Dominate the Country

"Read the newspaper, read the newspaper, the dust of Yongzhou Prefecture has settled. Shaoyang Huang Xin and Huang Shiping are going straight to the blue sky..."

"Read the newspaper, read the newspaper. Liu Fei, the giant bandit in western Hunan, is making waves again, attacking Dayongsuo at night..."

"Read the newspaper, the latest war situation in southern Hunan. Shaozhou Yang Zhengjie's sneak attack on Yizhang failed, and was immediately defeated by our Hunan Army. The Zhou brigade has a strong army and a strong army..."

"Read the newspaper, read the newspaper, the latest situation in Shandong. Wang Lun's rebel army has marched to Laiwu..."

"Read the newspaper, read the newspaper, the armies of the Fuhan Army gathered in Wuchang..."

After the new year, the city of Changsha really has a different atmosphere than in the past, and the fresh newspapers have become the new favorite of countless people.

From the "official election" that caused a stir a year ago, to the small-scale conflicts on the border between western Hunan and Hunan and Guangdong, to the changes in rice and commodity prices in various parts of Hunan during the New Year, as well as the major changes in the war situation across the country, etc., etc. You can see it in this small newspaper.

Years ago, Chen Lugong appointed Liu Jijiang, a teacher from Changsha Chengnan Academy, as the president of Hunan Daily and opened the first official newspaper in Hunan. Not to mention newspapers with strong government backgrounds, newspapers such as "Shiguwen" and "Yuelu Mountain" based on academicians have also been published.

This is because the price of the Hunan Daily and the local daily newspapers is two copper coins per copy, which is too cheap and the coverage is too wide. The Chen Han government also passed compulsory measures to require storytellers in teahouses and restaurants everywhere to read newspapers for an hour every day, otherwise..., haha, they will have good fruits to eat. The owners of teahouses and restaurants must not hinder them, otherwise they will have good fruits to taste.

In fact, an hour is not long at all for the content carried by several newspapers. This coercive measure aroused the disgust of countless businessmen and people in the first few days, but soon their disgust turned into love.

Because the absolutely slow speed of news dissemination in this era cannot be compared with the systematic news exchanges between newspapers, and for official newspapers such as "Xiang Daily", the only thing Chen Ming taught them was the thick pile of information on Hubei and southwest Henan. , is enough for them to use their wonderful pens.

Today's "Xiang Daily" and "Changsha Daily" also use small-sized current news with large-sized old news about military, political, and civil laws in Hubei, southwest Henan, etc., and they can get the job done easily.

When Xu Yongmin brought Chen Ming Liu Jijiang, a well-known 'celebrity' in Changsha, Chen Ming's first reaction was to choose a prefect for him, but then he thought of the newspaper office. Chen Ming put two choices in front of Liu Jijiang. Given his choice, Liu Jijiang chose the newspaper president without hesitation.

The ‘official selection’ started in the middle of the twelfth lunar month of the previous year and had been delayed until almost the first lunar month, and the last prefect position was finally settled. The other county magistrates' hats were all settled. Just as Chen Ming thought, none of Cheng Hao and the others were stupid, and these people didn't care how many former classmates they had after joining the Fuhan Army. Classmates insult you, but the power of role models is endless.

From an ordinary scholar to the throne of a fourth-grade prefect, he made many people envious. As mentioned above, there are so many frustrated and impoverished scholars in the world today. The ghostwriters at the temple gate are also scholars. Although they are very poor, who would say that they are not scholars? Those old boys and girls in their thirties, forties, forties and fifties are also scholars. With their role models in front of them, people like Cheng Hao and Xu Yongmin can become high-ranking officials. Why can't they?

Whenever there is a change of dynasty, isn't it an opportunity for these 'talented people' who had no success in the old dynasty to make a comeback?

Such an influx of 'scholars', government servants, and petty officials who came to serve, coupled with the top minds within the Changsha Qinglian Sect, impressively filled the ranks of the assistant officials in Changsha, Yueyang, and Hengyang. . Although Chen Ming remains skeptical about whether they are competent, this will only leave time and data.

Before Huang Xin finally asked for the official title of Yongzhou Prefect, most of the prefectures and counties in Hunan also ushered in a new page for themselves when the New Year came. Regardless of whether the county magistrates who took office can establish themselves, the government has once again been established in Hunan. The garrisons allocated to the local areas by the Fuhan Army also left one after another.

The Second Brigade of the Hunan Army is a unit composed and trained mainly by the Qing soldiers and civilians who surrendered from He Erhu Regiment and Changsha. Wang Jun, the leader of Qinglian Sect in Changsha, has been announced as a member of Lushan. In the future, he will work in the Industrial and Commercial Administration or the Ministry of Finance. It is believed that Wang Jun's official identity is a small boss in Changsha's business community.

The Green Lotus Sect has been taking root in Changsha for sixty or seventy years and has been passed down for three generations. There is no way Chen Ming can keep Wang Jun in Changsha. Unless people like Shen Zichun are from the Green Lotus Sect, Chen Ming is not prepared to use them. But this is clearly not the case. Shen Zichun is already the garrison commander of Changsha. The Fuhan Army has this troop stationed in Changsha, and there is also a naval camp and a new military camp in Yueyang.

Wang Jun knew clearly in his heart that he was not unhappy at all. He packed up his belongings and took his family to Lushan a year ago.

There were more than 20,000 Qing soldiers and civilians in Changsha, but the main force was the Yunnan-Guizhou frontier soldiers. Those who were led by the Qinglian Sect to surrender were all Hunan soldiers and Xiangyong, and their number was only one or two thousand. After the Qing army was completely annihilated in Jinpenling, some people surrendered after being shouted down by the Fuhan army. Also, Chen Ming asked the wounded soldiers from the Yunnan-Guizhou frontier army who had been treated before to pull them over among the prisoners. This disrupted the situation in several ways. The miscellaneous editor successively established the Second Brigade of the Hunan Army with He Erhu's Department, and then established the Changsha Garrison Regiment.

Therefore, whether it is the Hunan First Brigade, the Second Brigade, or the Changsha Garrison Regiment, their individual soldier quality and combat capabilities are far inferior to those of the regular troops of the Fuhan Army. You cannot expect them to "change their appearance" in a sudden change. At the same time, the combat effectiveness has also been completely refreshed. Compared with the pure combat effectiveness of the soldiers, Hengyang's 15th Brigade was even better than them. In addition, the armor prepared for them by the Fuhan Army was mainly old-style rattan iron armor, with only a small number of full-iron armors, and the artillery was mainly old-style three-pound cannons and tiger squat cannons. In terms of armament, it was also firmly outnumbered by the 15th Brigade!

The things that Chen Ming had previously put into his arsenal were put to use again.

…

"It's a pity. Yang Mingdao was so brave, but he was tripped up by villains..."

"It's so painful. Dozens of loyal people were killed at the city gate."

"What Brother Xiuping said is true. The match went out before it was used up. It must be Yang Mingdao who offended the villain and was treated badly."

"Yang Mingdao's hard work was wasted, and dozens of athletes shed blood. It is so sad and tearful. To this day, the Qing Dynasty is still full of moths, and it is painful and sad..."

A group of students at the Chengnan Academy of His Excellency Tianxin in Changsha, headed by Li Zhuo, were all furious when they saw the inside story of the Yizhang Battle reported in Hengyang Daily in detail. Although for the entire situation of the Manchu and Qing Dynasties, Wang Lun, another participant who suddenly jumped out of the Shandong battlefield, was undoubtedly the key to the gains and losses of the Guangdong regiment, but for Chengnan Academy and many people in Hunan, Shandong was too far away , but Yang Zhengjie from Shaozhou, Guangdong is right next door.

Yang Zhengjie, also known as Mingdao, is a native of Shaozhou, Guangdong. After the Han army came to Hunan, he invited teachers, students and friends to form a team training. The battle in Yizhang was not the first time he fought against Zhou Zhilin, but most of those battles were in Rucheng. This was the first time he fought in Yizhang, and this time he was very sure of it.

According to Yang Zhengjie's plan, he first asked a trustworthy person to disguise himself and sneak into the city, and then used a desperate person to act as a driver, drive a donkey cart loaded with hundreds of kilograms of gunpowder to the Yizhang City Gate, and then blow it up in one fell swoop. With the loud bang, the city gate, the suspension bridge, the fences outside the city, the antlers, and the Fuhan Army guards at the city gate were all destroyed. And Yang Mingdao, who disguised his team as refugees, had already approached Yizhang with his men. As soon as the explosion went off, people from both inside and outside the city started to attack, and they could definitely capture Yizhang City in one fell swoop.

Yang Zhengjie's plan cannot be said to be impossible, but God is not as good as God. The driver of that crucial carriage lit the match with a fearless attitude. The smoke immediately aroused the defenders' ideas. As a result, the match rope The dye was dyed but it was extinguished before the Fuhan army came to kill him.

As a result, Yang Zhengjie's plan came to nothing. The dozens of people who had previously sneaked into the city were wiped out in the subsequent manhunt.

After this drama, it would be difficult for Yang Zhengjie to come up with unexpected tricks. Yizhang will definitely be on guard.

Zhou Zhilin had a full formation in Yizhang. The Yizhang magistrate who took office also knew the danger of his position. He established a police station as soon as he took office. The police chief who came to Yizhang businessmen with him was himself a Yizhang businessman. Zhang Ren, a coal worker, relied on his old connections to quickly win over Xiao Bairen. The Yizhang garrison also has several cannons, muskets and grenades, and even armor, even if it is not iron armor. When it came time to really fight, even though Yang Zhengjie's militia consisted of five to six hundred people, they couldn't defeat Yizhang! After the garrison in Na Yizhang subsequently detected Yang Zhengjie's team, they gathered their forces and launched an attack on Yang Zhengjie's troops with the cooperation of dozens of policemen. "Hengyang Daily" said that this battle was a complete victory, but seeing that the newspaper only shouted about a complete victory, but did not say that the leader was caught, the students of Chengnan Academy had reason to believe that the so-called "complete victory" Victory is "Hengyang Daily" putting gold on its boss's face.

Chengnan Academy is also brewing a newspaper of its own. Of course Chengnan Academy is not as famous as Yuelu Academy and Shigu Academy nationwide, but in Changsha, Chengnan Academy is not inferior to Yuelu Academy.

In particular, Chengnan Academy produced two scum, Liu Jijiang and Xu Yongmin. Nowadays, quite a few teachers and students in Chengnan Academy believe that this shame must be washed away. The first page of the "Xiangbao" hosted by Liu Jijiang used the Hunyuan Sect's bastards who slandered the sages to talk about it, using the Han clothes of the saints and sages to the robes and mandarins of the Qing Dynasty, and holding up the slogan of Huayi. The big flag, overtly or covertly, indicates that many scholars today are decorating their hair, wearing Tartar clothes, worshiping the Tartar king, and brazenly defending the ways of Confucius and Mencius...

It was also because of the sharp first blow from the "Hunan Daily" that the "Yuelu Mountain" and "Shigu Wen" newspapers were rushed to publish quickly. I heard that even the funds were spent by teachers and students of the two colleges. These people from Chengnan Academy also contributed.

…

"Your Highness, the report of Chengnan Academy's application for newspaper registration has arrived at the Changsha Bureau of Culture and Education."

"How much money did they scrape together?"

"I heard there are one thousand five hundred taels."

"One thousand five hundred taels..." Chen Ming smiled, "Tell Liu Jijiang that the price of the manuscript fee can be disclosed." Scholars are still ashamed to take money directly, but food, cloth, pens, ink, paper, and books, aren't they money?

Chengnan Academy only has one thousand five hundred taels of silver, how much silver does a complete set of printing tools cost? There are also paper, pens, and labor for sales. Just like "Yuelu Mountain" and "Shiguwen", they insist on two copper coins per newspaper. I really don't know how long this newspaper of Chengnan Academy can last.

Chen Ming no longer cares about this matter. He tolerated "Yuelu Mountain" and "Shiguwen", so why can't he tolerate Chengnan Academy to interfere again? Anyway, it's just a mouth cannon. Singing and drinking the orthodoxy of the Qing Dynasty and the Confucian school, they dare not publish the excessive ones themselves, and can only post tabloids at night. The Qing Dynasty was never a dynasty that "did not punish people for their words". Although the literary inquisition was not unique to the Qing Dynasty, it was pushed to the extreme by the Qing Dynasty. Those people valued their lives. Even if there were a few people who wanted to gain fame, and a few who wanted fame over their lives, once something happened, a large number of people would be implicated, not just one or two. Look at the literary inquisitions in the Qing Dynasty. Wasn't there a large number of people involved each time?

The literary inquisition has always been the focus of the Fu Han Army newspapers attacking the Qing Dynasty. The literary inquisitions in the Qing Dynasty were all obvious black spots. And why the Qing Dynasty strictly investigated the literary inquisition, there is obviously a reason.

Putting this matter aside, Chen Ming focused his attention on the map, the Huguang map.

"Your Highness, the Yueyang Navy has been fully assembled, and the navy in Wuchang and Jiujiang is also ready." Xiong Bingzhang made a summary report to Chen Ming: "The Guards Brigade, the First Division and the artillery units in Hunan are all ready. The 16th and 17th Brigades of the Fourth Division have also been transferred to Wuchang. The remaining units of the First Division, the First Garrison Division, the 13th Brigade of the Second Garrison Division and the artillery units are also fully prepared."

"The logistics forces, 2,200 ships and sailors of all sizes, have also been mobilized."

February is coming, and Chen Ming has once again assembled a large force in the Wuhan area. Chen Ming is leaving Changsha. He spent the New Year in Changsha and received a lot of clothes, cloaks, sachets, handkerchiefs and so on from the women at home.

"Tell He Erhu to cooperate well with Liu Fei, put on a few more plays, and promote Liu Fei's official rank." The latter is the leader of the Xiangxi bandits. Since he "joined" the Qing Dynasty, he has repeatedly disturbed Lizhou and Changde, and has jumped from the initial captain to the captain.

On the 22nd day of the first lunar month, at the Hunan Governor's Office in Changsha, Chen Minghui, Zhao Yongji, Zhou Zhilin, He Erhu, Liu Jijiang, Chen Guangqian and other civil and military officials in Hunan said:

"This time my army is heading east, and the Qing army will surely attack Hunan fiercely to contain it. You have a heavy responsibility on your shoulders and must not slack off."

While Liu Jijiang was the president of "Xiang Bao", Chen Ming put on the sign of Hunan Supervisory Censor. Chen Han still has the position of censor, but the function is closer to the discipline inspection in later generations. The latter Chen Guangqian was the prefect of Changsha. After training in the new recruit camp for a few days, Chen Ming still transferred him to Changsha before the New Year.

When the Fu Han army was stationed in Changsha, life in Hunan was not difficult. After Chen Ming led his troops away, Hunan's hard times really came. For those officials who are now on the front line in central Hunan, the future will be the time to truly test them!

"The real test starts now. Only when the sand is washed away by the waves can the real gold be seen. The officials who survived the crisis below and withstood the hardships are the real officials of Chen Han!"