The Tang Kingdom is an interesting country. This country has strong production capacity and abundant supply of raw materials. It can produce a large amount of materials and equipment every day.
Then the country seems to be lacking everything. There is no oil here, there is a lack of steel there, and sometimes there is even a certain degree of food crisis.
Compared to other countries, Tang Mo, as the king of the Tang Kingdom, was really tortured and happy by this phenomenon.
The various news he hears every morning when he wakes up is always a mixture of good and bad news, some good news worth celebrating and some bad news that causes headaches.
For example, when he heard that Qian Jinhang had boarded the train and would arrive in Chang'an soon, he was even happy to prepare a little extra for his breakfast.
But when he heard that the disaster relief supplies in the southern region were running out, he felt that it was a sin to eat more at this time.
In fact, a large area of the Tang State was in a state of good harvest, especially in the north, which was not prone to disasters. Qi is also a large grain-producing country, especially the area near Beiyuan City. Like the Northeast Plain of a certain country, it is a good place to grow grain.
The land here is very fertile, and at the same time, the terrain is very flat: many corpses were buried in the war in the past two years... Well, it is definitely the first choice for farming.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to transport food from the north to the south, because the railways in the southern region were damaged by floods and traffic was cut off. It will take a while to repair.
The army occupancy rate of the repaired railway is quite high. After all, in the southern region, there are almost 1 million troops and prisoners stationed around Xicong, and these people all need to eat.
At the same time, the Tang State had to distribute the food hoarded in the southern region to places further south: the area Strauss invaded was too big, and the population was too large.
This is no joke. The entire northern plain of Chu State, or now the southern plain of Tang State, was crowded with tens of millions of refugees. They had no food, had just suffered a disaster, and had been fighting with various troops for a long time.
Compared with the disaster-stricken areas of the Tang Dynasty, the southern plains can really be described as devastated: the people there were half-clothed, skinny and sallow, the people looked like ghosts, and the whole area was like a ghost land.
There is no other solution. If we don't provide disaster relief quickly and restore the people's livelihood there, then Tang Guo's occupation of this place will be tantamount to finding a trouble for itself that will never be solved.
Only by allowing the people here to have food to eat and work to do can this place truly settle down and become an integral part of the Tang Dynasty.
As a result, regardless of the fact that the southern region itself was short of food, the Tang State had to transfer the disaster relief grain reserves to the southern plains it had just occupied, and first barely feed the rebellious people of the former Chu State who could no longer survive there.
The effect was remarkable. After receiving the relief, the unrest in the southern plains subsided at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The common people handed over their guns and gradually began to resume production under the organization of Tang officials. Their land was actually very fertile, but it was a pity that these lands previously belonged to the nobles of Chu.
Now, the Tang troops helped them kill all the landowners and drive away the superior Chu nobles, turning these fertile lands into ownerless lands.
Immediately afterwards, the Tang State issued a decree that these lands would be used for farming by farmers free of charge. The people's sentiments were suddenly stabilized, and the rest of the things became logical.
Although the Chu State also tried to organize several counterattacks, as long as their troops left the mountains and entered the plains, they would be wiped out by the Tang army.
In terms of combat effectiveness on the plains, the Tang army can really be said to be the ceiling of the world. The Chu army itself is still second-rate, so it can be said that it has almost no chance of winning.
However, in the muddy southern region, there were almost no roads, and the movement and movement of the Tang army was very difficult, so road construction seemed to be suddenly put on the agenda again.
It is a pity that the Tang State has no time to worry about transporting materials and temporarily built railways and roads on the southern front. With Chu State's fragile transportation lines, it is very difficult to support the existing transportation of materials.
Oil, ammunition, food, medicine... these things are all waiting to be used. How can we have the transportation capacity to consider some bullshit cement asphalt roller?
To be honest, if it were not for the seizure of a batch of additional food supplies prepared by the Great China Empire at Nanfengkou, the Tang State might be in a more passive situation now.
The food supplies at Nanfengkou have indeed solved the Tang Dynasty's urgent needs, but the food is also disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
First of all, there are as many as 100,000 Dahua troops who surrendered in the southern oil fields. They also need to eat and drink. At the same time, the southern oil fields have also been tortured by precipitation for a long time, and they cannot be self-sufficient in food.
Therefore, part of the food hoarded in the nearest Nanfengkou will naturally be allocated to the southern oil field area: they surrendered so completely and preserved the oil field facilities intact. With this awareness and this achievement, we can't let people go hungry again. Belly?
In addition, the newly conquered Wangchun City and Tengyun City also need food. The Great China Empire previously exploited these cities in order to raise military food. Now these are the areas controlled by the Tang Kingdom. They have to buy people's hearts, right?
The Tang Kingdom's own homeland, that is, the disaster-stricken southern region, cannot be left alone. There is food in the newly occupied areas. If its basic base is not full, it will be treated unfairly and people's hearts will definitely be scattered.
So Tang Mo had to find a way to use all available forces to transport the remaining northern grain to the southern region.
This is a major project that will test transportation conditions, capacity, and the strategic determination of the entire country.
Because of this, many places in the Tang Kingdom were paying the price for transporting food: Many metals needed for industrial production in Tongcheng began to be in short supply because food took up the share of industrial transportation.
How to arrange the efficient operation of the entire railway system is a science. This kind of scheduling is rigorous and meticulous. A slight error will affect the transportation efficiency.
The people responsible for dispatching do not hold high positions, and they are scattered in various railway sections. They are responsible for the arrangements of their own areas.
This has led to inevitable scheduling chaos in many areas, further highlighting the problem of insufficient transportation capacity. Even though Tang's railway management was already the most advanced in the world, it was still inevitable to make mistakes while busy.
The good news is that airlift, which was the first to recover, or was less reliant on infrastructure along the way, played a huge role.
Groups of C-47 transport planes loaded with food landed at the field airport near Xicong. After unloading the food, they transported prisoners from the Great China Empire to the north to serve in labor camps.
Those Dahua captives who saw a real airplane for the first time in their lives, touched a real airplane for the first time, and flew on an airplane for the first time in their lives, vomited in the sky until they died, and at the same time they also enjoyed what it means to truly travel fast.
This is double the transportation capacity: on the one hand, it transports food from the north directly to the southern region that is in urgent need of food, and on the other hand, it transports food from the southern region to the north.
The north-south transportation problem is serious, and the east-west transportation is naturally affected. A large number of trains were transferred to support the north-south lines, and the railway capacity in the east-west direction was bound to be reduced.
Therefore, after barely completing the attack in the direction of Fengjiang, the westward group commanded by Burton had to suspend the attack in the area close to Fengjiang to stabilize the entire front.
Sometimes in a war, it is not always the case that whoever can fight will be able to push all the way to defeat the opponent. In this way, the Tang Army's attack was hampered by its own logistics and was forced to give up a good situation.
Originally, while the Dahua Empire suffered heavy losses and was in chaos, the Tang army could have launched an attack on the Zangjian Gorge defense line and Fengjiang defense line, possibly making a breakthrough and achieving a greater victory.
However, troop mobilization could not keep up with the pace. A large number of troops could only rely on roads to maneuver slowly, unable to reach the theater in time to expand the results.
In the end, all I could do was watch the Dahua troops on the opposite side stabilize their defenses, increase their strength, and wait for reinforcements from Qin...
"The current situation is that our troops in Xicong have been completely liberated, with more than 300,000 troops." After breakfast, Tang Mo met with Loew and had a small meeting. Loew gave a brief introduction Check out the situation.
"The plan of the General Staff is that one hundred thousand troops will arrive close to the Zangjian Gorge and establish a new line of defense based on the Zangjian Gorge. There is no need for us to continue to attack from this direction. The Dahua army is ready, and there is the Zangjian Gorge. With the natural barrier as our support, our army may not be able to gain any advantage by attacking from here." Loew explained to Tang Mo the reason for this arrangement.
After finishing speaking, he paused. Seeing that Tang Mo had no intention of speaking, he continued: "The situation in the southern region is still very tense, so I plan to send two divisions south to support Strauss."
The staff planned to transfer the remaining troops to the Western Front, join Burton's Western Front Offensive Group, and launch a new round of attack on Fengjiang with the subsequent supplies arriving.
It's just that with today's transportation capacity, it is not an easy task to transfer 200,000 troops to the Fengjiang Theater.
If it is not possible to complete the entire transportation work, it may not be completed until the last few days of autumn. This is simply a joke. When all the troops arrive, it may start to snow in the area.
Moreover, after such a long time, the Dahua army has already made preparations again and is ready. It is obviously not wise to launch offensive operations when the weather starts to get colder and air support is once again less convenient.
"It seems that this year's war can only be fought here." Although Tang Mo was a little unwilling, it could only be so.
Loew nodded: "If the other party does not end this war, we may achieve greater results next year."
(End of chapter)
