When the Ming army was in full swing to prepare for the war, Gong Yan suddenly came to Deng Ming's camp.

"Why is Gong Shangshu here?" Deng Ming was a little surprised to see the old master, but he immediately realized that his title was a little outdated, so he changed his words and said, "Why is Governor Gong here?" ”

"Let's call the old man Shangshu," Gong Yan seemed to be in a good mood, and said casually: "The old man is not a governor yet." ”

"Why not?" Deng Ming asked a little strangely, he remembered that Gong Yan had gone to Wen Anzhi to ask for an official early.

"Because Wen Yiling (Wen Anzhi) doesn't give it." Gong Yan didn't hide it, and said bluntly: "I thought Yiling should be at the age of doing what he wanted, but he still couldn't see it." ”

Gong Yan told Deng Ming, Wen Anzhi was still angry about Gong Yan burning the main card of the ancestors of the Ming Dynasty, saying that the ancestors and the ancestors were on top, and he would never appoint Gong Yan as the governor of Sichuan of the Ming Dynasty.

"Didn't you have a good time?" Deng Ming asked strangely, he remembered that when he passed by Fengjie, he saw Wen Anzhi and Gong Yan both smiling, and the two kind old men didn't seem to be angry at all.

"Of course you can't see it." Gong Yan laughed: "Before you arrived in Fengjie, Yiling also said that he would invite Shang Fang's sword to behead the old man. The old man said that I am not an official of the Ming Dynasty, what did he ask Shang Fang to do with the sword? Yiling said that this was to avenge his previous emperors. ”

It sounded like the two were arguing fiercely, but Gong Yan obviously didn't pay much attention to it. Deng Ming couldn't help but wonder if he had been scolded too many times over the years, so he didn't care anymore.

"I see." Deng Ming hesitated, if Wen Anzhi didn't express his position, Deng Ming could give the position of governor to Gong Yan, but now that Wen Anzhi is opposed, Deng Ming will not be able to come forward again.

"You don't have to give this official position to the old man," Gong Yan observed his words and saw Deng Ming's hesitation: "Yiling said, even if I ask for the position of governor from you, he will not admit it." ”

It seems that Gong Yan and Deng Ming have touched Wen Anzhi's bottom line this time. However, Gong Yan had his own solution, he sued Deng Ming, and after running into a wall in Wen Anzhi, he did not go directly to Jiangnan to complain to Deng Ming, but went to Sichuan to get in touch with the two prefects and the academy.

Liu Jinge and Yuan Xiang naturally had to give Gong Yan this face, and the court meeting was actually moved by Gong Yan's words, and most of the parliamentarians felt that this old man had the ability. Although Meng Zhengfa has been slandering Gong Yan in the academy, most of the professors admire Gong Yan's knowledge, and now the atmosphere in the entire western Sichuan is deeply influenced by Deng Ming's idea of having no monarch and no father, so the resistance to Gong Yan is not serious.

However, even if the people of western Sichuan do not object, Gong Yan still needs Deng Ming's formal approval - no matter how many rights Deng Ming voluntarily gave up, most people still think that his words are the golden rule in western Sichuan.

The Yuan agreed to let the old man coordinate the relationship between the various provinces in western Sichuan and resolve the contradictions, and also agreed that the old man would solve the contradictions between western Sichuan and Kuidong. Isn't that what you said a governor should do? ”

Deng Ming is still a little hesitant, Wen Anzhi is not young, and has always given Deng Ming great support, although Deng Ming admits that Gong Yan is very talented, but in case Wen Anzhi is angry, it is ungrateful.

"You kid really has a lot on his mind!" Gong Yan talked for a long time, and when he saw that Deng Ming didn't agree, he snorted: "Your Wen Inspector said that he can't give the old man the official of the Ming Dynasty no matter what, and he wants the old man to look at the south and kowtow to ask for guilt, but the old man is really unwilling." The courtyard in western Sichuan was originally a grass platform team, Yiling said, you also agreed to dissolve the courtyard as soon as the emperor returns, so if I take a position given by the academy, Yiling will not worry about the old man. ”

"Oh, that's right." Deng Ming knew that Gong Yan was arrogant and would not lie on this issue, so he happily agreed and approved the appointment given to him by the academy. However, Wen Anzhi did not agree to use the official title of governor or any other Ming Dynasty, Deng Ming pondered for a moment: "Just call it the governor, the head of Sichuan Province, the governor." ”

"Name it." Gong Yan didn't care about the title, but after he was appointed to this position, he immediately proposed a reform plan, that is, to establish a defense envoy position.

The defense makes this position from the premise that Niu Venus came out of. Because after Zhu Yuanzhang set up the thirteen provinces, some of the provinces were very large, and some of the provinces were very small, so Niu Jinxing planned to add a defense envoy between the provinces and the provinces, and gather those small mansions in the hands of a defense envoy. Later, this set of reform ideas was completely copied by the Manchu Qing Dynasty and changed its name to Daotai.

But Gong Yan's construction was vetoed by Deng Ming, he didn't want to strengthen the control at all, and he had no intention of following the traditional liuguan system, so no matter whether he was called a defense envoy or a Taoist platform, this kind of official was redundant to Deng Ming.

Since Deng Ming opposed him, he did not insist on it, because now his position as governor of the province was to coordinate the provinces and had no other real power, and the work of the defense envoy was to further strengthen the control of the province over the localities. Gong Yan felt that there was no need to take power when Deng Ming was away, anyway, he had already mentioned it, and if Deng Ming felt that it was necessary in the future, he would naturally think about it.

Another point is that Gong Yan demanded that the position of provincial governor be substantiated. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang painstakingly carried out the separation of powers and checks and balances at the provincial level, and set up three posts: political envoy, envoy according to the procurator, and command envoy, separating administrative, procuratorial, and military powers, hoping that these three could contain each other and reduce corruption.

The effect of this system is difficult to say, after all, it was hundreds of years ago, and no one has personally experienced it, but it is undoubtedly not in line with the idea of centralization. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the governor was originally used for local inspections, but gradually evolved into a provincial governor who integrated the power of the whole province, and completely controlled the three envoys below. Since it was impossible for the inspector to supervise the governor, the central government simply set up another inspector to supervise the governor, the original supervisory officer.

Another reform of Niu Jinxing was to materialize the chaotic governor system of the Ming Dynasty, and only set up one governor in each province to clarify the powers and responsibilities. Not long after Niu Jinxing prepared the system and regulations, Li Zicheng was defeated and withdrew from Beijing, and after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered Beijing, he found that the administrative system of Dashun was obviously more reasonable than that of the Ming Dynasty, so he grabbed it and used it himself, and according to Niu Jinxing's idea, he completed the substantiation and standardization of the governor in the country.

Gong Ming's request was confirmed by Deng Ming, who also felt that the governor should be a permanent entity, and there was no need to change the scope of authority and jurisdiction frequently: one governor of Sichuan today, and one governor of northern and southern Sichuan tomorrow, and if it was found that officials seemed to be unable to manage or had special needs, another governor of western Sichuan in charge of two or three prefectures would help—such a change would only increase the chances of confusion and prevarication. However, what Gong Yan did not expect was that the purpose of the substantiation of the governors of Dashun and Manchu was to strengthen the centralization of power and fundamentally establish that the governors had full administrative, judicial, and legislative powers over a province; In Deng Ming's vision, the governor is a provincial governor who only has administrative power, more like a political envoy conceived by Zhu Yuanzhang. However, the discussion between Gong Yan and Deng Ming is far from going to this point.

Gong Yan was able to get the support of the academy so easily, which was somewhat unexpected by Deng Ming, and he himself did not have much disgust with Gong Yan's main card, but he didn't expect that all classes in Sichuan could also accept Gong Yan lightly and extensively.

"What's this? For the sake of a few broken stones in Myanmar, you can throw the Son of Heaven of the Ming Dynasty in the hands of cannibals, what is the old man by burning a few wooden brands? Gong Yan replied confidently.

"Burmese people are not cannibals." Deng Ming retorted.

"That's pretty much it." Gong Yan pointed out that Deng Ming's big rebellious things have gone to the sea, but Sichuan Tongxiucai can get benefits from it every time, so he is very tolerant of Deng Ming. And after accepting Deng Ming's actions, many people no longer criticize Gong Yan for burning the main card. Even after Meng Zhengfa stayed in Sichuan for half a year, after learning a lot of Deng Ming's deeds, he no longer talked about Gong Yan all day long.

"On the way, the old man met Lu Liuliang's kid." Gong Yan seems to have a good impression of this young man: "He is quite arrogant, he is not pretentious to the old man, he is neither humble nor arrogant." But it doesn't matter, when he goes to Sichuan for a year, he won't remember the old man burning the main card. ”

"There's also Mr. Zhang." Deng Ming remembered that half a month ago, Zhang Dai and his family also went to Sichuan by boat.

"The old man has avoided him," Gong Yan replied calmly: "Zhang Tao'an (Zhang Dai) hated Donglin the most in his life, saying that he wanted to slash the Donglin group of thieves, put them in the kettle, and then increase the fire. Because the old man burned the god card, he was one of the few people he hated the most. He thought that the old man was the emperor's first assistant, and he remembered the name wrongly, and recorded the old man's character as Yu...... But it doesn't matter, when Zhang Tao'an stays in Sichuan for a few years, he is embarrassed to put you in the pot to cook and add firewood below, so naturally he won't worry about the old man with a blade. ”

After getting Deng Ming's affirmation, Gong Yan talked about the strategic issues at hand. He came from Sichuan with great difficulty, of course, not only for the sake of the governorship of Sichuan, but now Gong Yan is most worried that Deng Ming will follow Li Zicheng's old path.

"It's hard to ride a tiger, that's what happened. It's easy for us to leave these governors behind and go home, but if we abandon them, we will be replaced by new ones, and maybe they will resist to the end for the Manchu court, because they don't believe that we will do anything to protect them. Deng Ming explained.

"The emperor also thought so back then, thinking that if he returned directly to Shaanxi and came back in the future, no one would surrender without a fight. But in hindsight, I really should have left early in the morning. Gong Yan felt that Deng Ming's current mentality was the same as Li Zicheng back then.

Deng Ming was silent for a moment and shook his head: "No matter how clear we know, we can't retreat without a fight." Well, I promise that if the situation is unfavorable, I will definitely pull out early. My minimum goal is to let others know that we are trying to protect them, if not to prevent the Qing court from finding out the truth and replacing the governor of the southeast. ”

Deng Ming then showed Gong Yan his pre-war preparations. Deng Ming has worked hard these days to collect topographical data of Jiangbei, and has drawn a large number of maps of the Huaiyang region with contour lines, although it is very rough and the error is also very large, but it is still better than the original traditional map. The old map is really hard to look at, it's like an abstract painting.

"We were able to find some Huaiyang guides, but they couldn't draw good enough maps, and without maps, they couldn't make accurate plans in advance." Deng Ming was not satisfied with maps of this level, because they were not accurate enough, and could only serve as a guide, and could not use them to support the Ming army in their on-map deductions.

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