On the banks of Luoma Lake in Pizhou, Jiangsu, the second town of the Taiping Army, the Qianhu Travel School, looked anxiously at the north.

Although he knew that the person he was waiting for would come soon, Gongjianse was still so nervous that his heart beat. He got off the horse several times and walked to the shore of Luoma Lake, holding a handful of lake water to wipe his sweaty forehead.

The officers of the Manzhou state in the Second Cavalry Town not far away were no better than Gongjian. Although the deputy generals Wuerte and Qianhu Shaoerdai sat on the horse without saying a word, they could clearly see that when they saw them, they could still see that the bodies of the two were trembling slightly.

Baihu Yue Deji went to Xiaojie several times in a row. Every time he came back, he would laugh at him for Dabai. Al, the former clerk of Zhengbai Banner, must be the most calm, but he also rode to Zhou Peigong, the ambassador of the Anjun, several times, asking when their families would arrive.

The officers were anxious, and the soldiers were even more anxious.

In Suiwurt, Yangzhou, there were nearly 2,000 soldiers of the original Laobai Banner who were surrendered to the Ming Dynasty by officers such as Gongjianse. More than 400 people died in the battle in Yangzhou. The remaining were more than 3,800 soldiers, together with the newly surrendered and captured Manchu soldiers, one was organized in the second town of Zhu Qing, and the remaining one was organized in the second town of Shangkeyuan, and the other was Shao Chengguo. The Jiangbei Army had a total of five towns of soldiers, and the other two were Qi Hao's first town and Wang Fuchen's first cavalry town.

The Jiangbei Army is now the only army group of five towns among the Taiping Army. It has nearly 50,000 infantry, cavalry and artillery. Although there are as many as 20,000 surrendered troops in the inner city, it is still the most capable legion of the Taiping Army.

After Ge Yi took office as the Jianghuai Military Commander, on the one hand, he used the first town of the Jiangbei Army to enter Huai'an, monitored the Qing army nearby in Xuzhou, and controlled Huai'an and other places; on the other hand, he used the second town of the Jiangbei Army to march into Anhui, the third town of the Jiangbei Army to consolidate the vicinity of Yangzhou, the first town of the Jiangbei Army to be on standby as a mobile force, and the second town of the cavalry entered Pizhou. In terms of the entire strategic situation, Ge Yi completed the mission assigned by Zhou Shi, that is, the entire army always maintained the offensive momentum and only suspended military actions on the front line of Xuzhou.

The Jianghuai Strategic Envoy's Office now actually controls prefectures and counties north of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu, including Yangzhou, Huai'an, Anqing, Fengyang, Taiping, Chizhou, Ningguo, Huizhou, Chuzhou, Hezhou, etc. Nominally, Anhui Governor Jiang He was commanded by Ge Yi, but he actually commanded the third town that did not belong to the Jiangbei Army. According to the latest plan of the Military Commander's Office, the third town stationed in Anqing is likely to be integrated with several town troops under Hunan Governor Zhao Sihai in the future into a corps similar to the Jiangbei Army, so as to be one of the two armies for the future Northern Expedition.

The military-political system implemented by the Jianghuai Risk Office, in the words of Zhou Shixiang, the area north of the Yangtze River is actually a war zone, so the military and political affairs should be unified. The prefectures and counties in Jiangsu are directly responsible to the Jianghuai Risk Office, while the prefectures and counties in Anhui are responsible to the Anhui Governor's Office, and the latter is responsible to the Jianghuai Risk Office. In this way, the prefectures and counties in Jiangsu are integrated north of the Yangtze River and Anhui are avoiding the loss of military and political affairs and excessive money, grain and human resources.

The actual population and acres of cultivated land are being counted in Jiangbei prefectures and counties. However, because most of the officials in these prefectures are surrendered Qing Dynasty officials, and the efficiency of all yamen is not high, it is difficult to report the statistics in the short term.

Ge Yi was the chief official of Jianghuai as a military general. He had no experience in government affairs and did not know what to do for many things. He had to rely on those demoted officials to deal with it. This made the Jianghuai Risk Office an invisible yamen full of demoted officials. Some officials in prefectures and counties could not even figure out the year number, and they didn't know which emperor in Nandu was. They naively thought that Emperor Yongli, who had run to the southwest, had returned, so the words "Yongli Years of Yongli appeared in the documents. This made Zhou Shixiang laugh and cry, and urgently ordered the Grand Secretary Song Xianggong, who stayed in Guangdong, to immediately select outstanding talents from the academic officials who had already had actual government affairs handling experience in Guangdong and sent them to Nandu, and first distributed them to various places for emergency response. At the same time, the plan to establish the Jinling University Hall was in advance, and a group of half-year short-term students with a period of time were organized to deal with the big problem of expanding the control area, but there was no sufficient talent to manage it.

In the military commander's office, two great ministers, including Ding Zhixiang and Yuan Kuoyu, had tactfully proposed to Zhou Shixiang to suspend the clearance of debts, and select new officials from the gentry in Jiangnan to allocate them to various places to replace those surrendered officials of the Qing Dynasty in order to control these places to the greatest extent. However, Zhou Shixiang said that long-term pain is worse than short-term pain, and did not accept this proposal, but instead ordered Zhang Changgeng and Jiang Guozhu to speed up the clearance of debts, and at least ensured that money and grain that could last for a long time could be plundered.

Suna, who took Hangzhou, also received an order to plunder money and grain. However, considering that there were still three prefectures in southern Zhejiang that failed to take over, and the Sixth Town that invaded Zhejiang was insufficient. If the place changed, the Sixth Town alone might not be able to be pacified in time. Therefore, Zhou Shixiang did not allow Suna to make up for the debt in Zhejiang, but asked him to search the rich gentry in the name of Tonglu. At the same time, the large amount of wealth that Suna obtained in Hangzhou was also departed to Nanjing, thinking that military expenses were paid.

Regarding the wealth of Hangzhou Mancheng, Zhou Shixiang clearly required that the Taiping Army soldiers who died in Jiangbei should be used first to provide pensions. If any officials have private intercepted them, they will be executed.

Almost half a year has passed in the battle of Yangzhou, but half of the pension and resettlement of the injured soldiers were carried out. The battles consumed Zhou Shixiang's small family fortune and had to pay off his debts and other people's money in the name of Tonglu. Otherwise, the finances would be difficult to maintain.

The public treasury system adopted by the Taiping Army in the early days ensured the development and cohesion of the Taiping Army because of the lack of Taiping Army soldiers. However, with the increase of troops and the expansion of territory, the continuous warfare and the adoption of the system of combat soldiers, regular soldiers, auxiliary soldiers and officers. The public treasury has been exhausted. The Guangdong silver treasury, which was only opened in Guangdong, cannot be implemented in other places for the time being, so the Taiping Army now relies more on military pay. High pensions can increase military morale, but the price is that Zhou Shixiang, who had almost never considered money in the past, had to have a headache about how to make money, and it can be regarded as a feeling that a clever wife could not cook without rice.

Zhou Shixiang, who was just an ordinary soldier in his previous life, found it difficult to come up with any good way to make money in this era, but he had the idea of ​​trading ports (special zones). He really wanted to set up a port in Songjiang, that is, Shanghai in later generations, imitating the Zheng family's accumulation of wealth through maritime trade to support the army and let the people rest and rest. However, without a powerful navy in hand, this idea can only be thought about.

However, Guangdong has this condition. First, there are Macau Western Barbarians doing business here, and secondly, the Pearl River is controlled by the Taiping Navy, and the Zheng family did not extend their hands here. Therefore, theoretically, it is feasible to set up a port in Guangzhou or Zhuhai for maritime trade. However, if Zhou Shixiang did this, he would definitely have a conflict with the Portuguese in Macau. The two sides had a dispute before, and that ended with the retreat of the Portuguese. But this time the Portuguese would definitely not retreat easily, because once the Ming Dynasty opened ports and sea trade, it would definitely touch the Portuguese interests in the East. They would not tolerate Macau's status being crossed by other places, so war was definitely inevitable.

Zhou Shixiang had no intention of fighting with the Portuguese at the moment. He was waiting. If he remembered correctly, the death of the Master Guo's surname might be something in front of him. If the Master Guo's surname really died like history, then Zhou Shixiang would definitely not let Zheng Jing take over the huge navy he left behind.

Even if he started a war, Zhou Shixiang would still seize the huge navy of Zheng's army. For this reason, he did not hesitate to do so, even if he was criticized for internal strife, he didn't care.
Chapter completed!