The Zhejiang scholars knew that these Jiangnan scholars they met had fled to Sichuan, but they did not show any contempt for this. First of all, it is not easy for people's concepts to be completely reversed all at once, although now the gentry class in Huzhou and Jiaxing have revised the definition of being productive from being excellent at reading to daring to take up arms to protect the clan, and these scholars from northern Zhejiang who came to Sichuan are also young people whose world view and outlook on life have not yet been fixed, but it is impossible for them to look down on young scholars who continue to study in such a short period of time; Second, even the pamphlets preaching imperialism distributed in Sichuan did not in any way disparage the readers, and characterized this difference as a difference in the division of labor.

"Our Han civilization needs both defenders and things that need to be defended." One of Zhuang Yuncheng's grandsons said to Jin Shengsi's son that the theory of imperialism is the most incendiary for such young people: "We are defenders, and our writing, clothing, and food customs need to be defended. ”

After a few days of contact with these people from northern Zhejiang, many young people in Wu County also went to their fathers to shout, for example, Jin Shengsi's son suddenly changed his ambition, and he did not plan to go to Xuzhou with his father to teach his children to read, but shouted that he wanted to go to Chengdu with the people of northern Zhejiang to study at the military academy: "The child is also a seven-foot man, and he should be a defender, and he should not be defended." Anyway, there are younger brothers, and my father and mother are not worried about no one under their knees. ”

……

Deng Ming also returned to Chengdu for this matter, and today he rushed to meet Chen Zuocai of the academy to offer wine, hoping that the latter would cooperate with him in carrying out a broader imperialist education in the academy.

Now Chen Zuocai is only in his forties and less than fifty, but because he has become an old grandmaster in Sichuan, at least Chengdu Mansion, Chen Zuocai, who was still wearing short clothes and can fly on horses in Yunnan a few years ago, has also changed a lot. Now Chen Zuocai is dressed in a Confucian robe, wearing a square scarf, and when he walks, he always has a dragon-headed cane in his hand, and he is still working hard to grow a beard.

"Don't come to the old sacrificial wine?" Deng Ming looked at Chen Zuocai's beard that was getting longer and longer under his chin, and felt that maybe in two years, Old Grandmaster Chen would have the idea of dyeing his beard white, or even snow white.

"Why did Guogong return to the capital so late?" Chen Zuo learned that Deng Ming had returned to Sichuan for at least two months, but had been staying in Xuzhou, and had just returned to Chengdu two days earlier -- and a grand triumphal ceremony had been held. Now the academy has opened a physical education department, and the head of the department is, of course, Professor Geriletu, an imperial councilor, and half of the teachers in the department are Mongolian compatriots and former Praetorian Guards colleagues of Director Geriltu, and the rest are basically veterans. On the day of the triumphal ceremony, Geriletu was embarrassed to join in the fun as a member of parliament, but all the teachers of the department went to grab the money together; The harvest of these physical education teachers is quite good, yesterday they laughed and shouted in the department, boasting to each other about their gains, and Chen Xijiu's office was very far away.

"Isn't it because the same talents want to see the evidence of our army's victory?" Deng Ming said helplessly that since the bad case was set when he returned from Burma, Sichuan Tongxiucai thought that they had to eat for nothing when Baoguo Gong came back from victory. Deng Ming in Xuzhou was stopped by the welcome imperial people, and had to give everyone the silver, and after the people who saw it invited all the people present to drink, the Chengdu people who heard the wind waited for Deng Ming to come back: "Those people who came from outside the city this time! I sold jadeite and ivory for months, and saved up a lot of money to come back, thinking it was more than enough, but it almost didn't turn out to be enough. ”

After the greetings, Deng Ming said that although Chen Zuocai never publicly agreed with Deng Ming's imperial doctrine, the academy was quite cooperative in assisting the government in publicity. As early as several years ago, not long after Xiong Lan came up with the theory that only by constantly going out to rob the population could she maintain the rapid economic development of Sichuan, Chen Zuocai made it one of the courses that students should study and think about in the academy.

However, when he heard that Deng Ming planned to advocate armed immigration to Nanyang and occupy those overseas territories that did not know how far away Chengdu was, Chen Zuocai still felt a little incomprehensible.

"It's a pity that the surname of the country has passed away, otherwise I wouldn't have to do this kind of thing." Deng Ming sighed, after losing Kinmen and Xiamen, Zheng Jing's attitude softened a lot, and he agreed to share trade with Japan with Deng Ming. Through the exchange of envoys, Deng Ming also knew that Zheng Jing was imposing heavy taxes in Taiwan to support the huge army of the Yanping Domain.

"Do you know why the king of Yanping raised taxes in Taiwan?"

"What's so strange about that?" Chen Zuocai felt that Deng Ming's problem was simply looking down on him, and at the beginning, in order to maintain the hundreds of thousands of troops in Xiying, Sun Kewang scraped together the money and grain that allowed Xiying to launch an offensive at the same time in Baoning, Xiangyang, and the three fronts of Liangguang, and drove a large number of people under his rule into Jintun to serve as auxiliaries, which was much more than Zheng Jing allowing yeoman farmers to exist, but only raising the tax rate. Before the infighting of the Three Kings, the Western Army was able to launch an attack on all fronts, and it was indeed exciting that it would soon make a comeback after defeat, but the suffering in the military camp Chen Zuocai had also witnessed it with his own eyes: "How many people is there in Taiwan? Half a million? 600,000? The land isn't already cultivated like Jinxia, is it? The king of Yanping County wants to maintain 30,000 armor soldiers and thousands of warships, as well as reclaim wasteland and build water conservancy, how can it be possible without heavy taxes? The king of Yanping County did not turn the people into auxiliary soldiers in the military camp, which is considered benevolence. ”

"Because the king of Yanping has lost control of the Taiwan Strait," Deng Ming's answer was completely different from what Chen Zuocai thought: "Now not only us, but also the Dutch have reappeared in Japan in large numbers, and many of them have not paid taxes to the king of Yanping, so they can still compete with our merchants, which has led to a decline in our profits." And this situation has disappeared after the country sent troops to Taiwan, and the Dutch will have to withdraw from direct trade with Japan if they don't want to bear heavy taxes. Therefore, the king of Yanping could not afford to support the army, and he had to collect heavy taxes to ensure military supplies. ”

Chen Zuocai felt that there was something in Deng Ming's words, so he closed his mouth and waited for Deng Ming's next words, held his dragon head cane in his hand, and put on an old-fashioned and old-fashioned appearance.

"Chen Xijiu knows that the agricultural tax I collect in Sichuan has always been low, and at first I relied on the issuance of IOUs to fool me, then by selling salt, collecting ransom fees, then by Cao Yin, bonds, and now I have opened a stock exchange from Wuchang to Nanjing. I have always relied on the financial resources of tens of millions of people along the Yangtze River, as well as Shandong, Zhejiang, and Myanmar to support the millions of fellow talents in Sichuan. So now Sichuan has a strong army, and a huge fleet, but the burden of the people is not heavy, the hardest peasants can have almost all their output, and the industry and commerce because of the protection of the army, so they can sell anything, if they meet competitors Imperial Army, they will help them smash the field. Even with the allies of Kuidong and the Jin king of Yunnan, I was able to keep making concessions and compromises, trying to eliminate their dissatisfaction, also because my family has a strong background, so I don't have to risk conflict with them. If I don't want to suffer big losses again and again, although I don't want to provoke infighting, maybe someone will look at my turf and find fault and provoke infighting against me. ”

Deng Ming's meaning is very clear, that is, the vigorous development of Sichuan, and the good relations with the alliance, have benefited from foreign plunder.

"Speaking behind closed doors now, I admit that I am plundering the people of several provinces in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, although I have a bottom line, I know that they are my compatriots, and I am much better to them than the Qing court and Sun Kewang and others, but this is still plundering. And I can't continue to plunder like this forever, sooner or later, we have to fight out of Sichuan, and our army will recover more land from the Qing court. How should we deal with the people in the Liberation Zone? Deng Ming felt that he could definitely do better than the Qing court, which monopolized the trade of all kinds of necessities of life, and tried his best to fool the people and ban the sea and enclose land, which Deng Ming would definitely not do; But if the people in the newly liberated areas wanted to immediately match the standard of living in Sichuan, it would be impossible, and personal power would still be bound to the clans and gentry, because Deng Ming had no money to redeem these political rights: "But if there were overseas gains, these things would be much easier, not only would they not have to pay heavy taxes for the war, but they would also be widely exempt from taxes to feed the poor, and landlords would be given allowances in exchange for reducing the tenants' taxes." We must drive out the Tartars, but why not do it if we can do it without having to pay heavy taxes if we can do it with fewer Han Chinese deaths and without having to bear heavy taxes? ”

So Deng Ming needed to expand overseas, and he thought that this opportunity could arise at any time, because the English gentlemen said that their homeland had reached the point where they could not tolerate the Dutch's monopoly on maritime trade and the Spaniards' monopoly on South American gold and silver. In Deng Ming's view, the British now have a similar view of the Dutch and Spaniards to the German view of Britain during the First and Second World Wars. Moreover, Deng Ming still remembers that in his previous life, when Germany jumped out to challenge Britain, what Japan did was to make a horizontal row in Asia: first pretending to be a friend of Britain to make a fortune, and then tearing his face and robbing it directly. If it weren't for Japan's weakness, Germany's failure in both attempts, and the United States' behemoth, Japan might have reaped more benefits than Germany's challenger.

However, without the United States, China's strength is much stronger than that of the Dutch and Spaniards in Batavia and the Philippines, but it is limited by its seafaring capabilities, and more importantly, according to Deng Ming's experience, Britain has succeeded as a challenger.

"I have written to the King of England that I think the lucrative trade in ivory, gold, and silk should be entirely in the hands of his great kingdom; This great king has just regained the usurped throne, and he must want to wage war to establish his authority, and he can also make a fortune to win people's hearts. Deng Ming has been committed to adding fuel to the fire of the relationship between Britain and the Netherlands, and now there is no Zheng Chenggong, so Deng Ming plans to follow the strategy of Japan in his previous life, first disguise himself as a friend of the Netherlands, do arms trading, participate more widely in the Dutch trade network, and by the way, buy some Dutch ships, hire some shipbuilding engineers to help the Netherlands solve the military problem -- when the British continue to challenge, Deng Ming's ships are almost ready, and then he can learn from Japan's next strategy.

Deng Ming explained to Chen Zuocai for a long time, making the other party realize that Nanyang has great potential, which can provide China with huge amounts of grain, and can obtain gold and silver income that exceeds agricultural taxes through trade, and can also use these income to buy Siamese and Japanese mercenaries to help the Chinese fight. However, if you want to seize large tracts of land and good ports from the Western colonizers, you need to prepare in advance, you need to carry out armed migration, you need Han people who dare to go to sea and adventure, and when the time comes, these Han strongholds and weapons reclamation regiments scattered in the South Seas will be the bases, guides and soldiers of the Chinese expeditionary force.

Deng Ming had compiled all these things into a pamphlet, and planned to encourage the Sichuan people to organize something like the East India Company, and recruit the poor people in the coastal areas of Fujian, Guangdong, and Shandong to form a reclamation regiment to go to sea, and Sichuan would provide rifles and military training, and the Fujian army in Zhoushan would help them reach their destination - now whether it was Batavia or the Philippines, it was only a few good ports and strongholds, as long as the reclamation group avoided a head-on conflict with the Dutch and the Spaniards, plus some diplomacy, The enemy they had to face was a scattered South Sea natives.

The key is to dare to defend their own interests, not to go against the grain but to shoot at the natives who try to rob, Deng Ming hopes to take advantage of the geographical and demographic advantages to make a large number of Han armed peasants appear in Nanyang as soon as possible. This had to be propagandized through the Chengdu Academy, where the leaders of the reclamation regiments were first trained and then recruited to recruit armed peasants.

"Huaxia, Yidi, beasts." Chen Zuocai flipped through the textbooks prepared by Deng Ming and whispered, but then changed back to the old-fashioned appearance just now: "The old man can't agree with Guogong's words, I have always emphasized convincing people with virtue, and the old man does not agree with this kind of thing that violates the way of benevolence." ”

"But the sage also said that opening the book is beneficial." Chen Zuocai took the pamphlet given to him by Deng Ming into his sleeve: "Since Guogong has written it, let's show it to the students, there is always no harm in reading two more books." ”