The reason why Xiao Yungui made up his mind to establish a spy and spy force was because when he was in Yiyang, Tong Qiangsheng, who had gone south to contact Zhu Hongying, Hu Youlu, Wu Lingyun and other troops of the Heaven and Earth Society, returned to the army. The news brought back was that Zhu Hongying and Hu Youlu had already raised troops in Nanning, Guangxi, and heard that the Taiping army intended to go south, so the two rebel armies joined forces and developed to northern Guizhou and southern Hunan. When Zhu Hongying and Hu Youlu hit Daozhou, they were blocked by the Qing army, and seeing that the Taiping army did not go south to respond, the two rebels retreated south.

At the same time, Zhu Hongying and Hu Youlu were also suspicious of the sincerity of the Taiping Army's cooperation, but Zuihou still decided to go it alone. Zhu Hongying even boasted of being a descendant of Zhu Ming, and in his heart he wanted to be the king and hegemon, and he didn't want to join the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at all, so he kept pushing Hu Youlu to go south and go alone. Tong Qiangsheng's persuasion was useless, and the Qing army was tightly blockaded, so he had to take his brothers on a long detour before returning to Hunan.

After listening to Tong Qiangsheng's report, Xiao Yungui found that he lacked an effective way to transmit information, and he did not get the news from the south when he was in Hengzhou, so he missed the opportunity. At the same time, to a useless person like Zhu Hongying, he needs to have some unsavory means to deal with it, but he lacks a strange soldier who is lying in the shadows to use. Therefore, Xiao Yungui made up his mind to establish his own intelligence network and a spy agency that engaged in sabotage, assassination, rumor-mongering, and subversion behind enemy lines.

That night, Xiao Yungui came to Zuo Zongtang and Hong Yuner to discuss, Hong Yuner needless to say, he has read a lot of books and can come up with some good ideas, and Zuo Zongtang is Xiao Yungui's opinion.

After listening to Xiao Yungui's words, Hong Yun'er muttered: "I have read few books on what spies and detailed works, and I don't know very well, but there are many examples in history, such as Jinyiwei, Dongchang, and Xichang in the Ming Dynasty, and now the sticky rod and Shangyu backup place in the Qing Dynasty, these are all well-known secret spy places." But what Jinyiwei and Dongchang have a strict organization and their own set of regulations, and the people they use are also trained for a long time, and they can't be done overnight. ”

Zuo Zongtang nodded and said: "What Xi Wang Niang said is good, the Ming Dynasty attaches great importance to supervising hundreds of officials and the people, and Jinyiwei has existed since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and the natural law is strict. Now that we have created our own eyes and ears, it is better to do it first as stated in the Art of War. "The Art of War" has five sayings, for the cause of the interval, that is, refers to the villagers of the enemy country; Uchima, which refers to officials of enemy countries; On the contrary, it refers to the meticulous work and secret agent of the enemy country, but it is used by us; A person who provides false information to the enemy and is executed by the enemy after the incident; Living, a person who returns alive after completing a mission. ”

"Let's talk about the dead first, this is an important pass to send dead soldiers to deceive the enemy, in order to achieve a surprise victory, but it is not often used. The life is the person we want to enable, Zuo seems that Tong Qiangsheng under the West King has been doing fine work for the West King, secret agent, although this person is not good-looking, but he is thoughtful, and he can also eat in gangs such as the Heaven and Earth Society, he can be the head of the West Temple secret agent, select capable people from the various armies, serve as wings, and train for a period of time to be competent. Zuo Zongtang said slowly: "Because we use it the most now, to ask the people for news, in the future, we can set up a map division in the west hall, and every time we go to a place, the department will inquire about the news from the local people, collect local customs and customs, and draw local topographical maps." Nowadays, we lack suitable candidates, but Zuo thinks that businessmen can be used as internal and anti-intermediate. ”

Xiao Yungui rolled his eyes and said with a smile: "What does Mr. mean to let Zhu Changlin, Wei Helin and others go to the territory of the Qing army to do business, use business as a cover, collect intelligence, and make friends with the government?" ”

Zuo Zongtang nodded and said: "Yes, the businessman goes south and north, the bigger the business, the wider the eyeliner, if the king of the west can have his own business house, one can raise military salaries, the second can inquire about the news, and the third can make friends with the Qing court officials, the Qing court officials are corrupt, and they can be bribed, bribed, and co-opted, all of which can be done through the business house, and the wider the face, the more beneficial it will be." ”

Xiao Yungui touched his chin thoughtfully and said, "In other words, we can send people to the territory of the Qing court to establish our own chambers of commerce and business houses, in fact, these business houses and chambers of commerce are for my heavenly kingdom." "Follow the secret saying in my heart, Zuo Zongtang is worthy of Zuo Zongtang, isn't this a trick used by terrorists in later generations? On weekdays, he appears as a businessman, but in fact he does something to subvert the government.

Zhu Changlin, Wei Helin, He Yuanlun and other businessmen tried their best to win over Xiao Yungui at the beginning, just thinking about how to use their business expertise, and now Zuo Zongtang said, Xiao Yungui no longer hesitated, and then clapped his hands and said: "Okay, we will set up a commercial bank, and Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin will come forward to do it, and this commercial house will be called Guiyun Firm!" Xiao Yungui casually used his real name upside down, but he didn't expect that this Guiyun firm would become a well-known century-old brand in the future.

Then the three of them agreed that Tong Qiangsheng, He Bin, and Zhou Zhaoyao came forward to set up a special agency in the West Temple, and Hong Yuner named this agency Bai Zetang, Bai Ze is an ancient divine beast, known as the upper knowledge of astronomy and geography, and the lower knowledge of trivial matters; Through the past, knowing the future, Hong Yun'er hopes that taking this name will let everyone know that they are the eyes and ears of the West Temple. Because Tong Qiangsheng and these three people are all members of the gang who have been mixing in the rivers and lakes all the year round, they also have a wide range of people, and they can share news with the eyes and ears of the major gangs, among the three, Tong Qiangsheng is the most suitable to be the leader, and now He Bin and Zhou Zhaoyao are far away in Sichuan, so Tong Qiangsheng is the hall master of Bai Zetang. In this way, Shili, a shadow that later terrified the Manchus and the Great Powers, was born, and its tentacles were everywhere and made people shudder.

On the same day, Xiao Yungui asked Zhu Changlin, Wei Helin, Tong Qiangsheng and others to discuss the details of the charter, and Zuo Zongtang and Hong Yuner mentioned it on the side.

The establishment of Guiyun business made Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin very surprised, they were able to go back to their old business, and Xiao Yungui promised to pay the capital, and the money earned was divided into thirty-seven accounts, Zhu and Wei accounted for thirty percent, and seventy percent went to the Taiping Army in the West Palace. Xiao Yungui had promised the two of them that one day they would let the two of them earn back the property confiscated by the Taiping Army, and Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin were naturally overjoyed. As for how the business is operated, Hong Yuner relied on memory to give the two of them a match making recipe and process, which can be regarded as adding a commodity, and the follow-up such as the production of some small commodities, Hong Yuner needs to recall and sort it out before giving it to them.

Don't underestimate the profit margin of this match, when Tsarist Russia was trading in northern Xinjiang, it relied on small commodities to earn huge profits, and there was an amazing record of having a box of matches in exchange for a sheep in northern Xinjiang and ten boxes of matches for a cow. Of course, at this stage, the main business of the business is still grain and oil, rice and noodles, tea silk, sugar and wine and other daily necessities, Xiao Yungui also scavenged a number of precious antiques, jade, calligraphy and paintings from the homes of local government offices and wealthy businessmen to the business for sale, these things are just a burden in the hands, it is better to turn into cash to use.

After the articles of association of the firm were drafted, Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin happily prepared to run it, but their families were left as hostages, and Xiao Yungui also arranged for Tong Qiangsheng and others to install people around the two to monitor. As for how Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin returned to the territory of the Qing army to do business, the fact that the two joined the Taiping Army is still a secret, and even the people of Changsha thought that the two were killed by the Taiping Army like other wealthy businessmen in Changsha, so the two had a very good excuse to return to the territory of the Qing army to operate.

Xiao Yungui plans to wait for He Yuanlun, He Bin, Zhou Zhaoyao and others to return from Sichuan, and then expand his business network through He Yuanlun's Baoqing Chamber of Commerce, after all, after the Taiping Army captures Yuezhou, it will then attack the three towns of Wuhan, which is the territory of the Baoqing Chamber of Commerce.

Bai Zetang's charter is much more complicated, from the selection of people, training, code words, assassination, etc., Xiao Yungui handed over these things to Zuo Zongtang, Hong Yun'er, Tong Qiangsheng and others to worry about their brains, and he focused on training soldiers and horses.

For the training of the new army, Xiao Yungui began to pay attention to collecting the essentials of the generals of various armies marching and fighting, and at the same time added some training subjects he received in the military training of later generations, and began to compile a Taiping army's own "Infantry Army Drill Code". This kind of drill code is a systematic project, involving many arms of the army, Xiao Yungui does not expect himself to be able to compile it at one time, he plans to sum up experience from actual combat, and gradually blend it into the drill code, and if possible, if you get some Prussian infantry drill code and other classics from foreigners to join it, maybe this drill code can achieve great success.

The drill of the water camp was completely handed over to Luo Xuan, and Xiao Yungui was completely a layman in water warfare, because he couldn't even swim. But at present, the Taiping army is fighting in the south, since ancient times, there is a saying that the northerners ride horses, and the southerners ride boats, and the nine southern provinces are full of rivers and lakes, and it is impossible for the Taiping army to completely avoid water wars. Fortunately, at present, the Yangtze River Naval Division of the Qing Army is completely a soy sauce product, and Hengzhou, the old nest of the Hunan Army's Naval Division, which will give the Taiping Army a headache in the future, has also been captured by the Taiping Army, Xiao Yungui can rest assured that he can boldly expand his Water Battalion Boat Division.

More than ten days later, Bai Zetang's charter was preliminarily drawn up, and Zuo Zongtang, Hong Yuner, and Tong Qiangsheng all didn't sleep for a few nights to come up with this charter. Bai Zetang is headed by Tong Qiangsheng, and his subordinates are divided into eyes and ears, assassin killers, internal guards, etc., and Hong Yuner and Tong Qiangsheng are looking for suitable candidates to join in the army and among the people, and after passing the loyalty and primary election, they will join Bai Zetang for training, and then assign tasks after training. Bai Zetang only obeyed the orders of Xiao Yungui, Zuo Zongtang, and Hong Yun'er, and the treatment of everyone in the hall was also ten times that of ordinary soldiers, which can be described as a generous treatment.

Why did Hong Yuner participate in Bai Zetang's selection? Because Bai Zetang needs female team members, compared to men, some tasks need women to complete to be more successful, Hong Yun'er is in charge of the women's camp, so she naturally needs to participate. Later, the female Bai Ze led by Hong Yun'er made great achievements on this invisible front.

After resting in Yiyang for ten months, the Qing army in Xiangyin still refused to retreat, after the New Year's pass, Xiao Yungui decided to wave his army to the east, the whole army boarded the water camp boat, and went to Yuezhou in a mighty way, it seems that the Qing army in Xiangyin will cry when they see the coffin. Therefore, after the Taiping Army of the West Hall handed over Yiyang to the soldiers and horses of the North Hall for defense, the whole army marched eastward, with the Luo Outline Department as the lead, and entered the mighty Dongting Lake.