Continuing the attack on the downstream requires some preparations, and Deng Ming cannot set off immediately, so he suggested that Ye Tianming return to Chengdu first: "Salt has been said to be sold to Wuchang. Boss Ye has nothing to do when he follows us downstream. Why not just return here. Boss Ye needs to supervise it. It is not easy to meet the requirement of 50,000 kilograms per day in Wuchang."

"What the admiral said is that I will return to the capital mansion now. As for the silver, I think I can represent the five major salt shops in the capital mansion and sell them all to the admiral." After careful calculation, Ye Tianming felt that it would be more cost-effective to buy tools from Chengdu. These gold and silver were very useful to Deng Ming, but they would have much less effect in Chengdu where gold and silver could not be circulated.

"How to calculate the price?"

"What about one tael of silver and one hundred yuan?" Ye Tianming did not intend to bargain with Deng Ming. If Deng Ming wanted to continue to lower the price, Ye Tianming would not refuse.

"Okay." Deng Ming agreed happily. He wrote a note for Ye Tianming and told Liu Jinge to raise 8 million yuan to pay Ye Tianming and several other salt shops. After taking away the 40,000 taels of silver from the salt merchants, Deng Ming still did not forget to remind Ye Tianming: "These money has not been deducted yet. By the end of the year, the tax officials in the capital will collect 4 million yuan in taxes. You must remember."

There will be some Ming army sailors who will return with Ye Tianming. They will bring those cargo ships that have been unloaded with salt back to Chengdu. There will be two thousand sailors who will return with them to ensure that the Chongqing navy will not be thrust out of his mind and cause trouble.

"I support Yanxing and am willing to block downstream for your interests is not for you." When seeing Ye Tianming off, Deng Ming said solemnly. He hopes to exert as much influence as possible before Ye Tianming has formed his own philosophical view and worldview: "You have told me that if you make money, you can make more people in the capital and earn more money, and you will increase your salary. I believe what you said. When I return to the capital, I will also see your account book with my own eyes. I hope that Boss Ye can keep his promise and distribute part of the profit to other people in the capital."

"Don't worry, Admiral, I was an auxiliary soldier a few months ago. There are thousands of old brothers in the capital who are suffering. I will definitely not eat alone." Ye Tianming patted his chest and promised that Deng Ming has been instilling in him the idea of ​​win-win and rewarding society these days.

After Ye Tianming and some Ming troops set off and returned, Deng Ming was still thinking about how to build his base. From childhood to adulthood, Deng Ming only learned a philosophical system. He could only learn a little bit through the Internet about the thoughts different from this philosophy. If Deng Ming believed in the philosophical system that he had learned more completely, he would not have thought he was as confused as he is now.

"The economic foundation determines the superstructure, and productivity determines the production relations. This seems to be the theoretical cornerstone of this philosophical system." Even Deng Ming learned the philosophy, he did not dare to say that he understood it correctly, and could only think about it alone.

Deng Ming has always believed that facts are better than words. He has seen with his own eyes that countries that believe in this philosophy refuse to abide by the social laws of this philosophical assertion: two of them, one was the second industrial power in the world, and the other was the world's largest steel producer, but the superstructure that other countries can implement in the Age of Navigation, and the two powerful countries cannot realize the space age when satellites are on the sky because of national conditions. Facts have proved that "national conditions determine the superstructure" and "national conditions determine the production relations" are much more reliable than the theory founder of philosophy.

Deng Ming remembers that there is a saying that describes the unquestionable nature of victory: "Even our final victory is not doubtful to the enemy." In this set of philosophical theory, it is "even the pious people who believe in this set of philosophical theory are not taken seriously." If the founder knows it, then how can it be so suppose. Since all the pious people can demolish the founder's platform and specially demolish the founder's platform, Deng Ming can only think that there are insurmountable difficulties in actual operation, so he really dare not use this set of philosophy as a guiding theory.

However, the power of more than ten years of education is extraordinary. Deng Ming was once uneasy after seeing Ye Tianming leave, worried that he would harm the people of Chengdu: "I should have released capitalism, right? It is said that every pore is full of blood and other dirty things as soon as it was born, tearing off the veil of warmth between people under the feudal system."

"Whether it is Sun Kewang's military camp or the Eight Banners coated in Manchuria, the grain produced is watered with the blood of auxiliary soldiers or Han people. I just released the wild beast of capitalism. Can the people in the capital live a worse life than this?" But Deng Ming thought carefully and thought that there should be no need to worry about this in China. After seeing the auxiliary soldiers and the people being bullied, without dignity and life guarantee, Deng Ming felt it was hard to imagine that there would be a worse and bloodier life than now; Deng Ming estimated that the feudal system in Europe was in Europe.

Next, the people at the bottom of the West will have a happier and beautiful life, so the founder said that heartbrokenly: "This is probably because of the different national conditions. I have never been to Europe. I don't know if the nobles in Europe love the people as much as their children. I don't know if Western tenants can eat fish and meat. Don't worry about being insulted or bullied, but at least they will live much better than the Chinese people. Mr. Ma is sincerely loved by the working people all over the world and has a great personality. It will never be a big fool who speaks nonsense, right?"

Although Deng Ming could not imagine what a worse life would be like than feudal society, he still planned to avoid this risk. After Ye Tianming left, Deng Ming convened a few meetings of officers. At several meetings, Deng Ming raised the same question, that is, how to ensure that the Dufu can benefit from the profits of the Salt Bank: "It is not reasonable to ask the Salt Bank to hand over all the profits. They take risks, are responsible for management, and implement salt production; but obviously they benefit a lot from the support of the government government. The officers and soldiers provide protection for their goods and help them fight against competitors. The officers and soldiers are composed of the people of the Dufu, so it is obviously unreasonable if the Salt Bank takes all the profits alone."

As Deng Ming saw before, overall, the Sichuan Army is still a feudal army. The last time he dared to participate in the discussion of strategy was also due to Deng Ming's authorization. When Deng Ming just proposed this theory of sharing interests in the whole society, many officers felt a little uncomfortable, but they couldn't tell it and felt awkward.

However, not every officer knew nothing about philosophical theory. Ren Tang quickly found the loopholes in Deng Ming's speech and summarized a set of rhetoric to refute Deng Ming: The general idea is that the army belongs to Deng Ming, and the same is true for those salt shops. Deng Ming would give rewards for the contribution of the salt shop - this is the profit they obtained; and the army received military pay and merits from Deng Ming, which was not directly related to the Yan Shang's business; as for the people of the capital, Deng Ming was willing to give rewards, which was Deng Ming's kindness, and if Deng Ming didn't give it, there was nothing unreasonable.

Ren Tang's views and theories are completely in line with the morality of feudal society. Deng Ming was originally very difficult to refute. Fortunately, Deng Ming was not a son today but just the Sichuan admiral appointed by Wen Anzhi. If Deng Ming had the status of an emperor or a state supervisor, all officers would accept Ren Tang's trick without hesitation. But the current situation has led to some confusion in the Ming army, giving Deng Ming the opportunity to infiltrate.

Deng Ming insisted that the Chengdu regime, Sichuan Ming army, salt merchants, and people were all owned by Emperor Yongli. Since Ren Tang could not refute this argument, Deng Ming naturally did not have the legality of rewarding and punishment. Deng Ming did not own this right, and the Sichuan Ming army was in a relationship problem and was unwilling to hand over this right to Emperor Yongli. Some people began to accept the vague concept of Chengdu (country) proposed by Deng Ming.

In this way, taking advantage of the opportunity of the emperor's prestige greatly reduced his prestige and the fact that warlords became independent, Deng Ming used all his strength to barely pry out a thin gap in the army's originally strong ideological fortress, and penetrated some ideas that deny "I am the country".

After shaking this deeply rooted concept, Deng Ming finally started several major discussions on how to reasonably allocate the benefits of war in the entire army. The officers and soldiers did not express their opinions in public, but began to try to think about this issue and share their ideas with their companions.

The distribution plans reported by the feedback are all kinds of strange. Before, soldiers did not need to think about the issue of profit distribution at all. When they first came into contact with this problem, they naturally seemed very naive, and all kinds of whimsical plans were released. However, Deng Ming did not expect them to come up with any clever solutions. As a person in the 21st century, even if he is not clear, he at least heard of the terms income tax, progressive tax system, and social insurance.

What Deng Ming wanted was that these soldiers began to think about the distribution of social wealth. As long as they no longer took the king from everything and took it as a matter of right to distribute everything, such soldiers would be getting further and further away from the standard emperor's soldiers and closer to the emperor.

While the Ming army was preparing to continue moving forward, Deng Ming met with Zhou Peigong again, who was now the representative of many interest groups in Wuchang. When Deng Ming learned from Deng Ming that the Ming army was preparing to cross Wuchang and move towards Jiangxi, Zhou Peigong did not show any surprise, but silently pondered.

"Is the admiral trying to cut off the shipping of the Yangtze River and prevent Huaiyan from entering Wuchang?" After thinking for a while, Zhou Peigong asked directly.

"That's right." Deng Ming was very surprised to see that Zhou Peigong's judgment was so fast and accurate.

Long before Deng Ming decided to march downstream, Zhou Peigong guessed that Deng Ming's ultimate goal was Huaiyan, and Ye Tianming had not even entered Wuchang City at that time. Since Zhou Peigong had already had such speculation, he naturally thought that Deng Ming would cut off the shipping in the Yangtze River, so he was mentally prepared for Deng Ming's notification.

"If the Admiral just wanted to simply block Huai salt from entering Wuchang, I think the Admiral would be better off setting up a checkpoint to check it out and not to harm the fish in the pond." Now, to a certain extent, Zhou Peigong and Deng Ming have a relationship of prosperity and loss, so Zhou Peigong had long considered the best countermeasures for Deng Ming: "In addition to salt, Wuchang also had to buy a large amount of goods from the downstream, such as Jiangxi porcelain being a bulk transaction, and Jiangnan cotton and silk, which are related to the livelihoods of many merchants and shops in Wuchang. Although the Admiral was not in trouble at all, he would make these merchants and shops complain every time he was isolated from the Yangtze River, and they often had gentry backgrounds behind them."

Deng Ming listened carefully, without saying a word to avoid interrupting Zhou Peigong's thoughts.

"I guess the admiral is just trying to sell salt safely and not to create more enemies. Now there is almost no one around the governor who advocates confronting the admiral, because the admiral has not harmed anyone's interests. Since no one thinks that he can defeat the admiral and get military achievements, he will naturally not claim to be unfavorable to the admiral. But if the Yangtze River shipping is cut off, the prices of porcelain and silk in Jiangxi are rising steadily, and a large number of shops are closed, there will be many gentry dissatisfied with the admiral, and they will give the governor a great deal of gentry.

The pressure from the people is to rebuild the navy and ensure the Yangtze River shipping. If the Governor cannot satisfy them, one day they will go to make demands to the court at all costs. This will not only be a problem for the Governor, but also for the Admiral, the subordinates, and those who buy the Admiral salt here in Wuchang. If there is too much trouble, no one is willing to deal with the Admiral." If the incident is too fierce, then Zhou Peigong would rather give up Deng Ming's compensation than take the risk of continuing to trade with him and protecting Sichuan salt.

"Master Zhou's good words, how dare I not listen?" Deng Ming thought for a while and made a suggestion: "After I entered the east, the prices of porcelain, silk and other things in Wuchang will inevitably rise. Master Zhou can notify some friends to buy some in advance and sell them after I cross Wuchang. But after I arrive downstream, I will never block cargo ships other than salt, nor will my friends suffer losses, nor will they cut off their business."

"Thank you so much for the Admiral." Zhou Peigong thought about it and felt that if Deng Ming acted like this, then his partitioning of shipping would not only be a bad thing for the big merchants here, but could use insider information to speculate. As long as there are enough people who benefit from Deng Ming's actions, even if a small number of people are harmed, there is no need to worry about those small businesses without backgrounds.

Thinking of this, Zhou Peigong looked at Deng Ming again and thought to himself: "Maybe we can reach an agreement with Admiral Deng in the future to block other ships from sailing and only put our designated cargo ships to Wuchang."

...

After the negotiations with Deng Ming, Zhou Peigong returned to Wuchang City and reported today's negotiation content to Zhang Changgeng. The Governor of Huguang did not consider the issue of stopping Deng Ming's actions at all because he knew he was unable to stop it. After careful consideration, Zhang Changgen instructed Zhou Peigong to say justice: "Be sure to ask Deng Ming to keep a secret strictly about this and not leak any rumors. Then suddenly cross Wuchang and appear on the downstream river."

"The officials understand." Zhou Peigong knew that if the news spread, the prices of goods on the market would rise, causing trouble for the Wuchang gentry to hoard goods; and if the secret of Deng Ming General was kept until the troops were sent, the gentry who knew about it could eat the bulk cargo quietly. When Wuchang City learned without mental preparation that Deng Ming had cut off the Yangtze River shipping again, it is conceivable that the prices of all goods would double up. Small merchants without background would not know that Deng Ming privately promised not to block the cargo ship, and they would think that this was another month-long severance of shipping, and would panic large quantities of goods.

Zhang Changgeng thought about it and gave Zhou Peigong a list, saying that only a few of them could know Deng Ming's accurate advancement time. At most, the other great gentry revealed a little bit of the tone to them.

Zhou Peigong borrowed the list of personnel, and those who could be listed were all gentry leaders from Huguang. After carefully reading it, Zhou Peigong had no objection to the list. He put the list into his sleeve and bowed to Zhang Changgeng and returned.

That night, Lu Chenyin visited the Zhou Mansion. After listening to the narration of the Wuchang Prefect, Lu Chenyin hurriedly saluted and thanked him. His shopkeeper would use this insider information well to make a lot of money for him.

"You are polite to the old master." Zhou Peigong stood up politely and returned half a guru. Although he is an official now, he had fought Qiufeng in the Lu Mansion when he was studying in Wuchang and was treated by the old gentry. Even if Lu Chenyin was not the leader of the gentry, Zhou Peigong would never be rude to him, so as not to be a reputation of ungratefulness.

"But the prefect needs to talk to Admiral Deng again when blocking the salt ship. Admiral Deng can confiscate Huai salt and sell it to us secretly." After saying that, Lu Chenyin's eyes rolled and his brows frowned: "This time Admiral Deng left us three million kilograms of salt. It's not afraid of shipping for two months, but if it takes longer, we will not be able to make money."

Although the cut off the salt transportation can help Wuchang salt merchants raise prices, Lu Chenyin may not feel that it is good if it is cut off for half a year: "If the admiral can transport 50,000 kilograms of Sichuan salt every day, he will cut off the shipping as long as he wants. I will not feel that there is any problem, but if the admiral cannot guarantee that the river salt will continue, it is best to stop in moderation."

"I will tell Admiral Deng what the old master means. Admiral Deng has always been kind to others, and I think he will not be incompatible with others." Zhou Peigong nodded, but he did not dare to guarantee this issue. After all, he suspected that Deng Ming's real purpose was not to make money, but to prevent the Qing court from accumulating money through Hui merchants.

Lu Chenyin didn't know this joint, and agreed with Zhou Peigong's statement: "The prefect said it well. Admiral Deng can best understand our difficulties. When Admiral Deng returns to Sichuan in the future, I want to give Admiral Deng a gift. Thank him for not committing any crime along the way, but I just don't know what to give?"

"Pig iron is good, and Admiral Deng will definitely not accept it." Zhou Peigong replied, and after a moment of contemplation, he said: "If he could buy some craftsmen for the Admiral, whether it was a shipbuilder or a metallurgical person, Admiral Deng would definitely be overjoyed."

"Thank you for your advice from the prefect."

"You are so polite to the old master."

Lu Chenyin did not leave immediately, but whispered to Zhou Peigong: "The prefect is young and promising, honest and dedicated, and all the scholars and forests in Huguang respect each other. Now the governor of Hubei is vacant. In my opinion, it is the prefect who is the prefect."

For security reasons, Zhang Changgeng handed over all the specific matters to Zhou Peigong to deal with, which actually gave Zhou Peigong greater power and allowed the latter's connections to develop rapidly. Moreover, these gentry involved were also very clear that Zhang Changgeng had the opportunity to completely overthrow the blame. Compared with the Governor, Zhou Gong was the one who could truly advance and retreat with everyone - he could not do it even if he wanted to live and die.

Zhou Peigong knew that Lu Chenyin's words were not what he meant alone, but were said to many gentry in Huguang, but he still smiled and shook his head repeatedly: "I dare not think, I dare not think."

The guest and the host looked at each other and smiled. When Lu Chenyin left, Zhou Peigong kept sending him to the front door.

...

Less than a month later, Beijing.

"Zhang Chao is so useless!" Shunzhi shouted after reading Jiangxi's pleading memorial.

Originally, the Qing court concluded that Deng Ming would teach a lesson in Sichuan, and at least he would stay in Chengdu for one or two years, but he did not expect that he would leave Kuimen again after two months of the battle in Chongqing and approach Wuchang again. Deng Ming's move shows that he has no interest in safe development, and many senior officials of the Qing court felt that the smell of bandits came to his face.

After receiving Zhang Changgeng's urgent report, Shunzhi ordered Huguang to stick to Wuhan and Han, while ordering several provinces to take strict vigilance to prevent Deng Ming from entering the Central Plains and starting a new round of national traits. After learning that Hanyang was in a tough battle, Beijing began to be uneasy, fearing that Wu and Han would change hands. Deng Ming carried the city to the river and went down the river, causing the situation to be corrupt.

Fortunately, Zhou Peigong finally did not meet his high expectations and led the entire city to fight to the death. Deng Ming dug the Hanyang wall several times, but was blocked by Zhou Peigong again. Once the Ming army had already rushed into Hanyang, and was driven out by Zhou Peigong, who was leading the way, and forced the gap back and sealed it again. After the end of the Hanyang Defense Battle, Zhang Changgeng submitted two memorials to ask for merit for Zhou Peigong. The ministers around Shunzhi also praised the emperor for his keen eyes and allowed Zhang Changgeng's recommendation and promoted Zhou Peigong to the prefect of Wuchang.

Although Deng Ming was frustrated at the city of Hanyang, he was unwilling to fail and continued to advance eastward through Wuchang. However, Shunzhi thought that this was no longer a big problem. The Ming army suffered losses and his morale was deteriorated. He judged that Deng Ming would soon have to return to Sichuan to lick his wounds. However, the incompetence of Jiangxi Governor Zhang Chao and the governor of the governor Dong Weiguo was really beyond Shunzhi's imagination. Jiujiang, which was personally guarded by Dong Weiguo, was actually captured by Deng Ming for only one day. Thousands of Qing troops in Jiujiang were destroyed, and Dong Weiguo was also unaware of his life and death.

Jiujiang was still the rebuilt Jiangxi Navy's garrison. Last time Deng Ming passed Jiujiang but did not attack, the Jiangxi Green Camp believed that the Ming army had no ability to capture Jiujiang at all. Therefore, after Deng Ming besieged the city, the Jiangxi Navy stayed in the water city honestly without trying to break through. After breaking through the city, he was beaten up by the Ming army.

In his memorial, Zhang Chao said that there were more than 100 ships in Jiangxi Navy, and more than 2,000 sailors all fell into Deng Ming's hands. At the same time, there were probably more than 400 civilian ships seized by the Ming army. Now, not to mention the navy in Jiangxi, there are not even a few transport ships left. Zhang Chao begged Beijing to quickly draw elite troops from Huguang to help, and even asked the governor of Huguang to lend him the famous minister Zhou Peigong.

Originally, in Shunzhi's mind, Zhang Chao was still one of the candidates for the Governor General of Liangjiang. Although Jiang Guozhu is currently acting in the Governor General of Liangjiang, Shunzhi has not finally made up his mind who he chose. Dong Weiguo, who is unknown to life and death, also had a good influence on Shunzhi. If Shunzhi decides to promote Zhang Chao, then Dong Weiguo will definitely take over as the governor of Jiangxi.
Chapter completed!