The disgraced official I took care of was actually Zhu Houcong's childhood friend.

Chapter 339

Zhou Chu could decide how to deal with these merchants himself, since the Northern Garrison Command had that authority, not to mention Zhou Chu, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Unlike Lu Ying, Wang Changshan and others were different. Lu Ying was the garrison commander of Datong, and it was best for the emperor to decide how to deal with a general of a border town.

But no matter how grand the matter is, Wang Changshan and his ilk are nothing more than mere merchants. Zhou Chu doesn't need to consult the emperor to deal with them.

When Wang Changshan and the others were arrested, Zhou Chu had already sent the Imperial Guards to keep a close watch on their homes to prevent their families from secretly moving away, ensuring that not even a fly could escape.

The infighting among these people allowed Zhou Chu and the Embroidered Uniform Guard to obtain a lot of crucial information, such as who owned an outer residence and how much silver was hidden inside.

Most of these people know each other well, and once they start exposing each other, it will be fatal for each of them.

To ensure the efficiency of the raids, Zhou Chu specifically included the Tiger Legion in the raiding efforts. The Wang family alone yielded 100,000 taels of gold, over 30 million taels of silver, 300 million strings of copper coins, and countless jewels and antiques.

Some of this money came from coal mining, while the rest came from colluding with the Mongols.

As the richest family in Datong and even in the whole of Shanxi, the Wang family's strength was extraordinary, far beyond what a businessman like Li Jian could match.

This is why Zhou Chu was determined to kill Wang Changshan.

If Wang Changshan is dead but not dead, Zhou Chu might cause trouble if he's not careful. A wolf pack can only be led when the alpha wolf is gone. As long as the alpha wolf is alive, the wolf pack will have its own ideas and may turn against him at any time.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Zhou Chu also purged those problematic individuals within the Jinyiwei in Datong in one fell swoop. People like Li Jian had even betrayed Wang Changshan, so why would they care about the Jinyiwei?

All the Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards) who had business dealings with these people were rounded up by Zhou Chu.

The raid lasted a long time, taking about half a month in total, before everything was completely confiscated.

All the other families combined don't even amount to as much as Wang Changshan's family. That's the nature of businessmen: the more money and resources they have, the more they earn.

No wonder Wang Changshan was nicknamed "Wang Half-City" in Datong.

Zhou Chu kept over a million taels of this money as military expenses for the Datong garrison soldiers for the next few years, and set up a strict supervision mechanism to ensure that the military pay was distributed without going through the hands of the military commanders.

Zhou Chu didn't trust these newly appointed centurions and commanders much. As the saying goes, there are countless examples throughout history of young dragon slayers becoming dragons themselves.

In addition to the more than one million taels, Zhou Chu set aside another five million taels as military expenses for the Tiger Legion.

Whenever Zhou Chu had the chance, he would set aside military funds for the Tiger Legion in order to prevent the Tiger Legion from being purged should something happen to him in the future, or after his death.

As long as there are sufficient military funds, the imperial court will not eliminate such a powerful army; it will only do so when the imperial court can no longer afford to support it.

As for Zhou Chu himself, he selected some of his favorites from among the antiques and paintings and kept them.

The rest were mostly stored in warehouses and transported to the capital by horse-drawn carriages. However, there were too many valuables to transport by water, and it would take some time.

The person who transported this batch of goods was none other than Lu Wanshan, the commander of the Northern Garrison.

This was already second nature to the Northern Garrison Command. They hadn't done this job recently, and both Lu Wanshan and the Imperial Guards of the Northern Garrison Command missed it very much.

After all, there's a kickback for each delivery.

This is also why Zhou Chu and Jiajing trusted the Northern Garrison Command. Apart from their share, no one would dare to steal. If anyone did, everyone else would not let them off the hook, which would be tantamount to ruining everyone's livelihood.

As for Anda on the grassland, Zhou Chu no longer took him seriously. The people Anda brought last time were almost all killed, and even if he went back, he wouldn't accomplish anything for several years.

Even if Anda wanted to unify the Mongol tribes and ascend to the throne of Great Khan, he would need a sufficient army; the grasslands were not a place where reason prevailed.

Before that, Zhou Chu would have dealt him a fatal blow by eliminating all the other Mongol tribes.

Anda's tribe did relocate, but other Mongol tribes did not.