"Breaking this mess between us and the Qing State will also make it easier for us to operate in other directions next, and the things over there in Sichuan seem to be tricky now." In the county seat of Yinxian County, Ma Wenqiang put down the pen in his hand as if he had something on his mind.

Sitting opposite him was Jiang Yunfan, the captain of the Denglai Pioneer Brigade and the special envoy sent by Liu Jianguo, the nominal supreme military commander of the Far Eastern feudatories. This Jun was originally going to take over two large enterprises, the East Coast Korea Company and the East Coast Japan Company, in order to weaken the influence of Wei Boqiu, who had retired from Ezo Tei Island. However, just before he left for Busan, he suddenly received a tight order from Liu Jianguo, which cancelled the appointment of the former item and instead appointed Jiang Yunfan as his special envoy to Changsha in Shunguo to investigate and negotiate on some issues.

Although Jiang Yunfan was not very reluctant to do this, he could only obey his fate. According to the order, he will receive a batch of materials and personnel in Ningbo Prefecture, and at the same time have a careful conversation with Ma Wenqiang, the leader of the Southern Pioneer Team, and hand over some documents and materials before leaving for Shunguo. After all, most of the people who have been dealing with Shunguo for many years are the Southern Pioneer Team, and they have a lot of information and networks in their hands, Jiang Yunfan wants to run his own errand, and it is unthinkable without their assistance, so this is why he has today's trip to Yinxian.

Ma Wenqiang has been in charge of Ningbo for many years, and as an important part of his work, trade contacts, cultural exchanges and military assistance with Shunguo have basically passed through his hands, so he has a large amount of first-hand information, which is stored in the archives bureau of Yinxian County. A few days before this, he had already ordered the Archives Bureau to select some important materials (backup copies) and hand them over to Jiang Yunfan's team for research. As for himself, he specially mentioned this junior whom he also admires in his office today.

"Actually, there is no essential life-and-death hatred between us and the Qing Kingdom. Just think about it, although we are descendants of the former Song and Miao, but it was the old yellow calendar hundreds of years ago, this Jurchen is also the Jurchen, when Nurhachi gave the Tunguska court the founding name of the gold purely to put gold on his face. Therefore, no matter from which point of view, there is no fundamental and irreconcilable contradiction between us and the Qing State, especially at the moment when the Qing State has suffered setbacks in several southern expeditions and external and internal problems are becoming more and more serious, the contradictions between us and them have been greatly weakened. Ma Wenqiang looked at the young Jiang Yunfan in front of him, pointed and said: "Of course, these things are all clichés, and you all know them, so I won't say more." The main thing I want to say is actually why I went against the norm and agreed to peace talks with the Qing State. Many people speculate that it is to get a respite, so as to digest the newly occupied land, which is both right and not entirely true, Xiao Jiang You should know that peace talks with the Qing State are now the general trend, and it is also the common voice of millions of people in the Far Eastern feudatories. ”

"The Far Eastern feudatories are, of course, our colonies, the product of a policy that emerged to achieve our immigration goals. But it is fair to say that even if it is a policy product, after so many years of development, the population, economy, education, and culture have all developed greatly, and the Far Eastern feudatories can no longer be regarded as idle colonies. After all, the people here are all reserve citizens, and we have to carefully consider their opinions, and we can't blindly harm their interests to subsidize the country. Therefore, you can see that in recent years, China has begun to transfer textile technology to Ningbo, transfer the production and maintenance technology of old steam engines to Heishui, and build railways in Shandong. Ma Wenqiang continued: "You see that I am the captain of the Southern Pioneer Team, and it stands to reason that no one dares to say anything. But I myself know that I can't do this all the time, the vast majority of the cadres and soldiers who rule Ningbo have been localized, and even many local investors who have started businesses have married wives and children in Ningbo, and have local interests. The collective awakening of the consciousness of the local elite is a thorny problem faced by every colonial governor, and although the consciousness of Ningbo is not yet completely awakened now, we cannot take the initiative to awaken it, on the contrary, we must appropriately paralyze it, such as giving it certain benefits. Now, it is in the greatest interest of the local elite in Ningbo to negotiate peace with the Qing State Hangzhou Daying and promote the development of trade on both sides of the Cao'e River. At this point, I can't go against the expectations of the vast majority of people, which will cause me a lot of trouble, which in turn will affect the progress of other areas. ”

Jiang Yunfan bowed his head lightly when he heard this. In fact, how could he not understand these things after working hard in the Denglai area for many years? He still remembers the excitement of the cadres, businessmen, and business owners along the way when the Southern Railway Company decided to build the Jiaoyan Line Railway in Shandong. They weren't puppets, they were real people, and they didn't necessarily have no resistance to the East Coast government pumping their blood for emigration—isn't it, at least so far, the main job of the Far Eastern feudatories is to collect immigrants.

They are certainly not happy with the enormous expenses of these migrants and some of the wars that come with them. In contrast, they wanted to make a full peace with the Qing state, and the two countries would open their borders for trade - at least one or two trade ports would be opened to concentrate trade - the Qing state would import industrial products from them, and they would import all kinds of other native products from the Qing state, some of which they would consume themselves, and some of which would be exported to foreign countries for profit.

Leaving aside whether the trade model they envisioned can be realized, it is worth pondering just to say that they have such thoughts and impulses. No one was born willing to sacrifice their own interests, and the British North American colonies also frequently traded with the Dutch during the Anglo-Dutch War, openly challenging the Navigation Regulations promulgated by London. Although Ningbo and Denglai are not like this, they are also the trend of the times to consider their own interests more. Jiang Yunfan estimated that the current generation is still relatively obedient, especially those servant army, who have been exposed to the powerful miracles of many East Coast people from their fathers, so they are still relatively "tame", but what about the next generation, and then the next generation? It's hard to say, localization is never just talk, it's a big trend.

"Okay, that's not the focus of our conversation today, so I won't talk to you more." After talking for a while, Ma Wenqiang was a little thirsty, so he ordered the secretary to serve tea, and then picked up a stack of thick materials in the filing cabinet, flipped through them at random, pulled out one of them, and said: "This is the last time Guo Puxia wrote a few reports to me before he left office, very exciting, very in-depth, and it should be of great reference significance for you to deal with Shunguo in the future." These materials are highly classified, and they are not in the part that was handed over to you before, so I will have someone copy a copy and send it to you, and take a good look at it on the way. Li Laiheng, the grass-headed emperor, I used to look down on him, but now I find that the people who can jump up and down in such a situation today and still work step by step are really every simple, his people, after several years of fighting, have almost controlled most of Sichuan! ”

Ma Wenqiang's words made Jiang Yunfan feel awe-inspired, and he knew that he had reached the point, so he moved his body slightly, and sat down to listen to Ma Wenqiang's description of the situation over there.

"In the second half of last year, the two armies of Liu Zhonggui and Zhang Neng of Shunguo in Sichuan converged and fought with the Qing army in Baoning Mansion, and as a result, the army commanded by Yue Le, Prince An, was unfavorable and suffered heavy losses, and had to be expelled from Sichuan. Ma Wenqiang beckoned Jiang Yunfan to drink tea, and said: "We don't have too precise information about that decisive battle, we only know a few generally, that is, the Qing and Shun armies gathered more than 100,000 people, and fought continuously in Bazhou and Langzhong, and finally the Shun army won, but I heard that there were tens of thousands of casualties, which is a tragic victory." The remnants of the Qing army are currently retreating to the front line of Jiange, Guangyuan, Nanjiang, and Hanzhong in northern Sichuan and Hanzhong, and are licking their wounds while waiting for the Qin people to come to their aid. ”

After the end of this battle, Wu Yinglin, who had been holding Chengdu Mansion for a long time, surrendered directly to General Liu Zhonggui, and led the head of the Chengdu Wu military and political group and more than 40,000 troops to surrender, and the situation in Sichuan was laid. Wu Yinglin, who surrendered, is also said to have received preferential treatment, because his timely surrender saved the most elite Chengdu Plain from war and preserved the vitality of the country of abundance to the greatest extent, so Li Laiheng ordered him to be taken to Changsha for 'Rongyang'. As for the 40,000 surrendered troops, I heard that they were all scattered and replenished into the armies of Liu Zhonggui and Zhang Neng, so as to restore the strength of the two generals as soon as possible and resist the possible counterattack of the Qing army. When Ma Wenqiang said this, he was already dignified.

The situation in Sichuan is more dramatic, and the Wu group, which was extremely powerful for a while, fell apart because of the illness and death of its leader, Wu Sangui, and then passively involved in the war between Qingshun. The two countries combined nearly 200,000 troops fought in Sichuan, fought for several years, and many prefectures and counties in northern Sichuan were almost white, and the winner was finally decided: Liu Zhonggui, the left battalion of the Shun army, who dared to fight and dared to fight, defeated the southbound Qing army with the main body of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Green Battalion Committee, seized most of Sichuan, and picked up some of the most delicious fruits of victory (some prefectures and counties in the south were occupied by Li Dingguo and Sun Kewang of the Southern Ming Dynasty in the north).

The change in the ownership of Sichuan, the land of abundance, has suddenly brought about a major change in the balance of power between the various parties on the land of China. In this change, the Shun army is undoubtedly the biggest beneficiary, they control Sichuan, which still has millions of people, rich in products, and dangerous terrain provinces, and since then has another stable hinterland and rear (the former large rear is undoubtedly Hunan), the population under the rule not only increased sharply by more than sixty percent, but also has a choice to attack the northwest pass of the Qing State, which is no longer the same as before - of course, the current Qing army is still entrenched in the many passes of northern Sichuan and Hanzhong, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. The Shun army still needs to find a way to spend a lot of money to slowly occupy it, so that the dangerous situation of the mountains and rivers in Sichuan can be shared by the Qing and Shun, otherwise the Qing army unilaterally has a superior geographical advantage, which is very unfavorable to Dashun.

In addition to the Shun army, the Southern Ming Dynasty had limited gains, in addition to the long time since the restoration of the northern Qianbei provinces and the incorporation of a group of Wu troops, there are only some prefectures and counties in the south with complex terrain, barren products, and entrenched Tusi, and it may also be evil to the Li Shun regime that has just won a big victory, and it is difficult to say whether it is a gain or a loss.

The last participant, Qing Guo, lost such an important province as Sichuan on the surface. But if you really look into it, in addition to the tens of thousands of horses who died in Boryeong, Shunqing and other places, is it really a big loss? As early as after Wu Sangui took charge of Sichuan, this largest province in the southwest probably had nothing to do with the Qing state, except that it was still nominally under the rule of the Qing emperor and the people shaved their hair and became easy to serve, this province not only did not pay taxes to the Qing court, but on the contrary, it repeatedly asked for salaries and weapons; When the Qing court asked them to send troops to cooperate with the grand strategy, how many times did Wu Sangui have the intention of preserving their strength and paddling? Strictly speaking, this Wu Sangui is an independent kingdom, and the Qing court has earned a good name, but in fact, it can't control Sichuan at all. Therefore, the loss of Sichuan is certainly a major benefit to Shunguo, but it may not be a great loss for the Qing army, because they have never really owned it, so how can we talk about losses?

"If Shunguo gets this Sichuan, it will be like breaking out of the cocoon into a butterfly, and the strength will increase suddenly, and there will be fewer and fewer means to restrict it in the future, which is actually not a good thing for us. The country of Shun is not weak in its independence, and in fact, it has the intention of using us (of course, why don't the people on the east coast use them?). I don't know what the attitude will be in the future. Later, after you go to Madang and Changsha, you should pay attention to observe and test the attitude of the Shunguo court, see if there is any difference, and report back to me as soon as possible. Ma Wenqiang finally advised: "In addition, Liu Zhonggui, the general of the Dashun Left Battalion, who occupied Sichuan and took the lead in the first work, should also find a way to contact him." At the beginning, Li Zicheng set the military system of five battalions in Xiangyang, and until now, Li Laiheng has controlled the front battalion (Gao Yigong handed over the military power before his death), the middle battalion and the rear battalion, but Liu Zhonggui in the left camp and Yuan Bao (the son of Yuan Zongdi) in the right battalion (the son of Yuan Zongdi, who came to the east bank to study) have strong independence, and they are faintly two major feudal towns, so you can pay more attention to it and contact it, which is not a bad thing. Perhaps, in the future, it will also have a great impact on the choice of our policy of Shunguo, which should not be underestimated. ”

"I understand." Jiang Yunfan replied: "I'm afraid that Liu Zhonggui, Yuan Bao, and He Zhen, father and son, who are also independent supernumerary troops, also have great expectations for establishing a closer relationship with us, I will start from this aspect, please rest assured." ”