According to the agreement between Deng Ming and Sichuan scholars, soldiers can retire and enjoy a peaceful life as long as they make enough merits or serve for a long enough period of time. In this case, 8,000 soldiers (excluding officers) who participated in the Battle of Gaoyou Lake meet the standards for retirement, because from any perspective, participating in the operation of killing the Qing emperor is considered a great contribution.

This regulation is to prevent soldiers from becoming veterans in the army, give warriors the opportunity to leave the army alive, and encourage soldiers to do heroic behavior on the battlefield. Therefore, when disbanding the expeditionary force, officers at all levels explained to their subordinates that when they left the army, the next time they recruited soldiers, the conscription order would not be issued to them.

Of course, there are restrictions on this non-repeated recruitment, only for an expedition that takes the initiative. If Chengdu is attacked by the Qing army, even retired soldiers will be on the list of recruitment; if retired soldiers move to other places, such as Xuzhou, when Xuzhou is attacked by the Qing army, they will be re-summoned by the local military and political chiefs.

When Deng Ming initially agreed with his soldiers, this policy was widely welcomed and supported by his fellow scholars, because the old saying goes, "A good man is not a soldier." Many people in Chengdu have experienced oppression in military garrisons. They dream of getting rid of the army and owning their own property and land.

But when the army was disbanded this time, a considerable number of soldiers suddenly refused to leave the army. The Sichuan Army gave soldiers very high treatment. Not only did they have exquisite military uniforms and allowances after retirement, they could also help find wives. There were many bonuses left in addition to buying horses. If they were injured and disabled, there were still a job of a kiosk waiting for them.

Therefore, after only a few days of disarmament, Ren Tang came to report to Deng Ming that he could not continue. More than a thousand soldiers had refused to leave the army, most of whom were formerly regular soldiers. When he came to report, Ren Tang looked unhappy, but on the contrary seemed a little excited. Like most generals, Ren Tang felt that letting so many veterans leave the army was a huge waste of military resources, and the officers responsible for disbanding the army were not willing to refuse the requests of these veterans.

However, Deng Ming cannot only consider the issue from a military perspective. Raising a large number of standing army means greater fiscal expenditure. Now Chengdu is not a very easy burden with the strength of three or four thousand standing army with the strength of 200,000 men. Moreover, the per capita expenditure of these standing army is extremely large, not only requires high-intensity training, but also far exceeding the green camp of the Qing army. Relying solely on Chengdu's agricultural output, these thousands of standing army can make the government poor.

In addition to the standing army, Deng Ming also promoted a general five-day military training, which was a huge project. If it were not for the large amount of seizures obtained from Jiangnan, the Chengdu government would have gone bankrupt long ago. Including the allowances to soldiers and the support of the blacksmith shops and Ma Xing, the total military investment of the Chengdu government far exceeded the sum of the Qing court in Huguang, the two rivers and four provinces. According to the calculations of Xiong Lan and Qin Xiucai, Chengdu's military expenditure was the same as all income, including the Yangtze River trade. If Deng Ming wanted to promote education, he could only obtain funds by selling seizures. However, Deng Ming also formulated an ambitious education plan. Xiong Lan and Qin Xiucai, two officials in charge of finance, warned Deng Ming that although the income in Jiangnan was huge, the huge education plan would also exhaust Chengdu's savings within three years. If the industry supported by Chengdu could not bring new tax sources, a financial crisis would be inevitable.

Although Deng Ming was confident about the prospects after the development of industry and commerce and believed that the Yangtze River trade could bring more income, he had to be wary of unexpected situations. If he had to launch another war against Jiangnan, it would be difficult to say whether it would lead to the shrinking of Yangtze River trade, and an unreasonable offense would also stimulate the governors and governors of the southeastern provinces that had compromised to Chengdu.

"If we keep a large number of soldiers in the army, there may be a lot of soldiers, and everyone wants to live for a long time." Deng Ming did not want to cut education expenses, and welfare and military expenses could not be cut. Therefore, Deng Ming seemed very cautious about expanding military expenditures: "Anyway, I can't keep soldiers for the rest of my life. I think in addition to recruiting soldiers, I can also recruit soldiers, but this soldier cannot be recruited for a lifetime."

Deng Ming proposed a contract soldier. Veterans can sign a two-year contract with the military and sign it after expiration. If the soldier wants to retire, or the military believes that a soldier is lazy, both parties can stop signing a new contract.

"Within three years, Maxing and Tiexing should be able to make profits. We don't need to support us like this. We can still pay taxes at that time." After Deng Ming determined the new recruitment rules, he began to think about the issue of increasing revenue and reducing expenditure: "If the finances cannot be balanced, we have to find ways to expand the trade in the Yangtze River and force Huguang and Liangjiang to buy goods from Sichuan. Well, the market is not big enough. Maybe we should think about Zhejiang and Fujian, and even launch an attack on Zhejiang and Fujian as soon as possible, forcing them to provide us with trade convenience like Liangjiang and Huguang."

...

As for the arrangements of Liu Yao, Yang Youcai and others, Deng Ming also had a preliminary idea. He quickly announced the establishment of a Senate, and Liu Yao, Yang Youcai and others went in to be members of the parliament. For the time being, there was only a group of former Qingchengshan warlords in this parliament, and a former commander of the Eight Banners of Mongolia. These people were not allowed to be raised, but it was not good to raise them for nothing. Deng Ming asked them to go to the Senate to receive a spare money and discuss Chengdu's policies - this group of people all had immunity and did not have to worry about the revenge of Chengdu officials.

In the eyes of others, this House of Parliament is a nursing home built for meritorious but useless people. Immunity is also part of the reward for merit, and it can also shoulder the work of some censors, which is considered to be a use of the remaining energy - this is indeed one of Deng Ming's intentions. Deng Ming left Chengdu for several months or even half a year, and Liu Jinge, Xiong Lan and others complained to each other, and Deng Ming couldn't tell who was in the wrong. Having these members talked about it for a few words is also a check and balance.

Although the salary of the MPs is quite large, because the 10,000 troops stationed in Dujiangyan were disbanded, the tax provided by 10,000 taxpayers was always much more than the salary of the MPs, so Deng Ming comforted himself that he still made a profit after all. Needless to say, the tens of thousands of people in Chengdu were their subordinates; the Mongolian commander also had hundreds of people of the same clan, and they had no scruples or worries. Tipping in the House every day would also help Deng Ming learn more about the situation.

After staying in Chengdu for a few days, Deng Ming found through Liu Jinge's report that the threat from Chongqing was greater than he thought.

Last time, the Qing army in Chongqing was beaten by the Ming army and almost completely destroyed. Deng Ming thought that the Qing army would honestly return to Baoning or even Guangyuan and Hanzhong. He heard that Li Guoying had the courage to threaten the Yangtze River shipping, which was beyond his expectations. Now he learned that Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao were not in Chongqing. According to the information, they left Chongqing early, and probably went back to Shaanxi.

Li Guoying himself was in Chongqing and sent away the two generals and the most combat-capable army under his command, which shows that Li Guoying probably did not give up on Chengdu. The two generals did not stay in Chongqing, which was in urgent need of troops, most of them went back to Shaanxi to train new recruits. And there was also an important information, that is, after the two left, Chongqing's troops were still increasing. Although there were only about 20,000 now, there were hundreds of Manchurian Eight Banners.

Li Guoying must have received a lot of money. After being controlled by Hao Yaoqi and He Zhen in the Han River Basin, the materials from Huguang and Jiangnan were difficult to transport to Shaanxi. Chongqing was at the end of the land supply line. There was huge transportation loss, coupled with the miscellaneous expenses of officials along the way, Chongqing may need to transport more than ten stones from Jiangnan for every stone of supply consumed by Chongqing. While Zhao Liangdong and Wang Jinbao mysteriously disappeared, Chongqing's troops could increase, which shows that the Qing court's investment in the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi was considerable, and these hundreds of Manchurian Eight Banners garrisons showed that attacking Sichuan was a strategy of high-level Manchurian Qing.

When he was in Huguang, Zhang Changgeng told Deng Ming that the Qing Dynasty planned to draw troops - it was likely that the troops were drawn from Shanxi to Sichuan to assist in the war, but neither Zhang Changgeng nor Deng Ming took this information seriously. In addition to the economic cost, Deng Ming believed that this might be just a gesture of the Qing court. The emperor was killed. It was a bit unreasonable for the Qing court to not say a few harsh words, but the possibility of actually putting it into practice was extremely small.

"Now it seems that Beijing might be just talking about it." Deng Ming quickly convened a meeting of officers to discuss Chongqing's threat: "Maybe Beijing really wants to draw the Shanxi Green Camp into Sichuan to attack us. Didn't Zhao Liangdong have been practicing for a long time? It's almost time to go out."

"But how do they want to attack us?" Despite the intelligence, the generals still found this strategy incredible: "From Chongqing along the Yangtze River to Xuzhou, and then go up the Minjiang River to attack Chengdu? Are they here to die?"

It may be possible to go in the late Ming Dynasty. At that time, Sichuan was densely populated and the army could count on obtaining supplies from the local area. As long as the army kept moving forward, there would be no worries about not being able to find new residents. They could obtain food from the people, and the loss of auxiliary soldiers could also be supplemented by catching strong men. But now there are no more than one living person in Sichuan within each square kilometer. The supplement of food, fodder and auxiliary soldiers rely entirely on water. Just rely on the navy of the Jialing River. As long as they dare to leave the mouth of the Chongqing River, the entire army will be destroyed.

Perhaps the Qing army planned to imitate Gao Mingzhan and follow the old path of Jiange, bringing 100,000 auxiliary soldiers, and overcoming all the way at all costs, there was still a chance to get two or three thousand armored people close to the capital. But if the Qing army had this idea, why were they stationed troops in Chongqing?
Chapter completed!