Before Deng Ming left Xuzhou, he arranged for Li Xinghan to stay in Chengdu and be responsible for training the troops; at the same time, he asked Ren Tang to go to Fengjie to report the news, and he could consider how to report the difficulties of cursing water to Wen Anzhi. Ren Tang had no choice but to set off on the road, and he kept muttering behind his back why he had to be responsible for reporting this bad news. It has been two and a half years since Fengjie received good news from Deng Ming.

Mu Tan also traveled with Ren Tang. Zhou Peigong seemed to want to talk to Deng Ming about something, and he had sent a secret envoy to Fengjie. Deng Ming was unable to meet Zhou Peigong's secret envoy himself, so he asked Mu Tan to do it on his behalf. In Deng Ming's words, that is, Mu Tan is good at negotiating and has a good relationship with officials from Liangjiang.

"When we arrived at Fengjie, we both talked about the water curse with the supervisor together." While on the boat, Ren Tang said to Mu Tan hopefully.

"No, the admiral said this matter is your responsibility." In front of the people, Mu Tan and Ren Tang had already begun to call him Deng Ming's title and military rank, but when talking in private, they still used old names. Not only Ren Tang and Mu Tan, but also the same scholars in Sichuan were the same.

Mutan shook his head like a rattle: "I'm stupid and can't speak."

"Who said that?" Ren Tang retorted angrily: "The admiral said that you are good at negotiating."

"Oh," Mu Tan also complained a lot when talking about this task: "What kind of good at negotiation is obviously notorious. Now even the capital mansion believes in rumors, but I can't say that the gifts I received have been taken away by the admiral."

"Didn't you give me some left?"

"What a bad reputation I have ever been inscribed? What's that little allowance... Besides, I'm totally working for the admiral, otherwise who would have destroyed my reputation for such a little money?"

The two of them asked Deng Ming for a salary increase was rejected. Deng Ming said he understood their difficulties very well, so he gave them the right to recruit staff, and the recruited staff and staff government would pay wages.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to let officials do everything alone, so how could he bear to pay them extra wages? Later, the court realized that the actual work exceeded the personal ability of officials. A county magistrate was responsible for judicial, teaching, taxation and other work, and several divisions needed to assist him. However, the government believed that these aides were the personal assistants of officials, and the court had no reason to bear their expenses - whether it was embezzlement, collection of ceremonies or other gray income, the officials themselves would solve it, and the court would not pay for officials to support people.

The result is that these people have indeed become personal assistants to the officials. Just as the personal soldiers are tied to the general's loyalty chain, the division is tied to their boss. Perhaps the intimacy is not as strong as the general and the personal soldiers, but when the interests of the boss and the court conflict, these people will stand on the side of the boss without hesitation, even if they help the boss plan to surrender to the enemy, they are obliged to do so.

Therefore, Deng Ming decided to change this relationship. Ren Tang and Mu Tan were easy to deal with, just establish a staff organization. But the request of these two people reminded him that Deng Ming formulated a major policy before leaving, that is, if they needed staff, if they needed staff, they could make a list of needs, and then sign a two- or three-year short-term employment contract like volunteers, and the salary of staff was included in the government's expenses - Deng Ming called these people temporary workers.

In Deng Ming's view, hiring such temporary workers has many benefits. They belong to the government. With the salary given by the government, the relationship between superiors and subordinates will be looser. For example, the magistrate will flatter the magistrate, but it will definitely not be as devoted as the aide. However, Deng Ming also knows that it is hard to say what role this change can play in the old master and aide relationship.

The biggest problem is to review how many staff members need to be hired. In the past, officials hired themselves, so they would definitely not raise a group of idle people who only eat but don’t work. Now the government pays the money, and maybe someone will give this position a favor and arrange relatives and friends - especially the two prefects in Chengdu and Xuzhou. They have the right to decide on the candidates and the number of people they hire, and also have the right to allocate funds... So Deng Ming has only set a major policy for the time being without specific measures. He plans to slowly figure out how to check and balance on the road.

After arriving in Fengjie, Ren Tang and Mu Tan found that there were much more big names here than they thought. Liu Tichun from Yiling, the party of Badong, and even Wang Guangxing from Shizhou, who was quite alienated from Deng Ming, came. Since Liu Tichun came to Fengjie, Li Laiheng naturally could not move, but he also sent a deputy general with Liu Tichun. Moreover, according to Liu Tichun, Hao Yaoqi was also on the way to come. Hao Yaoqi and He Zhen reached an agreement to let He Zhen be responsible for commanding the Ming army in the Han River Basin, and he took the time to come to Fengjie to attend the committee meeting.

The difficulty of cursing water made Wen Anzhi feel very bad. Fengjie, which was originally full of joy because of Chongqing's great victory, fell into silence. However, the reactions of the Kuidong generals were not so strong. They seemed very painful in front of Wen Anzhi. However, after Wen Anzhi left the committee, everyone's topic immediately turned to the issues they were more concerned about.

Liu Tichun carefully confirmed again: "The Left Governor will definitely not come, right?"

"Yes." Ren Tang replied, waiting for Liu Tichun to explain to him why Fengjie gathered so many important people. He also looked serious when he saw Zhou Kaihuang.

"Yes." Liu Tichun's face showed a look of disappointment.

"This matter is related to the suppression of Premier Deng."

Liu Tichun's words made Ren Tang stunned again. Of course, he knew that it was Zhou Peigong who suppressed Premier Deng, but was it necessary to use respectful titles to the enemy at the Ming army's meeting?

"This is the secret envoy of Zhou Gongzong," Liu Tichun introduced a middle-aged man dressed as a wealthy businessman to Ren Tang and Mu Tan: "He came with us."

Zhou Peigong's envoy saluted everyone in western Sichuan and began to introduce the situation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. According to the secret envoy, after the Ming army left, the economic situation in the two rivers deteriorated sharply, while Jiang Guozhu and Zhang Chao were helpless.

Taxation accumulation was the norm in the Ming Dynasty. Before the Chongzhen Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty often reduced the accumulation accumulation. Even after implementing the examination method, it was generally considered qualified if it received 70% of the tax. However, the examination method was a powerful weapon. When the Chongzhen Dynasty linked the removal of accumulation accumulation and examination pass, officials desperately collected taxes for their own future, resulting in the destruction of a large number of peasants' families. After the Qing Dynasty entered the pass, it continued to clean up the accumulation. However, the Qing Dynasty mainly targeted the relatively wealthy Jiangnan rather than the already ruined north. Moreover, the Qing court has always paid attention to reducing the disaster areas. Coupled with the threat of force from the Qing Dynasty and the bad reputation established with a butcher knife, the Qing court received a large amount of taxes, but it did not cause a large-scale uprising.

By the late Shunzhi Dynasty, in order to maintain Hong Chengchou's five thousand-mile defense line, the Qing court's examinations for Liangjiang and Huguang were always qualified as tens, which means that no matter how much loss there was in the middle or what method was used, the government must receive sufficient taxes. This severe examination caused a huge burden on the people in the southeast, and the civilians worked hard all year round, but there was no surplus. As for the tenants at the bottom, they were even more miserable, and the land rent had reached 60% of the output on average.

In the 16th year of Shunzhi, in the Wanli period, the price of land in Nanjing was only ten taels per mu, and in Suzhou was less than ten taels. The farmers were overwhelmed by the heavy taxes, and the burden of self-cultivated farmers gradually became compatible with the soldiers of the army, and the tenants were basically the same as the army - no one was willing to spend money to play the role of military troops. When buying land was unprofitable, the price of land continued to decline.

Zheng Chenggong and Deng Ming attacked Jiangnan twice, while the expenses on various fronts in Fujian and Sichuan were still huge, which made the Qing government insist on adhering to the previous tax policies. Now the small landlords in Liangjiang have also begun to go bankrupt. In order to pay the tax, they had to borrow loans and then sell land to repay, which led to the continued decline in the price of land.

After farming was difficult to support themselves, farmers' purchasing ability became lower and lower, and they were increasingly reluctant to buy cloth. They were reluctant to buy products from merchants when making clothes during the Chinese New Year. Instead, they relied entirely on textiles of their wives and daughters, which also caused the economic crop area of ​​Liangjiang to shrink. In short, in order to continue to fight the war, the Qing Dynasty tried its best to squeeze the people of several southeastern provinces, which led to the exhaustion of the financial resources in the southeastern region.

"After this autumn harvest, many people sold land, and very few people were willing to buy it. Now you can buy a mu of paddy fields around Jiangning for only five taels of silver. If you buy more, three or four taels will not be bad." Zhou Peigong's secret envoy said.

The land price is so low that landlords and tenants cannot buy farm tools and add animals. It is conceivable that the output will continue to decrease next year. More people have to rely on loans to pay taxes, and then they have to try their best to sell the land to pay back their debts - but not many people are willing to take over. Even officials from Liangjiang who know nothing about economic principles know how to do it, they know that this means that the economic collapse is getting closer.

If it were in the past, Jiang Guozhu and Zhang Chao would not have any hesitation, that was, to continue to collect taxes according to the orders of the court, and if there was a civil unrest, they would dispatch troops to suppress them - anyway, they were just officials, and people's livelihood could not be compared with the authority of the court. But now Jiang Guozhu and Zhang Chao have different thoughts, and like Wu Sangui, they could not ignore the decline of people's livelihood and could not just collect bribes.

However, Beijing's tax mission is still to be completed. This year they are not a war zone and there is no excuse for tax reduction and exemption.

"What is the plan of the Zhou governor? Do you want us to attack Liangjiang?" Mu Tan asked immediately after hearing this.

"Yes, I originally hoped that Admiral Deng could go around Jiangnan and at least fight for tax exemptions for several governments next year. However, this time we really cannot provide enough food and salary."

"If we don't give us food and salary, why should we go? Do we have to bring our own food?" Ren Tang suddenly looked angry. Although western Sichuan had a plan to attack Jiangnan, if he didn't shout angrily at this time, how could he let the other party know his difficulties?

But Mu Tan did not complain immediately. He secretly glanced at Liu Tichun, thinking that there was probably something else on Zhou Peigong's side.
Chapter completed!