The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 212: The Qing Dynasty still has too much silver
"The city wall is gone, and that's a good thing, in my opinion!"

Teng Yuzhao's voice suddenly sounded outside the conference room door, and then the door of the conference room was opened from the outside.

Everyone stood up and looked, only to see Teng Yuzhao, with gauze wrapped around his head and black eyes, walking leisurely into the meeting room with Wu Peifu.

"Xingfu, how's the wound on your head? What's wrong with your eyes?"

Everyone was a little surprised to see Teng Yuzao in such a miserable state. Liu Shijiu even rushed to Teng Yuzao and asked anxiously.

Teng Yuzao smiled bitterly and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "My injury is fine. I just had a little skin scraped by the flying stones on my head when I hit the arrow stack. It was Ningbo who made a fuss and forced me to go to the field hospital to check my eyes and apply medicine to bandage the wound on my head. Dean Lin even thought I was in serious trouble and even abandoned the wounded and ran away."

"As for my eye, it was hit by the artillery mirror. Dean Lin has checked it out. The wound on my head and my eye are not a problem. They will be back to normal in a few days."

Seeing Wei Ningbo looking at him, Wu Peifu hurriedly said, "Deputy Chief of Staff, what the teacher said is the truth."

Wei Ningbo asked in disbelief, "Why did you take so long to come back?"

Teng Yuzao smiled helplessly and said, "Ningbo, don't worry, Ziyu is telling the truth. Now that I'm at the field hospital, I have to check on our wounded."

"Although Li Yaoting took away a group of wounded soldiers the night before yesterday, the field hospital is overcrowded after the bombing of Qingyun today. How can I not go and take a look?"

Originally, when Li Yaoting was escorting more than 2 million taels of silver, a large amount of spoils of war and wounded soldiers from the Salt Administration to Xianghe last time, Teng Yuzhao had instructed Li Yaoting to leave most of the carts to Li Yulin after arriving in Xianghe and only bring back the pack horses. But after Li Yaoting left, Teng Yuzhao suddenly remembered that he had forgotten something extremely important.

Therefore, they sent people to Xianghe overnight, asking Li Yaoting to hurry up and bring all the vehicles back again, as there were important things to be transported to Xianghe.

Because Teng Yuzhao suddenly remembered this important thing, he almost regretted it to death.

Teng Yuzhao remembered that historically, after the Allied Forces broke through the city of Tianjin, not only did the Japanese rob more than two million taels of silver from the Salt Administration, but the Americans robbed even more silver. There were two amounts of silver they robbed. One was the news that the Americans got it by unknown means. They actually dug out nearly 30 million taels of silver in total from several large banks and ticket offices. According to the Americans' records, the silver they dug out could be piled up into a silver mountain 30 feet high and feet wide, which is about nine meters by nine meters when converted into meters.

In addition, the mint's silver worth $40 was also looted by the US military.

The armies of other countries also looted a lot, and all the art treasures collected in the Coast Guard Office were looted by the Russian army.

The Russian army also looted more than 300 artillery pieces and a large amount of ammunition from gunpowder depots, military training bases and other places.

The U.S. military looted 40 Krupp guns and new Rudenfort guns from the South Gate Arsenal, as well as a considerable number of small arms and artillery shells of various calibers.

The Japanese army looted more than 800 guns of various types, 8 cannons and a large amount of ammunition from the Navy Camp and the Customs Office.

Due to his deep hatred for the Japanese devils, Teng Yuzhao only thought about the more than 2 million silver coins robbed by the Japanese army, but almost ignored the silver and weapons and ammunition stolen by the Americans and other Allied forces.

When Yu Lu left Tianjin, he did not take any of the things in the city with him in order not to alarm the people and affect the morale of Teng Yuzao's army and people in defending Tianjin. The silver in the foundry was soon dug out by Li Xian Ce's men. Compared with the officials of the Salt Administration, the officials of the foundry were quite conscientious, at least they knew to bury the silver.

Just digging out those private money houses and ticket offices made Teng Yuzhao very troubled.

If he had snatched the silver back from the Americans, he naturally didn't have to return it, but if he had dug it out from money shops and bill shops, he had to return it, otherwise these people would definitely bring the case to the court.

Although he was very conflicted, Teng Yuzao finally made up his mind to dig it out and use it himself, which was much better than letting the Americans take it away.

Even if someone asks for it back in the future, we will only admit to a small amount and return it, and still put the rest on the foreigners. Can the foreigners prove that they took it by saying that they didn't find the silver?

It took Li Xiance a lot of effort to find this silver, which was also the reason why Teng Yuzao first kept Li Xiance's Second Regiment as a reserve team, just to buy some time for Li Xiance.

Fortunately, Li Xiance did not disappoint him. After a few busy days, he finally found a total of more than 5 million taels of silver.

The silver found was far less than that dug out by the Americans. Teng Yuzao did not think that there was still buried silver that had not been found. He believed that this should have a lot to do with him.

Teng Yuzao believed that this was probably related to the fact that he had spread the news in advance that the Allied Forces were going to massacre the city, which made these merchants start transferring their property early. The buried silver was something they could not transport safely, and all that could be taken away had been taken away. Therefore, the amount of silver dug out by Li Xiance was much less than that dug out by Americans in history.

After a thorough search throughout the city, it was found that the cannons, guns and ammunition were not the same number as those looted by the Allied Forces in history. Only the cannons and guns were found in the customs office, and the rest were much less, especially the guns, which were almost gone. However, most of the cannons were still there, and most of them were brand new and had not been unpacked.

This situation is easy to understand. The thousands of soldiers trained by Yu Lu now need rifles, and these were probably taken away by He Yongsheng.

As for the artillery, most of them are still there. This is probably because He Yongsheng did not have that many gunners, so he abandoned them.

All this silver and artillery needed to be transported away in advance, which was also something that had to be completed before evacuating Tianjin, otherwise he would not be able to break through with a large number of heavy artillery.

Fortunately, Li Yaoting returned in time and took away all these things, including the wounded from the street fighting in the past few days, the night before. However, since last night, the east side has been tightly blocked by a newly arrived Japanese brigade.

Teng Yuzao came to his seat at the conference table and sat down, waving his hand and saying, "Everyone, please take a seat."

Seeing that after everyone sat down, Liu Changfa was still standing, so that Pan Jinshan who had just sat down had to stand up again, Teng Yuzhao said with a wry smile.

"Qingyun, Ruiguang, you all should sit down too."

Liu Changfa said with a bitter face, "Sir, it was my mistake that caused you to be injured. I..."

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(End of this chapter)