Late Qing Dynasty Executioner

Chapter 141 Target Chengdu
"Dai Changjiang!"

"My subordinate is here!"

"I appoint you as the chief of public opinion. You are responsible for visiting the people and listening to their opinions. Every town should have a person who listens to their opinions. Only by understanding the needs of the people can we solve their problems!"

"Subordinates take orders!"

"Wu You!"

"I'm here!" Wu You couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. It was finally his turn. He had thought that Chen Gu would not assign him a position.

"Appoint you as the chief of propaganda and pacification, responsible for explaining the sixteen-character declaration of our Huaxia army to the people, so that the people can understand what we do, why we do it, and what benefits it brings to the world. Every town should have a propaganda officer!"

Wu You's position is actually equivalent to that of a political commissar.

Putting away the booklet in his hand, Chen Gu looked at everyone and said, "Everyone, our Chinese department is just a new one, so there must be many imperfections. If you have any better ideas, you can bring them up for discussion.

As long as everyone agrees, it can be implemented, but this is all your business.

The military situation is urgent. We have not had so much time to sit down and discuss with you. Even if you encounter any difficult problems in the process of implementing the existing rules, I will not be able to mediate for you. I just hope that you can put the overall situation first and tolerate each other for the sake of the country.

The matter of equal distribution of land must be carried out as soon as possible. You ten major clans need to set an example, and in the process of implementation, persuasion should be used as much as possible. Even if there are stubborn people, at most you can only arrest them temporarily, and you must not harm them.

Equal distribution of land does not mean land grabbing. We will give land to those who have no land, and we will also give certain compensation to those who have more land. Of course, the compensation will not be too much, just 80% of the market price.

The wealthy families will certainly suffer some losses, but this is the limit of what China can do.

From today onwards, the land will not be sold or subleased, and any land agreements signed in any other form will be invalid.

Hearing Chen Gu say that he was willing to compensate, although only with 80% of the market price, the people from the ten major clans all breathed a sigh of relief. It was really painful to give it away for nothing. After all, 20,000 acres was at least 100,000 taels of silver.

Each of the ten major clans owns more than 20,000 acres of land.

It could have been concealed originally, but Chen Jue had already extended his tentacles to various towns and villages. In addition, ordinary people who were able to get land would definitely report it, so it would be impossible to hide how much land they had.

The political affairs were almost settled, and Chen Gu sent someone to invite Lao Piao, Xing Honghai and others in.

Next we will discuss military issues.

Chen Gu also needed to launch military activities to raise money. Apart from anything else, the equal distribution of land compensation was a huge sum of money. Without so much money, it would be difficult to implement the equal distribution of land.

"Leave the mountain!"

"Everyone please take a seat!"

After everyone was seated, Chen Gu said, "Everyone, tell me, where is the best place for us to attack next?"

No one spoke. Fo Baofang knew that Chen Gu was going to attack the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, but the others did not know what Chen Gu was thinking and did not dare to speak rashly. So Chen Gu first explained why he wanted to attack the upper reaches of the Yangtze River instead of attacking Chongqing first.

Everyone thought that there was nothing wrong with Chen Gu's idea. After all, if they attacked upstream, they only needed to deal with the upstream party, but if they attacked Chongqing, they might be attacked from both rivers downstream.

In particular, Jiangjin County is surrounded by rivers on three sides and backed by mountains on one side, so it is easy to block ships coming from Chongqing. Therefore, there is basically no worry about attacking the upper reaches. The name Jiangjin is derived from the fact that it is a key point on the Yangtze River.

By defending Jiangjin, the Yangtze River can basically be completely blocked. Moreover, Chen Gu still has ten captured cannons. Although they have been burned, the cannons and shells are still usable. As long as they are transported to Jiangjin, even the ships going downstream will be terrified, and the ships going upstream will be sitting ducks.

Xing Honghai thought about it, stood up and bowed to Chen Gu. Just as he was about to speak, he saw Chen Gu stretched out his hand and pressed it lightly.

"Captain Xing, please sit down. There is no need for us to be so polite. If you have any ideas, just speak up!"

"Yes!" Xing Honghai had no choice but to sit down again and said, "Shaoshantou's idea of ​​attacking the upper reaches is very good, but I think it is better to attack Chengdu first than to attack Hejiang."

Everyone couldn't help but be shocked. After all, that was Chengdu. Not only was it the Governor's Office, but it also had the Chengdu General's Mansion. It could be said to be the core of the entire Sichuan Province, and its defense was naturally the strongest in the entire Sichuan Province.

Chen Gu only has a thousand soldiers and even if you add the four thousand Green Camp soldiers, there are only five thousand people in total. Can he really attack Chengdu directly?

Moreover, Jiangjin is eight or nine hundred miles away from Chengdu. Even if you travel with a small group, it will take at least ten days or half a month to get there. Is there no chance of any accidents on the way?
If an expedition of this distance fails, there will be no way to retreat. Even if it just leads to a stalemate, it will be a fatal thing. After all, the distance is too far, and the biggest problem is how to obtain supplies.

Unless we can capture Chengdu in one fell swoop.

Of course, if we can really capture Chengdu, there will naturally be a lot of benefits. Not to mention other things, the political significance alone is very great, because capturing Chengdu basically means that the entire Sichuan can be said to have fallen.

The capture of Chengdu was also a huge blow to the morale of the imperial army, and it would then be much easier to attack other places.

After all, Chengdu had already fallen. If it was taken down in an instant, places like Yibin and Luzhou would have no courage to resist, because they could not win and could not wait for reinforcements. Their best option would be to surrender.

And by then, we will be able to advance very quickly down the river. Of course, this is only possible if we can capture enough warships in Chengdu.

After analyzing the pros and cons in his mind, Chen Gu asked Xing Honghai: "Tell me, what is the reason why you chose to attack Chengdu?"

"Because Chengdu is short of troops, very short of troops. Everyone should know that the total military strength of Sichuan is 25,000. Among them, the 2,000 Eight Banners men in the city are all elite, but half of them have been lost in the Buddhist treasure.

Dajianlu had one thousand elite Eight Banners soldiers and two thousand Green Camp soldiers to guard against Jinchuan, but they were too far away and had the responsibility to defend the territory, so it was impossible for them to return to defend Chengdu without an order from the court.

As a result, there were only 20,000 troops left in the entire Sichuan. Let’s not talk about how these 20,000 people were distributed specifically, let’s just talk about the composition of these 20,000 people.

It is a common practice in the army to draw salaries without working. Excluding some old and weak soldiers, there are only 10,000 real fighters among the 20,000 troops in Sichuan.

Le Bao lost nine thousand men in the battle of Fobao. Except for one thousand navy and one thousand Eight Banners soldiers of Chengdu Prefecture, there were actually no troops left in the whole Sichuan. Le Bao led nine thousand troops to attack Fobao, not because he did not want to gather more troops.

In fact, the entire Sichuan Province only dispatched this many troops.”

(End of this chapter)