Deng Ming did not ask Li Laiheng to come up with a cooperation plan immediately, but asked the other party to think about countermeasures, and he also needed time to consider his own plan.

But Li Laiheng didn't think about the terms for a few days, and finally Li Laiheng handed over the work in his hand to the deputy general and went to Yiling by boat with Deng Ming. Because this matter was also related to Liu Tichun's interests, the three of them held their first negotiations in Yiling, trying to make their alliance more solid.

Deng Ming's condition was that the newly established committee could audit the Yangtze River trade, and he had previously handed over the audit power of Chongming Island to Jiang Guozhu. Since this power could be handed over to the Manchu high-ranking officials in order to reach an agreement, Deng Ming did not plan to make a big deal about the alliance with the Ming army.

"If the two generals don't know how much Chengdu can benefit from the Yangtze River trade, they may not know how hard losing it will be to us." Deng Ming said. Internal friction is actually a kind of game balance, members all make the most beneficial choice for themselves, but their choice is harmful to the whole, the result is that the whole is eaten down, and the members finally spit out even the profit; However, this balance does not change because one member sacrifices himself or herself, and as long as one member does not give up on self-interested strategies, the efforts of other members will be in vain.

"The committee can check Chengdu's accounts, and it can also check the tax books of the two generals." Deng Ming hopes to rely on this committee to communicate, so that everyone will not test other people's bottom lines infinitely.

"But you're still worried about someone else faking it, right?" Li Laiheng has been thinking about it carefully in the past few days, and has come up with an opinion: "Otherwise, I will take last year's tax as the benchmark, and I will not raise the tax without the consent of Governor Deng, but the Admiral will provide me with a military salary as compensation." Speaking of this, Li Laiheng glanced at Liu Tichun: "You can execute it on my territory first, General Liu doesn't have to be the same as me." ”

Now in the Yudong Army, the three people who have the best relationship with Deng Ming are Yuan Zongdi, Liu Tichun and Li Laiheng, and the two generals in the Hanshui Valley are a little worse. However, even so, Liu Tichun and Li Laiheng were still wary of Deng Ming, and Li Laiheng's mention had already shown great sincerity and ceded part of the taxing power that originally belonged to him to Deng Ming.

"I don't know how much General Li wants?" Deng Ming, of course, was overjoyed.

Li Laiheng didn't know how big the trade volume was, so he said a figure of 100,000 taels, but Deng Ming did not agree to it, but said that he would confirm it after he checked the account books and had a good idea of the trade volume of the Yangtze River.

Liu Tichun also agreed to accept a certain amount of compensation from Deng Ming, not to raise taxes, and to lock the taxes of each household on last year's benchmark. This solution only delayed the outbreak of contradictions, because it was so rigid that the Ming army might have seriously implemented the terms when they had just signed them, but it was impossible to turn a blind eye to the real reclamation for several years in a row; In the event of a disaster or a good harvest, it cannot be adjusted. Once there is a change, there will be an opportunity, and a little tax increase will be beneficial to the generals and men.

In order to maintain his credit so that he could continue to trade with Guò and make profits, Deng Ming could offer compensation to Liu Tichun and Li Laiheng, but even if he provided such compensation, there was no guarantee that the other two would not secretly collect a little more tax; or speculate that someone else is secretly overtaxing; Or suspect that Deng Ming's distribution ratio is unreasonable. Any situation will lead to the invalidation of the agreement, no one can retreat indefinitely, and no one can accurately know the bottom line of others, and when there is no intention to cross over, the unification war within the Ming army is about to begin.

However, in any case, this agreement can still delay the outbreak of contradictions, and avoid the Ming generals from immediately facing the dilemma of losing three and choosing one of the two in the war of unification—now that the Manchus occupy nine-tenths of the world, the war of unification will definitely lead to three losses.

The members of the committee are jointly appointed by the three companies, and in principle everyone agrees to settle all disputes in the committee, and if there is a conflict, they will not blame each other, but wait for the committee to review and check. Li Laiheng and Liu Tichun both thought that this was perfect, and once again consolidated the relationship between the anti-Qing alliance and eliminated the contradictions between them, but Deng Ming felt that it was not enough.

"The committee was appointed by the three of us, what if our envoys are stubborn and refuse to back down?" In the final analysis, this is just a communication agency, and on the issue of taxation, it is likely that Li Laiheng and Liu Tichun will join forces to deal with Deng Ming, although the demands are unreasonable, but they can gain the upper hand in the debate; Deng Ming may also have joined forces with Li Laiheng or with one of Liu Tichun's people, and let unreasonable demands be accommodated because of common interests. Once this communication agency loses its role, then the internal friction will be out of control, and the Ming army will once again face the situation of choosing one or the other way to commit suicide.

In short, this council is maintained entirely by the morality and big-picture vision of the Ming warlords, and is hurting their dictatorial power at every turn. And Deng Ming thinks that both morality and the overall situation are unreliable, even if he, Liu Tichun and Li Laiheng can control themselves during the honeymoon period, what should others do? If there is no effective method to reduce internal friction, then in the future, the committee may have to launch a unified war against Hao Shaoqi and He Zhen, and it cannot be expected that all the generals of the Ming army will have a self-sacrificing view of the overall situation and noble morals.

After all, there must be someone to play the role of the wolf king and the monkey king, and make the final decision from the height of the group. In the model of constitutionalism known to Deng, this almost godlike role is played by judges. So Deng Ming originally wanted to propose that the criminal officer be responsible, but after thinking about it, the criminal officer of Chengdu Mansion was basically his subordinate, and he was also Yuan Zongdi's nephew, not to mention Li Laiheng and Liu Tichun, even Deng Ming himself doubted whether he could enforce the law impartially.

"If we have a dispute and there is a stalemate, we will leave it to Inspector Wen to decide, what do you think?"

Both the Monkey King and the Wolf King became supreme because they were supreme, and the same is true for human society; However, it is difficult to say who is the strongest in the Sichuan Ming Army now. Deng Ming is the richest, and everyone recognizes that his strength is strong, but his foundation is unstable, and there are many factions under him.

Even if he killed Emperor Shunzhi, it only made Deng Ming the most famous, just like Li Dingguo's two famous kings, but whether he was the strongest in Xiying, Sun Kewang and Liu Wenxiu still had doubts, and in the end, they still relied on internal strife or the unification war within Xiying to determine the status of the supreme power.

And Deng Ming's candidate is obviously not the strongest in the Sichuan Ming army, although Deng Ming gave Wen Anzhi a lot of money, but Fengjie's soldiers and horses can protect Wen Anzhi's safety, if you really want to meet each other, Wen Anzhi may not even be able to beat the weakest Ming army generals. Besides, he is a lot older, and he doesn't need to fight, just running around can cost him half his life.

However, Wen Anzhi has a relatively high prestige, he stood up to serve the Ming Dynasty in his old age, and no one doubted that Wen Anzhi could look at the problem from the perspective of the overall situation; Moreover, Wen Anzhi's strength is the weakest, and he is not qualified to compete for the first person in force at all, so everyone does not have to worry about him deliberately favoring and weakening the allies to cultivate their descendants.

But Li Laiheng and Liu Tichun still didn't agree immediately, they weren't worried that Wen Anzhi wanted to expand their strength, but Wen Anzhi obviously had a good impression of Deng Ming, and they were afraid that Wen Anzhi would still support Deng Ming's unreasonable request when Deng Ming was at a loss.

Although these two people had such worries in their hearts, they did not say it clearly, but Deng Ming took the initiative to break it: "We established this committee to ensure that we will not have serious disputes and prevent our own family members from fighting, because we all know that if there is infighting now, it is no different from wiping our necks with a knife." Master Wen is well aware of the righteousness, and he also knows that if we can't work together, sooner or later we will be wiped out by the Tartars. We might as well issue a public declaration to tell the people of the world that we have established this committee to renounce forever the right to settle disputes by force, and that it is the duty of the Inspector that we will never have to tear up the manifesto and pick up the sword and gun again. With the foresight of Inspector Wen, he will not deliberately favor anyone, otherwise everyone will die together. ”

Deng Ming's credit is very good, and what he said is also right, once the Ming army has another internal strife, it will undoubtedly be the annihilation of the whole army, but the problem of internal friction must also be coordinated. This declaration was issued all over the world, and Wen Anzhi could not let the Ming army get into chaos for the sake of the great cause of Zhongxing, and his verdict would definitely uphold justice.

"Inspector Wen is highly respected, I agree." Li Laiheng was the first to respond: "No matter what judgment the inspector makes, I will obey even if I am not satisfied." ”

Deng Ming also made the same guarantee, and everyone knew in their hearts that if Wen Anzhi was really unreasonable, then no one would obey in the end, and Fengjie had not yet forced everyone to obey.

"But there is a problem, this is not in accordance with the laws of the imperial court." Liu Tichun did not rush along with it, but pointed out a strict loophole, that is, this declaration did not adhere to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, and it also damaged the prestige of the Yongli court - the generals publicly declared that their internal contradictions could lead to war, and if they were not well coordinated, conflicts might break out - although this was the truth, the generals did not admit that they were loyal ministers and filial sons who could endure humiliation and burden, and it did hurt the face of the court.

"Hey, that's not easy." Deng Ming knew that Liu Tichun was not dissatisfied with this method, but he needed someone to take the lead in denying the authority of the imperial court, but this kind of thing was not the first time Deng Ming had done it, he did it once last time when he was in Jianchang: "At the beginning of our declaration, it was shown that we were in a hurry to obey the power, and now that the Son of Heaven is hunting in the south, the law of the Ming Dynasty will naturally become invalid, and after the emperor returns to Luan, we will submit the trial power of this committee and the Wen Inspector to the emperor." ”

"Good!"

Liu Tichun was satisfied that he was willing to sign the declaration, and all three of them agreed that the new alliance would be open, and that in the future, if other Ming generals were willing to accept the arbitration and trial rights of the committee and Fengjie, then the alliance would also welcome them to join.