I want to be emperor

Chapter 473 "Da Chu Palace News"

Since the fifth year of Chengshun of the Great Chu Empire, the Chu army has continued to deliver weapons, equipment, food and other materials needed for combat to the front lines in the northwest.

They even transported and hoarded a large amount of grain in advance. These grains were not used as military rations, but were 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 local thieves, and the abuse of thieves coupled with the process of encirclement and suppression by officers and soldiers, in turn, further led to the deterioration of the local agricultural production environment, eventually leading to thousands of miles of desolate land and countless desertions. Ten does not save one.

Because there is a serious famine problem in the local area, if the Great Chu Empire takes control of the local area militarily, if it cannot provide relief to the people in time, then the Shaanxi area may become a quagmire, thereby holding back a large amount of manpower and material resources of the Great Chu Empire.

In Luo Zhixue's view, the problem of thieves in Shaanxi is not a purely military issue. Military suppression is at most a temporary thirst quencher, but if you want to completely reverse the local situation, then timely relief will allow the local agriculture to resume normal production is the only solution.

So just like last year's Northern Expedition, when the Great Chu Empire was preparing for the Northwest War, what it did was not only military preparations, but also a lot of political and people's livelihood preparations.

The army hadn't entered Tongguan yet, but the Great Chu Empire had already transported and hoarded more than [-] tons of grain to the front line of Tongguan.

And this figure is still increasing. The top officials of the Great Chu Empire have decided to mobilize at least [-] tons of grain to the Shaanxi-Gansu region within this year.

The [-] tons of food, including the military's food and grass consumption, and part of it is to supply the needs of the local people.

The distribution methods include direct relief, work-for-work relief, market sales at a fair price, etc., in order to alleviate the plight of extreme food shortage in the local area.

And food is only one of the materials that the Chu army transported and hoarded to the front line. There are also a lot of other weapons and ammunition, and there are also a lot of other messy things.

Ever since last winter, it can be seen that the Great Chu Empire organized a large amount of manpower and material resources to transport materials to the front line of Tongguan.

And this transportation is still going on now, and it will not end for quite some time.

Ever since, people can see one carriage after another full of supplies being transported to the front line of Tongguan, and sometimes a huge logistics convoy of hundreds of carriages can be seen arriving at the front line of Tongguan full of supplies.

With this posture, Sun Chuanting on the opposite side could see that the Chu army was about to launch a large-scale offensive.

-

In the fifth year of the Chengshun period of the Great Chu Empire, on February [-]th, February [-]th, Luo Zhixue held a plowing ceremony for the emperor in Jinling City. During the plowing ceremony, Luo Zhixue, the emperor, plowed the land, and the high-ranking civil and military officials of the empire might pull oxen, or Helping pears, or plowing the ground, or transplanting rice seedlings, etc.

In Tianzi's one-acre and three-point land, this is not an adjective, but a quantifier, and one mu and three points of land are cultivated.

The entire plowing ceremony will be published in the mansion newspaper to announce to the world

It is worth mentioning that the residence newspaper of the Great Chu Empire has also undergone reforms. The residence newspaper in the traditional dynasty is only a mode of information notification within the government, but the residence newspaper of the Great Chu Empire was reformed last year.

The huge residence newspaper was divided into three parts.

Some highly confidential and influential information is compiled into the "Confidential Secret Report", which can only be viewed by authorized senior officials. (including brigadier generals) above, including a few important colonels open.

Most of the rest, even mid-level officials, do not have this authority to check.

Second-class confidential government information that has nothing to do with ordinary people is compiled into the "Confidential Bulletin" Some sensitive information, or information that has nothing to do with ordinary people is compiled into the newly established "Confidential Bulletin" On the top, it is limited to civilian officials above the seventh rank and military officers above the lieutenant officer.

Finally, there is the "Da Chu Di Bao", a newspaper that has inherited the word "Di Bao", and it has been transformed into a newspaper that is completely open to the public. It is used to publish non-confidential and non-sensitive information, especially to publish some policies. It is used for publicity, and some government affairs bulletins, business information bulletins, popular science knowledge, etc. will also be published at the same time.

This newspaper, even ordinary people, can go to the local post office to subscribe to Da Chu Di Bao.

Even without a subscription, it can be viewed for free in some public places.

So starting from last year, the Great Chu Empire will often announce some major events through the Great Chu Mansion Newspaper.

Including last year's agricultural subsidy news, this year's Minister of Counsel and co-organizer's appointment and dismissal news, the announcement of the five-year development plan, and now the news of the emperor's own farming, etc., are all announced through the Dachu Mansion News.

-

The report of the Son of Heaven’s personal cultivation will be drafted by the pens of the Di Bao Department under the Ministry of Confucianism and Education, and will be reviewed and approved by the officials of the Di Bao Department. Finally, it will be compiled together with other manuscripts into the second issue in February of the fifth year of Chengshun .

After the entire sample magazine has been reviewed, multiple copies of the sample magazine will be printed, and then delivered to the post office under the Ministry of Communications, together with other urgent official documents, for rapid distribution to the provinces through the post station system.

The sample magazines arrive at the printing factories of multiple newspaper companies in each province for printing, and finally distribute them to the prefectures and counties through the post station system in various places, and then hand them over to the post stations in each county to distribute to subscribers.

The entire process is carried out in cooperation with the Post Office and the Post Office. The Post Office is responsible for content and printing, and the Post Office is responsible for distribution and transportation.

Because the process is relatively complicated, the sample magazine needs to be slowly delivered from Jinling City to various places for printing, and then distributed to the states and counties, and finally reaches the users. Even if the sample magazine can be sent together with other urgent documents during the distribution process, the required The time is still relatively long.

Especially in relatively remote places, such as Youzhou, it is estimated that it will be more than half a month before we can see the news about the emperor's own farming.

And in more distant and remote places, such as the newly occupied areas of the Great Chu Empire along the Yunnan-Guizhou front line, it is not uncommon to see them after two months.

From this timeliness, it can be seen that the Dachu Mansion Newspaper is not the news newspaper that people in the later generations often say... This thing has nothing to do with "new"... It is just a very pure Dachu Empire to the general public. It is just a publicity tool used to promote various policies.

In addition to these three information transmission systems directly under the jurisdiction of the Di Bao Division, the Di Bao Division has also set up sub-stations in various provinces to issue nearby sub-journals of each province's notification and sub-journals of each province's Di Bao. The overall process and mode are similar to this magazine.

Luo Zhixue personally pays more attention to publicity, letting the public know about the empire's major policies in a timely manner.

While Di Baosi was still drafting the report manuscript of Tianzi Qineng, the Great Chu Empire Army finally launched the first large-scale offensive on the Western Front.

The first to launch the offensive was not in Shanxi to the north, nor was it on the Tongguan line by the Yellow River, but the No. 17 Division in the west of Chubei in the farther south, facing the Hanzhong line.

On February [-]th, the division gathered its main force and set off from Xunyang, heading straight for Jinzhou along the Han River!

On February 17th, the No.[-] Division had a small-scale battle with the Ming army in the area of ​​Hanzhong Prefecture. They broke through and captured several warning defenses set up by the Ming army along the Hanshui River along the road from Xunyang to Jinzhou. fortress.

At noon the next day, the forward of the No.17 Division of the Chu Army had arrived in Jinzhou City.

The more than [-] Ming troops in Jinzhou City were not too panic-stricken. After all, the Ming and Chu troops in Hanzhong Prefecture had been fighting each other not for a day or two, but for several years.

It is not that the Chu army has tried to attack Jinzhou City before, but they all failed in the end.

This time, they also had some confidence to resist the attack of the Chu army.

After all, in Jinzhou City now, there are about 5000 Ming soldiers, of which about 5000 are the New Qin Army newly organized by Sun Chuanting in the past two years, and about [-] people are all kinds of guards, but their combat effectiveness is higher than usual in the Central Plains. The local guards are much stronger.

In the more than 5000 Ming army, there are about ten long-barreled artillery pieces, most of which are two and a half catties field cannons, and two are five-jin field cannons, both of which are cast iron cannons.

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 complicated, and can effectively resist various solid bullets. .

At the same time, a lot of trenches were dug, and the artillery fortifications with a roof can also resist the bombardment of the grenades.

On the whole, the Ming army in Jinzhou City is well prepared, and their strength is not too bad, so they are naturally confident in defending the city.

To die is to be surrounded by the Chu army...

But they had expected this situation a long time ago, and they had hoarded more than 1 shi of grain in Jinzhou City, which was enough for their 1-strong army to feed for more than half a year.

If rescue cannot be obtained after half a year of siege, then there is nothing to say, it means that the situation has really reached the point of irreversibility, there is no need to fight, just surrender!

With such confidence, the Ming army in Jinzhou City is ready to defend stubbornly.

But only two days later, when the Chu army outside the city had prepared properly and pulled out its artillery to start shelling, the development of the situation far exceeded the expectations of the local Ming army generals.

The cannonballs fired by these Chu thieves turned out to be all blooming bullets!

It's okay to open the flower bombs. It's not that they haven't been exposed to the mortars of the Chu bandits, and even the 48-jin mortar shells have endured a lot.

But now, the explosive bullets fired by the Chu thieves on the opposite side were not fired from those mortars, but from a large pile of long-barreled field guns.

More importantly, the explosive bullets fired by these field guns have a rate of fire far exceeding those of the previous mortars, and their accuracy is far superior to that of mortars.

(End of this chapter)