Chapter 22                                                                                                                             �

Tongguan is a place where military strategists must fight, and Tongguan City is not ready-made, but acropolis. The one stationed here is the Tongguan Guard led by the Shaanxi Dushi. However, for many years, there has been no war here. Except for a small number of troops transferred to the north to fight, Tongguan City should be no different from ordinary county towns.

But when Zhou Mengchen actually came to Tongguan City, he couldn't believe it for a moment.

He understood that most of the cities in the Ming Dynasty were built during the Hongwu period. Some counties may have been built later, after all, even many counties in the Ming Dynasty still had no cities. However, the nine sides of the garrison were no longer available.

After all, the garrison station had to undertake certain military tasks, so it would definitely be given priority in the past.

The cities built during the Hongwu period were first-class and strong regardless of their size. They were so strong that they could serve as a bunker to fight against Japanese artillery. But now, what did Zhou Mengchen see?

A ruin.

It instantly made Zhou Mengchen think of the city that fought street battles during World War II, the tall city walls and towers, and now there is only one earth slope left.

There were only a few people who looked like walking corpses, standing outside the city, and there were faint crying sounds in the city.

Zhou Mengchen immediately ordered his left and right to fight out his ceremonial war. He shouted loudly: "Mr. Zhou Gong, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue of the Ming Dynasty, was in charge of disaster relief in three provinces. Master Zhou, arrived, and the Tongguan Guards were on the same road, and they were not welcomed quickly."

While shouting, Zhou Mengchen was not idle either, but walked up to the high slope formed by the collapsed city tower, stood on the high slope, and looked around and felt tight.

Tongguan City is not big, with some military nature. It is just at the junction of the Wei River and the Yellow River, slightly south. Located outside the Tongguan Road, it is on the first open ground, perfectly blocking this road.

Zhou Mengchen's military literacy is easy to infer that this city must be a small but strong city, because if the city is large, it will increase the defensive pressure, which is better to be smaller. However, it can not only block Tongguan Road, but also minimize garrisons.

In this way, the key path can be blocked with the minimum force and the troops can be used in other directions.

But now there is no way to feel like a military fortress in Tongguan City, it is already a abandoned city.

There is no perfect room in the city. Even the only house that stands is the bell and drum tower in the middle of the city. One of the four feet is missing, and it stands completely with three corners.

It seems that although they are all ready to collapse.

"Secretary He Shouchen greets the Lord." An old man came over immediately and said after kneeling down.

Zhou Mengchen said, "Where are you in?"

He Shouchen said: "Thousand Houses."

Zhou Mengchen said: "Where are you commander, commander, and other officials?"

He Shouchen said, "Everyone Shangguan is gone."

Zhou Mengchen was silent for a while and said, "Now, you are in charge of Tongguan's military affairs. If you do it well, after this disaster relief, you will be the commander of Tongguan's military affairs. Don't let me down."

He Shouchen was overjoyed and immediately said, "The lower official received the order."

Zhou Mengchen said: "Immediately call on all the people in the city to gather here, regardless of men, women, young and old. I want to see them."

"Yes." He Shouchen said immediately.

From Qianhu to Commander, it was a great progress. He Shoucheng was full of energy and efficiency at this moment. However, in a while, the remaining people of Tongguan Guard gathered outside the city gate.

Zhou Mengchen frowned and said to himself: "It's the twelfth lunar month now, why are there so many people wearing single clothes?"

Zhou Mengchen had two guesses in his mind. One is that many people don’t have cotton coats and they all hide in the room to survive the cold winter. The other is that many people don’t have time to get cotton coats when they encounter earthquakes.

Which reason is Zhou Mengchen, at this time, was not interested in investigating it. There are very complicated reasons here, and it is not investigated at this time. Zhou Mengchen wants to solve the problem.

Zhou Mengchen said loudly: "I don't talk nonsense. Many of your relatives died in the earthquake, but the dead are dead, and the living have to find a way to live. Now the Chinese New Year is coming soon. Now, many people are not able to hold on to the May wheat harvest. The court just sits aside. I am the one who serves on behalf of Your Holy Descend to provide disaster relief."

"But, the imperial court's large amount of supplies were blocked on Tongguan Road. Now we have to clean the roads immediately and restore traffic. When the money and food are coming, we have one of you. So the male officers left the list and thought that the army was organized, and you would find someone to organize them and do two things immediately. The first thing is to open up Tongguan Road. Second, everyone cooperated to collect corpses for the people who died in the city. We can't always do this."

Zhou Mengchen just looked at it, but in fact, many corpses were in the ruins and were not pulled out. In the entire Tongguan City, more than half of the casualties were killed or injured. This kind of workload was very large. Moreover, the command system of Tongguan City was disrupted suddenly. Many people were greatly stimulated mentally and almost became madmen. In addition, other reasons prevented the people from organizing and forming a joint force.

"Sir, it's not that we are unwilling to serve, but now we haven't eaten much for several days." said a soldier.

Zhou Mengchen immediately shouted: "Da Zhuang."

Zhou Dazhuang immediately stepped out and said, "Here."

Zhou Mengchen said: "Take out everyone's rations and cook them here so that everyone can have a full meal."

When cavalry marched, they usually brought dry food for ten days. Although they traveled thousands of miles from Beijing to Tongguan this time, they all marched in the Ming Dynasty, but now the Ming Dynasty is not the end of the world, so Zhou Mengchen could provide food and accommodation in the local area wherever he went, and the dry food he brought was not consumed too much.

However, more than a thousand people can eat dry food for ten days, which can only make more than one thousand people eat one.

Zhou Mengchen had to find a new source of food, so he did not believe that there was no food in Tongguan City. At least some of the people around He Shoucheng and He Shouchen did not look hungry on their faces, and it was obvious that they had food.

However, this is normal. Under such a disaster, the contact with the outside world was also cut off. The entire Guanzhong is short of food now. I don’t know how long this situation will last. If the court really follows Yan Song’s method, a large number of materials will enter Guanzhong at least one or two months later.

These foods are related to their life and death, so that they can not be divided by those poor people.

Zhou Mengchen immediately asked He Shouchen, saying, "There is no food in the city?"

He Shouchen was stunned and gritted his teeth and said, "Sir, I know that some places have food, but now they are all ruins. Only after cleaning up can the food be produced."

Zhou Mengchen did not pursue He Shouchen's little thoughts. He said: "Today's great disaster, the court will definitely conduct detailed statistics on the disaster situation in various places. Some unowned land also needs to be re-planned. It seems that the same is true for Tongguan Guards, so you can do it yourself."

He Shouchen's eyes shone brightly after hearing this and said, "Please rest assured, I will definitely find food for the people of the whole city."

Zhou Mengchen's implications were very clear. As long as He Shoucheng made contributions, these unowned lands may not be able to become the land of the He family when he cleared his land in the future. After all, Zhou Mengchen knew the situation of the garrison. Generally speaking, the land of the garrison was controlled by all officers, and the commander's family naturally had to eat the big ones, so the following were divided according to official positions. He Shouchen was only a thousand households. He definitely did not have the most land in Tongguan Wei, nor the most food. Now this earthquake caused everyone on He Shoucheng to die. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the He family to develop a family. Before that, He Shouchen did not have this interest.

Only after Zhou Mengchen woke up at once did he realize that he was immediately full of energy.

In fact, if possible, Zhou Mengchen was unwilling to use this method to urge the people below to work. After all, Zhou Mengchen was airborne here directly, and things were imminent, but what was going on in various places? Zhou Mengchen was unfamiliar with the place, and if he wanted to quickly open up the situation, he must have a very good idea.

This is also a last resort.

However, the effect is very good.

At least under He Shouchen's command, he took out a large amount of supplies, whether it was food or clothes, and Zhou Mengchen rewarded them all to the soldiers who worked below, and his morale suddenly increased.
Chapter completed!