The attire of the Zongmo Troupe's warriors had been adjusted several times, now closely resembling the protagonist's appearance from the game *Assassin's Creed*, which Ye Tao had always been fond of. The hooded, loose robes, the outer leather bandoliers, and the red trim were all exceptionally striking. Zongmo Troupe members operating in Taizhou and Zhongzhou liked to wear this robe when they didn't need to conceal their identities. The Leiyin Demon Sect's followers also loved seeing these people. The followers knew that if anything happened, if there was any danger, these people would definitely stand up and fight for them. Strictly speaking, the Zongmo Troupe wasn't a group of fanatics; on the contrary, most of its members were highly skilled professional soldiers. But this didn't prevent them from protecting the followers and striking at enemies.

And these hooded robes were now becoming popular in a wider range. Mainly because they could effectively shield against wind and sand, conceal identities, looked aesthetically pleasing, and allowed various other clothes to be worn underneath while maintaining a consistent appearance. Moreover, the garment's manufacturing process was simple and its cost low. Even Ye Tao's guards now had one per person, naturally, not in the same color and ornamentation as the Zongmo Troupe's. Ye Tao's guards used black twill thick woven cotton to make the hooded robes, with blue ornamentation on the chest and the guards' special rank insignia on the shoulders. Originally, the ornamentation on the chest of Ye Tao's guards used the Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner's Office symbol, a city tower floating on clouds. But now, as Ye Tao's guards became increasingly independent from Yunzhou's military and political system, and as Ye Tao was promoted to the Northern Frontier Pacification Commissioner, this pattern had been replaced by an abstract image of Gondor City, the Northern Crown, still under construction, but already the best manifestation of Ye Tao's identity. The insignia on the guards' shoulders were different for each person, with blue triangles and pentagrams, and different numbers, symbolizing each person's rank, as well as each person's chosen animal or plant image representative emblem and name embroidery.

Zongmo Troupe members who had seen Ye Tao's guards in this attire couldn't help but be envious. The Zongmo Troupe and Ye Tao's guards were actually very similar in terms of personnel composition. Many of them were even good friends in the training camp set up by the Internal Affairs Office in Jiangshan Fortress, just assigned to different places. The Zongmo Troupe's double-layered thin cotton, whether in terms of feel, abrasion resistance, breathability, or aesthetics, was quite different from Ye Tao's guards' black hooded robes.

However, when it came to carrying out missions, there was no difference. This time, when planning the operation in Anqing's South City, neither side could wear their hooded robes. What they had to disrupt was the Daoming Sect's Dharma Assembly. And now, the Daoming Sect was extremely sensitive to anything in the Dongping or Yunzhou style, such as these hooded robes.

Although the Zongmo Troupe was the main attacking force, this time it wasn't really predetermined to achieve any specific goal, but mainly to disrupt. It was to make the Daoming Sect's major operation, clearly aimed at restoring face, fail, and to make them encounter obstacles everywhere. To further reduce their status and influence in the minds of the followers. If they could kill some important figures in the chaos, that would be best, but if not, it didn't matter. Anyway, the Zongmo Troupe wasn't really planning to reveal their identities this time.

And the small portion of guards who followed Ye Tao were responsible for harassing the surrounding area and starting fires, to make the surrounding area chaotic when the Zongmo Troupe began to disrupt, to ensure the Zongmo Troupe's safe withdrawal.

As for the Special Operations Camp, which was having a major headache this time, they had to, with the help of the Intelligence Bureau, open up the last bit of distance to the Standing Treasury in the shortest possible time, chisel through the wall, and then move all the silver out in the shortest possible time. Then, quickly put the stone bricks back on the wall, and cover the outer passage with a certain amount of packed earth. That way, at first glance, what the other side would see was an empty Standing Treasury. If the Intelligence Bureau, which took over later, continued to tirelessly fill the entire passage, I'm afraid the other side would rack their brains and not understand how a vault that had contained millions of taels of silver could have been emptied like this. For those people, this would be more like a paranormal event than a theft.

Naturally, this was extremely difficult. The cooperation between the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Operations Camp was extremely important, and understanding of the surrounding traffic situation was also very important. Everyone had made the most thorough preparations. The bustling streets could be the best cover, but also the source of many unforeseen accidents.

"Hey, be careful." Dai Rong, who was personally directing the excavation work in the tunnel, felt a bit apprehensive. The soldiers had all taken turns working in the tunnel these days, and with everyone having some experience in civil engineering, the progress had always been very satisfactory. At this final stage, with only a little more than a foot of thickness left, it wouldn't be good to rush and撞 like at the beginning. Dai Rong told everyone to slow down a bit, but still completed the final excavation work in less than half an hour. The more experienced soldiers used brick knives to start work, removing several heavy stone bricks, immediately opening up a passage that one person could climb in and out of. A soldier cautiously entered the Standing Treasury. At this time, the underground Standing Treasury gathered a bit of the surrounding street noise, echoing in the dark and empty room. The soldier took the lamp from his companion behind him and swept it around the vault.

"How is it?" Dai Rong also crawled into the vault and asked softly.

"This... see for yourself." The soldier rolled his eyes, somewhat impolitely. However, that was always the atmosphere in the Special Operations Camp. Only this kind of superficial relaxation of rank could prevent everyone from revealing their disguises when carrying out infiltration missions.

The vault was very full. Since there were mostly broken silver pieces, and the Standing Treasury had a rule of counting once a year, large piles of broken silver pieces were casually stacked in sacks. Occupying most of the vault. And the other half of the vault was actually piled with gold bars. Although they knew beforehand that the silver stored here should be far more than hundreds of thousands or millions of taels, but should be millions of taels in total. But they were still startled at first glance. Since it was still quite some time before the spring agricultural tax season, the broken silver pieces were actually only half a year's tax revenue, and a little bit of silver accumulated from the Anqing Garrison Command's daily exploitation of small vendors. And those gold bars, according to preliminary estimates, should be worth around two million taels.

"Start moving it, counting as you go. If those broken silver pieces can't be transported, you can pile them in our own vault first, together with the flour and sugar and such. Everyone move quickly, we don't have much time, at most two hours." Dai Rong quickly directed everyone to start work. In the passage where they were entering and exiting, they had already laid simple slide rails on the ground for carrying soil and stones, with small trolleys that could transport heavy objects, which were now fully utilized.

When the first cart of gold bars was lifted to the ground, two ox carts from Song's Cake Shop in the West City happened to arrive. They cheerfully carried away the first batch of still-warm cookies from Guanshengyuan that morning. The two old oxen didn't really notice that the carts were much heavier today. In order not to give anything away, the Special Operations Camp soldiers had widened the wheels of Song's Cake Shop's carts by two inches long ago. This kind of detail, someone who didn't look at the carts all day long would never be able to discover, but that old craftsman was one of their own people.

Guanshengyuan's daily delivery had always been busy, with carts coming and going, completely in the same order as usual, without arousing any suspicion. Unconsciously, gold bars worth three hundred thousand taels were transported out, taking less than an hour. At this time, the Special Operations Camp soldiers had basically emptied the Standing Treasury. They didn't move the things too far, but piled them in the tunnel. They cleaned up the traces they had left in the Standing Treasury, filled the bricks they had pried open back into their original positions, flattened them, and then began to pile up the prepared sandbags, after stacking two or three layers, they would definitely not be able to hear any hollow sounds when knocking on the bricks inside the vault. But they were still not willing to give up, and poured in a bit of their own mixed simple cement. Filling the gaps between the sandbags as well. They had originally dug several workshops on both sides of the tunnel for storing materials, now, after taking out the sandbags and other things placed on the ground, they put the silver and gold in. By noon, the entire tunnel was completely filled with gold and silver. At this point, they quietly ended the work in the tunnel and began to silently, completely like usual, bake cookies, sell cookies, and kick out those who came to make trouble.

One aspect was because they were very confident in completing the task assigned to them by Ye Tao at this time, basically completed, even better than initially set. On the other hand, it was also because the surrounding streets had become congested to a certain extent, they had to stop transferring those gold and silver to the outside. The remaining work would be slowly handed over to the Intelligence Bureau to handle in full. Guarding a silver vault, the Intelligence Bureau would presumably be much more generous in bribing people afterwards. It was never the case that Dongping didn't give the Intelligence Bureau enough funding, but that large sums of silver simply couldn't be transported in. And in the process of Dongping's financial system gradually transitioning, although currencies and bills issued by Deloitte Accounting Firm and Yunzhou Bank were becoming increasingly authoritative, they were also becoming increasingly impossible to use in the Xiling system.

And the Special Operations Camp soldiers, except for a part of the people who would continue to work in Guanshengyuan for a period of time, the others would gradually withdraw. Following Ye Tao to carry out the next task. Since the store always needed some familiar faces, even if people were replaced, it had to be done little by little, the Special Operations Camp soldiers who stayed behind would gradually leave Guanshengyuan over a period of half a year.

And those who withdrew in the early stages, on the afternoon of the same day that they successfully emptied the Standing Treasury, began a new task: to arrange Ye Tao's escape route from Anqing.