After listening to the story of the shopkeeper, Lu Chenyin's first reaction was furious: "Boss Ye is a salt merchant under the admiral. How could he be so unbearable? He could even boil chickens with white water?"

But not long after he said that, Lu Chenyin remembered that he had mistakenly thought that Ye Tianming was a military man. The more he recalled Ye Tianming's behavior, Lu Chenyin was definitely not sure about his judgment just now.

Following the shopkeeper, Lu Mansion came to Lu's house and there were several other gentry managers. They also wanted Lu Chenyin to prove that what the shopkeeper said was true. In this way, Lu Chenyin couldn't help but mutter: "Can you really be so unbearable?"

But no matter whether Lu Chen believes in it or not, or what the truth is, as long as Ye Tianming dies in Wuchang City, Lu Jinshen knows that his job is going to be done. In desperation, the old Jinshen had to send the butler to visit Ye Tianming with the shopkeepers. Lu Jinshen was worried and was completely sleepy and sat at home waiting for the news.

"I'm going to die?" Lu Jinshen had to prepare for the worst. He thought hard about how to explain to Deng Ming: "Don't say that Admiral Deng won't believe it, even the Governor and the Prefect won't believe it, right? I'm afraid their first thought was to tie me up and give it to Deng Ming to apologize? Although it won't be like this in the end, I will definitely ask me to hand over the housekeeper, the shopkeeper, and the like."

An hour later, the housekeeper came back with the shopkeeper and reported that the old gentry Ye Tianming had not yet left. There were not only brave men but also brave doctors. In order to win the large medical fee promised by the shopkeepers, the doctors took some dangerous measures, and finally let Ye Tianming spit out some chicken in his stomach.

"Several doctors who consulted said that during the past, there were always beggars like this during festivals. Thanks to the timely reaction of several shopkeepers, if they delayed for one or two hours, it would be hard to save the gods." The housekeeper of the Lu Mansion reported in detail: "Thanks to Boss Ye's strong body, the doctors also praised Boss Ye as a man of iron. The rectification just now was too difficult for ordinary people to stand it. If a beggar encounters such a thing, he will not be saved."

"Is Boss Ye's life okay?" Hearing this, Lu Jinshen's heart that had always been hanging high finally let go of it.

"It's hard to say, after all, it hurts the spleen and stomach. The doctors all said that if they can survive these two days, it's okay, but it's best to eat lighter these two days."

"Well, this is not enough for the doctors to say. Boss Ye can't see anything except Baishui in the past two days." Lu Jinshen said immediately, and the expression on his face showed that he obviously did not make this decision simply because of the doctor's advice.

After waving his hand to ask the butler to retreat, Lu Jinshen scolded the shopkeeper again: "I wonder if the soldiers of the Great Dong are very poor? They may not be able to eat meat twice a year, but they dare to let him see the chicken!"

In the next two days, Lu Jinshen sent someone to take good care of Ye Tianming. Relying on his youth and good health, Ye Tianming finally recovered his life.

Deng Ming, who was outside Wuchang City, only realized the danger Ye Tianming was facing very late. Two days later, Deng Ming sent someone to inquire because Ye Tianming had not returned for a long time. At this time, Ye Tianming had already passed the dangerous period, and the Qing envoy hesitated to tell Deng Ming what happened two days ago.

Deng Ming's reaction was much calmer than the Qing army expected. Although Deng Ming was a little excited at the beginning, he quickly calmed down after learning that Ye Tianming had survived: "It's fine, so let Boss Ye take a rest in Wuchang for a few more days."

Although the salt transaction has not officially begun, formal negotiations have begun in Zhou Peigong and Deng Ming.

"We promise not to attack Wuchang and Hanyang's Gui army's ground strongholds, and not to attack or harass Hunan. If Hushang or General He takes the above actions, we will also remain neutral." Deng Ming officially confirmed to Zhou Peigong to fulfill the above terms: "But our army maintains freedom of movement against the Navy, Shipyard, and Navy Training Camp. If your army launches attacks on the Hushang and other Qidong Army, as long as it does not exceed Yiling and Zhongxiang's line, our army will remain neutral; if your army exceeds this cordon and we decide to break the neutrality and intervene in the conflict, we will notify Wuchang before officially joining the war to ensure that there is no sudden attack."

"We promise not to expand the naval forces and build the fortress along the river. If there is any similar action, let the admiral take any necessary action." Zhou Peigong's terms have been approved by Zhang Changgeng. In the short term, he would not be able to train a Huguang naval force that was enough to fight against the Ming Yangtze River Navy, so he simply gave up in exchange for the guarantee that Deng Ming would not continue to use force. Now there are no hawks in Wuchang. Everyone said that Deng Ming was unparalleled and righteous, and promised a thousand gold: "As long as the admiral does not go ashore and goes deep into camp, we will not interfere with the admiral's passage through the water surface near Wuchang or other Yangtze River waters controlled by us. In order to meet the needs of food and vegetables, the admiral can send no more than one hundred people away from the river bank to purchase.

In addition to military understanding, there is also the tax compensation that the former Hawks in Huguang is most concerned about. Last time, Deng Ming was careful to avoid mentioning Zhou Peigong's wealth and property in front of Zhang Changgeng's servant. Zhou Peigong admitted that he owed Deng Ming a favor because of this, and he also felt Deng Ming's kindness to him.

Today, after dealing with the military understanding principle that Zhang Changgeng was most concerned about, Zhou Peigong and Deng Ming reached an agreement on the compensation issue. Among the goods shipped to Huguang, only salt is available, and if there are other goods in the future, there may be other goods, and IOU has the highest purchase priority. As long as someone has the IOU in his hand and Deng Ming has the goods, Deng Ming cannot refuse the IOU and insist on collecting gold, silver or other types of compensation.

This compensation principle is the highest goal that Zhou Peigong and Huguang Hawks Group wanted to achieve in advance. The hawks Group, including their leader Zhou Zhifu, believed that Deng Ming was unlikely to accept this condition. However, Zhou Peigong did not expect to achieve the highest goal. As the so-called asking for a price everywhere and repaying the money on the ground, he could accept the mixed use of IOU and gold and silver. The bottom line is that owning the IOU itself does not have the value of return, but the owner has the right to purchase equal to the quantity of the IOU.

However, the expected hard bargaining tug-of-war did not occur. As soon as Zhou Peigong came up with this condition, Deng Ming agreed happily, saying that he had the same intention.

"There must be a fraud!" After Deng Ming agreed without saying a word, Zhou Peigong not only did not feel any excitement, but instead felt like falling into an ice cellar.

When Zhou Peigong was struggling to find his own strategic loopholes, Deng Ming seemed happy and said happily: "It seems that I will transport more goods to Wuchang in the future. If you can't even exchange your IOUs, it would be too unreasonable."

Zhou Peigong keenly grasped the profound meaning of this sentence: "It turns out that Admiral Deng really planned to fulfill all his promise of compensation, and his words were hinting to me that this was a benefit to the gentry of Wuchang. If he wanted to make the compensation fulfilled forever, he had to get the benefits."

After figuring this out, Zhou Peigong felt relieved and no longer suspicious.

"The Admiral's method is to imitate the previous method, right?" The major matter had been agreed upon, and Zhou Peigong leaned back easily and chatted with Deng Ming comfortably on the back of the chair.

In the early Ming Dynasty, the food required by the border troops was completely dependent on military camps. In just a few decades, the border troops began to be abandoned, and the Ming Dynasty's border guards generally experienced serious food shortages. The Ming Dynasty court was helpless because relying on the central government to transport military food to the border was extremely expensive, and the losses on the way were even more intolerable. According to the Ming Cabinet's estimate, even if the national tax revenue was included at that time, it might not be possible to fill the bottomless pit of the loss in the middle.

Fortunately, there is not only an official road in the world. Although the government is responsible for transportation and it is difficult to control losses, merchants can do it. They can transport grain to the border with high efficiency that the government cannot achieve. All the government needs to pay is some salt tracts. As long as the merchant transports a portion of grain to the border, they can rely on the evidence of the border army's collection of grain to exchange for a portion of salt tract. Anyway, no matter who takes the salt to buy salt, the government's salt price is the same, the salt tax has not been reduced, and the border army has mostly obtained enough food.

"Can the admiral know why this is?" Zhou Peigong was not familiar with the army at the beginning and made a lot of jokes during Zhong Xiang's battle, but when he realized that he would definitely participate in military affairs for a long time in the future, he began to read a lot of relevant materials and books.

"If officials protect each other, if the government transports grain and geese from various yamen pluck their hair, the officials will not be able to get along with their pockets and colleagues. It would be strange if the loss can be reduced; and merchants are pursuing profits, what is the point of embezzling their own food? And they will carefully choose routes to improve transportation tools to reduce losses." Deng Ming replied without thinking.

"What the Admiral said is very true." Zhou Peigong laughed. When he saw this, he thought for a long time and came to the conclusion that he had reached was exactly the same as Deng Ming: "Does the Admiral know how the merchants reduced the loss to the lowest level later?"

"More cars, big boats?" Deng Ming guessed several, but Zhou Peigong always smiled and shook his head.

"Master Zhou, don't keep it in hiding." Deng Ming could not find the correct answer, so he gave up admitting defeat.

"The merchants farm near the border, hired people to plant these lands, and after producing grain, they handed them over to the army for salt in exchange." Zhou Peigong was slightly surprised when he saw that Deng Ming was not aware: "In this way, no need to transport grain from the mainland, the loss of merchants will naturally be minimized."

Deng Ming smiled and said, "It's indeed amazing."

"The Admiral really doesn't know. I thought the Admiral wanted to follow this method." Zhou Peigong smiled. He thought Deng Ming wanted these Wuchang gentry to provide military rations to the Ming army in Huguang like the Shangtun in the border that year, and then Deng Ming compensated them with salt.

"I can't think of such a good way." Deng Ming shook his head repeatedly, and after pondering for a moment, Deng Ming asked again: "Where do these commercial camps come from? If there are these land, why don't the border troops with insufficient military rations organize military camps?"

Zhou Peigong's eyes were shining with pride: "The admiral might as well guess again."

"Well," Deng Ming thought for a while and asked: "The border fertile land is all military camps. Although it is deserted in the future, the land is still there. Could it be that these lands are the original military camps. Merchants rented them from the border army to cultivate them, and not only did not lose money like military camps, but they could still provide a large amount of military rations for exchange of salt after paying the rent?"

"Admiral's Divine Calculation!" Zhou Peigong exclaimed another admiration in surprise. This time his admiration was much stronger than the last time. Although he asked Deng Ming to guess, he never expected that Deng Ming would hit it as soon as he guessed.

"Master Zhou praised the misunderstanding." Deng Ming said modestly, but he smiled bitterly in his heart: "Since ancient times, both in and outside the world, there have been a large number of people who believe that the production of military garrisons has the highest efficiency, and they think that others cannot do it because others are too stupid. If I change to the wise and powerful I will preside over it. But for the Chinese in the 21st century, there is a pain of 'natural disaster', and with the counterexample of 'changing', do you still need to guess the truth here?"

"Shangtun has been going on for decades, with sufficient border warehouses and strong soldiers and horses. In the Longqing Dynasty, the Ming cabinet no longer remembered the pain of no food in the border gates. He felt that since Shangtun was enough to be self-sufficient, why should salt turbulence be wasted? So it was changed to law. From then on, salt turbulence was no longer exchanged for military turbulence, but paid silver to the Ming court for exchange." When Deng Ming spoke, Zhou Peigong was very restrained in his words and did not clearly call the Ming Dynasty the previous dynasty, but always regarded himself as a Qing minister. He found that Deng Ming was not at all unhappy about this - a true gentleman had his own elegance - Zhou Peigong had another evaluation of Deng Ming.

"Shangtun must be abandoned." Deng Ming sighed softly. Since military rations cannot be exchanged for salt, the merchant will definitely not stay in the border to work voluntarily and manage the land.

"That is, within a few years, all the merchants moved back to the mainland, and the land returned to the border army was ineffective again in less than ten years, and were abandoned or rented by the border army and sold to others. In the early years of Wanli, the military rations stored in Jiubian were exhausted, and the monarchs and ministers of Wanli tried their best to provide them, but unfortunately the land was exhausted and the sea transport was drifted. In the middle of Wanli, the border army was forced to make a living, and there were begging people along the streets, and some were selling wives and women. By the Chongzhen Dynasty, the Nine Borders suffered continuous disasters, and the military garrisons were even more scarce. The Chongzhen monarchs and ministers of Chongzhen scooped 20 million to lose to the border every year, but it was still not enough."

Deng Ming heard that Zhou Peigong had the intention of persuasion in his words. If the Ming army in Huguang did not widely acquire land and open military camps, the gentry in Wuchang would of course make profits and keep the industry alive. However, the argument used by Zhou Peigong to persuade was not made up by him, but a fact that he was absolutely true, and he was not afraid that Deng Ming would check whether it was true.

"Military garrisons and the country are not beneficial, but harmful to the people, but they are only good for the officers. This is in line with my win-win idea." Deng Ming said to Zhou Peigong: "Although I am indeed beyond my reach in many places, I will try my best to persuade the generals of the East to give up this idea."

Zhou Peigong tapped the table with his finger and sighed sincerely: "The warriors must be controlled. If both sides of this war are controlled by people like the Admiral and me, no matter what the final outcome is, the damage will be much smaller and the harm to the people will be much less."

Deng Ming also praised Zhou Peigong: "Master Zhou has learned a lot, but he knows the small things, and his future is limitless."

"Haha, the Admiral sarcasticated me. If I were to praise me in front of others, I might still dare to accept it, but how could I dare to be arrogant in front of the Admiral? As for the current prefect, that is also the grace of the emperor..." Although the only one present was Zhou Peigong, he was the only one who was present, Zhou Peigong bowed to the north when he spoke, but his attitude was rather casual. Then Zhou Peigong stood up and solemnly bowed to Wuchang eastward twice: "Governor's cultivation..." Finally, Zhou Peigong bowed to Deng Ming solemnly, and the specifications were only slightly inferior to those given to Zhang Changgeng: "The admiral's care."

These Zhou Peigong were very clear in his heart. He felt that even if he was enemies of Deng Ming, he would have to be clear about his grudges.

...

A few days later, Ye Tianming recovered and returned to Deng Ming's camp. Deng Ming did not blame him after seeing him.

Ye Tianming, who was full of ashamed, felt that he was embarrassing Deng Ming. When treating the doctors in the emergency department, he hung Ye Tianming upside down and used bamboo sticks to stimulate his throat to force vomiting... All kinds of methods were used, which made the shopkeepers watching open their eyes again.

But Deng Ming didn't think so. He thought that even if he was embarrassed, it would be Ye Tianming's own face. But Ye Tianming was still a hard-working auxiliary soldier not long ago. What's wrong with this?

"The chicken belongs to someone else, and the belly belongs to his own." Deng Ming said this simply, and never mentioned this again: "How much was the salt price in the end?"

"One pound and two cents of silver." After Ye Tianming returned from the Ghost Gate, he dragged his sick body to negotiate with the shopkeepers in Wuchang, and finally set the salt price according to Deng Ming's suggestion.

"This is your business. Anyway, the salt bank in the capital is your industry, not mine. Two million pounds of salt can be exchanged for silver. One pound and two cents of silver are 40,000 taels of silver. You can sell the silver to me or use it to buy things in Wuchang. This is all up to your wishes. But we have to say first. By the end of the year, I will take half of the tax on the profit-making industry like the salt bank." Deng Ming took care of the development strategy, sales, transportation, and pricing of the salt bank. He did not plan to worry about Ye Tianming's next move. He felt that he could not always support these businesses, and he would also let them try to walk by himself at the appropriate time.

"Wuchang doesn't want to do a single transaction here. They hope to buy our Sichuan salt for a long time." However, without Deng Ming's question, Ye Tianming took the initiative to report the salt price in Wuchang and told Deng Ming that although the quality of Huai salt is not as good as Sichuan salt, the price wholesale to local snakes is still twice as high as Sichuan salt.

"Then why don't you raise the price?" Deng Ming asked curiously.

"I thought about it, but as soon as I showed my voice, the bosses in Wuchang looked embarrassed. In my opinion, although they earned little money on buying and selling Huai salt, they should be assured. In addition to giving face to the admiral, they also felt that it was very profitable. If the price of Sichuan salt and Huai salt were the same, they would rather earn the safe money on Huai salt."

"The analysis is very good." Deng Ming nodded: "You set a price of two cents, so there is a future business."

"In the past, when the river transportation was smooth, the number of Huai salt transported to Wuchang was about 50,000 jin every day. Now the quantity has dropped significantly, so the price has risen. But when the new ships in Nanjing are built, the supply of Huai salt will be restored. If we still sell two cents of silver, Wuchang's shopkeeper may not be willing. If the price is reduced, the salt shop will earn much less..."

Ye Tianming's speech was not fast, but there was no pause or stop in the middle. Deng Ming felt that he must have thought about these things for a long time.

"And Huaiyan can sell 50,000 kilograms every day, 50,000 kilograms a day!" After talking about this number, Ye Tianming was also a little excited: "When Huaiyan comes back, how much more can we Sichuan salt be divided into it?"

"Then what are you going to do?" Deng Ming looked at Ye Tianming quietly. Just a few days ago, this guy could still eat chicken and die. All the money he saw in the past twenty years was probably less than ten taels. But when Deng Ming heard him talk about the number of 50,000 jin of salt, his eyes showed obvious anger and hatred for his competitors, as if he would not expel his opponent for a day and not monopolize the business of at least one thousand taels a day, he would never be able to sleep peacefully at night.

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The author's note: I have been busy recently, and the update time is not stable. Tomorrow is even more interesting. There may be the first time this book has been opened. The author promises to try his best to update tomorrow, but if there is an accident, I hope the readers will understand.
Chapter completed!