Naturally, there was nothing to say at the mourning ceremony, and Gong Yan didn't seem to be interested in talking with red eyes, so Deng Ming just briefly persuaded a few words and left with the others. It is impossible for the carnival in the city to be stopped because of the death of one person, and Deng Ming will definitely not order the whole city to mourn for Hui Shiyang, so all he can do is restrain his behavior, and he did not organize the carnival activities of the courtyard meeting and the Chengdu government as originally planned.

In the days that followed, Deng met privately with a number of Senate and Imperial MPs. Although Deng Ming had not interfered with the proceedings of the council, he had been observing which members were active in the council, and when he returned to Chengdu, he met with them separately in the hope that they would support his actions. Deng Ming doesn't need to say too much about the senators, these senators are all appointed by Deng Ming, and there are leaders: Liu Yao is the head of Chengdu, and Yang Youcai is a great word among the senators in Xuzhou, and this time Deng Ming asked him to return to Chengdu because he needed him to exert influence in the Senate in Xuzhou.

However, the Imperial Councillors are very different, and many of them are the product of behind-the-scenes deals in the Senate, but Deng Ming has always pretended not to know about this, claiming that they are the representatives of Tong Xiucai. It is true that some of them became members of the Imperial Council because of their prestige among the Tongxiucai, and Deng Ming also showed special respect for these people, not only keeping them to dinner when meeting them, asking them about their work and public opinion, but also seriously explaining their strategic ideas to them.

These parliamentarians were a bridge between the ruling class and ordinary citizens, and if it weren't for the performance of the Imperial Diet, Deng Ming would not have even noticed the emergence of the elongation mood, the ups and downs of popular sentiment, and the need to hold such a triumphal carnival. The last war gained hundreds of thousands of people, which will undoubtedly have long-term benefits for the production of western Sichuan, but this long-term benefit will not be apparent in the short term.

In a conversation with the lawmakers, Deng Ming said that the large-scale offensive for the population of western Sichuan has come to an end for the time being, and that all the wars will revolve around how to expand and secure trade, or to obtain more money for western Sichuan. Deng Ming explained to these parliamentarians that war is not a model, and if the government and the military are for short-term interests, then the war does not need large-scale mobilization, and will not seriously affect the production of western Sichuan, and this kind of small-scale war will help western Sichuan to reap the benefits of the increased population more quickly - Deng Ming assured these parliamentarians that all the next attacks will not be a loss-making transaction, but will increase the income of the government and the people, until the empire once again feels that the hunger for manpower exceeds the thirst for money, The government in western Sichuan will change its policy again.

Now communication and transportation technology are very primitive, if there is no parliament, Deng Ming has no more channels to understand the people's feelings than Shunzhi, and the speed is not fast, and similarly, if there is no such institution, the people will not have an intuitive understanding of Deng Ming's thoughts, and the government in western Sichuan is the same as the Qing court: they hope that Tongxiu will understand Deng Ming, and they will tell them what kind of person Deng Ming is. Now Deng Ming hopes to use this channel to make his colleagues in western Sichuan understand that the government's strategy is to serve them, and will give priority to meeting their most urgent needs. Even though Sichuan already has a population of more than one million, it is still extremely weak compared to the entire Qing government-controlled area, so the level of popular support is very important. On the other hand, before the advent of radio, telephone, and railroad, the huge size of the country was extremely limited to the growth of the national power of the authoritarian state, and although the population of western Sichuan was only a few tenths of that of the Qing court, as long as the people did not take an indifferent attitude towards the war, it was difficult to say who was strong and who was weak.

After diligently introducing his strategic ideas to the deputies of Tong Xiucai, Deng Ming discussed specific war strategies with the government and the military.

"At present, the last thing we need to import is food," Liu Jinge reiterated at an internal meeting of the Western Sichuan Group, saying that despite the large inflow of population, as well as the reduction in production brought about by the last large-scale mobilization and the consumption of supporting the Kuidong Army in launching the Chongqing Campaign, the grain reserves in western Sichuan are still above the safety line, and the output is still more than twice the consumption: "The surplus grain was sold to Kunming or used to raise pigs." ”

Burma's booty and compensation were shared with Kunming and Jianchang, but Kunming's demand for grain was huge, and almost all of the gold was used by Kunming to buy grain and other supplies. Jianchang also bought a lot of goods from western Sichuan, salt, cloth, sugar, silk, from daily necessities to luxury goods, Jianchang almost did not produce itself, and the small amount that could be produced could not be self-sufficient. After this expedition to Burma to make a fortune, Jianchang's demand for meat and other luxury goods also soared all of a sudden, and Burma's gold was constantly flowing into Chengdu from Jianchang and Kunming; As for jadeite, ivory, and precious stones, Kunming may be able to smuggle them to Guizhou a little, while Jianchang has no sales targets, except for the generals themselves, they will not steal business with Deng Ming at all.

Some of the output is consumed by Chongqing, which earns a lot of processing fees and median prices in the jewelry trade. The sale of those jewels to the mainland was silver, 60 percent of which belonged to Deng Ming. But Chongqing's luxury goods are all provided by western Sichuan, and as Chongqing's generals become richer and richer, their luxury is also getting higher and higher—the scrap has long been sold, and the Qing army in Chongqing is paying the bill with the silver they earn. According to Xiong Lan's estimates, now Chongqing to get the part of the jewelry profits, also transferred to the hands of western Sichuan, in the past two months a variety of jewelry processing tools are favored by the Qing army in Chongqing, Sichuan governor Gao Mingzhan has spent a lot of money to Sichuan West to order a batch of knives with a diamond head.

"It's just that the reclamation of Xintian is a bit troublesome."

Although there is no food problem for the time being, land reclamation is coming to a halt for several reasons. First, according to the decree of the Imperial Diet, the free grant of land has been suspended, and any wasteland in the future will have to be purchased from the government at a cost; Second, the new immigrants do not have the ability to open up the wasteland, they do not have full citizenship, no savings, and no collateral to use to obtain loans; Third, the wasteland around Chengdu has been almost developed.

With the continuous expansion of its strength, the West Sichuan Group has begun to want to bring Mianzhu, Jiangyou, and even Zitong and Jiange in Baoning Mansion into its own control to ensure the safety of northern Chengdu. However, the surrounding areas of Chengdu are much more prosperous than those areas, and the Tongxiucai who have the ability and money to open up the wasteland are not willing to go, and now they would rather run a business in Chengdu and Xuzhou than stay away from the Yangtze River waterway to open up the wasteland.

Therefore, the government planned to resettle the veterans in those places, but there were also fierce protests, because the value of the wasteland in those places was obviously not comparable to the land around Chengdu; Retired soldiers gathered in front of the prefect's yamen, claiming that they could not accept the twenty acres of land there as compensation for their service, that there were no human populations, that it was very problematic for veterans to buy seeds and farm tools, and that there was no garrison to protect them, and that they had to prepare their own weapons to guard against wild beasts and the Qing army that might suddenly appear.

"There is no land around Chengdu to house them." Liu Jinge was enthusiastic about removing a group of people from Jiangyou, which was also the wish of the Chengdu council, and as Chengdu became more prosperous, they paid more and more attention to security; And Chengdu is indeed unable to accommodate more agricultural population, and now the number of farmers is still decreasing, because although the agricultural tax here is not high, the income from working is obviously more considerable than that of farming, and many people have even sold their land to live in the city.

"Hmm." Deng Ming nodded, Chengdu was becoming more and more crowded, because of its rapid prosperity, the normal population spread phenomenon was at a standstill, and the trade profits of the entire Yangtze River poured into here, and the surrounding Tongxiucai would rather continue to squeeze into the city than go to Jiangyou to deal with the wasteland.

However, agriculture is the first side of the BRICS, not to mention that the migration to Jiangyou will also have important military significance, and when these settlements are formed, the military forces of the western Sichuan group will be able to follow more easily, and the cost of stationing will also be much lower.

"It's still necessary to let the veterans go first, but they really need to be compensated more, otherwise they would rather give up the land they were given up than stay here in Chengdu." Deng Ming thought for a moment and said to the people attending the meeting: "How about 200 acres?" If they are willing to go to Mianzhu, they will give ten times as much land. If you are willing to go to Jiangyou, you will be given 300 acres of land. ”

"Mianzhu is slightly better, you can go back to the capital to buy some things after a few days, but Jiangyou is too far away, and the water conservancy and land are completely deserted."

"Then give 500 acres, if no one is willing to go, you can give more, if the arable land is not enough, you can give the mountains, forests, lakes, two or three times the amount of conversion. I don't need them to reclaim farmland, I don't need them to pay land tax for the time being, as long as they are willing to settle there, as long as they settle down for ten years, the land is their own property. ”

Everyone and others discussed it, thinking that if this should attract a group of veterans, Xiong Lan still has a question: "If there are not enough people who are willing to go, can we continue to increase the number of fields?" ”

"Naturally, the number of people who are willing to move must be enough." Deng Ming replied.

"Then there may be shrewd people who are not in a hurry to accept the conditions, but sit and see." Xiong Lan immediately pointed out the loopholes in Deng Ming's policy: "After seeing that the conditions given by the government are getting better and better, people who are on the sidelines are even more reluctant to leave, they all feel that the conditions will be better in the future, and they want to wait for the signing to accept better retirement compensation." The result is likely to be that we continue to raise the conditions, but fewer and fewer people are going, but they are all waiting here. ”