Surrounding Mingzhu and his party were dozens of brocade guards wearing flying fish suits, but unlike the brocade guards in the southern capital, these brocade guards had the word "internal guard" printed on their arms, but there was nothing on the arms of the pro-army in the southern capital. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

There were not many people in the Taiping army who knew about the existence of the Jinyi Inner Guard, and only a few people in the Nandu court knew about their existence. As an armed force directly under the Military Intelligence Department, the Jinyi Inner Guard is not under the command of any yamen, nor is it responsible to the emperor, and they have nothing to do with the Jinyi pro-army in the Southern Capital, they only obey the orders of Zhang An, the ambassador of the Military Intelligence Department, and Zhang An obeys the orders of Zhou Shixiang.

In terms of origin, the Jinyi internal guard has a lot to do with the "special forces" composed of death row prisoners and felons when the Taiping Army was just established a few years ago. After Chen Mo, who was in charge of commanding the special squad, burned the camp of the Guangdong Navy Division and martyred the country, the remaining "dead soldiers" were assigned to the Military Intelligence Department by Zhou Shixiang. Originally, I just wanted Zhang An's subordinates to have more people to call on, but I didn't want Zhang An to be a real talent, and he had no knowledge of the formation of intelligence agencies. After several years of development, today's Military Intelligence Department is no longer an empty shell that rushed ducks to the shelves, but has become a huge organization with more than 30,000 intelligence and logistics support personnel, as if it has become the largest organization of the Military Marshal's Office.

With such a large military intelligence department, the amount of money spent every year is astronomical. From beginning to end, Zhou Shixiang listed the funds of the Military Intelligence Department as an independent appropriation, and directly allocated them from the original Guangdong Silver Treasury, which is now renamed the Daming Silver Treasury, without going through the household department of the imperial court or the household department of the military marshal's office. If military expenditures are used to account for them, the annual expenditure of the Military Intelligence Department is sufficient for the expenses of four towns. This is also a bottomless pit that makes him often mad even if he obtains such a large amount of money and grain as Jiangnan, and his finances are not very rich.

Fortunately, although the investment of the Military Intelligence Department is large, the harvest is also large. At least, Zhou Shixiang doesn't have to worry about being blind to outside intelligence now. Every day, information from all over the world was gathered to the Military Intelligence Department, and then presented to Zhou Shixiang's desk in batches, so that he could clearly know what his opponents and friends were doing besides him.

A detailed map, a detailed intelligence, the power of the combination of the two is definitely not weaker than the best elite soldiers.

Sun Tzu said that knowing oneself and knowing the other side can win all battles.

If Zhou Shixiang wants to know himself and his enemy, he must attach importance to intelligence work, so the growth of the Military Intelligence Department is inevitable.

However, in order to control the Military Intelligence Department, lest this huge intelligence agency will rebel in the future, or become a big trouble for his successor, Zhou Shixiang strictly audited every appropriation of the Military Intelligence Department, and did not allow the Military Intelligence Department to do business through their own channels, nor did they open up any "financial resources".

But no matter how satisfied he is, Zhou Shixiang is always worried that Zhang An disposed of Geng Jingzhong without his consent, which made him always angry. He had doubts, he was here, and he could control the Military Intelligence Department, but if one day, he was gone, what this huge organization would do, and whether it would obey the new master, he could not predict.

Zhou Shixiang told Song Xianggong about this concern, but unexpectedly, Song Xianggong replied to him that he did not have to worry about the backlash of the Military Intelligence Division.

Song Xianggong told Zhou Shixiang that the East Factory was bigger and more powerful than the current Military Intelligence Department.

Zhou Shixiang thought about it, in the history of the Ming Dynasty, there were East Factory, West Factory, and Insider Factory, and there were so many power supervisors, but there has never been a case where the factory guard tail was too big to fall off and backlash against the imperial court. This proves that even if the intelligence agency is frighteningly large and powerful enough to make people talk about it, it does not have the ability to manipulate the government, let alone affect the national policy. In other words, as long as the central government and the government and the military at all levels do not rot, the intelligence agencies will never be able to carry out a "change of dynasty" on their own, or even a palace coup. They will only be assistants to decision-makers, providing a source of intelligence, rather than dominating decisions.

The only thing Zhou Shixiang had to do was to firmly control the appointment and dismissal of personnel in the Military Intelligence Department, so that no one would remain in office for a long time. For example, no matter how loyal Zhang An is, Geng Jingzhong's matter also faintly shows signs of asserting his own opinions, which is absolutely intolerable. Zhou Shixiang considered that after the completion of the Liaodong incident, he transferred Zhang An from the Military Intelligence Department and regularly replaced the key personnel in the department. In order to appease Zhang An and reward him for his hard work over the years, Zhou Shixiang proposed to award Zhang An as an earl. If this matter is implemented, then Zhang An will become the first person in the Ming generation to be promoted to the title of "Fanzi". This is very similar to a certain intelligence officer who was promoted to a general in Zhou Shixiang's previous life.

At the beginning, with the acquiescence of Zhou Shixiang, Zhang An set up an intelligence armed force directly under the Military Intelligence Department, which was only responsible for responding to and killing, probing and other tasks at the beginning, but now with the growth of the Taiping Army, this armed force has also become strong and regular. At that time, there were only a few dozen people in the military intelligence special team, but now it has more than 3,000 members, and was given the name "Jinyi Inner Guard" by Zhou Shixiang.

From a "dead soldier" to a "brocade guard" in the Ming Dynasty, in the words of Zhou Shixiang, it is a shotgun for a gun. If Chen Mo was in the Spirit of Heaven and knew that those people he had trained with his own hands had now become the chief officials of the brocade guard, he would probably be able to turn a blind eye.

The existence of the Jinyi internal guard allows the Military Intelligence Department to directly transfer personnel to arrest without dealing with the local and garrison troops. In this way, the Jinyi inner guard is even more similar to the fan of the East Factory back then, and it can even be said that it is of the same origin. However, the object of arrest by the Jinyi guards is limited to the details of the hostile side, and the officials and generals cannot be arrested without authorization. It is necessary to report to the Military Marshal's Office under the verification of evidence, and with the approval of Zhou Shixiang, he can receive the "driving sticker" issued by the Military Marshal's Office before he can be arrested. This is exactly the same as the procedure of Dongchang to handle the case back then. Because the Military Intelligence Department led by him is too similar to the Dongchang back then, even Zhang An often laughs at himself for being a "father-in-law", but his father-in-law is always a bird.

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The appearance of the brocade-clothed inner guard made several of Mingzhu's entourage panic, not understanding how their whereabouts could be revealed so quickly.

"Protect your lordship!"

The entourage of the pearl who was anxious for the protector jumped off the carriage one after another, and they drew out the swords hidden under the carriage, it seemed that they were going to fight with the brocade guards.

"Your Excellency, you go first!"

Tuogu, a third-class guard from the Mengjun Banner, stood in front of Mingzhu, and the hat on his head had been removed from his head, revealing his bare head. The other people also regard death as home, and they can be selected by Mingzhu to sneak to Jiangnan, and they have already put life and death out of the way. If the faint of heart, Mingzhu will not choose them.

"Nalan Mingzhu, come with us!"

Two years ago, Liu Wenyuan, a tinkerer who had stopped Zhou Shixiang at the gate of Suzhou, pressed his knife forward, and the Nalan Pearl in front of him impressed him deeply, because the other party had already run away from him twice.

"Coming with you?"

Mingzhu was still calm, he laughed softly, and there was no need to hide anything now. He removed the wig from his head, revealing his bare head, on which a fresh, thin wound was clearly visible, apparently accidentally cut by a recent shave.

Liu Wenyuan looked at the pearl in front of him coldly, and issued a strict order from above, he had to leave people alive or dead, and this time he couldn't let this pearl run away anyway. Otherwise, he really didn't have the face to meet Deputy Envoy Song, who brought him out of the army.

To Liu Wenyuan's surprise, Nalan Mingzhu did not run away, but asked very calmly: "So it seems that Zhao Xiangwei has been taken by you?" ”

"There is no Zhao family in the world."

Liu Wenyuan's eyes flashed with a cold color, just last night, more than 100 people in the Zhao Mansion were executed.

"It's a pity, but it's also the way it should be." Mingzhu nodded, and then laughed: "But you guys are late, what I have to do has been done." ”

Hearing this, all the brocade guards showed anger, because now there have been riots in various parts of Jiangnan. When they chased them all the way from Songjiang, they saw many villages that had been slaughtered by the parishioners. If it weren't for the capture of Mingzhu, they would have been involved in counterinsurgency.

"Dog Tartar!" Liu Wenyuan gritted his teeth and shouted: "Take it!" ”

The brocade guards immediately stepped forward with knives, and Mingzhu's entourage desperately protected Mingzhu, but they were cut down to the ground by the brocade guards because they were outnumbered. Mingzhu knew that there was no reason to escape, so she resisted desperately and was stabbed several times in her body. When he fell to the ground, Mingzhu held a jade pendant tightly in his hand, which was a gift he was going to go back to give to his son.

Liu Wenyuan walked to Mingzhu's body, opened his clenched fist, and took out the jade pendant from it. The sunlight reflected on the jade, emitting a blood-colored glow.

In Hengli Town, Tang Xiaoxian knelt on the river beach and cried bitterly, in front of him was the thin corpse of Lord Ding who had been chopped into several pieces.