Chu Pengling's matter was very noisy, the courtiers talked about it, and the emperor knew about it.

At this time, He Shen had squeezed out tens of millions of silver from thousands of civil and military officials, large and small, and officials from other places also heard the rumors and set off activities to raise donations for the imperial court, and merchants from all over the country were also blackmailed with various admiration.

After Jiaqing heard it, he ordered to stop fundraising, and Qianlong was even more generous, not only did not raise donations, but also asked for the return of the silver, indicating that the courtiers were loyal to the country, which made people feel grateful, but the dynasty had its own regulations, how could the courtiers be ruined. So he ordered He Shen and Beijing officials to deduct one year's "favor" and "rice silver" according to their grades, and local officials from other provinces to deduct one year of incorruptible silver.

Favors and rice silver are subsidies specially set up for Beijing officials, which are actually the same as raising incorruptible silver, but the name is different.

Although the money of the Jingguan is not as much as ten times and a hundred times that of the local officials, it is also considerable.

There was a Qianlong official named Wang Jihua in his early years, and his official position was to be a household secretary, and he liked to write diaries, which later became an important historical material. He recorded his income in detail in his diary, and he could get about 9,000 taels a year for the rice silver. Hubu Shangshu is a first-class master, and there must be more than 10,000 first-class officials who are higher than him.

Deducting a year's food silver, in fact, is not a lot, thousands of officials, less than one or two hundred taels, more than ten thousand taels, and finally withdrew, leaving more than one million taels of silver. Officials from other places collected more donations, and their pensions were more abundant, ranging from 13,000 to 20,000 taels for governors, 10,000 to 15,000 taels for governors, 5,000 to 9,000 taels for political envoys, and 3,000 to 8,444 taels for envoys. The governor of Taiwan, Liu Mingchuan, received 155 taels of silver, and 10,000 taels of silver. Taiwan's total military annual salary is 67 taels of silver, the military allowance is 144 taels of silver, and the maintenance of incorruptible silver is 1,500 taels of silver. As for those petty officials, the annual salary, horse gan, and incorruptible silver are 449 taels, and the total salary, horse gan, and incorruptible silver are 192 taels.

In the end, the incorruptible silver of these magistrates was converted into tens of millions.

For officials, a year's extra subsidy is actually nothing, the real unlucky are those businessmen, a family was ordered to pay tens of thousands, and the dedication was less, that is, to slap the magistrate in the face, the parents and officials were angry, and the small businessmen trembled, so the national businessmen contributed tens of millions of taels.

Among them, thirteen merchants contributed three million taels, salt merchants contributed two million taels, silk merchants, porcelain merchants and merchants from all walks of life added up, and Guangdong took out 10 million taels; Other wealthy places, such as the Hui merchants, including the salt merchants, took out 12 million taels, the Shanxi Jin merchants took out 15 million taels, and the merchants of the whole world actually provided 200 million taels of silver in this wave of political oppression.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng tortured and plundered Beijing officials, and the silver that was finally tortured was 60 million taels, some said 70 million taels, and some said 80 million taels, in short, less than 100 million.

In contrast, it shows that the Qing Dynasty was richer, especially than the Ming Dynasty.

This is not surprising, later generations estimated that by the Qianlong period, the amount of silver flowing into China from Japan and the West ranged from 200 million taels to one billion taels, and the more conservative figure was 600 million taels, of which 200 million taels flowed in the Ming Dynasty, 400 million taels in the early middle and early Manchu Qing Dynasty, and after the Daoguang opium inflowed, but began to flow out of silver.

The 400 million taels of silver that flowed into the Manchu Dynasty alone greatly enriched China's silver reserves, China did not have a perfect capital market, the vast majority of this money was in the hands of officials, magnates and wealthy businessmen, and a small part was in the hands of landlords and wealthy families.

The concentration of this silver makes it easy to loot. In fact, the Ming Dynasty was the same, the gap between the rich and the poor was serious, and the wealth was in the hands of the wealthy class, but the emperor of the Ming Dynasty just couldn't squeeze it out, this is not that the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty were not patriotic, and the Qing Dynasty officials were not patriotic, the key was to have a Heshen, the key was to find the right way to squeeze out the money, not that the emperor begged for donations, but should be like Heshen, directly with threats. You beg him, unable to gain his loyalty and support, and put a knife on their necks to make them obey you, and Li Zicheng did that.

Zhou Lang didn't know that He Shen was so able to scavenge, and he didn't know that I had so much silver in the Qing Dynasty, otherwise he would definitely not give in to the price.

But he was already very satisfied, the treasures that kept being sent from the Old Summer Palace and the Summer Palace made him lose his eyes, those pearls and jades, when they were packed in boxes and placed together, the impact of that kind of impact really made people feel happy.

Are you happy today?

I'm so happy!

After reaching an agreement with He Shen, Zhou Lang was not in a hurry, but urged He Shen to pay the money.

He Shen eagerly hoped that Zhou Lang would withdraw his troops, but there were too many treasures in the Old Summer Palace.

No one can say how many treasures there are in the Old Summer Palace, but it can be roughly estimated.

In the fifteenth year of Daoguang, he had checked the storage of objects in the palace and the Old Summer Palace, and recorded one or two silver bills, a total of 569,390, including 290505 in the palace and 280694 in the Old Summer Palace; There are 1,621 models of various Ruyi, including 1,194 in the palace and 450 in the Old Summer Palace; 501 pieces of jade inkstone and pen wash, including 142 pieces of palace memory and 337 pieces of Yuanmingyuan; There are a total of 773 first-class porcelain furnaces, bottles, cans, etc., of which 337 are stored in the palace and 291 are stored in the Old Summer Palace......

Basically, the treasures of the Qing Palace stored in the Old Summer Palace are similar to those stored in the Forbidden City, why so many good things are placed in the Old Summer Palace, it is because the emperor often lives and works in the Old Summer Palace. Since the Kangxi era, this tradition began, the Qing Palace's "Living Note" recorded that the emperor lived in the Old Summer Palace sometimes more than the time spent in the Forbidden City, Qianlong once lived in the Forbidden City for 153 days a year, and lived in the Old Summer Palace for 168 days, nearly half a year spent in the Old Summer Palace, and the rest of the time went to the south of the Yangtze River.

Because the emperor likes to live in the royal garden more than in the oppressive Forbidden City, all the supplies needed for the emperor's daily life and handling of the government must be prepared as in the Forbidden City, so there are almost as many royal treasures in the Old Summer Palace as in the Forbidden City.

When Pu Yi was expelled from the Forbidden City, he took with him 1.6 million pieces of Qing court treasures. Some people deduce that there should be no less than 1.5 million lost cultural relics in the Old Summer Palace.

In fact, it may be more, because before Pu Yi was driven away by Feng Yuxiang, the Qing Palace suffered several catastrophes, and the Eight-Nation Coalition Army entered the city, even if the troops were restrained, it was impossible for the autumn to be uncommitted, and it was a tradition for soldiers to take away one or two souvenirs, and at that time, the soldiers of the Eight Nations added up to more than 100,000 people, and they were countless treasures when they touched it casually. In addition, in the late Qing Dynasty, from the time of Cixi Guangxu, the eunuchs and maids in the palace began to steal and sell the treasures in the palace, and some concubines who were short of money also participated in it. A great eunuch like Li Lianying even cooperated with others to open an antique shop in the city, specializing in selling Qing court treasures.

It is also impossible to count the number of treasures that have been stolen and sold by these thieves. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the Puyi brothers were young, and they were deposed emperors and lost their authority, so this kind of reselling became even more unscrupulous. Pu Yi later recalled that the thefts of the eunuchs in the palace were almost uninterrupted. When he got married, he had just had a big wedding, and the pearls, gems, and jade inlaid in the queen's phoenix crown were all replaced by fakes. He believed that the inner palace should be cleaned, the treasury should be counted, and theft should be banned. However, before the plan could be implemented, the Jianfu Palace, which contained countless treasures, suddenly caught fire, and countless treasures and cheats were also wiped out.

In the end, the Pu Yi brothers simply stole it themselves, because some Republic of China officials claimed that the treasures in the palace should belong to the state. Pu Yi then took him out of the palace by giving him a large number of treasures. The evidence left behind was documents such as "Reward Pujie Slip" and "Receipt Slip", which were later discovered by the Qing Aftermath Committee.

After such crazy destruction, theft and destruction, the Forbidden City can still leave 1.6 million treasures, which can be imagined as the original grand occasion, and how many Old Summer Palaces are on the same level as the treasures of the Forbidden City, that is conceivable.

Anyway, according to the preliminary statistics of the financial officer, they found 1.8 million treasures in the Old Summer Palace. There are more than later experts estimated, and the vast majority of the treasures are located in the storehouse, not outside. Later generations of experts also objected to the estimate of more than one million, because they calculated according to the area of the houses in the Old Summer Palace and found that 1.5 million pieces of furnishings were laid out, and there would be an average of nearly ten treasures per square meter. This is the pure poor people's knowledge, the things used by the rich are often changed, different weather, different seasons, and different furnishings, which is often described in the Dream of Red Mansions.

There is a good thing, placed in a conspicuous position all day long, I can't let people see it every day, this is the style of small doors.

When the things of the Heshen family were raided, most of them were in the treasury, not to mention the more elaborate royal family.

It can be said that 90% of the treasures are stored in the treasure house, and the management is well organized, and the items are recorded in the book, and the eunuchs and palace maids in the Qianlong era have not yet developed to the point of daring to steal, so these things can be matched one by one.

Just these 1.8 million pieces, or the financial officer in Zhou Lang's army has never seen the world, and he has missed many items that will not be registered, but can also be counted as treasures.

For example, the zodiac beast head in the fountain, I think it is a building, under Zhou Lang's order not to destroy the building, they are too lazy to dismantle it, and the door knocker on the palace door is black, in fact, it is the silver shop head (silver cast beast face door knocker), they thought it was iron.

Some of the other stone statues were carved by the top skilled craftsmen, and they didn't know that they were treasures, and the white stone pagoda was made of white marble, and they also thought it was an ordinary stone, but they missed too many good things, otherwise the treasures they could take away went straight to two million.

But just these more than 1.8 million pieces, I am also worried about death, and I have to pull hundreds of times back and forth, and let them pull it, and I can't finish it in a year. Fortunately, more than 40 days later, the aid from Fujian arrived, and the transportation progress was greatly accelerated.