, Deng Ming made another decision.

Ren Tang was shocked and wanted to stop him, but when he thought about it, he felt that Deng Ming must have a later text, so he swallowed the words back into his stomach.

It was indeed not as expected by Ren Tang.

"Because everything is sold exclusively, any private manufacturing, selling agricultural tools, and salt is smuggled and is prohibited. But if someone is willing to pay a certain amount of IOU to the yamen, I will give them a license to produce and sell." Deng Ming used Lu Huan as an example: "For example, Lu Huan gave me a hundred yuan IOU to the yamen, in order to thank him for giving me such a large debt, I will allow him to make salt; if he pays another hundred yuan, I will allow him to sell salt as a thank you."

"Just two stones of grain? Just allow salt to be made and salt is sold, and there is no limit on quantity?" Ren Tang stopped doing it again, but this time it was not because of too much, but because it was too little.

Deng Ming was about to speak, but when he saw Xiong Lan, who was always good at judging the intentions of the leader, he felt something on his face and asked, "Does Xiong Guerrilla have any ideas?"

"If you are not wrong with the humble position, this is not a salt tax, but a monopoly license, and the price can be determined in the future."

"Yes." Deng Ming laughed.
Chapter completed!