Zhu Wenzhen pursued the remnants of Zhang Xianzhong, and Zuo Zixiong led the main force to finally break through Hengzhou City and capture Yin Xianmin He Yide, these things seem to be nothing to repeat, but in fact it took a lot of time.

It was delayed from mid-July until late July before it was preliminarily completed.

As for collecting and archiving all the gold and silver treasures obtained in the pursuit of southern Hunan, further pacifying the people in Hengzhou and other places, and exterminating the scattered stragglers...... This work will not be completed by the end of July, and may be delayed until August.

Fortunately, Shen Shuren had already had a rough idea of how much gold, silver and jewelry he could get in advance, so he could take advantage of the work of profit and loss assessment to start accounting immediately in the past few days after breaking through Hengzhou.

Shen Shuren seems to have obtained property worth 12 million taels, but at least two or three million taels of them are relatively difficult to realize, and they all exist in the form of artworks, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and it may take half a year or even a year or two to slowly disappear. Otherwise, if you invest too much in the market at once, the price will definitely collapse and depreciate, and you may not even be able to realize half of the valuation.

This is also very common sense, whether it is a vassal king or a huge rich, when their homes are raided, how can they only have gold and silver treasures copied out? Most of the aristocracy has a certain level of pleasure, and they must invest in art, calligraphy and painting.

Among the feudal kings' family property, there are 20% of works of art, and the proportion is not high.

And after they were destroyed, Zhang Xianzhong also knew that these things might be valuable, so he didn't directly destroy them and burn them, so he chose to snatch them. It's a pity that the thieves have no culture and don't know how to evaluate, and when they finally realize that there is a risk of breaking through, they won't give priority to bringing these things with them, and only bring gold, silver and jewelry, which is left to Shen Shuren.

Therefore, the hard currency that Shen Shuren can use directly and immediately is more than 9 million taels.

The composition of this money is about 20% gold, 30% silver, 20% silk and other textiles and other hard-working civilian materials, 20% copper coins, plus hundreds of thousands of stone grain.

The conversion of copper coins, of course, is according to the actual official price at the end of the Ming Dynasty, about 750~770 copper coins are equivalent to one tael of silver. Of the more than 2 million copper coins seized this time, in fact, only 1.5 or 6 billion were seized.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, because of the import of silver, even copper coins began to appear relatively tight, so from the beginning of the Wanli period, it has long been impossible to maintain the official exchange rate of 1,000 copper coins for one tael of silver, and the later Wanli Dynasty has fallen below more than 800 copper coins for one or two silver, and Tianqi Chongzhen has further fallen to more than 700 for one tael.

Compared with the benefits of the Shenshu people, the bloody battles in the past few months have also cost huge expenses.

The troops directly used by Shen Shuren reached 50,000 or 60,000 people, and the salaries and rewards of these people during the war would definitely be several times higher than during the peace training.

In normal times, a soldier's monthly expenditure of two taels is now unable to hold five taels. If there is a reward or a pension for the wounded and killed, then ten taels to dozens of taels will go out at once.

Because of the huge consumption of ammunition, firearms soldiers consume more than 20 taels of silver per month, after all, after a battle, a few pounds of lead bullets and gunpowder can be worth a lot of money.

After careful calculation, in more than two months of bloody battles, 50,000 people spent a total of more than 800,000 taels in military salaries and rewards. More than 4,000 people were killed in the war, more than 10,000 were wounded, and the total bereavement pension reached more than 900,000 yuan, as well as more than 200,000 taels of medical expenses and more than 200,000 yuan for nutrition.

Excluding the damage to weapons and equipment and war horses, the total direct military expenditure amounted to 2.1 million taels.

And Shen Shuren has a total of more than 80,000 troops (counting Huang Degong and Liu Guoneng), and 30,000 people left behind in the rear, and the task will be heavier during this time, and they will have to patrol frequently, and their treatment will be improved accordingly, but it is not as obvious as the front-line troops. There are also 300,000 taels of military salaries, military rations, and logistics expenses for two or three months.

Adding up to the 2.1 million yuan of the combat troops in front, Shen Shuren's military expenditure for the entire autumn of the 15th year of Chongzhen reached 2.4 million.

Of the more than nine million seized, a quarter was used up at once, and the remaining three-quarters could be considered gross profit.

And this part of the gross profit cannot be swallowed by Shen Shuren alone, he has to take out a part of it to expand the army, continue to engage in the economy, restore production, and upgrade armaments with science and technology......

It is also necessary to take out a small part to fix the relationship between all parties and calm the views of the imperial court, so that he can go more smoothly in the road of officialdom in the last year and a half before Chongzhen's death, not only will not be sprayed by others, but also pursue more opportunities for "progress", and insist on beating the righteous signboard of his "Ming Loyalty" until Chongzhen's death.

All these things require a huge amount of silver to open the way.

……

Shen Shuren originally planned to deal with the Pingding area in Hengzhou until the beginning of August.

However, the tree wants to be quiet and the wind does not stop, and the outside world obviously will not let him go 1v1 with Zhang Xianzhong all the time.

As early as July 28, several unexpected pieces of news forced Shen Shuren to move his office, first withdraw a part of the troops north to rest, and deal with some unexpected situations in other directions.

The first unexpected situation was that Liu Wenxiu's troops were in the process of withdrawing west from Changde Mansion, trying to merge with Sun Kewang, and then finding their father-in-law Zhang Xianzhong to rendezvous. Because in the southern part of Shizhou Wei and most of the Yongshun Xuanwei Division, a new conflict broke out with the local Miao Turen Tusi.

As a result, some of Liu Wenxiu's soldiers were scattered and re-entered Changde to wreak havoc. At the same time, several Tusi of the Miao tribe who were expected to be defeated by Liu Wenxiu and Sun Kewang also entered the territory of Changde because they avoided the enemy.

Shen Shuren considered that although Changde Mansion had been slaughtered to the point that it was no longer in shape, it was not completely recovered and pacified, which would also damage the dignity of the imperial court.

Now that Hengzhou, Yongzhou, and Baoqing in the south have all settled down, it is time to return to the division and completely purge Changde.

So Shen Shuren brought 15,000 troops, the first batch of troops from Hengzhou to the north, returned to Changsha on the fifth day of August, arrived in Changde on the ninth day of the first month, and then spent a few days to break up Liu Wenxiu's scattered stragglers and fierce battles, and destroyed a few wandering Miao Tusi, about before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the order of Changde was restored.

After recovering Changde, Shen Shucai truly understood for the first time how miserable the situation in Changde was.

This year's autumn harvest may not be able to harvest too much grain, because the locals have been unable to produce for the whole June and July months, so they have fled. Although after the summer grain harvest, the autumn grain was sown, but basically only one sowing action was made. Follow-up weeding, fertilization and irrigation are basically no one busy, and it is completely rotten and naturally growing, and irrigation depends on the rain.

Fortunately, in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, there was no drought around Dongting Lake, but there were floods in some places, and there was a lot of rain. In this case, it is good news for naturally growing crops, and in the end, it is estimated that dozens of catties of grain can be recovered per acre, and a hundred catties must not be expected.

The local population has been slaughtered by Zhang Xianzhong very miserably, and this bit of food is enough for the local survivors to eat, so there is no need to transfer food from other provinces. Shen Shuren immediately instructed his subordinate civil affairs officials to persuade the peasants to resume production, and strive to seize the time to apply fertilizer, weed, and weeds in the last month or so before the autumn harvest, so as to save as much harvest as possible.

Because there were no civil officials with the army during the war, these internal affairs Shen Shuren had to be handed over to his staff Gu Yanwu for the first time.

Gu Yanwu's level of civil affairs is not very high, but he is still competent in the daily statistical combing work, and after working for a little for two days, he will count the situation in Changde Mansion, especially in the counties around Wuling.

Shen Shuren looked at the situation brought by Gu Yanwu, and was also surprised: "This year, Changde Mansion actually estimates that it will be completely self-sufficient in food? And how much is there to spare?

This has all been reduced to such a level, how much more can it be? So how miserable was the slaughter of Changde Mansion? I'm afraid this is worse than the killing of Changsha Mansion. This is not a rich place, Zhang Xianzhong actually made such a poisonous move? ”

When Gu Yanwu came back, he was also sad and angry. Seeing that Dong Weng didn't believe it, he also sighed and explained:

"Who's to say it's not, when the students first see it, they also feel miserable. First, this Changde Mansion was the first city to be broken by Zhang Xianzhong after his comeback, and he captured a lot of young people and killed a lot of old and weak.

Second, this Changde Mansion is Yang Ge's hometown, Zhang Xianzhong hated Yang Ge deeply in his life, and it can be said that he hated the most in the court. After Zhang Xianzhong broke Wuling County, he ordered all counties in the prefecture to be exterminated if there was a surname Yang, and no chickens and dogs would be left.

Yang was originally one of the big surnames, even if it was another prefecture and county, people with the surname Yang were indispensable, and when it came to this Changde, since it was out of the pavilion, Yang Ge's hometown was naturally a local family, and there was a surname Yang in more than a dozen people.

Zhang Xianzhong also had to kill his in-laws, children, and slaves together, thousands of people surnamed Yang, and finally killed 40,000 people. His thieves also took advantage of the opportunity to expand their raids, so that more than half of the population of the province was killed. ”

After Shen Shuren listened, in addition to the initial shock, he also realized that all this was indeed not in Hei Zhang Xianzhong, because similar things had happened in the original "History of the Ming Dynasty".

In the original history, when Zhang Xianzhong later hit Changde, Yang Sichang himself was already dead, and Zhang Xianzhong was still resentful that he could not kill all his clans and relatives in his hometown when Yang Sichang was alive, and failed to let Yang Sichang hear all this despair with his own ears and kill him alive.

But Zhang Xianzhong did kill all the people surnamed Yang and his family who were arrested in Changde Mansion, and slaughtered the species, which he really did in history.

It can also be seen from this that when some later generations read the "History of the Ming Dynasty", they had to say that "Zhang Xianzhong attacked Xiangyang and killed King Xiang in order to frame Yang Sichang, this motive is not credible, and it is the scholar doctor who is blackening Zhang Xianzhong", which is really not very tenable.

Zhang Xianzhong's inner motive may indeed be difficult to find ironclad evidence, but just because he entered Changde Mansion and slaughtered all the people surnamed Yang in the mansion, isn't it enough to prove the depth of his hatred for Yang Sichang?

After Shen Shuren got used to this bad news, he couldn't help but think of it, and sighed to Gu Yanwu: "After Xiangyang was broken and King Xiang was killed last year, Yang Ge Lao was once uneasy, and now his sick body is almost unable to govern.

This time, King Ji, King Rong, and King Gui were killed in Huguang successively, and as the governor of the six provinces, he naturally had a certain amount of responsibility. Even if Yin Xianmin and He Yide can be sent for questioning, it still can't be completely avoided.

Now that I hear that my hometown clan has been exterminated by the slaughtering clan, I am afraid that he will definitely not be able to withstand this blow, and he will ...... soon. Alas. ”

Shen Shuren has realized that Yang Sichang is afraid that his life will not be long in coming, maybe this is the inertia of history. Shen Shuren relied on his butterfly effect to pull Yang Sichang and let him prolong his life for a year and a half, it is estimated that this is also the limit, and it will definitely not be delayed for two years.

Fortunately, Yang Sichang will also be grateful to him, and I hope that before he dies, he can exert his last residual heat and push Shen Shuren to rise one step higher.