After Zhou Peigong left, Deng Ming politely said to the person beside him: "It's okay, Boss Ye, let's go back and rest first."

The person named by Deng Ming was Ye Tianming, not an officer of the Ming army. He was Liu Yao's auxiliary soldier a year ago. After retiring, he became a salt merchant in Sichuan. Now there are five salt shops in Chengdu, one of which belongs to Ye Tianming. He was entrusted by his peers and went out of Sichuan with Deng Ming. Along the way, Deng Ming not only taught him dozens of words, but also taught him some simple math. Fortunately, Boss Ye did not need to calculate the cost by himself. Not only Deng Ming was responsible for helping him, he also had a Mr. Accountant. In fact, Boss Ye has gone bankrupt and of course he does not have the ability to hire a Mr. Accountant. This money was collected by the five major salt shops in Chengdu.

As a representative of the salt industry in Sichuan, Ye Tianming was invited by Deng Ming to listen to his negotiations with Zhou Peigong today. When he teaches Ye Tianming to learn the four calculations next time, Deng Ming will also explain some negotiation skills to him.

After Ye Tianming left the tent, Mu Tan couldn't help asking: "Why didn't the admiral give Zhou Peigong a salt intake, but gave them IOUs. Isn't this equivalent to giving them a batch of salt for free?"

"Even if you give some for free, it doesn't matter. Selling salt is a huge profit." Ren Tang replied for Deng Ming: "Now the salt industry is completely controlled by the Hui merchants, and the big merchants are devoted to the Beijing Lu Court. Even if a loyal and righteous man can help Zhoushan do a little salt industry, it will be enough to support thousands of people."

Mu Tan is from Fujian and may not look down on the transaction of smuggling salt. In addition, there is no place for private salt in Fujian. However, Zhang Huangyan's subordinates in Zhoushan have always been very concerned about salt smuggling and have some ways to get to the lower-level salt merchants. Although Zhang Huangyan's salt merchants who can come into contact with are relatively low in status and the amount of private salt they can carry is very limited, just a little salt can exchange the Zhejiang army for food that feeds hundreds of people.

Zhou Kaihuang nodded repeatedly when he heard this. In the past, Yuan Zongdi relied on salt smuggling when he was in Daning, and almost a thousand Daning soldiers' rations were exchanged for salt. Zhou Kaihuang agreed with Ren Tang's huge profits in the salt industry, but like Mu Tan, he felt distressed about giving Zhou Peigong some IOUs for free. Deng Ming was confused when he heard it, and he didn't know which faction Zhou Kaihuang supported.

"This is the admiral in order to win the hearts of the people." Ren Tang said loudly: "If there is no support from the gentry, how can the countryside know the admiral's kindness? If the gentry intends to be an enemy of our army, then the villagers and the villagers will hear all kinds of bad words from our army, which is no different from the evil ghosts who cannibalize people."

Unlike Zhou Kaihuang, Ren Tang attached great importance to the interests of the gentry, which was also the consistent policy of the Zhejiang East Army. Zhang Huangyan was more attentive than Zheng Chenggong in terms of preferential treatment of the gentry. Ren Tang was quite dissatisfied with the various policies of the camp in Hubei, so after Deng Ming proposed the idea of ​​compensating the Wuchang scholars, Ren Tang was a firm supporter and even suggested that Deng Ming compensate those gentry who stayed in his hometown.

Ren Tang said that Deng Ming had gone to Deng Ming's heart. Although he had only been in this world for less than two years, he was deeply moved by the strength of the gentry class in this era. They had all the tools of public opinion, had a large number of intellectuals, and were the most informed people in this era, and were the owners of most social resources. Before Hu Quancai sent troops from Wuchang last time, Deng Ming mastered the names, forces, routes, and daily camps from the gentry. Before Deng Ming cultivated his own intellectuals and established new tools of public opinion, he did not want to anger the gentry class.

However, when Nin Tang proposed to compensate the gentry under the Ming army a few days ago, Deng Ming refused without hesitation. For him, it was the internal affairs of the Allied Army. When the Allied Army showed hostility to the gentry under the rule, Deng Ming could not stand on the opposite side of the alliance to express kindness. Maintaining external consistency, at least on the surface, is the key point for maintaining the stability of the alliance.

This is also the reason given by Deng Ming when he refused Ren Tang's proposal, but in addition, Deng Ming had more reasons. First of all, it was the expenditure problem. Most gentry and landlords lacked access to Wuchang or had sons who did not study in the provincial capital. If Deng Ming wanted to bear half of their taxes, his profit in salt trading would be greatly reduced; secondly, these people remained under the rule of the Ming army, and even if there were complaints, it would be difficult to have an impact on the Qing Dynasty's controlled areas. In Deng Ming's view, the most important thing is Wuchang and the top gentry in Hubei. As long as they do their work well, Li Laiheng and He Zhen will have little impact on what they do, at least it will not affect Deng Ming's reputation.

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean," Deng Ming immediately agreed after hearing Ren Tang's speech: "What I give to Zhou Peigong and others is IOU, not grain or salt. If they want to get real money, they must open the official channels of Huguang to us. It is actually worth it to buy the literati and officials in Wuchang and Hanyang with such a little money."

In the sales of salt, Sichuan must make concessions, because at present, Sichuan needs salt trading more urgently than Huguang, and Sichuan cannot get the salt intake from the Qing Dynasty, so sales must rely entirely on Zhang Changgeng's Huguang bureaucratic system.

"There is a limit on the official salt transported to Huguang every year. It is hard to say how big the difference is, but it is definitely not enough for the people to eat salt. A large number of people get sick or even die because of this, so everyone will buy * official salt at a high price." Deng Ming continued.

At present, there is no big difference between the salt administration system adopted by the Qing court and the Ming court. Not only does it require salt intake to buy salt, but there are also clear regulations on where the salt purchased should be sold. Since the Qin Dynasty, salt was an important tool used by the government to exploit the people. Salt is a must-have for daily life, and not eating it will cause life to worry about life. However, the government is not very interested in increasing the output of salt. On the contrary, only if the supply of salt is insufficient can the government increase the price by dozens of times, or even a hundred times. The place where the sales of salt intake is stipulated further strengthened the government's monopoly on salt and increased the profit of the salt business to an unprecedented level.

"We do not have salt induction, so it is impossible to sell Sichuan salt in Huguang, nor can we sell Sichuan salt anywhere. General Yuan and Shangshu Zhang's previous method of letting local salt merchants carry them in official salt was neither stable nor in large quantities. But Zhang Changgeng was different. Although he could not give us salt induction, all governments could sell private salt they had 'searched', and there was no quantity limit."

Because the profits of the salt industry are higher than future drugs, private salt smuggling has been repeatedly banned since ancient times. Private salt dealers even have their own arms and fight desperately with anti-smuggling officers and soldiers once they meet. In order to encourage local governments, officers and soldiers are brave enough to inspect private salt. The private salt found is generally rewarded to local governments. These private salt governments do not have to be sold to merchants with salt quotas, but can be sold to local merchants. Now Deng Ming plans to take advantage of this opportunity. As long as the Sichuan salt transported into Wuchang is stamped with the government's mark and becomes "snatched private salt", it can be successfully distributed to the entire Huguang area, and even flow out of Huguang into Henan, Jiangxi and other places.

The layers of government officials and local snakes, and Deng Ming cannot rely on the power of the Ming army to buy them one by one, so he must protect the Huguang Governor's Office led by Zhang Changgeng. Only Zhang Changgen has the ability to help the Ming army open up the joints along the way.

Zhou Kaihuang was not dissatisfied with Deng Ming's arrangement, but seeing that Hanyang was at his fingertips but could not take it, it was still a bit sad. After hearing Deng Ming explain the importance of Zhang Changgeng's Huguang government to Sichuan, Zhou Kaihuang just sighed lightly: "It seems that we have to wait until we have the ability to take down the entire Huguang in one go before we can come to take over Wuchang."

Deng Ming basically thought so. The strategy he formulated for the Sichuan Ming army was to get along with each other from a distance, and to treat the Sichuan-Shaanxi Green Camp, the Huguang Green Camp and the Liangjiang Green Camp. For the farther away Zhang Changgeng of Huguang, he temporarily took the lead in winning over it and did not hesitate to make concessions for this. But Li Guoying was under Chengdu's nose, so he must crack down on it firmly.

However, Ren Tang had another opinion. After hearing Zhou Kaihuang's words, Ren Tang immediately said: "In my opinion, we must wait until the Huguang government orders are unified before we can consider taking over Wuchang."

When Zhou Kaihuang heard this, his neck suddenly turned red. He felt that this was an attack on the camp.

"That's right, what I'm talking about is you going to camp." Ren Tang noticed Zhou Kaihuang's face change, but he still said without hesitation.

In his opinion, the plunder of the gentry's XU Dong army was a problem. If Li Laiheng, Liu Tichun and others did not change from ally to subordinates, even if they seized Wuchang and defended it, it would be just an enclave far from the Sichuan base. That is, after spending a long time with Zhou Kaihuang, Ren Tang also had a friendship with him, so he did not blatantly use the word "trespass".

"What's wrong with us breaking into the camp?" Zhou Kaihuang shouted angrily.

"Okay, okay." Seeing that the two of them were about to argue, Deng Ming hurriedly stepped forward to resolve the situation and calmed down Ren Tang and Zhou Kaihuang. Deng Ming thought about it for a while and said to Zhou Kaihuang and Ren Tang: "I told the gentry of Wuchang that we are willing to bear half of their taxes, and it is also to better convince the Dukes of Haodong to adopt the same policies as us in the future."

Zhou Kaihuang widened his eyes when he heard this, while Ren Tang smiled.

"If I give food and military supplies to the Lords of the East directly, I don't understand what I want to do. I'm afraid I won't take it away with confidence, right?" Deng Ming said frankly.

Although they were all fighting under the banner of the Ming court, the Xongdong Alliance was still wary of the imperial court. Even Deng Ming, who had fought side by side, would definitely be rejected by the other party without hesitation if he wanted to exchange some of the ruling power or military power in the hands of the Xongdong generals. Zhou Kaihuang knew that even Yuan Zongdi would be no exception.

"If I directly compensate the gentry in Jianghan or help them get tax exemptions, most of the Dukes of the Khaodong would be very dissatisfied and would wonder why I did this and why I bribed the people's hearts under their rule?" Deng Ming took the word "people's hearts" very seriously. Zhou Kaihuang had to protest when he heard this, but Deng Ming waved his hand and did not let Zhou Kaihuang say his defense: "But I give some benefits to these gentry in Wuchang has nothing to do with them, and they will not give birth to anything to me because of this.

What a barrier. As long as the salt business goes well, our IOU will be accepted here in Wuchang. Since IOU has the right to buy first, they may even need more IOUs. At that time, the generals of the XOU will also think that the IOUs are valuable and may ask us for some. At that time, I will ask the generals of the XOUs to adopt a unified step with us, so it will not be easy to arouse their disgust and doubts. Brother Zhou, don’t worry, it’s not that I am guarding against them, but that I am afraid that they will have misunderstandings to me.”

Seeing that Deng Ming was so open and honest, he did not have any malice to the Xong Army, and Zhou Kaihuang had nothing to say.

But Ren Tang still had no choice but to be reasonable: "There are no scholars in the XU Dong army, so it is so troublesome. It's really hard to help the Admiral."

On this issue, Mu Tan and Ren Tang have similar views. Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Huangyan started with "Li thieves advocated chaos" in the Qing Dynasty manifesto. Of course, their subordinates have the same position on this issue. Mu Tan sang to Ren Tang: "Scholars are pillars of the country."

Zhou Kaihuang's eyebrows stood up and he was about to retort, but before he thought about what to say, Deng Ming had already spoken for him: "Brother Ren, you can write a letter for me. I suggest that Shangshu Zhang return all the military power and governance power to the court. Please send someone to Zhoushan to govern the army and govern the government. How about it?"

Ren Tang was furious: "Shangshu Zhang worked diligently for more than ten years and had such a foundation. How could he let the court far away in Myanmar send people to make trouble?"

"Duke Jingguo has worked hard for more than ten years to open up a little bit in Gaodong. If you don't want the court to go to Zhoushan to make trouble, we should let outsiders enter Gaodong and make trouble?" Zhou Kaihuang held it in for a long time but couldn't figure out how to refute it. Now he finally found a breakthrough.

"I mean that, each family has its own difficulties. Now that the captive court is in great power, we are in the same boat and we still don't know if we can overcome the difficulties. How can we not understand the difficulties of the alliance?" Deng Ming interrupted in time, looked at Mu Tan again, and found that he kept silent in his mouth, so that Deng Ming could not take out the Prince of Yanping and say something: "Let's wait for the news from Wuchang with peace of mind. As long as this matter goes well, Sichuan Yan will be fine to support ten thousand people for us."

...

Zhou Peigong returned to Wuchang at night and discussed with Zhang Changgeng until late at night.

"Deng Ming mobilized a large number of troops to sell us salt?" Zhang Changgeng was still a little confused about this, but since it was Deng Ming's solemn request, it was obviously unlikely not to agree.

"Yes, it's probably because Deng Ming wanted to exchange Sichuan salt for some grain and cloth. The so-called land tax compensation is the expense he used to buy the gentry's confidentiality," Zhou Peigong now felt the meaning of win-win. On the way back to Wuchang, Zhou Peigong was thinking about how to convince Zhang Changgeng to nod. Although the nominal land tax subsidy was only half, as long as Deng Ming's asking price was not outrageous, Zhou Peigong would easily take back all the taxes handed over to Li Laiheng with salt. Based on Zhou Peigong's understanding of Deng Ming, since the other party had the intention to buy the gentry of Wuchang, the exchange price of IOU and salt would not be outrageous.

"How much salt Deng Ming wants to sell and how much does it cost?" Zhang Changgeng was worried that Deng Ming was forcibly buying and selling, so he used the excuse of selling salt as a robbery of Wuchang's stolen money: "If the number is too large, this account cannot be done."

"The officials thought that the people could come forward to take over Deng Ming's salt." Zhou Peigong immediately raised a solution after he noticed Zhang Changgeng's concerns: "Did Deng Ming want to give the IOU? Well, a business bank will use grain to exchange these IOUs from the taxed scholars, and then the business bank will exchange the salt in Deng Ming's hand. The vassal treasury will not pay a penny for it."

After returning to Hanyang today, Zhou Peigong first briefly explained the conditions of the Ming army to the hawks group in Wuhan. Almost everyone firmly supported continuing negotiations with Deng Ming. However, everyone felt that it was too dangerous to go out alone to exchange salt with the Ming army. If news leaked in the future, everyone might have trouble. So the hawks group discussed this method, and a business bank came forward to contact the Ming army. The members of the hawks just hid behind and made profits. As for how much Deng Ming wanted to exchange and how much the price, they asked him to negotiate with the business bank, and the salt exchanged was also sold by the business bank.

Zhou Peigong did not think that selling salt would be a loss: "If it is a loss for a transaction, it is the business of this business itself; if it is profitable, the vassal treasury can also draw taxes. As long as the Governor puts a name for these salts, it's fine."

Zhang Changgeng nodded: "Let's try it out and see what Deng Ming wants to do first."

"As for the order." Zhou Peigong breathed a sigh of relief. If Zhang Changgeng disagreed, then how many IOUs Deng Ming gave were wasted paper. Now Zhou Peigong's losses can finally be recovered. However, it is not enough to just think about getting back the losses. Deng Ming must also benefit, otherwise he would probably have to regret it again.

"Win win-win, it's really good, otherwise this business wouldn't be able to continue for a long time." Zhou Peigong thought in his mind.

At this time, another person was called by Zhang Changgeng. It was the admiral of the Ma Army in Wuchang. He was always responsible for the investigation of private salt.

After briefly introducing the situation, Zhang Changgeng took the matter aside and asked Zhou Peigong to make arrangements.

Although Zhou Peigong did not explain it very clearly, the admiral of the Ma Army immediately understood where the salt came from. He patted his chest and said, "I understand what the prefect meant by the prefect is. There is a large group of thieves who will crazily traffic in western Hubei from next month to Wuchang. From now on, tens of thousands of pounds will be seized by officers and soldiers every year. Don't worry, the prefect can sell it easily, and there is absolutely no need to worry about the prefect. I will thank the prefect for his men. The prefect will enjoy a glass of wine."

"Maybe more," Zhou Peigong whispered: "And this matter should be kept as confidential as possible."

"More?" Admiral Ma Jun was stunned for a moment and promised again: "As for confidentiality, the prefect can rest assured. In the past, when Wuchang seized private salt, the old Taishan, who had always shared the worries of the country, went back to tell him."

"Here is the Governor's Office--" Zhou Peigong quickly reminded him.

"Don't worry, magistrate, will the humble rank still be so unaware of things?"

When he returned home in the evening, Zhou Peigong told his wife all the dangers of today's battle situation and the details of the subsequent negotiations.

"Admiral Deng is really unfathomable." After saying that, Mr. Zhou Pei sighed.

"Why did the master say this?"

"Hehe, it's not all because of this salt? If Admiral Deng hadn't made this request, I wouldn't have looked at the salt industry more. I only knew that this thing was very profitable. But I know that Admiral Deng was far-sighted and a hero who was born in the world. Since he didn't sell anything else but focused on salt, how could he not have a deep meaning?"

In front of his wife, Zhou Peigong put down all his disguise and raised Deng Ming with respect and fear: "I think about it carefully. Every year, the court can earn one or two million taels of silver by selling salt turfs. The local governments also have some salt turfs in their hands, which can be used for emergency response. Although it does not include annual income, I don't know how much it is, but million taels of silver cannot escape. All of these add up to the taxes of one or two wealthy provinces."

Speaking of this, Zhou Peigong paused for a while and was stunned for a moment.

"What are you thinking about?" After waiting for a while, Mrs. Zhou asked softly when she saw that her husband had no further information.

"Oh, I'm thinking, there are wars everywhere in the world, and the court wants money everywhere. If you suddenly lose such a large amount of money, you don't know how the court should increase revenue and reduce expenditure." After saying that, Zhou Peigong shook his head vigorously and continued the topic just now. He dared not mention these words to anyone, so he could only say goodbye to his wife: "Since my court entered the pass, salt quotations have only been sent to Hui merchants. Although they have just been more than ten years, salt quotations have become rich and donated every year.

The loss was a million, and there was also a province's tax. Hui merchants had always been loyal to the court. Last time the sea breach invaded Jiangning, the scholars in Jiangnan supported him and went out of the city to welcome Zheng Damu and Zhang Cangshui for dozens of miles. But Hui merchants competed to donate money without waiting for the court to call. I once heard that a merchant donated 500,000 taels of silver to the grain transportation yamen at one time. They all knew very well that if the Ming army returned to the Yangtze River, they would definitely not allow them to monopolize the benefits of the salt industry."

Mrs. Zhou had already begun to understand the meaning of her husband's words, and Deng Ming's malice also appeared faintly. Mrs. Zhou's voice began to tremble: "The master's meaning is - Deng Ming's drunkenness is not about wine!"

"At first, I didn't understand. Admiral Deng was so mobilized and mobilized. How could he simply come to Wuchang just to sell some salt?" Zhou Peigong sighed a few times, lowered his voice and said, "Huguang connects nine provinces, which is the center of the world. With the cooperation of the Huguang Governor's Office, I guess Deng Ming will never sell salt to Wuchang every year, and he will probably have millions of kilograms. I finally understand why he must show kindness to the Governor. How can a mere Wuchang compare to the importance of the Hui merchant salt industry to the court?"

"Don't the master plan to say these words to the Governor?" Mrs. Zhou asked quietly.

"So what can I do after I say it? Do you advise the Governor to slaughter himself to serve the court? Besides, everything I have been given by the Governor and has nothing to do with the Hui merchants." Zhou Peigong stopped again when he said this, he was stunned for a while, and then slowly said: "I used to say that Admiral Deng was a woman's benevolence, but it was not right. He passed by Wuchang and treated the gentry well, so why did he do a win-win situation? The so-called benevolent person is invincible, probably this is what it means?"

"Just just now, the Governor asked me unintentionally, asking Deng Ming if he had ever married and if he had any favored concubines?" After a moment, Zhou Peigong gave his wife another shocking news.

"How did the master answer the Governor?"

Zhou Peigong did not answer his wife, but asked, "Your relative's younger sister is fourteen years old this year? I remember she has not betrothed to others yet."

"No."

“Are you foot binding?”

Mrs. Zhou laughed and said, "How can you not be wrapped?"

"What a pity," Zhou Peigong sighed: "The rules of the admiral of their family!"
Chapter completed!