This urgent report was sent back from downstream by a warship. Compared to merchant ships that focused on cost and cargo volume, warships were equipped with a large number of sailors, more and more expensive masts and sails, and a large number of sailors could be used to paddle and gallop when the wind was unfavorable. Between Wanxian and Xuzhou, which did not have a post house system, this kind of clipper was already the fastest intelligence transmission system of the Ming army.

The report sent to Deng Ming was still the report when Li Guoying had just driven out of the Jialing River seven days ago, and it was not marked as 100,000 urgent or top secret, but just a report with a relatively high priority. Deng Ming glanced at the surface of the letter, opened it and read it easily.

After reading this report, Deng Ming still didn't have much nervousness on his face, but said to Yuan Xiang with a smile: "Li Guoying probably can't bear it anymore, watching our ship pass under his nose every day is really a nest." ”

Deng Ming felt that this information was not important, so he casually handed it to Yuan Xiang and asked him to see it for himself in public, and then the two continued to inspect Deng Ming's beloved new troops. It wasn't until the two of them returned to the Yamen of the Xuzhou Prefect that Deng Ming and Yuan Xiang began to discuss the content of this information.

"Li Guoying probably saw that there were fewer ships escorting us, and wanted to come out to scare us, this was already seven days ago, I guess he would have retracted a long time ago, right?" In Yuan Xiang's view, most of the Jialing River sailors, who may not have been able to defeat even the Wanxian Naval Division, did not have the courage to stay outside the estuary for a long time, and the obstruction to the Ming army's shipping was only a day or two at most: "Li Guoying may also be testing our reaction speed, and he will probably often use this kind of intimidation tactics in the future to prevent us from using the Yangtze River for transportation." ”

"Well, I see it that way, too, but it doesn't interfere with us much right now." After the return of the powerful Western Sichuan Naval Division, Deng Ming could easily send troops large enough to overwhelm the Chongqing Naval Division, so there was no need to concentrate merchant ships to pass the mouth of the Jialing River as before. At present, shipping is still far from saturation, even if it is delayed for a day or two, and after the Qing army and naval divisions have returned, the temporarily blocked merchant ships will be able to catch up with the time again and soon be able to recover the time, and there will not be many days of delay -- even the time to queue up at the Three Gorges will be more than this.

After returning to the Yamen of the Xuzhou prefect, well-informed salt merchants also arrived, and the salt merchants led by Lu Huan came to ask how much impact Li Guoying's actions would have on shipping. After listening to Deng Ming's explanation and seeing the letter with their own eyes, which was not intended to be kept secret, these salt merchants were also relieved, they all thought that Deng Ming and Yuan Xiang's judgment was very reasonable, and the interruption of shipping this time would not be very long, it was just a harassment tactic by Li Guoying.

The conversation quickly moved on to other aspects of shipping. At present, the bottleneck of shipping on the Yangtze River is still in the Three Gorges, and there is no problem for merchant ships to go down, but when cargo ships carrying a large amount of goods go up, they have to wait in line for the direction of the wind. Sometimes, although the wind direction is suitable, there are ships going down to give way when they pass by, and the problem of fighting for the way is increasing with the increasing prosperity of shipping, and although it has not yet reached the point of intolerability, the so-called precautions, if we do not consider countermeasures, sooner or later the ships will cause more trouble.

"Now that Sichuan is self-sufficient in grain, the capital's consideration is that it will no longer transport grain from Huguang to Sichuan in the future. In the future, if we go to the south of the Yangtze River, the grain captured by our army will also be distributed to Hushuai and them, and the officers and soldiers in the Hanshui Valley will also need a large amount of food support, so that there will be much fewer ships going up. "Chengdu Prefecture alone has now reclaimed 3 million mu of arable land, and the annual harvest of grain can exceed 12 million stones, which is enough to supply hundreds of people even if it is supplied according to the luxurious standard of 10 stones per person. The population here is actually only a few hundred thousand, and the surplus food can be used to raise horses, pigs, and even support allies. In the past, the Qing army transported grain to Chongqing at any cost to ensure the logistics of Wu Sangui's army, and Deng Ming transported grain because Chengdu did not produce enough at that time, but now there is no need to do loss-making business: "In the future, only iron, copper, cotton cloth and population will need to be transported into Sichuan, so that at least half of the upward ships can be vacated, and when Xuzhou and Jiading Prefecture have a population, some people may start to plant cotton, and then the ships transporting cloth and cotton can also be saved." ”

"Of course, the speed of the empty boat will be much faster, but it still has to crowd the waterway, and when the wind is favorable, it is really urgent to see a large number of ships queuing." Although the salt merchants were a little more relaxed, they had all been to the Three Gorges, and every time they could see a large number of merchant ships anchoring at various anchors waiting for the east wind, if there was no suitable wind for several days, it would really kill people; And whenever the wind changes, the earth-shaking cheers from the merchant ships are also impressive.

"That's right, so sooner or later we'll have to use the old way, which is to build ships in large quantities." Deng Ming nodded, the Chengdu government was rapidly promoting privatization, and merchants were increasingly involved in shipping, and for merchants, the cost of shipping came first, and they could not use oarsmen to provide power at any cost like the government, and the more expensive slender men would definitely not think about it. But the prolongation of the queue has actually increased the cost of shipping, and now it is no longer profitable to transport grain, even the transportation of cotton is close to a loss, and if the government does not give subsidies in another year, there will certainly be no businessmen engaged in the transportation of such goods.

In the past, when Sichuan was densely populated, the Sichuan people built a large number of boats to transport goods downstream, and when they entered Huguang, they sold the boats at a cheap price, and those who had no money returned on foot, and those who had money took passenger boats. Therefore, Sichuan's shipbuilding industry is very developed, not only Huguang and Jiangxi use Sichuan-made river boats everywhere, but also Sichuan-made sea ships in Jiangnan and Zhejiang.

But that's all in the past, after the war, Sichuan's population was not even enough to build fields, let alone build ships. Besides, in the past, Sichuan people were willing to sell Sichuan boats in Huguang cheaply, and they also had goods profits to make up for it, if there was no such income, who would be willing to trade at a loss.

After hearing Deng Ming's statement, the salt merchants were also a little worried, Deng Ming knew that they were worried about the manpower problem, so he comforted them and said: "I will try my best to transport the population back from Huguang and Liangjiang, and I will not hesitate to start a war if necessary." ”

"Admiral Law, I'm bothered." Hearing Deng Ming sacrifice the magic weapon of war again, the salt merchants were a lot relieved, and today the purpose of their coming has been achieved, so they left one after another.

There is something Deng Ming did not tell the salt merchants, that is, he saw a new patent application in Chengdu before he came, and a carpenter said that he had invented a new sawing equipment, in short, a double saw mounted on a waterwheel, which could produce a large number of planks at high speed, satisfying the thirst for wood in the shipbuilding and salt industries.

In Deng Ming's understanding, the premise of the technological explosion is privatization and patent law, as long as private property is guaranteed, businessmen will apply a qiē invention that can reduce costs and increase output to production as quickly as possible, and the patent law encourages all kinds of technological innovation; However, the government's thinking is completely different from theirs, and fiscal revenue is important, but if technological innovation will cause damage to vested interests, or affect social stability and the government's control over it, the government will not promote it. The crackdown on the salt law in previous dynasties is an example, only when the government's control of the government is declining, the new technology has a chance to be promoted, and once the government control is restored, such as after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it will immediately begin to suppress technological innovation to ensure the monopoly profits of the government.

In addition to this, there is also the issue of social stability. For example, in Deng Ming's previous life, in addition to the Caoyun Governor Yamen's efforts to oppose shipping, the Daoguang Emperor was also worried that this would cause a large number of Cao workers to lose their jobs, and there was a Red Turban Uprising. In fact, the same problem has been encountered since the implementation of the Sichuan patent law, the demand for salt cookers has declined, and if water-powered sawn timber becomes widespread, a large number of former sawmillers will lose their jobs. In Deng Ming's previous life, technological innovation even led to the destruction of the machine by the British workers, and the British government chose a group of merchants who could provide more taxes for the state to suppress the workers' sabotage by force.

Fortunately, there is no such problem in Sichuan now, there is a terrible shortage of hired labor, and the new trading houses are desperate to start a war to gain population, so that local workers can easily find new jobs even if they lose their old jobs.

"If there were hundreds or tens of millions of laborers in Sichuan now, these technologies might not be able to be promoted." Deng Ming knew that in the early days of the technological revolution, the cost of machinery was not low at all, and the production efficiency was probably much lower than that of skilled workers, and it was not difficult to guess what kind of choice a business house would make that only cared about profits. But now Deng Ming was faced with a completely different situation, and the trading houses went to great lengths to recruit hired workers, and any invention that allowed a hired worker to do the work of several hired workers was warmly welcomed by them. The contradiction between machine and skilled workers was eased, and there were actually not many skilled workers in Sichuan, and the shortage of manpower even made Deng Ming's suggestion of letting women out to work was widely supported, and all wealthy bosses spontaneously promoted this policy for Deng Ming.

The next day, Deng Ming and Yuan Xiang discussed the issue of patent law, emphasizing that it is necessary to ensure that the technology inventors can benefit. Yuan Xiang has no doubt about this, he used to be a criminal officer and had no personal experience, but now he has come to one side in Xuzhou, and he suffers from a lack of manpower all day long, so he can't use his fists and feet. Aside from asking Liu Jinge to try to send him more immigrants, his thinking was not much different from that of the merchants: more and better tools, and the ability to win the war of labor.

War!

This is the consensus of Chengdu Group from top to bottom, from inside to outside, from the government to the people.

While a more detailed patent law was being discussed, another military message was sent to the Xuzhou capital by clipper, this time with the words "100,000 urgent" on the envelope, but there was still no top secret rating.