As for Zhou's "plan" that is precisely what he said he intended to do, a strategy I find to be immensely immoral.
From the sounds of it Zhou was the only one that had any actual day to day ops knowledge of the system. This was probably the best plan given that right now you are basically trying to put together a puzzle with a million pieces and you don't even have the box to refer too for what the fucking thing is supposed to look like.
17 year old asian kids remember everything.