On the shore of Luoma Lake in Pizhou, Jiangsu, the second town of the cavalry of the Jiangbei Army of the Taiping Army, Qianhu Brigade School, looked anxiously to the north. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Although he knew that the person he was waiting for would come over soon, Gong Jianse was still nervous and his heart was beating. Several times dismounted and walked to the shore of Llama Lake, holding a handful of lake water to wipe his sweaty forehead.

The Manchurian officers in the second town of the cavalry not far away were not as good as Gongjian, and although the adjutant Wuerte and Qianhu Shao Erdai had been sitting on their horses silently, when they looked closer, they could clearly see that their bodies were trembling slightly.

Baihu Yue Deji went to Xiaojie a few times in a row, and every time he came back, he would laugh at Dabai. Albi, the former commander of the White Flag, was the most calm, but he also rushed to Zhou Peigong, the ambassador of the Anjun Army, several times to ask when their family would arrive.

The officers were anxious, and the soldiers were even more anxious.

In Yangzhou, there were nearly 2,000 people in the original old white flag full of soldiers who were cast by the officers such as Wuerte and Gongjianse, and more than 400 people were killed in the battle of Yangzhou, and the rest together with the newly surrendered and captured Manchu soldiers totaled more than 3,800 people, part of Zhu Qinglai's second town, one part of which was arranged in the third town of Shang Keyuan, and the rest of which was arranged in the second town of cavalry, and the town would be Shao Chengguo. The Jiangbei Army had a total of five town soldiers, and the other two towns were the first town of Qi Hao and the first town of Wang Fuchen's cavalry.

The Jiangbei Army is now the only group army system under the jurisdiction of five towns among the Taiping Army's armies, with nearly 50,000 infantry and cavalry artillery, although it is as many as 20,000 troops to be replenished by the inner and middle troops, but it is still the most capable army of the Taiping Army.

After Ge Yi took office as the Jianghuai Economic Envoy, on the one hand, he stationed in Huai'an with the first town of the Jiangbei Army, monitored the Qing Army in Xuzhou nearby, and controlled Huai'an and other places; On the other hand, the second town of the Jiangbei Army marched into Anhui, the third town of the Jiangbei Army consolidated the left near Yangzhou, the first cavalry town of the Jiangbei Army was on standby as a mobile force, and the second town of the cavalry was stationed in Pizhou. In terms of the entire strategic situation, Ge Yi completed the mission assigned by Zhou Shi, that is, the whole army always maintained the offensive momentum and only suspended military actions on the front line of Xuzhou.

The Jianghuai Economic Strategy made the Yamen now effectively control Yangzhou, Huai'an, Anqing, Fengyang, Taiping, Chizhou, Ningguo, Huizhou, Chuzhou, and Hezhou prefectures north of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu. Nominally, Jiang He, the governor of Anhui, was under the command of Ge Yi, but he actually commanded the third town, which was not part of the Jiangbei Army sequence. According to the latest plan of the Military Marshal's Office, it is very likely that the Third Town stationed in Anqing will be integrated with several town armies under Hunan Governor Zhao Sihai into a corps similar to the Jiangbei Army in the future, as one of the two major armies of the Northern Expedition in the future.

In Zhou Shixiang's words, the control area north of the Yangtze River is actually a war zone, so the military and government should be unified, and the prefectures and counties in Jiangsu are directly responsible to the Jianghuai Jinglu Yamen, while the Anhui prefectures and counties are responsible to the Anhui Governor's Yamen, which in turn is responsible to the Jianghuai Jinglu Yamen. In this way, the north of the Yangtze River in Jiangsu and the prefectures and counties in Anhui will be integrated to avoid excessive loss of money, food, and human resources by the military and the government.

The actual population and acres of cultivated land in Jiangbei's prefectures and counties are being counted, but because most of the officials in these prefectures and counties were Qing Dynasty officials who had surrendered, the efficiency of the large and small yamen was not high, so it was difficult to report the statistics in a short period of time.

Ge Yi is a military general who is the chief official of Jianghuai, and has no experience in handling government affairs at all, and he doesn't know what to do with many things, so he has to rely on those who are demoted, which makes the Jianghuai Jingluo Yamen virtually become a yamen full of demoted officials, and some officials in the prefecture and county can't even figure out the year name, and the emperor of Nandu doesn't know which emperor in the south is, and naively thinks that the Yongli Emperor who ran to the southwest is back, so a large number of words in the official documents of Yongli 20 years appear. This made Zhou Shixiang cry and laugh, and urgently ordered Song Xianggong, a bachelor who stayed in Guangdong, to immediately select outstanding talents from among the academic officials who had practical experience in handling government affairs in various parts of Guangdong and send them to Nandu, and send them to various places for emergency response. At the same time, the plan to set up the Jinling University Hall will be advanced to organize and train a group of half-year short-term trainees to deal with the big problem of expanding the control area but not having enough talents to manage it.

In the military marshal's mansion, including Ding Zhixiang and Yuan Kuoyu, two scholars in the court, they all euphemistically proposed to Zhou Shixiang to suspend the payment of debts, and select new officials from the Jiangnan gentry to replace those who were demoted by the Qing Dynasty, so as to control these places to the greatest extent. Zhou Shixiang said that the long pain is better than the short pain, and did not accept this proposal, but ordered Zhang Changgeng and Jiang Guozhu to speed up the payment of debts, at least to ensure that the money and grain that can maintain the 100,000 Taiping army for a long time are scavenged.

Suna, who took Hangzhou, also received an order to loot money and grain, but in view of the fact that there were still three prefectures in southern Zhejiang that could not be taken, and the Sixth Town that invaded Zhejiang was insufficient. At the same time, a large amount of wealth obtained by Suna in Hangzhou Mancheng also set off to Nanjing, thinking that it was military expenses.

Regarding the wealth of Hangzhou, Zhou Shixiang clearly requested that it be used for the compensation of the Taiping soldiers who died in Jiangbei, and that all officials who intercepted them privately would be executed.

Nearly half a year has passed since the Battle of Yangzhou, but only half of the bereavement and resettlement of the dead and wounded soldiers have been carried out, and the successive battles have exhausted the small amount of Zhou Shixiang's family funds, and they have to use the name of paying off debts and captives to collect money on a large scale, otherwise, it will be difficult to maintain the finances.

In the early days, the public treasury system adopted by the Taiping Army ensured the development and cohesion of the Taiping Army because of the small number of soldiers in the Taiping Army, but with the increase in soldiers, the expansion of territory, the continuous wars and the adoption of the system of soldiers, regular soldiers, auxiliary soldiers and officers, the public treasury has long been exhausted, and the Guangdong Treasury opened in Guangdong cannot be implemented in other places for the time being, so the Taiping Army is now more dependent on military salaries. The high pension can certainly improve the morale of the army, but the price is that Zhou Shixiang, who almost didn't think about money in the past, had to have a headache about how to get money, and it can be regarded as experiencing the taste of a clever daughter-in-law who is difficult to cook without rice.

It is difficult for Zhou Shixiang, who was just an ordinary soldier in his previous life, to come up with any good ways to make money in this era, but the cognition of treaty ports (special zones) is there. He really wanted to set up a port in Songjiang, that is, the Shanghai area in later generations, and imitate the Zheng family to accumulate a large amount of wealth through sea trade, so as to raise the army and let the people rest and recuperate, but without a strong navy in hand, this idea can only be imagined.

However, Guangdong has this condition, first, there is Macao Xiyi in Guangdong to do business here, and second, the Pearl River is controlled by the sailors of the Taiping army, and the Zheng family did not stretch their hands here, so theoretically it is feasible to set up a port in Guangzhou or Zhuhai for maritime trade. However, if Zhou Shixiang did so, he would definitely have a conflict with the Portuguese in Macau, and the two sides had already had a dispute before, which ended with the Portuguese retreating. But this time the Portuguese will definitely not back down easily, because once the Ming Dynasty opens the port for sea trade, it will definitely touch the interests of the Portuguese in the East. They would not tolerate the overriding of Macau's status elsewhere, so war was certainly inevitable.

Zhou Shixiang has no intention of having a war with the Portuguese at the moment, he is waiting, if he is not mistaken, the death of the national surname is probably an immediate matter. If the surname of the country really dies like history, then the huge sailor he left behind, Zhou Shixiang will definitely not let Zheng Jing take over.

Even if he started a war, Zhou Shixiang would have to grab Zheng Jun's huge sailors, and for this, he would not hesitate to do so, even if he was infamous for infighting, he didn't care.

Civil war, perhaps, really will not be avoided. Even, if the surname of the country did not die of illness, Zhou Shixiang was ready to start a civil war against Jinxia, because he needed a navy.