Under the charred ruins, the abrupt gold and silver colors naturally stood out.
Suddenly seeing this scene, the group of Liao cavalry following them couldn't help but start a commotion.
Chen Wang glanced back and did not pay too much attention behind him.
If you see so much gold and silver and don't have any idea, then you are not a normal person.
But once you take the money, you have to have the life to spend it, and you have to have a place to spend it.
The camp of the Chuang Army was already in ruins, with scenes ravaged by fire everywhere.
A lot of gold and silver have been melted by the fire and mixed together.
Every time a city was broken or a place was plundered, most of the harvest was collected privately, and only a small part was confiscated and returned to the public.
The bandits are not completely without order. There are also transactions and markets among them.
There are also basic rules between them, and they are not allowed to act arbitrarily.
Gold and silver can buy things, some people sell them and some people buy them.
When Zhenning was defeated, Prime Minister Guo Tianxing Hui Deng was still allied with Li Zicheng.
Therefore, Prime Minister Hui Deng took away almost half of the gold and silver, so Li Zicheng did not own much gold and silver.
But even so, the gold and silver accumulated by Li Zicheng is still not a small amount.
At least for Chen Wang at this stage, it is already an extremely terrifying number.
Naturally, there are strict statistics on gold and silver, and not even a cent of silver in the jurisdiction's treasury is missing.
According to the information given by Xing, there were 7,650 taels of gold and 64,725 taels of silver in the treasury.
It sounds like a lot, but it only takes four or five large trucks to load it all.
Sixteen taels per catty, converted into gold, there are four hundred and seventy-eight catties, and silver is more than four thousand catties.
"Let people clear the ruins and dig out all the melted gold and silver and load them into trucks."
Chen Wang did not dismount, but led the horse and led a group of cavalry to stand on one side.
The ones who took action to clean up the ruins were naturally not the Liao cavalry behind him, but the camp soldiers who came in advance and were on duty here early in the morning.
After receiving the order, Tang Shiping immediately led several cavalrymen out of the cavalry formation, and then called on hundreds of garrisoned soldiers to start cleaning and digging.
"After loading the gold and silver into the cart, there will be a reward for each, but if anyone dares to hide it secretly, he will be killed immediately!"
Tang Shiping's face was cold and cold, and he did not hide the murderous intention in his body.
"If you want to live, if you want gold and silver, don't be clever."
Tang Shiping's cold voice reached the ears of the camp soldiers who were cleaning the ruins and digging for gold and silver, and they all trembled in shock.
Chen Wang did not interrupt Tang Shiping.
In troubled times, heavy codes are used, especially in running the army.
These are the rules of this era, and he does not want to change these things urgently now.
Things have priorities, and they must be executed in sequence.
When digging and transporting gold and silver, Chen Wang, the remnant soldier who was originally subordinate to Ai Wannian, was not mobilized.
The soldiers in the three rounds here are all the refugees he recruited in Pizhou, the first batch of soldiers he trained.
Time passed quietly, and boxes of gold and silver were weighed one after another and loaded into the car.
Chen Wang's thoughts have also shifted from Jin Yin to other places.
Antiques in prosperous times, gold in troubled times.
In the Shaanxi market, the price of gold is constantly rising. Now the purchasing power of one tael of gold is equivalent to twelve taels of silver.
The purchasing power of that more than 7,000 taels of gold is enough to be equivalent to 90,000 taels of silver.
The more than 60,000 taels of silver here, plus the silver from selling horses and mules, can make up about 80,000 taels.
In other words, the loot he captured in this battle has reached 170,000 taels of silver.
This does not include the captured armors and weapons, as well as the captured heads and other rewards based on merit.
A total of 170,000 taels...
In this world, with one and a half taels of military pay and two taels of silver as settlement allowance, there are many people in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces applying for the army.
All the 170,000 taels were used to support the troops, which was enough to support 10,000 soldiers for almost a year.
Chen Wang now finally understood why the bounty issued by Cao Wenzhao was so generous after the Battle of Pizhou.
I am afraid that Cao Wenzhao also seized a large amount of gold and silver from the bandits.
This should be part of the reason why the generals of those camps can afford to support so many surrendered soldiers who have not entered the military register.
Chen Wang calmed down and recalled the history he had read in books.
In the original history, the eleventh year of Chongzhen could be said to be the darkest moment for the rogue bandits in the pass.
Sun Chuanting defeated Li Zicheng at Taohe, and Li Zicheng was defeated and fled to Minzhou.
Zuo Liangyu defeated Zhang Xianzhong in Nanyang, and Zhang Xianzhong was besieged in Gucheng.
Then the Ming army continued to increase its troops in the pass, encircled and suppressed it from all sides, and won successive battles and victories.
Liu Guoneng, Zhang Tianlin, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and others surrendered one after another, and more bandits were annihilated and defeated.
It was at that time that the power of Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong expanded like a balloon.
Liu Liangzuo, who later became one of the four towns in Jiangbei, also began to gain strength after defeating Zhang Xianzhong.
Especially Zuo Liangyu, in the eleventh year he was still only the general soldier, with only a few thousand soldiers in principle.
However, the number of soldiers and horses under his command had already exceeded thousands. By the eleventh year of Chongzhen, the number of soldiers and horses under Zuo Liangyu's command had already exceeded 10,000, and most of them were surrendered bandits.
This part of the soldiers was not included in the quota, and the governor did not say much about these additional soldiers.
Zuo Liangyu has now recruited a battalion of nearly 3,000 rogue bandits, and his Changping soldiers who originally followed him into the customs have suffered many casualties in successive years of battles.
The reason why the number of nearly 3,000 men can still be maintained is because Zuo Liangyu also selected some people among the surrendered troops, so that they can legitimately enter the camp and become regular soldiers.
As more and more gold and silver were loaded into the carriages, the venue gradually began to feel empty.
Chen Wang knew very well that these gold and silver could not be used as food.
It is right to transform gold and silver into weapons, soldiers, and power in your hands.
In troubled times, only those with swords and guns can stand firm.
No matter how much wealth, no matter how high the status, there is no corresponding power to protect it, it is just a passing cloud.
Chen Wang looked back at Chunhua City to the east.
Outside Chunhua City, there are ruins and ruins everywhere.
Now the opportunity to expand the army is before him.
Today, there are more than 3,000 prisoners in Chunhua City.
Among them, there were more than 600 elite cavalrymen, more than 300 horsemen, and the rest were infantry and hungry soldiers.
Chen Gong had previously sent Tang Ma to deliver the news. He had defeated the fleeing bandit troops and hungry soldiers, and was now pushing them back to Chunhua in batches.
However, Chen Wang was not prepared to follow Zuo Liangyu's path. He was prepared to take another path of army expansion.
The path Zuo Liangyu took was a dead end.
In the early stage, Zuo Liangyu relied on the elite soldiers of his headquarters as the backbone, and was able to control the army very well.
However, after absorbing more and more surrendered troops in the middle and late stages, it became a situation where it was difficult to get off the horse.
Especially after the defeat of Zhuxian Town, Zuo Liangyu's elite men were completely exhausted, and most of those who returned later were a mob. Although the army was strong, they were all a mob.
Zuo Liangyu could no longer control the camps under his command. Although he was still the main general, in fact, at that time, Zuo Liangyu was already trapped by the soldiers and horses under his command and could not help himself.
…
"History of the Ming Dynasty·Biography·Volume 161":
"...Shu and the generals asked Qingjun to come to you every day, but Liangyu hesitated and refused to respond."
"He Sui, there is something about the prince coming from the north. Shu used this to stir up the crowd to repay his grudges and summoned the generals of the thirty-sixth battalion to make an alliance with him..."
"...General Hao Xiaozhong secretly entered the city, set fire to the city and left."
"Liangyu looked at the fire in the city and said, 'I have betrayed Mr. Yuan.' He vomited several liters of blood and died at night."
(The Duke Yuan mentioned by Zuo Liangyu refers to Yuan Jixian, the governor-general stationed in Jiujiang at that time.)
