Autumn of the 17th year of Chongzhen

Chapter 898
Hearing Liu Shun's words, Chen Bangyan stopped, feeling a little surprised. Many of the wealth that Shanxi merchants plundered in the south of the Yangtze River had been transported to Yangzhou. If these things had been evacuated, the gains of the Ming army would be greatly reduced.

Shanxi merchants have a lot of industries in Yangzhou. Both Chen Bangyan and Wang Yan thought that they would gain a lot after conquering Yangzhou, but now it seems that they miscalculated.

The merchants have a lot of information and are very keen on the situation. Perhaps the Shanxi merchants realized that the Manchu Qing could not destroy the Ming Dynasty. When the Ming army was likely to advance to the Huaihe River and rule the Qing court, they began to transfer assets on the south bank of the Huaihe River to the north.

"They reacted very sharply!" Chen Bangyan frowned. He was very upset that such a large dish flew off, but there was no way to recover now, so he could only accept this fact.

Liu Shun and other generals were also very annoyed. According to unspoken rules, apart from handing over to the imperial court what the Ming army gained from conquering a city, part of the troops participating in the siege could be retained to use them as fierce soldiers.

Yangzhou is an important town in the north of the Yangtze River, a hub of water transportation, and the Ming army had already been able to get a lot of benefits, but the Shanxi merchants actually ran away ahead of time, which made him feel like his expectations had failed.

"Okay, the whole world belongs to Daming. Although this time the merchants are allowed to slip away, when you reach Shanxi, will they still be able to take the money outside the pass?" Chen Bangyan said a few words of reassurance, "Let's go, Go to the treasury to have a look!"

After finishing speaking, Chen Bangyan stepped forward. Shanxi merchants were cunning and had a keen sense of politics. When the Manchu Qing was still outside the customs, they made more political investments in the Manchu Qing. Now that the Manchu Qing situation is unfavorable, they also reacted quickly. Evacuate.

Chen Bangyan continued to walk on the street, and the generals followed quickly. He can only hope that he can gain something in the Yangzhou treasury.

Not long after, a group of people came to the treasury of Yangzhou, which was guarded by a team of thousands of households from Guangwuying to prevent the rioters from attacking.

Seeing Chen Bangyan and his party coming, Qianhu quickly stepped forward to salute. Chen Bangyan waved his hand and asked directly: "How is the situation inside, has anyone gone in?"

"Reporting to the Pavilion Department, Mr. Liu of the Household Department is doing an inventory in the treasury. I don't know the specific situation."

Chen Bangyan heard this, and immediately said: "Open the door of the warehouse, let me go in and have a look!"

Qianhu immediately waved his hand, and several soldiers hurriedly pushed open the gate. Chen Bangyan and others entered the gate of the treasury together, led by a soldier, walked through a corridor, and entered the bank first.

They pushed open the door, and the head of the household department was counting the silver ingots placed on the partitions with more than a dozen small officials. Everyone could see that most of the partitions were empty, which can be described as empty.

Mr. Liu of the household department was holding the account book to reconcile accounts with others. When he saw a group of people coming in, he hurriedly handed over the accounts to the small official, and then came up to greet him and saluted Chen Bangyan. Chen Bangyan stood in the bank and looked around. , "How much silver is there?"

"Gebe, the preliminary estimate is only about 10 taels!"

Mr. Liu hesitated for a moment, and reported the truth. His voice hit his ears, and Chen Bangyan and the others' faces sank.

"Where's the grain in stock?" Chen Bangyan already had a premonition in his heart that the harvest this time might be far worse than expected.

"The grain depot has only [-] shi of grain, the cloth depot has only [-] bolts of cotton cloth, and the salt warehouse has [-] shi of coarse salt!"

Back then, Yangzhou was the richest place in the south of the Yangtze River. It was as famous as Suzhou and Hangzhou, and the wealth was the highest in the world. Everyone was disappointed again because there was only such a little thing.

Even if the Shanxi merchants ran away, the Yangzhou government treasury was actually empty. How could they accept this? After this battle, could the imperial court pay 80 yuan?
"Ministry, do you want the upright officials in the city to copy it?"

Liu Shun and the others were obviously not reconciled to such a little thing, Chen Bangyan pondered for a moment, "It can be copied, but the officials of the household department and the town governor must be present."

"The humble job knows!" Liu Shun clasped his fists after hearing this, and left in a hurry.

After hearing Mr. Liu's report, Chen Bangyan was no longer interested in inspecting other warehouses one by one. He told Mr. Liu to send the results to him after completing the statistics.

First, in the name of the university scholar Jiangbei Supervisor, he asked the soldiers to post the Announcement for the People, and then met with the big gentry in Yangzhou City to appease him, and began to count the military exploits, preparing to report the victory to the court.

Impatient, Liu Shun and the others ransacked many houses of upright officials overnight with torches, including Duoduo's residence in Yangzhou, but they captured only a handful of them.

The generals will inevitably be disappointed again, but as a scholar of the court, Chen Bangyan saw another layer of things while being disappointed.

The Ming army attacked Yangzhou, except for leaving behind 15 green battalion soldiers, they did not gain anything in other aspects. The Shanxi merchants slipped away, and the Yangzhou government treasury was empty. Even the homes of the Qing officials did not copy anything. One hundred thousand shi of grain and [-] taels of silver are not as many as those copied from a wealthy family during the turmoil of frying grain.

The Qing army robbed so much wealth in the south of the Yangtze River, where did it go?

In the middle of the night, in the side hall of Yangzhou government office, candles were flickering. Chen Bangyan told Liu Shun, who had come to report, to sit down and calm down. The guard served them a cup of tea each.

Chen Bangyan didn't sit in the middle hall, but sat next to Liu Shun, "Although this harvest is not satisfactory, we can see at least two situations from it. On the one hand, we can see that the financial situation of the Manchu Qing may be quite embarrassing. It is extremely scarce. On the other hand, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has no desire to compete with our dynasty. From the fact that Shanxi merchants fled Yangzhou, we did not copy anything in Yangzhou. It can be seen that if they are still enterprising, they will not All assets will be transferred early.”

Transferring assets so cleanly is obviously not something that can be done in the near future. It is estimated that after the Ming army took down Nanjing, the Manchus, regardless of the people under the rule, or the officials and army of the Manchus, lost confidence in Yangzhou, or It is said that they are ready to give up on the south of the Huaihe River, but Dorgon's court is obviously slower than the people in response, otherwise the more than 4 green camps will not fall into Yangzhou.

Liu Shun didn't think so much, he frowned, "Minister, what does this indicate?"

Zhen Bangyan smiled, "This indicates that the threat of the Manchu Qing Dynasty to our dynasty has basically been lifted, and the situation of standing together may exist for a long time. Liu Duzhen is in Jiangbei, and we must take care of the army for His Highness!"

Liu Shun listened, thoughtful, Chen Bangyan saw that it was getting late, and stood up, "Okay, let's stop here today, let's go to rest separately, and discuss the aftermath tomorrow."

Seven days after the Ming army broke through Yangzhou, news came from Zhang Mingzhen in Huai and Si. Doduo led thousands of remnants and fled around Sizhou. Crossed the Huaihe River near Fushan in the west of Sizhou, and withdrew to Huaibei.

The [-] Qing troops who had been fighting against Zhang Mingzhen for many days on the north bank of the Huaihe River also retreated to Xuzhou City.

The more than 4 green battalion soldiers in Yangzhou did not return to Huaibei in the end. Compared with the strength of the Ming and Qing armies, the Qing army was already at a disadvantage. Dorgon got the news and asked He Luohui to guard Xuzhou and recalled Duoduo to Beijing.

The Jiangbei war, which had been fiercely fought for several months, came to an end immediately. Chen Bangyan left Zhang Huangyan in Yangzhou to deal with the aftermath. He himself returned to Nanjing by boat and returned to Wang Yan and the court.

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