The Daning River is a tributary of the Yangtze River. Although the riverbed is wide and flowing very fast, the water surface does not cover the entire riverbed. The water surface is only a few meters wide, and the narrowest place looks only one or two meters wide. It can only drive smaller ships, which is far from what Deng Ming imagined before seeing it. Both sides of the river are steep and unclimbing rock walls. When walking at the bottom of the canyon, Deng Ming looked up and could only see the sky above his head. The cliff tops on both sides were shaded by the rock walls that were straight up and down.

Such a landscape gives Deng Ming the feeling that it is majestic and not inferior to Wu Gorge. He sails in the Wu Gorge River by boat, and the sky above his head is wider, and now he is walking at the bottom of the valley. It is probably only Deng Ming, who knows how this majestic scenery was formed. Just like the Yangtze River splitting the mountains of the western plateau, the Daning River, a torrent of only a few meters wide, has been cut into a canyon of hundreds of meters deep in the mountains in the northern part of Wu Mountain after billions of years of unremitting impact. However, looking at the continuous black rock walls on both sides of the river that looked up and could not see its top, Deng Ming was very suspicious that a large number of crops could be planted here.

The guide who led Deng Ming was from Dachang. He was waiting for Deng Ming at the intersection of the Daning River and the Yangtze River early. It turned out that the boat he was riding could not get in. Deng Ming and his party rowed a distance of the way in a small boat, and finally led the guide to Dachang.

“Can you farm here?”

After hearing Deng Ming's question, the guide immediately replied: "Dachang originally had no habit of farming, and we never had to farm here."

"How can the lives of Dachang people be maintained?" Observing the surrounding geographical situation, Deng Ming thought of two county towns on the Daning River, namely Daning and Dachang. There may be places nearby where food can be grown, otherwise how can the daily life of the two counties be maintained?

"There are still some arable land in Daning, but it is also very limited. We Dachang people have not farmed since ancient times. We have only learned how to grow crops in recent years," said the guide, pointing to the rock wall: "We Dachang have salt."

Deng Ming looked along the guide's arm and saw many caves vaguely visible on the towering rock wall. According to the guide, these caves were chiseled out of the rock walls by Dachang people for thousands of years. Salt water will flow out from the caves. After cooking, high-quality snow-white stone salt can be obtained. Dachang people used this salt to exchange for grain and cloth from eastern Sichuan and Hubei. In recent years, due to war and sales have been affected, Dachang people have had to plant some crops and vegetables themselves.

This news made Deng Ming even more unfavorable about Yuan Zongdi's war potential. Any area that is not suitable for planting is generally difficult to feed a large population. Now, Dachang's salt can also go to the surrounding Ming-jun-controlled areas to change the necessary things for life, and can also smuggle them into the Qing-jun-controlled areas. However, when the Qing army strives to encircle and suppress the Three Gorges in the future, no matter how much salt Yuan Zongdi's hand is, he cannot be eaten as food.

Those caves were all on the cliffs like knife-cut. Deng Ming looked at them for a long time and really didn't know how they were dug out. There were also some plank roads under these caves, just like those seen elsewhere on the Yangtze River. These plank roads were hanging on the rock walls. In Deng Ming's view, their locations were even nowhere to stay.

When Deng Ming expressed his questions, the guide smiled and said, "Mr. Deng underestimated us Dachang people. This mountain wall looks like there is no way, but it is a road for us Dachang people."

Some Dachang people built temporary residences on the tops of the cliffs on both sides. When they wanted to go to the cave to pick salt, they went down the cliff from the top of the cliff, carried salt water and then climbed back from the bare rock wall. If they wanted to go to Wushan to sell salt, they would carry salt down from the mountain to the bottom of the valley and walk the road by the river, and would not go far away from the mountain. Deng Ming was stunned when he heard it. This was completely unprotected rock climbing adventure in his opinion. It seemed that only special forces or Little Tom in the movie had this ability, but Dachang people did this for years and were completely unrestrained.

After a long journey, Deng Ming finally arrived at Dachang County before sunset. Compared with the canyon in front, the terrain here was slightly flatter, and the county town built it here at random. The size of the city was a bit beyond Deng Ming's expectations, much smaller than Wanxian. When they were about to arrive in Dachang, someone would first report Yuan Zongdi. When Deng Ming arrived in front of the city gate, Yuan Zongdi was already standing there waiting for him.

This time, Yuan Zongdi was even more polite. Although Deng Ming insisted that everyone would continue to call him "Mr. Deng", he no longer tried to explain their misunderstandings, but instead adopted a vague attitude of "not admitting, not denying". Although Dachang County is small, the facilities inside are quite complete, which is no less prosperous than Wanxian. Deng Ming not only saw various shops, but also a wine shop - wine is definitely a luxury at this time.

"Although Dachang is located in a remote place, it has the benefits of salt production, so he has always lived a wealthy life and the people have the extra money to drink." Yuan Zongdi explained when he noticed Deng Ming's gaze. Not only in the past, but now Dachang's salt is smuggled to Hubei, he can also switch to good alcoholic beverages from the Qing army controlled area.

However, Deng Ming not only paid attention to this tavern, but a couplet at the door:

Don’t care about victory or defeat, don’t care about wine;

Whether it is prosperous or weak, drink it.

The rest of the camp has been in the Wushan Mountains for more than ten years. Deng Ming looked at this couplet and thought that the situation in the war has not only not improved over the years but has been deteriorating, and the pessimistic atmosphere inside the camp may be worse than that in one day.

Seeing that Deng Ming did not speak, Yuan Zongdi followed his gaze and immediately sighed that he was confused and forgot to let the restaurant replace this couplet. At present, Yuan Zongdi could only comfort Deng Ming: "The Dachang soldiers are all the original salt people. The ancestors have regarded traversing mountains and rivers as leisure. When climbing on cliffs, life and death are in the breathing line. They all regard it as a common thing in their daily life. The people of Dachang are extremely tenacious. Even among the mountain people in the Three Gorges area, they are also the best soldiers. This couplet is just a joke and cannot be truly true."

(Author’s note: In our history, after the upstream and downstream Daning and Wushan surrendered to the Qing court, Dachang continued to resist until the third year of Kangxi. Li Guoying, the governor of Sichuan appointed by the Qing Dynasty, took crazy revenge after breaking the city. When I arrived in Dachang, I saw an introduction that all the current Dachang people moved from Huguang, and none of them were the original residents.)

Deng Ming sighed softly. He remembered that one of the purposes of this trip was to understand Yuan Zongdi and others' views on future strategies. So Deng Ming asked Yuan Zongdi what the current situation is, whether he should not stick to this corner, but to move to a place where the Qing court has weak control capabilities.

But when Yuan Zongdi heard this question, his first thought was not how to analyze the strategic situation to Deng Ming, but Deng Ming's question seemed to imply his previous identity in the camp. Deng Ming's idea of ​​transfer and movement was heard, and there was a shadow of the past camp. Therefore, Yuan Zongdi immediately expressed his opposition: "The officers and soldiers should defend their territory without losing their intentions, and they intend to recover. How can they retreat without fighting?"

Deng Ming was quite surprised. It was not a military opinion but a political attitude... Well, the reason why Deng Ming asked Yuan Zongdi about this question was of course considering that he was once a general who broke into the camp and was one of the eighteen cavalry of Shangluo Mountain. The situation of breaking into the camp during Shangluo Mountain was ten times more dangerous than the current situation in the Southern Ming Dynasty. I don’t know how Li Zicheng considered resolving this dangerous situation at that time. Yuan Zongdi should undoubtedly be very proficient in mobile warfare. Deng Ming really wanted to know what the current situation was similar and similar to the late Chongzhen period, and whether there was any experience to refer to.

"Isn't it also a military strategy to avoid the real and attack the virtual? And what are the benefits of hitting stones with eggs?" Deng Ming also guessed some of Yuan Zongdi's thoughts, and showed to the other party that this was a pure military issue without political meaning: "Now, ten of the world, eight or nine points have fallen, and it is indeed a critical moment of life and death. But I don't feel desperate, because the situation of the King of Breaking in the past... Well, if Duke Jingguo knew there was a good idea, it would be better not to hide it anymore and take it out quickly."

Deng Ming's words obviously did not have any effect. After hearing his clear mention of the word "King of Rebellion", Yuan Zongdi's face turned pale. After a moment, he said with difficulty: "Mr. Deng, in the Jiashen year, Mo Jiang was chasing Zuo Liangyu... No, Mo Jiang was moving closer to Zuo Ningnan (Zuo Liangyu Feng Ningnanbo)."

Although Wen Anzhi judged that Deng Ming might be the King of Tang, he had not told anyone about this idea except Zhao Tianba. At this time, Yuan Zongdi still believed that Deng Ming was the third prince of Chongzhen. He tried to distinguish the relationship between himself and Li Zicheng and Li Zicheng in the Jiashen year to break up the Beijing-torn King to death. This is not the first time today. Yuan Zongdi had already made such an attempt when he was under Chongqing.

However, in Deng Ming's opinion, this is a ridiculous defense statement, just like the defendant defending himself in front of the judge and saying: Lord Judge, I am definitely not the murderer, because I was robbing the bank in another place at the time of the incident.

Perhaps a more appropriate statement is that the presiding judge in court is the victim's son, and the defendant's defense statement is that when the murderer shot his father in the bedroom, I was beating your security guard in the backyard.

Deng Ming asked himself that if he was the defendant, he would definitely not want to see his enemy sitting in the judge's position, and he could not imagine that he would support his enemies to take over power and gain the right to live and kill himself. From this perspective, it was natural and reasonable for the Yongli court to distrust the camp, because the remaining troops of the camp had too sufficient reasons to betray the Ming court, and the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Ming Dynasty did not even know what reason could prevent them from betraying them.

However, the remaining troops of the camp insisted on resisting the Qing Dynasty and did not betray it in the end. Most of the generals of the camp had a bottom line, and even if the situation was completely desperate, they would not surrender to the Tartars. Because of such a bottom line, the remaining troops of the camp could only choose to support the Ming court to the end. Yongli did not know this bottom line, but Deng Ming knew that most of the generals of the camp could be fully trusted.

"Li Guoying is also Zuo Liangyu's old subordinate, right?" Deng Ming has learned a lot of details of the enemy opposite these days, and he asked this question clearly.

"Not bad." Yuan Zong's first look of alert expression, nodded slightly.

"When Duke Jingguo pursued Zuo Liangyu, Zuo Liangyu decided to give up Xiangyang. Before leaving Xiangyang, he ransacked all the people in the city, killed all the men, and plundered all the women and sold them to Jiangxi. Am I right?"

Yuan Zongdi couldn't help but sigh. After Yuan Zongdi arrived in Xiangyang City, he saw a mountain of bones. The river surface was full of floating corpses of the people who were slaughtered by Zuo Liangyu, and even one child was left.

"If a woman dares to cry, she will be killed on the spot, because Zuo Liangyu said that if she keeps crying, she will not be able to sell for a good price, right?" Deng Ming asked again.

Yuan Zongdi did not answer, but just shook his head and sighed.

"At that time, Li Guoying was in Zuo Liangyu's army, Xiangyang and Jiujiang. He never left behind in the city massacres, but soon he was not the Ming army, and he became the Qing army." Deng Ming did not use the disdainful term "Tartars", but used the word "Qing Army", a vocabulary that Ming army rarely used: "Yingguo Duke and Shu King (Liu Wenxiu in Xiying) became the Ming army. Later, in Hanzhong and Yueyang, every time he encountered the Ming army attacking, Li Guoying killed all the people like that time, for fear that a male person would escape to the Ming army, for fear that he would sell less a woman and earn less money. I was right?"

Without waiting for Yuan Zongdi to answer - Deng Ming knew how the other party would answer this question, so he said to Yuan Zongdi in a loud voice that everyone around him could hear: "There was nothing wrong with Duke Jingguo chasing Zuo Liangyu back then. The only thing that was not good was that he did not catch up with Zuo Liangyu. If Li Guoying was killed at that time, he would not have to look at him arrogant today."

Everyone was silent. No matter the guard behind Deng Ming or Yuan Zongdi and his Dachang soldiers, no one knew how to take Deng Ming's words, but the remarks that shocked them even more were still behind.

"At that time, the generals were under the tent of the King of Chuang, under the banner of the rebellion army; King of Jin and others under the banner of the Xiying; and Wu Sangui and Hong Chengchou and others under the banner of the Ming army. More than ten years have passed, and now Wu Sangui and others have been under the banner of the Qing army, and the generals have been under the banner of the Ming army, but many people on both sides of the war are still the original people... When Shaanxi soldiers attacked the Henan rebellion army under the banner of the Ming army, all the people passed by were killed by them, such as Jiaxian; it was the Ming army that burned and killed and looted in Henan that had now been under the banner of the Qing army. Although they had changed the green flag, they were still doing things to harm the people. Just say, Wang Mingde, there were no ordinary people in the places where he passed, such as Baoning and Chongqing."

Deng Ming's voice was very loud, ensuring that everyone present could hear it clearly: "I have said it in Chongqing. Now I might as well say it again. When the King of Chuang was going to eliminate these beasts, it was not wrong to do anything wrong. The only thing that did not do well was to destroy them completely. Otherwise, why would there be the disaster today?"

"You have defeated them once in the camp and the Western camp. Now, although they have recognized the Tartars as their masters, we still have to defeat them again. We will definitely defeat them again. This time we will defeat them together with the Tartar masters behind them." Deng Ming bit the two of us very seriously: "This is my truth, Duke Yasukuni!"

...

After staying in Dachang for two days, Yuan Zongdi invited Deng Ming to the martial arts training ground to watch the training camp. It has to be admitted that all the Dachang soldiers are indeed capable of flying eaves and walls. Seeing their agility in climbing the walls, Deng Ming couldn't help but think that if the Ming army was at the advantage of launching a large counterattack at this time, these Dachang soldiers would be good vanguards to break the city.

In addition to offensive and defensive drills, there are also archery, swords, spears, etc. The lack of training caused by the lack of materials has led to the overall level of the Ming army being very low. Therefore, Yuan Zongdi carefully selected some outstanding warriors to show his skills. Among them, a young and strong man performed particularly well. Not only was he proficient in several weapons, but he was also good at equestrianism.

When Yuan Zongdi saw Deng Ming noting his outstanding skills, he ordered the action props to be taken to compete with others on the spot. Deng Ming, the opponent arranged by the martial arts competition, was very familiar. He was accompanying him to return to Fengjie Zhou Kaihuang, who was going all the way from Chongqing to Fengjie. The two of them fought hard on the field.

"I'm really going to meet good talents, but I'll meet opponents." Deng Ming, a martial arts artist in Zhou Kaihuang, knew very well, but the person I just met today was very close. Deng Ming was sure that he had never appeared under Chongqing City.

"This is Yuan Xiang, the nephew of the last general." Yuan Zongdi introduced to Deng Ming that Yuan Xiang was left behind in Dachang during the World War in Chongqing.

"Duke Yasukuni should not claim to be the last general." Although Deng Ming was not convenient to deny the identity of the royal family, he was unwilling to leave an impression on others, as if he had already admitted it.

"Come and meet Mr. Deng." Yuan Zongdi asked Yuan Xiang and Zhou Kaihuang to come to meet Deng Ming together. He continued to call himself "the last general", but he was still cautious and said: "I think Mr. Deng's guard seems to be missing a team official. Mr. Zhou Qian has been under my command for many years, and it is very reassuring to do things..."

After Zhou Kaihuang brought the troops back to Dachang, Yuan Zongdi felt that the heroes who participated in the Deng Ming Guard in the Battle of Wanxian did not leave Deng Ming, which was a mistake for Zhou Kaihuang. But since everyone has returned to Dachang, Yuan Zongdi couldn't send them to Deng Ming anymore, so he decided to send Zhou Kaihuang to Deng Ming - this is his own guard.

"My nephew also has the strength to carry some luggage to Mr. Deng. If Mr. Deng is free, can he take him to walk around and have a better understanding?" Yuan Zongdi was not Deng Ming's boss and could not blatantly place people around Deng Ming, so he could only take the opportunity to recommend him if he tried to let Deng Ming appreciate their martial arts first. If Deng Ming didn't want him, he would not force him to stop it, so that people would feel that he wanted to put eyeliner around Deng Ming.

Although he was not used to giving people as gifts, Deng Ming knew that Yuan Zongdi wanted to arrange his relatives and old friends by his side and help Yuan Zongdi say something good when he had the opportunity. Not to mention that Yuan Xiang was a hero, even Deng Ming would not refuse even if he was powerless. He brought Zhou Kaihuang and Yuan Xiang with him. When he left Dachang, Deng Ming and his party became twelve people.

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