In the past, when Deng Ming talked with the generals who broke into the camp, he felt that they had a strong resistance to the Ming Court's governance methods, and Deng Ming was very understandable about this. The people who broke into the camp were forced to live by the Ming to rise up and rebel, and as far as the eye could see, the people were in dire straits, so they naturally thought that there was a great problem with the Ming court's method of rule, and it was true.

However, Chuang Ying's own governance methods were also lackluster, and after Li Zicheng's actions, until he entered Běijīng, no literati turned to him. The only one Niu Jinxing was still imprisoned for fighting a lawsuit with someone, and Li Zicheng broke through the city before he surrendered, and before joining the camp, Niu Jinxing also had no experience in administrative work.

Before the crossing, Deng Ming had no understanding of the speed of knowledge dissemination in this era, and after he personally communicated with the people of this era, he found that in this era when there was no media, newspapers, and a large number of cheap books, ordinary people knew almost nothing about management and administration. Liu Tichun and others knew the names of the officials, but they were completely unclear about what the functions of zhèngfǔ were and how to achieve them.

After Li Zicheng broke through the běijīng, he came up with a solution that was to exempt the whole country from taxation for three years without asking about it, and the necessary maintenance funds were obtained by torture and plundering the high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty, not to mention the disadvantages of this plan, even if the implementation effect Deng Ming was not optimistic about the effect - he heard Wen Anzhi say that Li Zicheng had inherited the official system of the Ming Dynasty almost completely, what kind of implementation of this exemption policy would be at the grassroots level, and who would benefit in the end? Deng Ming was very skeptical of this.

Although the effect of the implementation will definitely be reduced, and Wen Anzhi still hates Li Zicheng to the extreme, but when giving Deng Ming a private lesson, Inspector Wen still commented fairly: After hearing that Dashun widely implemented the tax exemption system, the hungry and displaced people in the Yellow River Valley still returned to their homeland in large numbers, and social production began to recover rapidly. But apart from the torture, Li Zicheng and Niu Jinxing had no idea how to maintain their zhèngfǔ, and although a large number of peasants benefited from Dashun's policies, Li Zicheng was completely unable to mobilize these beneficiaries to defend his regime. As a result, they were quickly driven out by the Manchus and the northern gentry whose interests had been offended, and they did not even have the opportunity to draw administrative lessons from the action of recovering stolen goods and subsidies.

After breaking into the camp and continuing to wander and wander, never engaged in any administrative work, and being reorganized into the Ming army, it was even more impossible for the Southern Ming to put the local power in their hands. Xiying has experience in building and consolidating base areas, but there is no opportunity to train in the camp.

When he was in Chengdu, Deng Ming repeatedly had headaches because Yuan Xiang, Liu Jinge, and Xiong Lan did not have any administrative knowledge. Deng Ming can only console himself with this: it is precisely because these people have no basic concept of the political framework that Deng Ming can exert the greatest influence. For example, Liu Jinge's understanding of zhèngfǔ's work and purpose is completely blank, so he is convinced of what Deng Ming says, and takes it as a golden rule.

Although Liu Tichun is more knowledgeable than his son, he basically has zero administrative experience, and he used to be a simple military camp in the Padang base area, and every qiē was military management. After moving to Yiling this time, he suddenly had to face complex social components, and there were no administrative officials from Nanming or Xiying around him, which could be called at a loss.

"It will take at least two or three years to get through taxes and disputes again and again, so that Liu Tichun can continue to sum up lessons and understand all kinds of administrative problems that will arise, and his staff will gradually grow up." Deng Ming thought in his heart, Deng Ming neither looked down on nor knew much about the traditional management model of the Ming Court, and he couldn't help Liu Tichun in this regard: "Li Laiheng and Hao Shaoqi are estimated to be about the same, and now they are completely bored." It's just that most of them may not listen to my fingers, and I can only try to help them delay for two years, so as not to let them collapse quickly; It is also impossible for them to make a mess in Hubei, so that the gentry and the people will begin to miss the Manchu Dynasty. After two or three years, they have some acquaintances, and some of my talents have been cultivated in Chengdu, and when the time comes, let Liu Jinge come and tell Liu Tichun that they will definitely be much better than me. ”

At first, Deng Ming wanted to exert some influence on Liu Tichun, just like he did to Liu Jinge, but after he heard Liu Tichun's treatment of Yiling scholars, this idea was also dispelled by Deng Ming, in his opinion, Liu Tichun handled government affairs according to his mood.

When he was in Chengdu, Deng Ming repeatedly explained to Yuan Xiang that the law is not a favor, and the implementation of the law must be impeached. The example Deng Ming used was the traffic law he had just promulgated: in the city and suburbs of Chengdu, vehicles should drive on the right, and the pavilion priests should organize those who saw the wrong way and supervise the violators to recite "drive on the right" 100 times. However, Deng Ming pointed out to Yuan Xiang that if there was a fouler who was in a hurry to see Lang Zhong because his son was ill, the pavilion had the right to let him go first according to the situation, and then recite the regulations to him a hundred times after he had finished his work. This is the so-called law enforcement bullet, and it is also what Deng Ming said, "the law is not a human favor." ”

But human affection is not a mood. When telling Yuan Xiang about the god of law enforcement, Deng Ming pointed out that when enforcing the law before the Ming Dynasty, the mood of the magistrate had a great influence, which is the saying goes: when you see someone who is in a hurry to see a doctor for her son and breaks the law, if you are in a good mood, you can help him grab the road, and if you are in a bad mood, you can stand in a cage and die.

Liu Tichun is obviously still in this stage of handling government affairs according to his mood, and he will be exempt from taxes if he sees you if he is pleasing to his eyes, and he will go bankrupt if he sees you unpleasantly. In this era, such a use of power is taken for granted, and it may be that Deng Ming and Chengdu under his influence will feel that this is an abuse of power.

After realizing that there was a huge difference in concepts between them, Deng Ming took the initiative to give up as before, and he no longer tried to interfere in Liu Tichun's administration, but simply said a few bright words of love for the people.

Knowing that nothing would come of it, Deng Ming quickly turned the topic to the blasting technique and asked Liu Tichun if he would be willing to share his new tactical skills with him. When discussing civil affairs just now, Liu Tichun kept frowning, but as soon as he said the explosion, his eyes suddenly lit up and his eyebrows stretched. Liu Tichun immediately took Deng Ming to see his demolition team with great interest, and showed Deng Ming his new equipment.

At first, Deng Ming was a little surprised, and he was not very optimistic about Liu Tichun's shoddy equipment, but Liu Tichun patted his chest to ensure its effect, he not only had a large number of tests, but also was willing to demonstrate to Deng Ming on the spot. The test report showed that this was indeed a powerful weapon, and the subsequent demonstration did not disappoint Deng Ming.

Now the demolition team is Liu Tichun's heart, but Deng Ming still took a few members from Liu Tichun's hands, and took away a few pieces of Liu Tichun's equipment and some gunpowder - with these things, Deng Ming is more sure that Zhang Changgeng has the ability to lift his roof.

After leaving Yiling, it didn't take long for Deng Ming to arrive in Jiangling and meet Li Laiheng, the commander of the Ming army in Huguang.

Like Liu Tichun, Li Laiheng also said that he did not have extra troops for Deng Ming to send, and his troops also needed to monitor the ambiguous gentry, and a large part of them went to Zhongxiang at Hao Shaoqi's request...... Originally, Deng Ming of the Xiangyang Defense Area was assigned to He Zhen, but later Hao Shaoqi exchanged the defense area with him, and now Hao Shaoqi basically moved the base camp to Xiangyang, and he couldn't look down on the original base house and bamboo area, and only left a few left-behind personnel.

Shut down

Although Li Laiheng could not provide Deng Ming with many mobile troops, he was willing to provide Deng Ming with some guides, gunpowder, and auxiliary support. Li Laiheng also agreed with Deng Ming's plan to threaten Wuhan, believing that it could at least put pressure on Zhang Changgeng to force the Qing army around Zhong Xiang to return to Wuhan.

"In the final analysis, Zhang Changgeng is still a thief who threw Tartars," the previous transaction made Li Laiheng's impression of Zhang Changgeng good for a while, but as the atmosphere between the two armies became tense, Li Laiheng's hostility towards Zhang Changgeng became strong again: "And that Zhou Peigong, who is also a lackey of the Tartars." ”

"Oh?" Deng Ming saw Li Laiheng's face full of anger, and was a little puzzled by how quickly his attitude changed, the last time Zhou Peigong came to negotiate, Deng Ming remembered that he also gave Li Laiheng a personal gift.

"Zhou Peigong, the thief, has recently won the trust of Zhang Changgeng, he presided over the reinforcement of Hanyang City, although I have not fully explored the specific means, but many of them are aimed at our army's blasting methods." Li Laiheng didn't know the conversation between Deng Ming and Zhou Peigong, in his opinion, Zhou Peigong must have used the negotiation to spy on the Ming army's siege methods: "Yesterday I just received a report that Zhang Changgeng recently organized several poetry meetings to persuade donations, in which Zhou Peigong jumped up and down, desperately persuading the gentry around Wuchang to give money and food, so that the Qing army could gather more powerful troops to fight us!" ”

"Zhou Peigong?" Deng Ming was a little confused when he heard this: "If I'm not mistaken, Zhou Peigong seems to still have a lot of land in the hands of Hu Shuai, isn't he afraid that we will confiscate his family property?" In my opinion, Zhou Peigong probably also coped with errands, after all, he was the prefect of Wuchang, and he would definitely come forward to raise donations in Wuchang. ”

"The Admiral doesn't know, this guy is definitely sincere and lethal." Li Laiheng said angrily: "I have ordered that all the land of Zhou Peigong, a mad dog, be confiscated from the official and converted into a military camp of our army. ”

"How long ago was this? Has it already been executed? Deng Ming didn't know that this was not an order just given by Li Laiheng, and it was said that he received the news yesterday, so he would not give an order without verification. But Deng Ming would rather Li Laiheng make a hasty decision, so that there is still time to remedy.

"About a month ago." It's a pity that Li Laiheng disappointed Deng Ming, and a month ago, Li Laiheng had kicked Zhou Peigong's housekeepers in Jingmen back to Wuchang, and asked him to tell Zhou Peigong that the land and crops on it belonged to the Ming army.

"At least 200,000 taels of land, no wonder Zhou Peigong has become a mad dog, and I will have to fight with Hu Shuai." Deng Ming looked helpless, he didn't understand how Li Laiheng could do things so desperately, Zhou Peigong was the prefect of Wuchang, and his ambiguous attitude was obviously very beneficial to the Ming army: "Have you ever heard of Hu Shuai, the kidnappers are all good at entertaining meat tickets, because if the meat tickets die, don't want to get one." Zhou Peigong's land in Jingmen is the meat ticket in our hands, if we want to copy it, then why did we work so hard to buy land for him in the first place? ”

"That's what the Admiral said, but I just can't swallow it." The shame on Li Laiheng's face flashed away, and it was replaced by deep hatred: "I also know how many catties Zhou Peigong has, if he dares to come to me for trouble, I will pull his skin!" ”

"What the hell is going on?" Deng Ming felt that the contradiction between Li Laiheng and Zhou Peigong seemed to be more than this.

"It's not for tax exemption, on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Zhou Peigong's housekeeper in Jingmen brought this bunch of things to me for New Year's greetings, and said a bunch of nice words, asking me to take care of and take care of their Zhou family's taxes. The cunning housekeeper never spoke half of his words, and I didn't know how much he wanted me to take care of, but I had a good relationship with Zhou Peigong at that time, so I agreed. At Deng Ming's request, Li Laiheng started the contradiction between him and Zhou Peigong: "After two months, General Liu began to post a list, telling the gentry that the gentry are now in a national crisis, and taxes cannot be exempted; I had already agreed with General Liu to act together, and I also reported that all the big landlords had sent a special proclamation, and the Zhou family was the big landlord in Jingmen, and of course there was also a share of his family. ”

"You forgot what you promised for the first month?" Deng Ming sighed.

"How so?" The more Li Laiheng spoke, the more angry he became: "Of course I haven't forgotten, so I told the Zhou family that I would collect 30% less in their taxes, and almost all the good land near Jingmen was his Zhou family, and the exemption of three achievements was a lot." But the housekeeper of the Zhou family was embarrassed, and came to the door to make trouble, saying that I didn't believe in my words. I told him that I didn't know what he meant when he gave a gift for the New Year, and then he said that it was at least 70% free, and I didn't agree that the guy still refused to leave, and he wanted me to be free of half of it. I didn't bother to ramble with him, so I blew him away. ”

"And then?"

"Later, the famous people looked for ways everywhere, gave gifts to my subordinates, and asked them to come and tell me, what about the national disaster for so many years, the government has never collected their taxes, and even the Tartars don't look for them to have money, we are the Ming court, let alone ask for it. Zhou Peigong's housekeeper jumped up and down, engaged in tandem, and desperately stuffed bags for my people, arguing that my head was too big. Hmph, why didn't the people make a living back then, it was because they didn't collect taxes from those who had money and food, and besides, he Zhou Peigong had a reputation for being a Tartar, and he was not from the Ming Dynasty, even if he was exempted from anyone's taxes, it would not be his turn to ......"

At that time, many gentry shouted that they would charge up to half, Li Laiheng had already had opinions about the soldiers, but now seeing that they dare to make trouble, they are not even afraid of their own soldiers and horses for some money, where can they swallow that breath? The housekeeper of the Zhou family thought that the head of the family had a friendship with the Ming army, and he was indeed more familiar with the way, and he did the most small actions such as tandem and bribery.

Later, Deng Ming could also guess that Zhou Peigong was dissatisfied, and became particularly concerned about rebuilding the Qing army, and also publicized the tyranny of breaking into the camp in the circle of scholars, advocating that only when the Qing army regained the lost territory could the gentry be given justice. After hearing these news, Li Laiheng took revenge and confiscated the land of the Zhou family, and the land of the Zhou family was bought by Li Laiheng at the beginning.

"Okay, originally Zhou Peigong was just heartbroken and his income was reduced, but now he is not with us. Well, Zhou Peigong has the title deed and the transaction book in his hand, as long as Jingmen is beaten back, he can still regain the land. Deng Ming pondered for a while, and said to Li Laiheng: "Hu Shuai is angry, I will ask for a favor for Zhou Peigong and return his land to him." ”

"For this kind of mad dog, it is also for nothing to give him favors." Although Li Laiheng also knew that this was an enemy, he was not very afraid of Zhou Peigong, and he was even more unwilling to show weakness and lose face: "And give Zhou Peigong land, he will think that we are afraid of him, and he will definitely get an inch, and ask for tax reductions and exemptions." ”

"Then let's do it, I'll persuade Zhou Peigong to agree to you to collect the full amount of the tax, if he agrees, Hu Shuai will give me a face, don't confiscate his land." Deng Ming knew that the camp might be a general, but none of them were politicians, and they all regarded face as more important than actual interests.

Li Laiheng thought about it, if this can also be considered that Zhou Peigong first gave in and begged for mercy, Deng Ming's face was not good, and he reluctantly agreed: "If this mad dog is really so knowledgeable, then I will not worry about him this time for the sake of the admiral's face, but his tax will not be less." ”

"A little less!" Deng Ming assured.

After reaching a consensus with Li Laiheng, Deng Ming borrowed some auxiliaries from Li Laiheng, and then continued down the river to Guò Yuezhou and other places.

After hearing that Deng Mingchang drove straight in, ignoring the outpost stronghold of the Qing army and approaching Hanyang, Zhang Changgeng was taken aback, and hurriedly called his henchmen to discuss, and Zhou Peigong, as an expert on Deng Ming's issue and the prefect of Wuchang, of course, also attended.

"Deng Ming has only been gone for more than half a year, why did he come to Wuchang again?" Zhang Changgeng and his henchmen also didn't expect Deng Ming to come to rob again so soon. Deng Ming's Yangtze River Naval Division was based on Jiangsu and Zhejiang soldiers, and had a large number of large warships captured from Susong and Jiangxi Naval Divisions. Huguang's sailors were quite weak and might be able to barely deal with Li Laiheng's threat, but they were certainly no match for the Yangtze River sailors.

"Deng Ming seems to have the intention of taking Hanyang directly and then attacking Wuchang." Deng Ming went down the river, turning a blind eye to the outpost stronghold of the Qing army west of Hanyang. The art of war says: If you abandon the small and don't take it, you must have a big picture. The Ming army was menacing, the commander was prestigious, and many of Zhang Changgeng's aides showed fear, even Zhang Changgeng himself was secretly nervous.

At this critical time, Zhou Peigong, the prefect of Wuchang, stepped forward, and since the confiscation of his family property, the prefect of Zhou has devoted himself to the construction of the army, gritting his teeth and wanting to go back to his hometown. Zhou Peigong's face was calm, and he assured Zhang Changgeng with confidence: "Your Excellency the Governor, rest assured, the Hanyang City Defense was arranged by the lower officials themselves, and if Deng Ming doesn't come, he will definitely not be able to please him." ”