After Zhou Peigong arrived in Nanjing, the Qing army under the banner of Huguang Green Camp drove to Nanjing in an endless stream, and then rushed to Zhenjiang in batches.

For ordinary people, this is the 30,000 reinforcements brought by Zhou Peigong, and countless soldiers pass through Nanjing every day, obviously with a large number of people and strong strength; Some of the people are more knowledgeable, and they feel that this force seems to be a little wrong, and it is not as much as the government advertises, and there are about one, two thousand to two or three thousand soldiers passing by every day, although they have been connected for four days, but this is not enough to add up to 30,000, but they will not be stupid enough to ask the government how many people there are, in case they are arrested by the government as a fine work, it is not bad.

The officials knew the character of the officials better than the common people, and they also felt that the number was not right, but the officials would definitely falsify the numbers, so even if the Hunan army did not have 30,000, it was not worth making a fuss. Most of the low-level Liangjiang officials, the law and the Xu officials are no different.

And some of the staff and responsible officials in the yamen of the Liangjiang Governor knew very well that many of the Qing troops passing by outside Nanjing were Liangjiang troops. Jiang Guozhu imitated the methods of Dong Zhuo when he entered Beijing, divided the standard battalion into several waves, and each standard battalion took a group of auxiliary soldiers, dressed up as the Huguang Green Battalion, swaggering thousands of people from Nanjing, taking a boat to the east for a section, and then sneaking back upstream at night, and then going through the motions again.

However, they were told that this was just to help the Hunan army create momentum, so that the Hunan army that was passing through Nanjing would be more numerous, and those troops who participated in the operation did not know what proportion they had. Only a few people around Jiang Guozhu could know that all the Huguang soldiers outside were dressed up by the Liangjiang troops.

Some of these Liangjiang troops, disguised as Huguang soldiers, would follow Zhou Peigong all the way to the vicinity of Zhenjiang, and although the soldiers were all from Jiang Guozhu, he strictly ordered the officers of the standard battalion not to participate in the division of merit. Some henchmen are still a little puzzled by this, because if Zhou Peigong succeeds in persuading Deng Ming to withdraw from the army, then the yamen of the governor of Liangjiang can completely blow the battle to the sky, isn't it a pity that this kind of credit comes for nothing?

But Jiang Guozhu has other plans in his heart, he has no choice but to use Zhou Peigong to talk with Deng Ming because of the emptiness of his troops and nothing to do, but it is really hard to say whether this matter will suddenly happen in the future, if Jiang Guozhu also lets Biaoying share the credit, then the difficulty of getting rid of himself will also increase in the future; If these battles were fought by Zhou Peigong, then Jiang Guozhu might still be able to claim that he was deceived -- it was Zhou Peigong who saw that he could not win, so he privately made a deal with Deng Ming to persuade him to withdraw from the army -- this reason is actually difficult to establish, but Jiang Guozhu is still relatively weak-minded, and when encountering such problems, he always instinctively wants to shrink back and salvage for his life.

When describing the military appearance of the Hunan army to the imperial court, Jiang Guozhu also told a story vividly, saying that Zhou Peigong arrived with some reinforcements, but because the dock was crowded, it could not be docked, and the small boats used to transport personnel were also overcrowded. Zhou Peigong waited impatiently, so he led the team to jump into the waist-high river, and then waded ashore with heavily armed soldiers.

According to Jiang Guozhu, when Zhou Peigong and his personal soldiers came up from the river, they were still in a good lineup, and they could quickly restore order, which made the people watching by the river thunderous, and they all thought that Zhou Peigong's department was imposing, brave and invincible.

……

"How can I see Zhou Peigong anywhere?" Deng Ming, who was in the military camp near Zhenjiang, first heard that Zhou Peigong had chased after him, he was first suspicious, and after confirming the news, the only thing left was surprise. Hearing that after the Qing army under the banner of Zhou Peigong and Huguang Green Camp approached Zhenjiang, Deng Ming prepared a table for negotiation in advance and waited for Zhou Juren's arrival.

Zhou Peigong did not let Deng Ming wait for a long time, and that night he rushed to the Ming army camp with a few entourages in disguise.

"Congratulations to Political Envoy Zhou Bu." Deng Ming already knew the news of Zhou Peigong's promotion, so he congratulated him loudly as soon as they met.

"It's all a blessing from Admiral Todeng, it's not worth mentioning." The other party's congratulations made Zhou Peigong smile too, but he quickly restrained his smile, and said to Deng Ming: "Admiral Deng and I don't want to waste time, let's start now." ”

After learning that Zhou Peigong had a lot of negotiation decision-making power, Deng Ming also breathed a sigh of relief, because the Yamen, the governor of Liangjiang, still lacked trust with him, no matter what conditions Deng Ming proposed, the other party suspected that there was fraud in it, and compared with Yangzhou, which was relatively poorly defended, Deng did not have much confidence in blasting down the walls of Nanjing, resorting to force could only be the last resort, and if the action failed, he was afraid that he would put himself in a more disadvantageous negotiating position. Since the threat of force is a strategy to achieve trust with Jiang Guozhu, being able to convince the other party that he will keep his word has become Deng Ming's biggest headache.

The arrival of Zhou Peigong undoubtedly solved the communication problem between the two sides very well, the two were very familiar with each other, and they were familiar with the negotiations, and soon reached a lot of agreements. Where both sides felt threatened, both sides understood and trusted each other to push each other one step further, and the general framework of the peace talks was quickly established.

For Deng Ming, the biggest gain was that he could get a guarantee from Jiang Guozhu that he would not attack the Ming army's merchant ships for the whole of next year; And the Ming army will also promise Nanjing that next year they will not take advantage of the start of the Cao Yun to block the Qing army between Guazhou and Zhenjiang again and cut off the Qing army's Cao Yun. In addition, Deng Ming also needed to withdraw from Zhenjiang and guarantee that he would not take the initiative to attack Jiang Guozhu's prefecture and county for a year; In exchange, what Jiang Guozhu used in exchange was not to enrich the production of warships.

The two men quickly negotiated most of the terms of the Jiangnan compromise, except for the question of the fate of Chongming Island, which was a point of contention, and Zhou Peigong said that the Ming army could not be allowed to set up camp so close to the mouth of the Yangtze River. However, Deng Ming also did not back down, insisting that the Ming army must remain on Chongming Island to maintain the deterrent effect on Caoyun, so as to ensure that the Nanjing side would fulfill the treaty.

The treaty with Jiangnan was temporarily stranded because of the Chongming issue, and Zhou Peigong came up with another bill, which was about Jiangxi, and neither Zhang Chao nor Dong Weiguo wanted Deng Ming to take Jiujiang as a temporary foothold on the return trip; Since there is no sailor in Jiangxi now, Deng Ming is no longer very serious about Jiujiang, and soon agreed to let Jiangxi let Mi'an use the road plate to entangle him for not attacking the city and plundering the land.

As for the issue of commodity pricing that Deng Ming thought the Liangjiang Society raised, Zhang Chao and Jiang Guozhu actually did not have this awareness, and it is said that Zhou Peigong should not be unaware of the importance of this matter, when he also did not mention it.

Once the framework of the two agreements has been prepared, the next step is to report and await approval.

Deng Ming was taken aback when he learned that Zhou Peigong had actually come as the commander of the First Army, and that he had not been accompanied by any important Liangjiang official, and according to his experience, when the officials saw this kind of opportunity to make military merits without risking their lives, they would flock to it like sharks smelling blood. Since Jiang Guozhu is willing to invite Zhou Peigong to Nanjing, it means that he has great confidence in Zhou Peigong, and it is a bit too incredible that the opportunity to make meritorious service is not arranged for a few henchmen to follow him.

However, Deng Ming was not puzzled all the time, and soon he guessed that Jiang Guozhu might be planning to clear up his relationship with this matter, such as Zhou Peigong doing everything behind his back in the future.

"Political envoy Zhou Bu should be careful," Deng Ming felt that his guess was probably not wrong, and he didn't need to mention Jiang Guozhu to cover it up, so he said bluntly: "If there are many abnormal things, it is close to a demon, and Zhou Bu's political envoy should not leave a bird behind and hide it." ”

"Admiral Deng is too modest, Admiral Deng is not something I can deal with, so I have never worried about being hidden by the bow." Zhou Peigong laughed, and told Deng Ming that although he was young, he was not stupid, and he also noticed that Jiang Guozhu's behavior was a little abnormal.

Immediately afterwards, Zhou Peigong explained to Deng Ming that he had similar worries when he played under Zhang Changgeng, but as time went by, this concern gradually disappeared, and Zhang Changgeng's mentality was also changing. In the past, Zhang Changgeng was the same as Jiang Ning, all matters related to Deng Ming were handed over to his subordinates to deal with, and he himself either ignored it, or hid behind the scenes and did not show his head.

As Wuchang and Deng Ming traded more and more,

After the trading volume became larger and larger, and Zhang Changgeng also benefited a lot from it, he began to realize that the possibility of him picking himself off became smaller and smaller, since it was unlikely that he would get away with the crime after the East Window incident, Zhang Changgeng had other thoughts, this time the governor of Huguang actively responded to Jiang Guozhu's call and sent Zhou Peigong to Liangjiang, his intentions and ideas were similar to Jiang Guozhu's binding tactics, that is, as early as in the future, it caused the effect of not holding the public accountable - of course these Zhou Peigong would not tell Deng Ming.

"It turns out that Zhou Bu's political envoy has been prepared for a long time, so I'm worried about it." Deng Ming is not very interested in this topic, if he talks too much, I am afraid that the other party will think that he is playing a discordant scheme.

On the first day of the meeting, Zhou Peigong did not mention Wuchang's IOU exchange agreement, knowing that this might cause a violent reaction from Deng Ming. If Deng Ming refuses to be responsible for the words of his subordinates, then this agreement will obviously not be observed, Zhou Peigong feels that in this case, Wuchang can earn one more day is a day, and it is best that Deng Ming's subordinates have been hiding it from him, of course they will not take the initiative to talk to him today; Another situation is that Deng Ming is willing to be responsible for the words of his subordinates, Zhou Peigong feels that in this case, there is no benefit in taking the initiative to bring up this matter, maybe Deng Ming will sacrifice some interests in Jiangnan to save the agreement in Wuchang, which is equivalent to using Wuchang to damage Nanjing and Nanchang to benefit, although Zhou Peigong has the title of political envoy of the two provinces, but he will not let this happen for the time being.

On the way back to the camp, Zhou Peigong was also thinking about his future countermeasures, and he was very serious during today's negotiations, planning to make them pay less when he wanted to return to Zhenjiang for Jiang Guozhu and ensure the safety of Jiujiang for Zhang Chao. This can not only surprise the two governors, but also Zhou Peigong's own job to understand.

When Deng Ming mentioned Jiang Guozhu's abnormal reaction just now, Zhou Peigong immediately said that he had noticed it, and he was not afraid because of Wuchang's experience, but in fact, Zhou Peigong did not think about it as he said, but was a little dizzy by the carrots in Nanjing. The reason why he claimed that he had solved this problem at the first time was also a knee-jerk reaction that Deng Ming had developed in many negotiations, Zhou Peigong was afraid of revealing flaws in front of the other party, so everything was blocked first.

"Although the Governor of Huguang is in more and more control of the transaction with Admiral Deng, as I said, it is still me who is at the front, and no matter what others do, I will definitely not be able to run away anyway. The governor of Jiangning is here, and if there is something in the future, he will definitely try to put the responsibility on me first. If many governors are involved in this matter, even if the imperial court is exposed, they may have some scruples and will not kill the killer, but they will always kill the chicken to the monkey, right? I don't know I'm the one who was killed. Zhou Peigong's good mood for a few days gradually dissipated, but he realized that the other thing he said to Deng Ming at that time was also correct: "As long as Deng Ming is still crisscrossing the Yangtze River, the governors will still use me, whether it is the governor of Huguang or the governor of Jiangning and Jiangxi, their other subordinates will be weak when they see Deng Ming, and they can't wait to immediately agree to all the other party's conditions." I'm stronger than all of them—only if Deng Ming can still threaten the governors, will the governors rely on me...... Well, I don't seem to have to worry about Deng Ming. ”

After doing the math, Zhou Peigong found that the best terms for the governors were not his best strategy, he only needed to show that he was stronger than other people who did not understand the negotiation, and while proving his usefulness, he should let Deng Ming get more benefits, so that the Ming army would become stronger and the threat to the governors would be greater, so that Zhou Peigong's position could be consolidated and improved day by day.

"If Admiral Deng poses a huge threat to Beijing, it means that the imperial court knows about it, and maybe it won't do anything to me, but will also rely on my talents." Zhou Peigong began to realize that his best countermeasure was to "coerce Deng to respect himself", so that he was the safest: "But the Governor of Huguang has a deep affection for me, and I can't do this; Although Governor Chiang was a little wary of me, he also gave me the Great Seal of the Political Envoy, and it would be inappropriate for me to betray him. ”

After returning to the barracks, Zhou Peigong was still fighting in heaven and man, on the one hand, his own interests, and on the other hand, the interests of his benefactor, he didn't know how to grasp the scale. However, in the end, Zhou Peigong still decided to properly protect his own interests, and it was the exemplary effect of these governors and governors that made him determined. Since these feudal officials can go to Deng for their own safety, Zhou Peigong feels that in order to ensure his own safety, he should also be able to properly waterproof Deng Ming, as long as he ensures that the governors do not suffer more than when they come out, even if they do not take the benefits and cultivation kindness they give in vain.

"Most of the things in Fujian have already been heard about by Admiral Deng, but he definitely doesn't know as much as I do." After learning that Da Su was frustrated, the governor of Huguang was very concerned about this, because it would directly affect his strategy against Deng Ming, although the Qing court kept the losses strictly secret, but there were still many more clues in the officialdom than those that flowed into the people, especially the high-level institutions such as the governor's yamen, who still had a little understanding of the strict zhòng cheng dù of the situation.

Zhou Peigong planned to inadvertently and accidentally reveal some of the true situation of Fujian to Deng Ming when there was no one on the left and right, so that Deng Ming would have a better negotiating position, and if Deng Ming used this to seek more benefits, it would not be Zhou Peigong's negotiating disadvantage. However, Zhou Peigong still will not sue Deng Ming for the new agreement in Wuchang, because that agreement has little impact on the governors, but is closely related to the interests of the Wuchang hawkish group.

After signing the play agreement with Pu Fu and Yu Youming, Zhou Peigong quickly went to Wuchang, and when he left, the agreement had not yet been implemented, so he didn't know that this agreement had just started to be implemented and encountered some trouble.

After getting the first batch of experimental vouchers, the hawks in Wuchang went to exchange the goods of the Ming army, and the other local products were in charge of the people left by Deng Ming, which belonged to the official establishment. For these officials, Deng Ming's order was the only thing to consider, since Pu Fu had the right to set prices, it had nothing to do with them how many IOUs the goods were sold, and they could withdraw the goods with the vouchers, and they no longer had a problem of responsibility.

There is no problem with the other goods, but the salt cannot be used for the kind of IOU certificate transaction given by Youming, because although Pu Fu has the pricing power of most of the goods, he cannot control the price of salt, and the price of salt is set by the salt merchant.

In the eyes of the people in the salt shop, this is to make their selling price about one-third of the original, which they absolutely cannot agree to, so let Park Fu say that these salt merchants' subordinates just do not agree to sell salt at a reduced price.

It happened that Lu Huan escorted a new batch of Sichuan salt to Wuhan, and now the five major salt stores in Chengdu have formed an offensive and defensive alliance with the outside world, adopting a unified price and policy, and then sharing the profits equally. After hearing that Lu Huan had arrived, Pu Fu and Yu Youming hurriedly ran to him, hoping that he could come forward to revise the price of salt to Wuchang, so that the credentials of Chengdu Industrial Bank could have better credit.

"Of course we can't cut the price." After learning of the other party's request, Lu Huan shook his head like a rattle: "I definitely don't agree, even if I agree, the other four won't agree; Yes, I have the right to revise the policy of the Chengdu Salt Merchants Association in Wuchang, but I certainly can't make such a big change without the consent of others. ”

Yu Youming pointed out that although the selling price has dropped by one-third, the purchasing power of the IOU has also increased, so there is no loss.

But Lu Huan was still unmoved: "It has nothing to do with us whether the IOU can be exchanged for more silver, because silver is useless to us, and for every hundred catties of salt sold here, we need to pay a tax of 100 yuan to Governor Liu's mansion; For each hundred catties of Huai salt, in addition to paying a tax of 100 yuan, it is necessary to hand over a share of 50 yuan to Governor Liu. How could I lower the price to 66 yuan for 100 catties of salt? In that case, we will lose more than 80 pounds for every 100 catties of salt sold! ”

As for the part of the salt that can be exchanged for silver instead of IOUs, Lu Huan pointed out that he did not get any benefits from this agreement: "Instead of working hard to collect the IOUs issued by you, I would rather collect the cashiers directly, and the Admiral and Governor Liu have given us salt merchants permission to buy iron ore and ships, no, we can't accept the IOUs of your Industrial Bank." ”――

Today, there is still only a 5,000-word watch.