Since the fifth year of Chengshun in the Great Chu Empire, the Chu army has continued to deliver weapons, equipment, food and other materials needed for combat to the northwest front lines.
A large amount of food was even transported and stored in advance. This food was not used as military ration, but was used to prepare for the relief of ordinary people in Shaanxi.
The famine in Shaanxi is much more serious than that in the Central Plains, Shandong, Hebei and other places.
Years of drought and water shortage have led to the frequent occurrence of bandits in the local area. The abuse of bandits and the encirclement and suppression process by officers and soldiers have in turn further worsened the local agricultural production environment, eventually leading to thousands of miles of bare land and countless wasteland. Ten do not save one.
Because there is a serious famine problem in the area, if the Da Chu Empire takes control of the area militarily, if it cannot provide timely relief to the people, then the Shaanxi region may become a quagmire, which will tie up a large amount of manpower and material resources of the Da Chu Empire.
In Luo Zhixue's view, the problem of bandits in Shaanxi is not simply a military issue. Military suppression can only quench a temporary thirst at most, but if you want to completely reverse the local situation, you need timely relief to allow local agriculture to resume normal production. is the only solution.
Therefore, just like last year's Northern Expedition, when the Dachu Empire was preparing for the northwest war, it was not just military preparations, but also a lot of political and people's livelihood preparations.
The army has not yet entered Tongguan, but the Chu Empire has already transported and stockpiled more than 20,000 tons of grain to the front line of Tongguan.
And this figure is still increasing. The senior officials of the Dachu Empire have decided to mobilize at least 60,000 tons of grain to the Shaanxi-Gansu region within this year.
This 60,000 tons of food includes the military's food consumption, and part of it is used to supply the needs of the local people.
Its delivery methods include direct relief, work-for-work relief, market sales at low prices, etc., to alleviate the plight of extreme local food shortages.
Food was only one of the materials that the Chu army transported and hoarded to the front line. There were also many other weapons and ammunition, as well as all kinds of other messy things.
As a result, since last winter, we can see that the Dachu Empire has organized a large amount of manpower and material resources to transport supplies to the Tongguan front line.
And this transport is still going on now and won't end for quite some time.
As a result, people can see one carriage after another loaded with supplies being transported to the Tongguan front line. Sometimes, a huge logistics convoy of hundreds of carriages can be seen arriving at the Tongguan front line loaded with supplies.
With this posture, even Sun Chuanting on the opposite side could see that the Chu army was about to launch a large-scale offensive.
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In the fifth year of the Chu Empire's succession, on February 11th, Luo Zhixue held a plowing ceremony for the emperor in Jinling City. During the plowing ceremony, the emperor Luo Zhixue plowed the fields, and the empire's top civil and military officials either held a plowing ceremony or held a plowing ceremony. Fuli, or plowing the ground, or transplanting rice seedlings, etc.
In the emperor's one-third of an acre of land, this is not an adjective, but a quantifier, and one-third of an acre of land is cultivated.
The entire plowing ceremony will be published in the Di newspaper and announced to the world.
It is worth mentioning that the Di Bao of the Da Chu Empire has also been reformed. The Di Bao in the traditional dynasty was only an information reporting mode within the government, but the Di Bao of the Da Chu Empire was reformed last year.
The huge newspaper was divided into three parts.
Some highly confidential and influential information is included in the "Confidential Report", which can only be accessed by authorized senior officials. In principle, it is only accessible to officials of the third rank or above and some important fourth-rank officials (such as the prefect of a prefecture), general officers, etc. (Including brigadier generals) and above, including a few important colonels.
Most of the others, even mid-level officials, do not have the authority to access it.
Second-level secrets, government affairs information that has little to do with ordinary people, are included in the "Confidential Notice". Some sensitive information, or information that has little to do with ordinary people, is included in the newly established "Confidential Notice" It is restricted to civilian officials above the seventh rank and military officers above the rank of lieutenant.
Finally, there is the 'Da Chu Di Bao'. This newspaper inherited the word Di Bao and has transformed into a newspaper that is completely open to the public. It is used to publish non-confidential and non-sensitive information, especially some policies. It is used for publicity, and will also publish some government affairs bulletins, business information bulletins, popular science knowledge, etc.
Even ordinary people can go to the local post office to subscribe to Da Chu Di Newspaper.
You don't even need to subscribe, you can read it for free in some public places.
Therefore, starting from last year, the Da Chu Empire often announced some major events through the Da Chu Di Daily.
Including last year's agricultural subsidy news, this year's personnel appointments and removals of the Counselor and Co-Ministers, the announcement of the five-year development plan, and now the emperor's personal farming, etc., are all announced to the outside world through the Da Chu Di Daily.
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Reports about the emperor's personal cultivation will be drafted by writers from the Di Newspaper Department under the Ministry of Rites and Education, and will be reviewed and approved by officials from the Di Newspaper Department. Finally, they will be compiled together with other manuscripts into the second issue of Chengshun in February of the fifth year. .
After the entire sample is reviewed, multiple samples will be printed and then delivered to the Postal Department under the Ministry of Transport, along with other urgent official documents, for rapid distribution to the provinces through the post system.
Samples arrive at printing factories affiliated with multiple newspaper companies in each province for printing, and are finally distributed to various prefectures and counties through the local post system, and are handed over to the postal stations in each county for distribution to subscribers.
The whole process is carried out by the cooperation between the Diping Newspaper Department and the Postal Department. The Didai Newspaper Department is responsible for content and printing, and the Postal Department is responsible for distribution and transportation.
Because the process is relatively complicated, the sample issue needs to be slowly transferred from Jinling City to various places for printing, and then distributed to states and counties, and finally reaches the hands of users. Even if the sample issue can be sent together with other urgent official documents during the distribution process, it requires The time is still relatively long.
Especially in relatively remote places, such as Youzhou, it will probably take more than half a month to see the news about the emperor's own plowing.
In more remote and remote places, such as in the newly occupied areas of the Chu Empire along the Yunnan-Guizhou front line, it is not unusual to see them two months later.
It can be basically seen from this timeliness that Da Chu Di News is not a news newspaper that is often referred to by later generations... This thing has nothing to do with 'new'... It is just a very pure Da Chu Empire to the general public. It is just a propaganda tool used to promote various policies.
"Invincibility starts with sacrificing the ancestor"
In addition to these three information delivery systems directly under the jurisdiction of the Di News Department, the Di News Department has also set up sub-stations in various provinces to publish provincial bulletin sub-journals. The overall process and model of the Di Bao sub-journals are similar to this journal.
Luo Zhixue personally pays more attention to publicity and letting the people know about the empire's major policies in a timely manner.
While the Di Newspaper Division was still drafting the report manuscript of the Emperor himself, the Dachu Imperial Army finally launched its first large-scale offensive on the Western Front.
The first to launch the offensive was not in Shanxi to the north, nor on the Tongguan line on the edge of the Yellow River, but in the west of Chubei further south, facing the Hanzhong line of the 17th Division.
On February 12, the division gathered its main force and set off from Xunyang, heading straight for Jinzhou along the Han River!
On February 12, the 17th Division had a small-scale battle with the Ming Army in the Hanzhong Prefecture area, and continuously broke through and captured multiple warning defenses built by the Ming Army along the Han River from Xunyang to Jinzhou. fortress.
At noon the next day, the forwards of the 17th Division of the Chu Army had arrived at Jinzhou City.
The approximately 10,000 Ming troops in Jinzhou City were not too panicked. After all, the Ming troops and the Chu troops in the Hanzhong Prefecture area had been fighting not for a day or two, but for several years.
The Chu army had tried to attack Jinzhou City before, but they all failed in the end.
This time, they were somewhat confident that they could withstand the Chu army's attack.
After all, there are about 15,000 Ming troops in Jinzhou City. About 5,000 of them are the New Qin Army newly trained by Sun Chuanting in the past two years. There are also about 10,000 people who are soldiers of various guards. However, their combat effectiveness is relatively small. Usually the local guards in the Central Plains are much stronger.
There are about ten long-barreled artillery pieces in the more than 15,000 Ming army. Most of them are two-and-a-half-pound field cannons, and two are five-pound field cannons. They are all cast-iron artillery.
At the same time, the Ming army has been stationed in Jinzhou City for several years, building various fortifications day after day. Now the fortifications in Jinzhou City are very complete and complex, and can effectively resist the bombardment of various solid bullets. .
At the same time, many trenches were dug, and the covered artillery-proof fortifications could also resist the bombardment of grenades.
Overall, the Ming army on the Jinzhou City side was fully prepared and their strength was not bad, so they were naturally confident in defending the city.
To the point of being overwhelmed is to be surrounded by the Chu army...
But they had anticipated this situation a long time ago and had stockpiled more than 10,000 shi of food in Jinzhou City. This food was enough to feed their 10,000-strong army for more than half a year.
If the city cannot be rescued after being besieged for more than half a year, then what else is there to say? It means that the situation has really reached an irreversible point, so there is no need to fight, just surrender!
With such confidence, the Ming army in Jinzhou City prepared to resist and defend to the death.
But just two days later, when the Chu army outside the city was fully prepared and pulled out its artillery and began bombarding, the development of the situation far exceeded the expectations of the local Ming army generals.
The shells fired by these Chu thieves turned out to be all explosive shells!
It didn't matter if they opened the shells. It was not like they had never suffered from the mortars of the Chu thieves. They had even suffered a lot of shells from the 48-pound mortar. They were used to the shells fired by the mortars of the Chu thieves.
But now, the explosive shells fired by the Chu thieves on the opposite side were not fired from those mortars, but from a large number of long-barreled field cannons.
More importantly, the firing rate of the explosive shells fired by these field guns is far higher than that of previous mortars, and the accuracy is far superior to that of mortars. (To be continued)
