Chapter 808: A Letter from Yanzhou

Latest website: "Let's go, let's go see together just how rich the Xie Family is." Zhao Xu withdrew his steps toward the Golden Throne Hall.

Compared to the Jinling national treasury and granary, the Golden Throne Hall seemed insignificant.

From now on, this place would merely be an ordinary city in Jiangnan.

Following the commander out of the Imperial Palace, the group stopped at a courtyard not far from the palace.

This courtyard was plain and unremarkable; seen from above, it was just a quadrangle with a large yard.

But in reality, it held a hidden mystery, and this mystery lay beneath the low-slung houses.

For the sake of concealment, the national treasury was hidden underground.

Beneath the entire courtyard, many areas had been hollowed out to store silver, gold, jewelry, calligraphy, paintings, antiques, and other precious items.

Following the commander into the central house and descending the stairs, Zhao Xu, Chang Wei, and the others gasped upon seeing the items piled up in the underground secret chamber.

They saw the secret chamber was filled with wooden crates; the lids of the crates were open, and inside was gleaming white silver.

These silver ingots were all ten taels each; by a rough estimate, there were at least five or six million taels of silver in this secret chamber.

"We've struck it rich." Chang Wei and the others couldn't help but laugh, winking and nudging one another.

Zhao Xu also smiled and nodded.

Although this Xie Family was not as rich as the Liang Family, among the many Rich Clans, they were likely second only to the Liang Family.

After the chaos in Jinling, the Dou Family had ransacked Jinling and taken away a great deal of wealth.

But after the Xie Family took control of Jinling, they had stored their family assets in the national treasury.

If not for the catastrophe created by the Dou Family, the national treasury would likely have been even more astonishing.

Subsequently, the group went to other secret chambers and discovered three more chambers filled with silver, and one chamber filled with gold ingots.

The rest were art pieces such as jewelry, calligraphy, paintings, and ancient porcelain.

Among these items, Zhao Xu also discovered a large quantity of silver ingots minted by the Han Family and the Wang Family.

This made him suddenly realize:

The items in this national treasury, besides those of the Xie Family, likely also belonged to the Han Family and the Wang Family.

With the Han Family and Wang Family troops living under someone else's roof, how could they not offer up some things as collateral to the Xie Family?

How else would the Xie Family support them for nothing?

"Send more men to guard the national treasury; the development of Jiangbei depends on this silver," Zhao Xu said.

For hundreds of years, the Western Lands nations have relied on plundering the entire world to accumulate capital.

If Great Song wants to develop, it likewise needs capital.

At present, he has taken Gaoli and ransacked Dongying; these are both ways of accumulating capital.

Now, the war in the south, seizing the wealth of the Rich Clans, has become yet another way for him to accumulate capital.

Of course, he does not wish for such internal involution to continue.

Once Jiangnan is unified, he will make the Westerners spit out, bit by bit, what they have swallowed.

If they want Great Song to die, he will be the one to kill them.

Emerging from the national treasury, Zhao Xu went to the granary.

The grain of the world comes from the Xie Family; in this great battle, the Xie Family naturally hoarded a massive amount of grain in Jinling.

After an inspection, he estimated that the grain and fodder within Jinling City were enough to feed an army of four hundred thousand for a year.

Having checked the national treasury and inspected the granary, Zhao Xu was satisfied and ascended the city wall with the commanders.

In this retreat, the Rich Clans not only left behind grain, fodder, and wealth, but also gifted them the trench fortifications they had dug.

At present, the soldiers of the Prince's Personal Army were repairing and perfecting the trenches under the leadership of the commanders.

Relying on these trenches and the grain and fodder of Jinling,

Jinling City would become their first stable bridgehead for moving south.

"Jinling City has been taken; the remaining battles are left to you," Zhao Xu said to Chang Wei while gazing at the boundless wilderness.

His most important goal this time was to participate in the river-crossing campaign.

Now that the river-crossing campaign has concluded beautifully, and they have taken Jinling while the momentum was in their favor,

relying on this city, the Prince's Personal Army has gained a firm foothold in Jiangnan.

The remaining minor battles can be left to Chang Wei and the other commanders.

If any major changes occur, it will not be too late for him to arrive at the battlefield in person.

After all, now that there are steamships, traveling along the canal from Yanzhou to Jinling takes only about two days, which can be called very convenient.

"His Highness has already led us to fight a beautiful battle; the rest is left to this subordinate, and this subordinate will not lose face for His Highness," Chang Wei said loudly.

He reckoned that Yan Wang would return after taking Jinling.

After all, the affairs of Jiangbei are numerous, and Yan Wang cannot stay away forever, delaying state affairs.

Zhao Xu nodded. "Following the direction in which the Shizu Army fled, they should have gone to Su City; you fight one more hard battle, and the southern part of Ningzhou will be considered completely taken. Song City is near the sea; they will absolutely not go there."

Pausing, he continued: "Although they are currently a broken and defeated army, one must guard against arrogance and rashness in war; it still cannot be taken lightly."

As the two were speaking, a soldier hurried up the city wall and presented a letter: "Your Highness, a letter from Yanzhou."

"Oh?" Zhao Xu took the letter and tore it open.

After a simple glance, he laughed: "I didn't want to go back, but this time I have to; it's happy news."

"Happy news?" Chang Wei and the others exchanged glances and suddenly smiled very ambiguously.

Lv Chang was always carefree and said, "Could it be that the Imperial Concubine is pregnant?"

"Go on, what nonsense are you spouting?" Zhao Xu glared at him. "It's good news for you all; in a while, you will be able to replace your firearms again."

"Change guns?" The commanders were instantly stunned.

Zhao Xu nodded.

This letter was sent by Wang Ying; ever since he was tasked with developing the percussion cap breech-loading rifle, he had been leading the craftsmen day and night to overcome the technical difficulties of the breech-loading rifle.

Recently, he and the craftsmen successfully used parts crafted by a lathe to assemble the breech bolt of a breech-loading rifle.

This meant that from now on, they could mass-produce the needle-fire breech-loading rifle.

Actually, speaking of which, according to the development history of firearms.

The appearance of the needle-fire breech-loading rifle was earlier than the front-loading rifled musket that used the conical bullet.

One was born in 1836, and the other was born in 1849, separated by thirteen years.

During this period, the Dreyse Rifle, representing the needle-fire breech-loading rifle, was equipped by the Prussian army, but it remained obscure.

Because the mainstream view at the time was that generals of various countries believed the difference between a front-loading rifle and a rear-loading rifle was like the difference between a person eating with their mouth or their butt.

Therefore, they were full of contempt for the breech-loading rifle.

It was not until the Second Schleswig War that the front-loading rifle was soundly beaten by the breech-loading rifle, and they corrected their course and immediately equipped the breech-loading rifle.

At present, the replacement of firearms for the army under his command was also going through this process.

This was not because he was intentionally taking a detour, but because the craftsmanship requirements for the breech-loading rifle were much higher than those for the front-loading rifle.

Only now did they have the ability to mass-produce them.

But even so, with the current craftsmanship, the rifled musket currently equipped by the Prince's Personal Army could increase the effective range to 900 meters, while the effective range of the upcoming breech-loading rifle would only be about 600 meters.

The reason is that the airtightness of the breech-loading rifle is not as good as that of the front-loading rifle, and there is some gas leakage.

Afterwards, the progress of the breech-loading rifle was a competition of who leaked less gas.

However, the flaws do not obscure the virtues; the breech-loading rifle can fire ten bullets per minute and can be fired in any posture, changing the situation of war.

This is something the front-loading rifle cannot do.

Once the soldiers of the Prince's Personal Army are equipped with these breech-loading rifles, even if the Westerners crack the secret of the conical bullet, it will be of no use.