"The old slave is guilty... No... Do not deceive the Holy ... The more than 300,000 taels of silver and a few thousand gold, which is all the old slave's family wealth, no... There is no aftermath ... ”

Hearing this, Xiao Xuan could only sneer: "You are a young man who sees me, you seem to be very talkative, right?" Control the inner palace and resist the rebellion, but I gave you a way to live, so you think you can kick your nose in the face? That's fine, since you don't plan to be honest, I can only punish you a little... ”

Are you kidding? Xiao Xuan had the impression that there was really a Manchu official in Jiaqing Qianlong, who could be greedy for 300,000 silver, which was equivalent to hundreds of millions of RMB in contemporary food prices. The last Liu Jin, the wealth confiscated was at least tens of millions of taels of silver, or gold and silver at the mid-Ming exchange rate. After holding the government for several years, the leaders of the eunuch party who have been in power everywhere only have three or four hundred thousand taels of silver? Doesn't that mean that it is a little more than the wealth confiscated by the famous minister Zhang Juzheng in the year, how is it possible?

Wei Zhongxian knew that any of his words at this time, if the new emperor had an attitude of disbelief, it would be useless, but he still said in a hurry: "If the saint doesn't believe it, you can first torture Cui Chengxiu, Tian Ergeng and others who were captured by the emperor with the old slave, and see if these people can torture more than 100,000 taels of silver, so that the saint should also believe whether what the old slave said is true... ”

Seeing Wei Zhongxian's confidence, Xiao Xuan was also a little puzzled, and said with a tentative smile: "Do you think that I am still young and not as experienced as you." Even if you torture you, you can't try any tricks, can you? Even if you don't have confidence in me, do you think there is a lack of such experts in this palace and in this capital? If you only have hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, Liu Jin and the others back then were really wronged... ”

Wei Zhongxian said sincerely at this time: "How dare the old slave compare with the Liu Dang back then... At that time, the imperial court had never faced a series of defeats and crises like today's situation outside the Guan, let alone today's internal worries. The emperor has never let his ministers hold too much core power, and this saint should also have some experience... Although the old slave has gained a lot of wealth over the years, totaling at least one million taels of silver every year, most of it has been filled in the bottomless pit of Liaodong, and a lot of silver has been spent in the officialdom and in the palace to buy people's hearts, and there is indeed not much left of the old slave. However, if the saint is more ruthless and quicker, he may still be able to steal similar silver money from others, which can be regarded as making up for the old slave's nonsense... ”

At this time, Xiao Xuan finally calmed down, and he seemed to think of the rankings such as "the top ten richest people in ancient times" on the Internet in the past, and a certain agent in the Opium War era of one or two million taels was counted, but in the list of the "top ten richest men", he never seemed to have heard of Wei Zhongxian? If a lot of silver was confiscated in the case of Wei Zhongxian in history, hundreds of thousands of taels, then how could a person like himself, who was somewhat fond of military affairs or history before crossing over, not have any impression at all? Could it be that this Wei Zhongxian's party is really a clear water eunuch?

"I'll take your word for the time being, pry it from your group of men, and if you pry more than 100,000 taels of gold and silver out of one person's mouth, oh, other possessions won't be counted for the time being!"

In this way, Xiao Xuan did not delay any effort, and selected a few people with some experience in this field from the yamen in the capital as quickly as possible, and under his own guidance, he carried out a whole night of "torture" on several eunuch henchmen of the captives by various mutilating and non-disabling means such as waterboarding, acupuncture and moxibustion assisted by medicine and medicinal materials.

In fact, half of these people confessed when they saw those punishments, but in line with the principle of Liu Zongmin's torture, no matter whether those people said or not, they always qualified: those people must have hidden something and lied. until the person is maimed or unfit for further punishment.

After such a "torture", Cui Chengxiu confessed 70,000 taels of silver, Tian Ergeng only had 40,000 taels of silver, which belonged to these two people the most, and some other people together only amounted to 270,000 taels of silver. According to the confessions of these people, many of them were temporarily distributed by Wei Zhongxian as rewards in order to boost morale.

If Xiao Xuan was a little unbelieving at the beginning, but after witnessing the entire torture process, after thinking about it carefully, he felt that those people really didn't have much to hide. This is not the interrogation of the underground party or similar cases to dig down any forces, if that is the case, there is still some value and significance in resisting punishment, but now this situation shows that the eunuch party has fallen into disarray, and is it necessary to be so willing and explosive in character for the sake of some things outside the body?

In this way, the core henchmen are only six or seven hundred thousand taels of silver in total, and the Wei Zhongxian party of the Apocalypse Dynasty is really called a model of clean government for the country and the people? At this time, Xiao Xuan also roughly calculated: although the silver of the Ming Dynasty should be worth more than the middle of the Qing Dynasty, it may not be the case according to some of the preliminary information he learned after coming to this place. In particular, in the area of Beizhili, where heavy troops are gathered, but agriculture is not very prominent, there are many bad years when prices are expensive. For the time being, according to the value of one tael of silver and one clear stone rice or the consistent value of money in the Northern Song Dynasty, the standard of five thousand Song-style single-horse cavalry will cost 500,000 taels of silver a year. In other words, if the year is not good, the 600,000 taels of silver may not be able to maintain a decent army of about 5,000 in the Gyeonggi area?

Of course, Xiao Xuan actually had the intention to save the expenses in the palace. After all, eunuchs and palace maids who are too large are largely unnecessary for themselves. Surrounded by hundreds of beauties, and they are all carefully selected, they are already quite able to satisfy their desires. The ancient life beyond the Dream of Red Mansions is a waste. Xiao Xuan didn't plan to do this for a while.

Because I have carefully considered this question: why can Eight Banners fight? Because it is governed by eight leaders, each flag owner can fully mobilize their enthusiasm. If you let yourself manage 10,000 or even 20,000 people, judging from the experience of training these hundreds of teenagers, you will definitely encounter a lot of problems from selection to management, and the quality will inevitably be reduced. If this is the case, then it is better to let Wang Chengen and other reliable people pull another team, so that his strength will obviously become more consolidated.