After those officers received the bounty and left the Ten Princes' Mansion, Zhou Shixian summoned Xue Laoer, Wang Chaodong, and his good brother Zhu Maozhen in the military department.

He still doesn't trust the soldiers and horses recruited by the Beijing camp. Those are all ruffians who have been in the barracks for more than ten years, and if you want to truly subdue them, it will not be done overnight.

If they are not careful, these people will evolve into uncontrollable forces, and even turn against Zhou Shixian.

But in today's situation, Zhou Shixian, who has few soldiers and horses in his hands, can only rely on them, which requires absolute skill and courage. If even these hundreds of people can't be subdued, how will they command thousands of troops in the future?

Moreover, raiding homes has always been Jinyiwei's forte, Zhou Shixian doesn't want those soldiers to experience the fun of this kind of robbery, if they can't quit in the future, it will be a big trouble.

Back to the present, tomorrow night, Li Zicheng will break through the city and enter Beijing, and Dolgon will also enter the customs in more than a month.

In the original history, the so-called Hongguang Imperial Court of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the Longwu Imperial Court, and the Yongli Imperial Court will all be consumed in the civil war because of the legal system, party disputes, and infighting, and the already weak troops will be exhausted in the civil war, and finally the Manchurians will be cheapened in vain.

Therefore, Chongzhen, the emperor, is always better than nothing, and Zhou Shixian has to use his strength to rebuild the Ming Dynasty in Nanjing, and use the manpower, material and financial resources in the south of the Yangtze River to organize a new army with strong combat power.

After all, Zhou Shixian was just a small colt, and without the support of this old man, he would not be able to gain enough authority in a short period of time.

It was wishful thinking to quickly clean up the court, the northern expedition to the Tatar Qing, and the restoration of the Hanjia rivers and mountains - the Manchu Qing were not so kind, so they specially asked him to prepare and launch the southern expedition again.

Nanjing, as the capital of the Ming court, has a complete set of six ministries and administrative offices, and is also the place where the finance and taxation of the south of the Yangtze River converge, coupled with the dense population and economic development of Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places, as long as the situation can be controlled, the resources of these areas can be mobilized, and it is definitely not a problem to block the first round of the Manchu Southern Expedition.

Anyone with some political acumen can understand this truth, and Li Banghua, the imperial historian, advised Chongzhen to move the capital to the south in the first month, but Emperor Chongzhen's indecisive and good-looking character came out of place at that time, making him finally miss the opportunity to go south.

Therefore, the most critical thing is the time to break through to the south.

Li Zicheng's hundreds of thousands of soldiers and horses are outside the city, most of them are the most elite old battalion soldiers of the Shun army, surrounded by three layers inside and three layers outside, and directly break through like this, even if the more than 300 people under him are heavenly soldiers and generals, they can't fight a thousand with one enemy!

Therefore, only when tomorrow night, when the capital city is broken, and the Shun army enters the city from the west and north, and the besieging soldiers and horses outside the city are the most lax and weakest, can Zhou Shixian take the opportunity to break through.

Moreover, before that, he had to stop Emperor Chongzhen from cutting off his beautiful daughter-in-law, and he couldn't let this guy hang himself on the southeast branch, otherwise everything would fall short.

It can only be said that the timing of the whole operation is extremely important, and it is not possible to grasp it sooner or later.

Thinking of this, Zhou Shixian looked around, the three people in the room were waiting for him to give orders, the room was solemn, there was no sound, it can be described as "the needle can be heard".

Escorting south, the most important thing is to "raise money".

In addition to the more than 10,000 taels of silver for the army, Zhou Shixian also had to fill twenty black canopy carts, in fact, the first choice was naturally gold, the same weight, the value of gold at the end of the Ming Dynasty was not only sixteen times that of silver, but also smaller in size, and a car could hold more.

Zhou Shixian not only had to raise the salary of his soldiers and horses and the expenses along the way, but also had to use it to break through the siege - the army could block the Shun army, and the silver scattered everywhere could naturally also be.

When breaking through the siege, the silver was sprinkled at the city gate and the camp outside the city to induce the Shun army, and the Beijing camp was chaotic to loot, so as not to encounter the fierce resistance of the Shun army. Otherwise, with only these more than 300 people, how could they successfully break through the defense line of the Shun army outside the city with minimal casualties?

Moreover, after the breakthrough, Zhou Shixian also wanted to recruit the Beijing battalion of Beizhili on the road to strengthen the escort force, which also needed silver, and when he arrived in Nanzhili, he formed a new army and sent people to Macao to buy muskets and artillery, which required a large amount of silver.

Thirty two-horse black-canopy carts, twenty were used to transport property, and one could transport four or five hundred catties, that is, six or seven thousand taels of gold or silver.

Zhou Shixian clearly remembered that those huge greed, there were about forty or fifty thousand taels of gold in the mansion, especially the eunuch Wang Zhixin, in order to facilitate concealment, he had already exchanged most of the silver in his hand for gold.

In this way, if you get all this gold, you can take away at least more than 800,000 taels of silver, and you can build a fully equipped army of 15,000 men and horses from scratch.

Of course, Zhou Shixian wants to take some more, it is best to bring five or six million taels of silver, and when he arrives in Nanjing, he will use it to recruit troops and horses and train a strong army of 100,000 people. But after all, capacity is limited.

Zhou Shixian will snatch back all the fat and ointment that were looted by corrupt officials today to save the Ming Dynasty and save the people.

He took out a list of families from his sleeve and handed it directly to Xue Laoer. Xue Lao Er took it respectfully, and then looked at it fixedly, and couldn't help but be startled.

Let's say that if he raided the homes of those officials, no matter how big the officials were, he would not be surprised, after all, Chen Yan had not escaped the palm of his hand. Can...... This horse master is too ruthless, the first one to be copied is actually the home of the national abbot Zhou Kui.

The list reads:

Zhou Kui, copying the family, 10,000 taels of gold, 100,000 taels of silver.

The heart of the king, raiding the house, 18,000 taels of gold, 50,000 taels of silver.

Wu Xiang, copying the family, 5,000 taels of gold, 80,000 taels of silver.

......

"Colt, this ...... This ......" Xue Lao Er hesitated a little, he really didn't dare, that was the national master! For people in this era, there is still a big difference between the imperial family and the big official.

"Just do it, I'll make up my own mind." Zhou Shixian said coldly:

"Those officials and royal relatives in the court, this old thing is the most greedy, rather than leaving this silver to the Liukou, and finally cheapening the Manchurian Tartars, it is better for us to take it and use it to train the troops and protect the Jiangshan Sheji of my Ming Dynasty, tens of millions of people."

Although Zhou Shixian is much more, he is not afraid that these guys will not give it, otherwise Chen Yan will be the end, and the reason why he did it so ruthlessly at the beginning is to avoid the trouble of robbery in the future.

If there is still a head iron, then cut it down one by one, and see if it is the head iron of these national moths, or the knife in his hand is hard.

The task of raising money was entrusted to Xue Laoer, and then there was the issue of horses and equipment, which was the basis for the army to maintain strong combat effectiveness and mobility, and it was indispensable.

Fortunately, Zhou Shixian's father has been in charge of horse administration, and he has a great relationship with the imperial horse supervisor, the old Zhou family has connections and resources in this regard, and the problem of horses Zhou Shixian has been solved a month ago, more than 300 soldiers and more than 700 horses, which is enough.

And the problem of equipment is not difficult to solve. For tens of thousands of Jingying in the capital, this may be an almost unsolvable problem.

But for more than 300 soldiers and horses, the huge capital has collected hundreds of sets of armor, more than 100 muskets, and swords, guns, swords, and axes, and the problem is still not big.

This is naturally Zhu Maozhen to do, he himself is an idle official in charge of weapons in the Ministry of War, which warehouse still has goods, what goods are there, he is most familiar with.

Joke, if you are not familiar with this, how can you resell weapons and equipment, it is not professional at all, and you still want to make money, it is simply unreasonable. And it is not surprising that the people in charge of the warehouse took a group of brocade guards to carry armor, muskets, gunpowder, and lead bullets and arrows!

In this era, if you really want to fight, you can't do one person with two armors, and you have enough weapons and ammunition, then it is impossible to give full play to the combat effectiveness that soldiers should have.

And Zhou Shixian wanted to break through from the encirclement of more than 100,000 Shun troops with more than 300 people, and he needed sophisticated equipment. Armor and equipment are the courage of the soldiers!

After the first two most critical tasks were assigned, Zhou Shixian handed another piece of paper to Wang Chaodong, Wang Chaodong looked at the piece of paper handed over by Zhou Shixian, and beat a drum in his heart - I am illiterate, why did the master show me the note?

"Find someone who can read, follow the names on the list, arrest everyone back, remember not to get hurt." Zhou Shixian knew that Wang Chaodong was illiterate, but there were not many literate people in Jinyiwei.

On that list, there are four names:

Li Banghua, Zuodu Yushi.

Ni Yuanlu, the secretary of the household department and the secretary of the department.

John Tang, Qin Tianjian official, missionary, and gun expert.

Wu Linzheng, Shaoqing of Taichang Temple.

Two of these four people are first-class members of the court, Wu Linzheng is also a highly respected person, and he is a loyal minister loyal to the Ming Dynasty, that is, Tang Ruowang, who is also deeply favored by Chongzhen.

Among them, Tang Ruowang had just fled back to the capital a few days ago, and he was originally taken by Li Jiantai to the west, but the army had not yet seen the Shun army, so it was dispersed.

"As I said, just invite them all here, don't worry about the rest." Zhou Shixian looked at Wang Chaodong's nervous appearance, smiled, and instructed: "The others are okay, it's this Old Man Li, you have to be careful, don't bump into it." ”

"Yes, my subordinates understand!" Although Wang Chaodong still had palpitations, since Zhou Shixian had given the order, he could only agree to it first.

After assigning the task, Zhou Shixian asked his subordinates to go back to rest, last night the silver has been running all night, and tonight will continue to act, even Zhou Shixian himself, he also has to sleep well and recuperate.

Whether the breakthrough plan can succeed, whether Zhou Shixian can survive and save the crisis, whether he can change history and avoid this national disaster depends on the two nights of today and tomorrow!