Zhou Peigong and Sichuan bankers rushed to Nanjing. When he arrived at the Liangjiang Governor's Office, Yu Youming and others had already gone to the inn to rest. The servants in the back house all looked ugly. When they were still far from the study, Zhou Peigong heard someone roaring loudly inside. There were only two people in the study. After the Sichuan people left, Jiang Guozhu lost control again and smashed the decorations in a mess. He swears to Liang Huafeng that Deng Ming would regret it sooner or later.

Faced with the angry Governor of Liangjiang, Liang Huafeng didn't know how to comfort him. After seeing Zhou Peigong, Admiral Jiangnan also smiled bitterly: "The tax exemption in the past two years has been taken away by Deng Ming."

Although the court exempted some taxes from Jiangnan, Jiang Guozhu did not copy them meticulously. He told the court that the Sichuan Army had passed by thousands of miles away from the ground, and the people were living in poverty. If they collected taxes, they would stir up changes in the people. But Jiang Guozhu knew that it was actually far from this point. Not only could he continue to collect taxes, but the people along the way also made a lot of money in business with the Ming army. Therefore, Jiang Guozhu only reduced the tax by about half, which not only gave the benefit of the subordinates, but also helped to restore the economy of Jiangnan. These intercepted agricultural taxes, coupled with the large amount of commercial taxes, allowed the Liangjiang Governor's Office to save some property.

"More than that!" Jiang Guozhu shouted sternly. In addition to these taxes, the Governor of Liangjiang can also get a dividend from the Governor of Deng. Last year, he helped the Ming army transport the people and provided supplies to the Ming army to make a lot of money. He also made a lot of money on board the boat in the past six months, but this time Deng Ming was almost a Jiang Guozhu.

"Governor-General, please calm down," Zhou Peigong hurriedly helped to persuade him. In Huguang and Jiangxi, the Deng Zongli Yamen has always played the role of lubricant. Zhou Peigong himself wrote many letters to Zhang Changgeng and others, advising them to endure the momentary anger and not act recklessly. At the same time, the Deng Zongli Yamen also promptly informed Huguang of his mentality of sitting in the mountains and watching the tiger fight to Huguang, or leaked Huguang's idea of ​​reaping the benefits of fishermen to Liangjiang: "If you keep the green mountains, you will not worry about burning firewood. Deng Ming has tens of thousands of armor this time, so he can only be smart and cannot compete."

"Well, how could this governor not know?" Jiang Guozhu knew very well that there was no reliable alliance around him. He fought with Deng Ming alone with the strength of Jiangnan to make a move, and would only make others cheaper, and most of them would destroy his family. Jiang Guozhu slowed down and praised Zhou Peigong, "You did a good job this time."

Although Zhou Peigong was unable to convince Deng Ming to return, Zhou Peigong had been providing information from the upper reaches to the Zongli Yamen in Liangjiang, so that Jiang Guozhu was not confused by Zhang Changgeng, and he also knew clearly that the upper reaches of Jiangnan prefectures and counties had also compromised. If he fought with Deng Ming now, he would probably be the main force of the Ming army who fought against the Eastern Expedition with Nanjing alone.

After Liang Huafeng and Zhou Peigong worked together to appease Jiang Guozhu, the former said goodbye and left. Jiang Guozhu then asked if Deng Ming had blackmailed the Zongli Yamen to suppress Deng.

"That's right, but the officials argued with reason. In the end, Deng Ming agreed to suppress the profits of the Zongli Yamen in the future. He only needed to take out 20% of them to buy its bonds." Zhou Peigong hurriedly expressed his merit to Jiang Guozhu: "And Deng Ming also agreed. In the future, we can use his IOU to buy goods, or use them to pay the profits."

Seeing that Zhou Peigong had made such great diplomatic progress, Jiang Guozhu sighed: "In this way, this IOU is not entirely waste paper."

"It's not waste paper, but what is really useful is the IOU that was returned to us in the end. The bonds cannot be used to buy goods or pay him to offset profits." Zhou Peigong carefully introduced the differences between several IOUs to Jiang Guozhu: "In general, it's just to put the money in Deng Ming for a year. He also wanted to be at ease, for fear that we would take advantage of Zheng Chenggong's death to siege him."

"I hope so." Hearing that the money still has a chance to come back, Jiang Guozhu felt a little more comfortable when he had hope in his heart, and his idea of ​​fighting to the death was so weak that it almost disappeared: "I just don't know if Deng Ming will break his promise again in a year."

"This is definitely not. In the final analysis, we are still too impatient this time. Before the four provinces were ready, they began to attack Zhang Huangyan, giving Deng Ming aloud, and forced him to fight to the death. If we were more careful and more stable, our four provinces would still be much stronger than him. Besides, there was also an imperial court behind us who could not do his best to deal with Deng Ming." Zhou Peigong pointed out that as long as the four southeastern provinces are united and everyone has the strength to work together, Deng Ming is no match at all: "Besides, he has sold the bonds to so many people this time. If he dares to break his promise, Wuchang and Nanchang will definitely not let him go. Deng Ming made great promises. As long as we don't give him an excuse, he will not be able to go back on his word. The officials still feel that as long as we are united in the four provinces, no one can bully us."

"It's not easy to talk about." Jiang Guozhu sighed: "Nanchang, Wuchang is not as smart as this. If they are willing to fully support this Governor, then what are the fears of Deng Ming's son and the Beijing court?"

Zhou Peigong has always been actively showing his loyalty to Jiang Guozhu, saying that the other party was the first to give him the power of the governor, and his kindness was far above other governors and he opened the middle gate of the governor's office for him. It was really hard to repay him. Zhou Peigong also said this to Zhang Chao, but the reason was that the latter was the first to give him the title of governor, so that he could be among the top officials. When he met Zhang Changgeng, Zhou Peigong repeatedly thanked the other party for removing him from being a white-handed to an official; while Lin Qilong was more difficult to deal with, Zhou Peigong could only flatter and flatter him with all his might.

Zhou Peigong was not worried about being exposed because these guys had their own ulterior motives and had discussed plans with him that were unfavorable to others. The profits of the General Li Yamen in the Suppression of Deng were becoming more and more impressive. The governors and governors wanted to eat more. While they unanimously asked Zhou Peigong to inspect and make fake accounts for Zhoushan, they also hinted that Zhou Peigong had faked other people. Now Zhou Peigong has six or seven sets of account books, some for Zhoushan, some for several governors and governors to see together, some for the governors and governors to see separately, and one for Deng Ming to see.

"This time when Deng Ming asked Xiaguan to use the profits of the Suppression General Office to buy his public debt, Xiaguan was careful and signed a secret agreement with him."

"Secret Agreement? What kind of secret agreement?" Jiang Guozhu came as soon as he heard the news.

"It is the exchange conditions for the Suppression General Office to buy public debts. Deng Ming agreed to sell us warships and weapons to help us train the army." Zhou Peigong pointed out that the current training level and combat effectiveness of the Sichuan Army are far greater than that of the Green Camp, so it is necessary to learn advanced military technology from the Sichuan Army. Moreover, since this army has paid Deng Ming, he has no reason to ask the Suppression General Office to disband: "Does the Governor still understand the matter now? Deng Ming is a wealth lover. As long as he has money to earn, he will be willing to take risks. If Deng Ming can't get a penny, then he will forbid us to rebuild the navy for his own safety, but as long as he can get the money, he will make concessions because of greed. We can slowly accumulate strength."

Zhou Peigong told Jiang Guozhu that when he first made this request, Deng Ming was a little hesitant, but he could not withstand Zhou Peigong's temptation to benefit, and also warned him that if the southeast did not have the ability to protect himself, the Qing Dynasty would be able to return to four years ago overnight if it was a big move to the south. Finally, Zhou Peigong persuaded Deng Ming with rigorous analysis and asked him to agree to provide necessary support to the Zongli Yamen to suppress Deng.

"Brother is really the best among people." After hearing that Zhou Peigong had bought such a little bond, he could get so many things from Deng Ming. Jiang Guozhu was secretly ashamed. Zhou Peigong was indeed a "Deng Ming expert" and did things more than a hundred times more beautiful than others. Moreover, Jiang Guozhu immediately realized that once this army was formed, it would be a coalition force of four provinces. As long as he mastered this army, he would not have to worry about Wuchang and Nanchang being unlimitedly dragging him down, and he could even force Wuchang and Nanchang to take the same pace as Nanjing.

The only thing that made Jiang Guozhu worried was whether Deng Ming would infiltrate this army. After all, in order to convince Deng Ming, Zhou Peigong promised that the army's weapons would be purchased from Deng Ming, and he also paid Deng Ming to ask Sichuan to provide military instructors for the Yangtze River Suppression Corps.

"The lower officials are not sure about this. The adults knew that the lower officials were not in military affairs, so they might be deceived by Deng Ming, but instead raised the army for him." Zhou Peigong praised Jiang Guozhu's concerns: "So the lower officials and Deng Ming told me that we can ask for execution of this secret agreement or not. It is because the lower officials did not consider the pros and cons of it, so I asked the adults to decide."

"Well." Jiang Guozhu pondered for a moment and said flatly: "You can't be afraid of wolves in front of doing things, but you can't be afraid of tigers in the future. Since I have worked hard to get such a condition, we have also bought Deng Ming's bond for this, so we have to do the things. You said that the Deng-suppression Corps is for us to pay military pay, right?"

"yes."

"Then we need to build it up!" Jiang Guozhu's voice became calm and powerful: "We need this army to unite the forces of the four provinces, and we also need it to fight against Deng Ming and the court."

"Yes, then the officials thought it would be best to let Admiral Liang manage this army." Zhou Peigong once again emphasized that he did not understand military affairs.

"No, this will make the court pay too much attention. They will wonder why a water yamen runner team, I would let generals like Admiral Liang take care of it, which will attract the attention of those who are interested; it will also make Deng Ming be more cautious. More importantly, Wuchang and Nanchang may not be willing to allocate funds to the Suppression General Team." Jiang Guozhu made a quick decision: "The officers will be selected by the Suppression General Team to take charge of this army."

"But this way, the corps is not in the hands of the adults," Zhou Peigong still opposed: "but it is completely controlled by the yamen of the General Li to suppress Deng."

"But you control the Deng Zongli Yamen, right?" Jiang Guozhu asked back.

Zhou Peigong hesitated for a while and suddenly fell to the ground: "Governor General, the power of the subordinates is not small, and they cannot meet with the master every day, so they are afraid that there will be words behind their backs to hurt people."

"Don't be afraid, I can trust me." Jiang Guozhu smiled and helped Zhou Peigong up and encouraged him: "Don't worry and boldly do it and make achievements. In this way, when I hand over the position of Governor of Liangjiang to me in the future, others will be speechless."

After leaving the Liangjiang Governor's Office tremblingly, Zhou Peigong sat in his sedan chair and returned to his residence staggeringly: "Hmph, is it rare to have the position of the Liangjiang Governor's Office? As long as Admiral Deng is still invincible in the world, the Deng Zongli Yamen will be at its peak."

Now Zhou Peigong is no longer the young juren. In recent years, he has been dealing with various governors and has been used to the intrigues in the officialdom. There are even an alien like Deng Ming who gives some advice.

"Governor Zhang's ambition is to be separatist and become a vassal prince." Zhou Peigong closed his eyes and meditated on the calculations of each governor in his heart: "Governor Lin and the Governor Jiangxi have similar ideas. Take one step at a time, and there is a high one to hold on to it. If it really doesn't work, they will vote for Deng Ming; and Governor Jiang has the greatest ambitions. I have been unable to speculate clearly before. For example, he has been actively collecting evidence of scholars recently, as if he wants to create a prison and plunder a lot of money."

When Zhou Peigong met Deng Ming, he also reported this to the latter. At that time, Zhou Peigong was still a little confused because Zhang Changgeng obviously valued the people's hearts of the territory and had already refused to offend all the gentry to please the court. This was obviously inseparable from Zhang Changgeng's mentality of separatism. If Jiang Guozhu had the same thoughts as Zhang Changgeng, he should not have offended the gentry in Jiangnan to death.

Deng Ming and Zhou Peigong discussed this for a long time. In the end, Deng Ming suspected that Jiang Guozhu wanted to learn from Wu Sangui, and his ambition was not to rule Jiangnan. No matter whether the Qing court won the future or the Ming Dynasty revival, it was impossible to tolerate a guy entrenched in Nanjing. Jiang Guozhu probably had figured this out long ago, so he had already made up his mind to train an army, and for this reason he offended the scholars in Jiangnan. In any case, this territory would definitely not be preserved. If an army could be built, Jiang Guozhu would have the capital to bargain with the Qing court or Deng Ming. In the future, the Qing court could hope to seek Wu Sangui to expedition to Sichuan and establish his own vassal state; and if the Ming Dynasty revived, Jiang Guozhu could also offer Nanjing, and then fight Shanhaiguan to Liaodong to find a place to settle down.

The more Deng Ming and Zhou Peigong thought about it, the more they felt that Jiang Guozhu had a great possibility of designing his future in this way, so they discussed using the Deng team to test Jiang Guozhu. If he really wanted to learn from Wu Sangui, Jiang Guozhu would definitely not think that there were too many troops.

"Do you have to break the earth and enthrone the vassal? Humph, the mantis stalks the cicada, and the oriole is behind. I can't be the oriole of Admiral Deng, but others can try it." Zhou Peigong still closed his eyes and a smile rose from the corner of his mouth: "A good wife, although you can't stay at home for you, you will earn a title for the princess in the future."

After hearing the explanation that the military vanguard was approaching Nanjing, Jiang Guozhu sent someone to greet him. He had already selected the camp site for the Ming army and enthusiastically helped to repair the camp to show his respect, but his confidant quickly returned to report that the Ming army vanguard Li Laiheng refused the kindness of the Governor General of Liangjiang.

"Hushuai said that other things are easy to trouble the Lord, but there is also a water camp in this military camp, so he must repair it himself."
Chapter completed!