Chapter 974: Almost Missing the Captives

In the middle of August of the first year of Da Ming, at the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, good news came from all aspects of the Han tribe. First of all, the train transport docks in Weishan, Dongxin, Tuohai, and Tang tribes that were previously explained were repaired, which means that the docks in the four places now have the ability to load and unload trains.

Even when there are special ships in the future, the Han tribe can directly load and unload train carriages, and maybe they can get a small container ship by then.

Then the grain reserves in the community granaries in various places have increased sharply again, which is mainly due to the bumper harvest of grain in the second quarter, especially the grain output of the counties in the south has increased significantly.

First, it is because the six counties of Qiongzhou Island officially switched to large-scale rice planting, which brought about an increase in production. Second, after the Tang tribe was fully managed by Han people, the people were allocated their own land, and no one forced them to grow sorghum. They can grow staple crops according to requirements. If they want to grow sorghum, each family can also produce a lot of output with 20 mu of auxiliary land.

However, the situation of the Tang tribe is a little more complicated. First of all, they have not yet participated in the five-year storage plan code-named "Da Ming". The warehouse system in various places is not perfect. Before the Han tribe took over, they did not even have any food reserves. Otherwise, the people of Jinpu County of the Tang tribe would not have been starving and had to go to other counties to purchase food.

Secondly, the preparations for the expedition of the Shen Ce Guards. The 20,000 pairs of handcuffs that Luo Chong had ordered from Xingang County have all been delivered. However, there are not many keys for handcuffs, because those things are universal, and one key can open all handcuffs, so there is no need to produce so many. Luo Chong doesn't care much about this.

In addition, there are spare weapons. After two stages of training, the soldiers of the Shen Ce Guards have scrapped two rounds of rifles. The first batch of 2,400 rifles have all been eliminated. After firing nearly 5,000 rounds of bullets, the accuracy of this batch of rifles is really touching. It really became a waste that depends entirely on faith.

After the second batch of soldiers were divided into different arms, one-third of them became assaulters. They were no longer equipped with rifles, so there were only 1,600 rifles in the second batch. After the second phase of training, these rifles became crippled with impressive shooting accuracy, so they had to replace another batch of rifles.

The Xingang County Arsenal produced another 3,200 rifles and delivered them to the Shen Ce Guards. According to Luo Chong's order, half of them were used to replace the soldiers, and the other half were allowed to be carried on board the ship. If the war was fierce, they could be provided with spare weapons at that time.

However, the only good news is that the shotguns do not need to be replaced. Although each of the shotguns equipped to the Shen Ce Guards has fired tens of thousands of bullets, the barrel of this low-pressure smoothbore shotgun is basically not damaged, and the weapon of the spray gun has no accuracy at all. It is shotgun shells, so what accuracy is needed.

Therefore, this batch of shotguns can continue to be used after normal maintenance. In theory, the service life of these shotguns is infinite, unless there is any irreversible physical damage, such as broken parts, bent barrels, etc.

As for the two batches of eliminated rifles, they will not be completely scrapped. Luo Chong can replace them with other troops of the Han tribe.

To be honest, even if the rifling of these rifles has been worn away and turned into smoothbore rifles, they can still maintain good accuracy based on the characteristics of the ammunition. At least hitting human targets within 200 meters is not a problem, but don't even think about getting a good score.

But even so, these eliminated rifles are still incomparable to the early muzzle-loading flintlock rifles.

The effective range of the muzzle-loading flintlock rifle is only 50 meters, and the loading speed is slow. The accuracy is not as good as this batch of discarded waste guns. Even if this batch of waste guns was put into Napoleon's era, it was still the world's advanced level. Therefore, these discarded weapons of the Shen Ce Guards can still play a cross-era advantage when equipped to other armies.

Moreover, after the accuracy is reduced, the power of this batch of rifles will be strengthened. When there are rifling, the bullet will produce a gyroscopic effect due to its own rotation, which helps stabilize the trajectory. But now the rifling is almost smooth, the gyroscopic effect of the bullet will be greatly reduced, and the bullet will quickly lose stability after flying 200 meters. In this way, after hitting the human body, the bullet will roll violently, causing greater cavity damage.

Therefore, this batch of obsolete rifles are still very good weapons, of course, when used within a distance of 300 meters.

In addition, Luo Chong ordered Takumi County to renovate the water arsenal, which was a three-masted sailing ship equipped with various equipment. It was mainly used to dock in the river valley of the northern camp to provide bullet reloading services to the expeditionary Shen Ce Guards for their logistical support.

In Ruyang County, winter uniforms for the Shen Ce Guards were also made, including cotton jackets and trousers, leather boots with fleece inside, military coats, gloves, military caps with locomotives, military quilts, and thick cotton base clothes inside. They wanted to equip them with sweaters and trousers, but Xiao Die had not yet figured out the sweater knitting method that Luo Chong had asked her to study, so sweaters could not be equipped for the time being.

But it didn't matter. It was better to have sweaters, but they wouldn't freeze to death without them. Anyway, with cotton jackets and trousers and military coats, I believe they wouldn't be too cold, and they could still maintain their combat effectiveness.

The last good news was that Qu Bing's wife was finally pregnant. She finally gave him a child before he went to war. Although it was unknown whether it was a boy or a girl, at least he had offspring. In this way, even if he died in battle, he would not be without a child, and it could be considered as maintaining the rule of the Han tribe that no one would go to war without offspring.

After several days of contact, when everything was ready for the expedition, Luo Chong took the winter supplies to the military camp of the Shen Ce Guard. As for the handcuffs that had been produced, they would no longer be sent here. They would be directly loaded on the train and shipped to the dock of Weishan County for loading, and then headed north with the expeditionary fleet. The

expeditionary fleet that was originally docked at Liuyang County now began to gather at the dock of Weishan County. When the soldiers were loaded, they would set off immediately.

Luo Chong brought a convoy full of winter supplies to the Shen Ce Guard and then delivered the supplies to Qu Bing.

The commander of the Shen Ce Guard was Qu Bing, and the deputy commander was a Jinwu Guard named Lu Jian, who was also selected from Luo Chong's personal guards. Their Sima was Wen Feiyu, and the military officer was Hu Yi. They were all Luo Chong's guards before, and now they are all transferred to the regular army as military chiefs, which is considered a promotion, including the battalion commanders of the three battalions of the Shen Ce Guard, who were also the captains of Luo Chong's guards before.

So, the Shence Guards are really the leader's personal army. At least the top leaders of the Shence Guards are very familiar with Luo Chong, and they all remain absolutely loyal to him.

The four of them were not surprised by Luo Chong's arrival. After all, they were already very familiar with Luo Chong, and they used to be with Luo Chong every day. After they brought Luo Chong to the headquarters of the Shence Guards, they started the relevant meetings before the expedition.

Luo Chong sat in the main seat at the top and took the lead in talking about his arrangements.

"Wen Feiyu, Wen Sima, you are responsible for managing the political ideology, intelligence and logistics of the Shence Guards. You have a heavy task now. This time the Shence Guards are going to fight far away from the Han tribe, and most of the material support will be lost.

"Although there are several large camps in the north, the production capacity there is limited, and the help they can provide to you is also very limited. Therefore, before this expedition, you must check carefully how much you can bring, and bring as much as possible. Not only must you calculate the combat consumption, but also the non-combat losses.

"This time I brought you winter cold-proof equipment. You will ask the soldiers to receive it according to the model and try it on. If there is any problem, modify it quickly. You still have a few days. You must break camp and set out on time before August 28, and then arrive at the Weishan County dock within two days, and then board the ship to the north. You must calculate this time well."

"Yes, chief, I have written it down, and I will distribute it to the soldiers for them to try on in a while. But chief, isn't it a bit early for us to distribute winter clothes now? It's only August now. Although it is early autumn, the weather is still very hot. Cotton clothes can't be worn now, right?" Wen Feiyu nodded, accepted the task, and then asked Luo Chong.

"It's getting late. The solar terms are different in different places. The winter in the northern camp is even longer, and it comes more than a month earlier than here. You really can't wear those cotton clothes now, but I dare say that before you get off the boat at the northern camp, you will change into cotton clothes halfway, because it gets colder the further north you go.

"Besides, I'm not asking you to wear them now. I'm just asking you to try them on to see if they fit. If they don't fit, change them quickly. If you don't want to change them, modify them quickly. Otherwise, it won't be easy to change them when you get there." Luo Chong explained immediately.

"Well, I understand. Don't worry, chief. I'll distribute those cotton clothes after the meeting, and then modify and adjust them as soon as possible." Wen Feiyu nodded in agreement.

"Well, is there any problem with your food? "Luo Chong asked Wen Feiyu again, since he was the chief officer in charge of logistics.

"Reporting to the leader, we have planned to prepare three kinds of food. One is dry food for marching, which needs to be made before departure. Regarding the matter of dry food for marching, we have already made plans for the Huotou Camp.

"Then there is the food for the Shen Ce Guards on the ship. According to the voyage, we have stored two months of food for the army. These are mainly two kinds of flour, wheat flour and corn flour, which will be convenient to make on the ship at that time.

"Finally, there is the food for the period of combat. We brought enough food for the Shen Ce Guards to eat for two months. The rest of the food can only be supplied by the local camp. I heard that there is a lot of food stored there, and it should not be a problem to supply more than 2,000 of us. "Wen Feiyu reported again on the food situation of their Shen Ce Guards.

After listening to it, Luo Chong frowned and thought without saying a word. Wen Feiyu's preparations were relatively sufficient, and he calculated the food supply for the three stages to the exact degree. However, Luo Chong still felt that there should be problems somewhere, details that they had not calculated, and missed.

Seeing Luo Chong's expression, Qubing asked in confusion, "Chief, is there a problem with the food? Can't the Northern Camp provide us with food?"

"Impossible, I'm not only responsible for logistics, but also for intelligence. According to the information given by the chief, there are currently nearly 30,000 people in the Northern Camp. The main crops they grow there are rice, corn and wheat. Although there are only two seasons of output each year, the food is definitely sufficient, otherwise they would not be able to absorb new people every year. "Wen Feiyu immediately shook his head and said, he was very confident in his judgment.

However, Luo Chong just felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't remember it for a moment.

"No, that's not right. We must have missed something. I was thinking about this before, but suddenly I forgot it and I couldn't remember it no matter how hard I tried."

Luo Chong said as he thought desperately.

When the few people heard what Luo Chong said, they didn't know what to say. Qubing sat there with a pair of handcuffs in his hands, fiddling with them, turning them around.

The noise immediately attracted Luo Chong, and then Luo Chong saw the handcuffs in Qubing's hands, and his eyes immediately lit up.

Slapping his thigh with a snap, Luo Chong immediately said.

"Oh, right, I remember now, you Shen Ce Wei have enough food, but you forgot to count the prisoners. "

Several people were stunned when they heard it.

Yes, the two main goals of their Shen Ce Guards' expedition this time were, first, to assist the northern camp to completely eliminate the cannibal forces and make them exterminate their race, and second, to capture prisoners, capture a large number of slaves, and bring them back to work for the Han tribe.

They calculated the food for the Shen Ce Guards, but forgot the food for the prisoners. These prisoners also need to eat after they are captured, otherwise they will starve to death, and the Han tribe will suffer, because they are all free labor.

Well, it's not completely free, after all, the Han tribe also provides them with food, right?!

"Well, yes, I forgot to count the prisoners. The chief prepared 20,000 pairs of handcuffs for us this time. If we capture 20,000 prisoners, we have to prepare rations for 20,000 people in advance. Otherwise, if the prisoners starve to death, we will have captured them in vain and wasted food in vain. Chief, what do you think we should do about this? The rations for 20,000 people are not a small number! "Wen Feiyu heard Luo Chong's reminder and immediately knew where the problem was.

"There is no other way. I will raise some more grain transport fleets for you. Our Han tribe is now in the stage of storage, and the summer grain has just been harvested. There is plenty of grain, which can feed another 200,000 people without any problem, so you don't have to worry about the grain. It's just that the transportation is a little troublesome, and it requires a lot of ships.

"But you don't need to transport too much, just enough food for the prisoners to eat on the way. I tell you, when you get there, you will start to scout the target, and carry out small battles and guerrilla warfare to capture prisoners as much as possible.

"After you catch them, you will hand them over to temporary auxiliary soldiers for custody, and then when you have enough prisoners of war, you will load the prisoners directly on the ship and send them here. There is no need to detain them there for a long time, so there is no need to bring so much food, but 20,000 people is not a small number, so it doesn't matter if you bring more.

"Qubing, remember, don't forget to remind me to raise ships and transport food later, otherwise I'm afraid I will forget." Luo Chong said to them again.

"Yes, don't worry, Chief." Qubing nodded and immediately wrote a memo in his notebook.

"Well, now that we have discussed the logistics, let's talk about the battle." Luo Chong looked at the four supreme commanders of the Shen Ce Guards and said again.

I don't know which kind reader reported the previous chapter and blocked it. I am applying for unblocking. Wait a minute

(End of this chapter)