The big ships of the Ming army were all docked in Xuzhou, and Deng Ming had already left some of the big ships in Jiangling, but despite this, the Minjiang River was still too small for the huge western Sichuan naval division.

If the Ming army can attack the Jialing River and completely annihilate Li Guoying's sailors, they can besiege Chongqing, and Li Guoying will have to return to Baoning on foot. According to Yuan Zongdi's reconnaissance, the Qing army in Chongqing is probably less than 20,000 now, and the number of armor soldiers is estimated to be about 5,000, which is even worse than the strength of the last siege of Chongqing. Unfortunately, Deng Ming knew that his idea could not be realized, because there were no reconnaissance planes now, and the government did not have the ability to produce accurate hydrographic maps, so the Ming army had almost no way to obtain information on the course of the Jialing River.

Because the Ming army did not know anything about the waterway, reefs and topography of the Jialing River, they still did not dare to forcibly break into it despite the strength of the Western Sichuan Naval Division. If you want to understand the topography along the Jialing River, it seems that you can only wait until you occupy Chongqing to explore, which means that the sailors will not be of much help in conquering Chongqing.

In order to play the role of a sailor, Deng Ming had already ordered the search for an old shipwright who was familiar with the geography of eastern Sichuan. But after returning to Xuzhou this time, the Ming army reported that they had found nothing due to years of war in Sichuan. Now Deng Ming can only let his subordinates try to buy the personnel of the Qing army's naval division, but this is extremely difficult, Chongqing is also surrounded by a large area of no man's land, except for the military tunding There are no ordinary people, and the Ming army cannot enter Chongqing City. Deng Ming did not have much hope of success, he ordered the collection of intelligence just to talk about personnel, and soon continued to lead the troops back to Chengdu.

In addition to continuing to gather intelligence, the Ming defenders in Xuzhou also began to explore the Jinsha River, which Deng hoped would use to communicate between Jianchang and Yunnan. At present, Chengdu's ability to transport supplies to Jianchang is very limited, and if it can't find a waterway that can be used, it will not be able to help Li Dingguo in terms of materials, let alone bring a large number of soldiers and civilians into Yunnan to help in the war; However, the Ming army in Xuzhou told Deng Ming not to have too much hope for this, because the current of the Jinsha River is turbulent, the terrain on both sides of the river is steep, the large ships cannot be navigated, and the danger of small boats is too great.

Before returning to Chengdu, Deng Ming heard a lot of complaints, Liu Jinge, Xiong Lan and others accused each other, and secretly reported to Deng Ming that the other party seemed to have violated laws and disciplines.

However, the factional struggle in Chengdu is not the most important thing, and the more urgent thing is how to deal with the requirements of Liu Yao, Yang Youcai and other Qingchengshan groups for co-optation - Originally, Liu Yao and Yang Youcai led their troops to Dujiangyan in order to maintain a certain degree of independence, and the local generals who withdrew from Jiange and other places to Chengdu also had similar ideas, and most of them followed the two of them, feeling that the land there was enough to ensure their reclamation, so the Qingchengshan warlord group was formed. However, the speed of development in Chengdu is unexpected, and now the living standards of Tongxiucai in Chengdu have far exceeded the first-class soldiers in the Dujiangyan area, which leads to an imbalance in the psychology of the warlords of Qingchengshan.

In dismantling the Dujiangyan military's determination to become independent, Lu Huan and other people who were originally born in the Chengdu auxiliary army also played a huge role, and they often sent food to their former commanders and those who brought them into the army in line with the simple mentality of "drinking water and thinking of the source". Seeing that the lives of the people in Chengdu are getting better and better, not to mention the soldiers in the Dujiangyan area, even ordinary officers are unwilling to leave the Chengdu system.

Liu Yao and Yang Youcai are different from the generals of Yudong, they are from Qianzong, they have never fought or enjoyed any power, and they are not so much warlords as the leaders of the former Chengdu Tunken peasant soldiers. The generals of the Ming army who withdrew from Jiangyou, Mianzhu, and Jiange, like Liu Yao, had neither much ambition nor the power of the army worth mentioning. Although they have the names of deputy generals and generals, they sound very majestic, but the food and clothing on weekdays are very hard, which is much worse than Liu and Yang who are immersed in farming in Chengdu, at least the latter two people have also raised a few pigs and some chickens and ducks in the yamen of the Chengdu prefect.

The warlord group in Qingcheng Mountain got together and farmed in Dujiangyan for more than a year, but they began to raise pigs and rabbits again. This time, after Deng went to Jiangnan, Yang Youcai first came to Chengdu to ask for military salaries, and after looking for Liu Jinge to ask for food subsidies, he asked his subordinates to transport things back to Dujiangyan, and he stayed in Chengdu and did not leave. Because Vice General Yang did not return for a long time, other generals also came to Chengdu in their spare time, and saw that the life of Chengdu people was rich in content, not only commenting on stories, but also gradually recovering from opera and acrobatics, and a hundred of these generals were unwilling to go back to Dujiangyan.

The frequency of visiting the door became higher and higher, and the stay time was getting longer and longer, and soon half of the generals simply stayed in Chengdu like Yang Youcai. Although Deng Ming instructed to entertain these generals of the old Sichuan army, Liu Yange, after Liu Yao, the largest warlord leader of the Qingchengshan group, also moved his mind to move to Chengdu and control Dujiangyan remotely, Liu Jinge finally couldn't bear it anymore. After a lot of bargaining, Liu Jinge and the Qingchengshan Group agreed on a duty system, which is to ensure that half of the generals and officers will always stay in Dujiangyan to be responsible for managing production and water control, and how to rotate is up to the Qingchengshan Group to decide, as long as it is guaranteed that there are always people in charge of all the work in Dujiangyan.

This system was barely implemented for two months and then could not be carried out, and the officers assigned to Dujiangyan were full of resentment, and when the day of return still dragged out and refused to leave, the officers who had been rotated came early in the morning and their own soldiers happily; In the end, Liu Jinge had to compromise again and reduce the number of officers on duty to one-third, which meant that they could stay in Chengdu for two-thirds of the year – but those on duty were not allowed to leave their posts until the replacement officers returned to Dujiangyan.

However, this compromise policy was still not implemented, and the officers began to declare that they were ill, stayed in Chengdu and refused to go to work. The people who went to work were full of complaints, and their own soldiers also muttered, and from the moment they stepped out of the gate of Chengdu, they began to count when they would return.

Before the Chinese New Year, the situation deteriorated further, and Yang Youcai, who was supposed to go to Dujiangyan to replace Liu Yao, claimed to be seriously ill and refused to leave before the New Year. Other rotating officers took Yang Youcai as an example, and refused to go to Dujiangyan to take up their posts during the Chinese New Year, from headaches to foot diseases, for all kinds of strange reasons.

On the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, Liu Yao rushed back to Chengdu angrily with a large group of left-behind officers from Dujiangyan, and Yang Youcai, who was "seriously ill" at that time, and other officers were happily eating meat steamed buns and watching a play on Chunxi Road. A quarrel broke out between the two groups, and finally Liu Yao and Yang Youcai, two old comrades-in-arms, dragged each other to the yamen of the Criminal Department and asked Yuan Xiang to give a comment.

In this internal strife, the warlords of the Qingchengshan clique also exposed each other, suing Liu Jinge and Yuan Xiang that the military salaries and water control funds allocated by Chengdu to Dujiangyan were all spent by them in Chengdu - everyone has a share; The farm tools and cattle allocated by Chengdu to Dujiangyan were also sold to the Chengdu trading houses. Now the military camp in Dujiangyan has almost been abandoned, and when the officer corps was enjoying it in Chengdu with funds, many of the auxiliaries there also fled and ran back to Chengdu to reclaim their own land.

Although Liu Jinge was quite dissatisfied with the behavior of the Qingchengshan group, Deng Ming had already confessed that Liu Yao and others should be regarded as independent forces in Dongdong and should not interfere with their governance.

Knowing that Dujiangyan's water control work had not been done, Liu Jinge had to spend another money to hire a group of fellow showers to go to Dujiangyan to make up for all the work. Although it was impossible to investigate the "corruption" of Liu Yao, Yang Youcai and others, Liu Jinge refused to give Dujiangyan any more water control funds and related subsidies.

The military tun has been abandoned, if Chengdu does not give subsidies, the life of this large group of people can not be maintained, the warlords of Qingcheng Mountain made a big fuss about the Chengdu prefect yamen, and wanted to ask Liu Jinge for an explanation, Liu Jinge was angry and simply fought with them. Unfortunately, whether it is Liu Yao, Yang Youcai, or the warlord leaders in Jiange and Jiangyou, most of them are low-level soldiers from small soldiers, and none of them can defeat the Chengdu prefect.

After being beaten by the prefect's lord and his nose and face were swollen, the warlords failed to make another plan and began to sit-in and demonstrate in front of the prefect's yamen, which caused a large number of fellow showers to watch. In order to win sympathy, Liu Yao and the others moved out all the achievements of the year, which caused an extremely bad impact.

Due to Deng Ming's confession, Liu Jinge could not dispatch the pavilion soldiers to disperse the protesting warlords, and Liu Zhifu could not rush out of the door to personally beat people in full view. had to send them pocket money and living expenses every day, and until Deng Ming came back, the two sides were still in a stalemate.

"Since they want to accept the co-optation, then can't they accept it?" After listening to Liu Jinge's angry narration of what happened, Deng Ming couldn't cry or laugh: "Don't they just want to retire, let them retire." ”

Now, except for Deng Ming, the highest rank in the Sichuan army is only major. Liu Yao pointed out that Deng Ming had promised to give them a general-level retirement treatment, so he did not budge an inch on this issue.

"Liu Yao and Yang Youcai both asked for the general's retirement benefits! The others also have to be treated as lieutenant generals! In Liu Jinge's opinion, Dujiangyan and his gang simply lost the face of the warlord. If it weren't for the fear that the other party would be sitting outside the yamen, Liu Jinge wouldn't even want to pay a living allowance, let alone give them a pension: "You also said that the retirement allowance is set up to let the soldiers have no worries about food and clothing when they are old, but are they old?" I think they just have no problem farming, but now they don't do things well, and they want to retire! ”

"Anything that can be solved with money is not a problem...... Well, but there's some truth to what you're saying. Deng Ming felt that the handling of Qingchengshan Group must be cautious, especially Liu Yao and Yang Youcai. These two people are not only meritorious, but also the original owners of Chengdu - now there are more than 200,000 men in Chengdu Prefecture, and they only have more than 10,000 people, plus other people from the Qingcheng Group, a total of 20,000 or 30,000 people - but in the eyes of outsiders, Chengdu is indeed their foundation, which they dedicated to Deng Ming.