In July, Washington, D.C., is the hottest time of the year, and during the 21st century global warming, the temperature here can be quite unbearable, with extreme temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius.

However, it is now the nineteenth century, the whole world has just come out of the Xiaoice era, has not fully entered the period of global warming, plus the city of Washington is not large, just a small town, the heat island effect is not serious, so even in the middle of summer, the average daily temperature is about 26 degrees Celsius, overall it is still a fairly mild season.

In the past, due to the rising temperature in July, everyone's clothes have become less, especially women, who wear relatively thin, so this is also called the season of love, and it is the golden season for young men to confess to their beloved girls.

Because of this, July is also the busiest time in Washington, D.C., the streets are full of singing and laughter, known as the most vibrant month in Washington, and summer is also the favorite season of most Washington citizens.

But in July 1864, the climate in Washington, D.C., was still mild, but the city lost its former cheerfulness and became more and more depressing, and the citizens were not happy about the arrival of summer, but had a deep sense of anxiety.

The reason for this is that Washington has become the second-line base of the federal army, and many of the wounded on the front line have been transported to Washington to recuperate, so Washington has become the largest wounded camp of the federal government.

Many of the wounded are dying because of the lack of medical care and medicines, especially when the temperature rises, and the number of casualties due to the infection is increasing.

Every day new wounded are brought in, every day people die, and every day rehabilitated soldiers go back to battle...... The citizens of Washington have long been accustomed to such scenes, and they no longer have any strength to object, praise, or complain.

In fact. The citizens of Washington today are not so much patriotic as they are accustomed to this kind of life, after all, they are the lowest level of the people, and they have no power to resist, they can only do what the government says.

In the beginning, the citizens of Washington also protested for a variety of reasons, starting with a protest for the defeat at the front. Later, they protested over the death of their own relatives in battle, and then began to protest over the high prices, and in the end, the protests of the citizens disappeared, and instead turned into a long queue at the food relief station.

The reason for all this is that the Washington government has been suffering from a severe food shortage since March, and in order to cope with the growing food famine, the Washington government had to urgently introduce a new food policy at the end of April. That is, the free trade of food will be abolished, and the government will purchase and sell it in a unified manner.

To put it simply, Washingtonians are no longer able to buy daily necessities such as flour, bread or salt at local stores or bakeries, so they have to register with the city government. Get a new ID card, and then use the ID card to receive a certain amount of food stamps, cloth stamps, oil stamps, vegetable stamps, salt stamps and other stamps every month.

After receiving the ticket, you can take the ticket and go to the patriotic department store designated by the government to use the money to buy the supplies you need.

Other words. You have to buy things in the market, especially the necessities of life, and it is useless to have money alone. There must also be a corresponding ticket, without which you can't buy anything.

Therefore, if the citizens of Washington want to buy something, they must first prepare two things, the first is the corresponding ticket, which specifies the type and quantity of goods you can buy, and the second is the money.

In fact, the Washington government has no choice but to implement the ticket policy, because the federal government at this time not only lacks money, but also seriously lacks all kinds of commodities, and can no longer continue to implement a free commodity economy, but can only implement a planned economy, and the means of tickets naturally appeared.

This kind of ticket economy of shopping by ticket is the first after the founding of the United States of America, although some people say that it is a study of China, but in fact it is not like that, but the United States of America itself has figured out the method, which is something that will come naturally.

The reason for this, and everyone can understand, is that it was because of the Civil War, and if it were not for this protracted and tragic large-scale civil war, the United States of America would never have had this kind of ticket economy, at least not now.

At first, the citizens of Washington were quite uncomfortable with this way of shopping with tickets, but when they found that there was no other way than to go to the designated place to shop with tickets, they had to compromise and adapt as quickly as possible.

They had to adapt, because the troublemakers had already been taken away by the Patriotic Youth Army or the police on the streets, and once they were captured, no one was seen to release them, and they were all sent to the front line as cannon fodder.

All in all, Washington today is no longer the free Washington it used to be, but a heavily regulated city.

Here, citizens are not allowed to assemble, march, or make reactionary remarks, and they are not qualified to make irresponsible remarks about the government's policies, and any misconduct is considered hostile and reactionary and must be arrested by the police and the Patriotic Youth Army.

Therefore, in the face of such unreasonable and irresistible administrative law enforcement, the citizen of Washington has no other way out except to passively accept it, unless he wants to be arrested.

Today's Washington citizens, when they meet each other, they don't talk about the road, but it's not much worse, there is no longer the trust between people, everyone is afraid of being told and exposed, and then suddenly a vote of patriotic youth army dressed in black will arrest themselves or their relatives to serve as soldiers.

Just imagine, in this atmosphere, who dares to wander around on the street, and which young man dares to confess to the girl in public in the downtown area.

The so-called Patriotic Youth Army is an informal paramilitary organization officially recognized by the federal government, they have no formal public office, do not receive government subsidies, but have the right to interrogate and arrest, and the weapons and equipment are much better than the police force.

This organization was actually born out of Aaron. The Patriotic Association organized by Pinkerton was originally only a small spy organization, and its early role was to use the means of the underworld to calm down all the opponents of Lincoln and avoid too many opposition voices in the federal government.

However, as the situation developed, there were more and more voices of opposition. It is no longer limited to the executive branch, such as the government and the parliament, but the opposition of the private sector is the real mainstream.

So, in order to deal with the opposition of the people, let the top and bottom really twist into a rope, and all become one voice, with the acquiescence of Lincoln, Aaron. Pinkerton reorganized the Patriotic Association, turned it into a Patriotic Youth Army, and aggressively expanded the number of young people to join.

The purpose of the Patriotic Youth Army is one, absolutely support Lincoln. Anyone who resisted Lincoln and opposed Lincoln's policies was a hostile reactionary and had to be arrested and interrogated, and then punished with varying degrees of intensity, depending on the situation.

In other words, although the Patriotic Youth Army is not a government agency officially recognized by the government, nor does it belong to the sequence of the federal army, because of the acquiescence and delegation of power by the White House, it relies on strong force. With judicial power, anyone can be arrested at will without evidence and interrogated by force without the need for public.

In other words, the Patriotic Youth Army wants to arrest people. It doesn't matter if you have evidence of your crime in your hand, whether you hire a lawyer or not, it's all useless. If you say that you are guilty, you are guilty, and it is not good for anyone to come.

When you are arrested on Patriotic Youth Day, it is best not to resist. Once you resist, you are not guilty of being killed, even if you are wronged, as long as you resist, being beaten to death is a vain death!

It is precisely through this kind of almost unreasonable power, coupled with militarized training and extreme brainwashing education, that the combat effectiveness of the Patriotic Youth Army is quite strong, not to mention that they are all Lincoln's brainless fans, and the difference is not too big, it has become Lincoln and Allen. One of Pinkerton's sharpest knives to rule Washington.

If we make an image analogy, then the Patriotic Youth Army at this time is a bit like the SS in Germany in World War II, a powerful spy organization and military organization, everything it does is to serve President Lincoln, not only to suppress the local government for the president, but also to take up arms and go to the battlefield when necessary.

As a result, the YPA was widely present not only at the urban level, operating alongside the police, but also at all levels of the Federal Army.

However, compared with the arrogance and arrogance of the people, the Patriotic Youth Army does not have great power in the federal army, they cannot replace the functions of the military police, nor can they arrest the officers and men of the federal army at will, they are only regarded as an ordinary army and must obey the orders of their superiors.

If we have to say that the Patriotic Youth Army in the Federal Army is different from other units, it can only be said that the soldiers of the Patriotic Youth Army are generally young, with an average age of only 18 years old, and the youngest is 14 years old, most of whom are teenagers.

Although this group of young soldiers does not have much combat experience, their morale is very high, they do not want to die in battle, and their love for the president is also extremely fanatical, so this group of patriotic youth troops dressed in black is generally unpopular in the federal army and is called the black madman army.

Today, in all the major cities of the United States, there are patriotic youth troops, but the largest number and the most severe rule is still Washington, D.C.

To put it bluntly, the reason why the federal government is still so stable in society today, and why it can implement the ticket economy so smoothly, is due to the strong patriotic youth army.

Without the pressure of the Young Patriotic Army, Lincoln's ticket-based economy would not have succeeded, and it is thanks to the ticketing economy that the federal government, although still very difficult in terms of economy, has been able to hold on to it without weakening its local dominance in the slightest.

In fact, to put it bluntly, this approach is to strengthen Lincoln's dictatorship through militarized coercive measures, use fear to maintain social resources, and replace democracy with dictatorship, so that the whole society will not allow opposition, and then let the whole society forcibly follow Lincoln's will as a whole.

In this mode, the people's individual ** is oppressed to the lowest level, and has to completely follow the government's instructions, and the individual ** is reduced, their consumption is reduced, and the materials and resources produced can be cheaply distributed by the government, so as to control the resources of the whole society to the greatest extent.

Aside from ideological things such as human rights and freedoms, in this way, the federal government is tantamount to using a masochistic way to dig deep into its own war potential, thus stimulating its own true heritage.

This is like a boxer who has taken a doping drug, using self-abuse to improve his combat effectiveness, so that he can have stronger endurance and physical strength in the ring, and can fight with his opponent for a longer time.

In the beginning. Lincoln was still hesitant to use the Patriotic Youth Army to suppress the people, after all, he still had some democratic freedom left in his bones, otherwise he would not have only controlled the members of the Congress, but did not take the opportunity to reorganize the government agencies and fundamentally change the political model of the federal government.

In other words, in the United States of America, the governing body in the United States of America appears to be the same as in the past, with the separation of powers between the Parliament, the courts, and the White House, but in reality, because all three institutions are forcibly controlled by Lincoln. It's basically the same as a personal dictatorship.

In that case, Lincoln could have changed the constitution and reorganized the country's institutional model, but he did not, but still retained the model of separation of powers, but with a personal dictatorship inside.

Originally, he just wanted to implement dictatorship in state institutions, and he also wanted to keep some free atmosphere among the people, but later he saw that it really couldn't be done, and there were rebels and protesters everywhere. As a result, many of his orders could not be carried out smoothly, so he had to obey Aaron. Pinkerton's suggestion expanded the rule of the spies. Let the tentacles of dictatorship stretch longer and wider.

Suffice it to say that the founding of the Young Patriotic Army meant that Lincoln's model of dictatorship reached its highest peak. During this period, no one dared to oppose Lincoln, and no voice dared to oppose Lincoln. Lincoln's will is the will of the federal government, and the will of the United States of America!

It should be said that this path of serious departure from democracy was not Lincoln's intention, and he was actually forced to take this path.

This is just like when Hitler came to power, his personal problems are only one insignificant aspect, the so-called situation creates heroes, and dictatorship is the need of the national situation!

In the United States of America at this time, dictatorship is the only way out, Lincoln is not dictatorial, there will definitely be someone else to replace him, but in that case, Lincoln will not become a ruler, but will be used as a stepping stone for a new ruler!

From this point of view, the success of Lincoln's dictatorship is the call of the times, the need of the country, and the embodiment of public opinion. Although his dictatorial model has many opponents, there are equally many supporters, so that he can wield absolute power and become the largest and most centralized president in the history of the United States of America!

The current Lincoln, I dare not say that there is no one to come, but it is absolutely unprecedented, refreshing the new history of the United States, and the Lincoln model he created has also quickly played a role, in the face of major external pressure, showing extraordinary governance efficiency, so that the whole country is united, stimulating the re-explosion of national strength.

In this situation, Lincoln was coping with the pressure of war from both the North and the South, and at the same time dealing with the severe shortage of supplies at home, and at the same time, he actually had the spare energy to recruit 300,000 new recruits throughout the entire Greater Washington, D.C.!

Although the quality of this batch of recruits is generally not strong, ranging in age from 14 to 40 years old, it is already a deep mobilization, but no matter what, this is 300,000 new troops, even if it is cannon fodder, once sent to the battlefield, this is a powerful weight!

However, due to the lack of supplies, after Lincoln recruited these 300,000 men, he only trained them for a month, and then incorporated them into the sequence of the Western Theater of the Union Army, which was temporarily assigned to Benjamin. Butler's James River Corps commanded.

To put it simply, Lincoln hoped that this force would be incorporated into the James River Corps, and then the James River Corps would attack westward to make a second westward crusade, and to break the current stalemate through the westward expedition, and it would be best to recapture the lower Mississippi River region, so as to gain the strategic initiative again, and follow the old path of Grant.

And Lincoln dared to do this because he received clear news that the Chinese had withdrawn their troops, and now their main force had arrived in New Orleans, leaving only one regiment in Memphis, but the purpose was to protect Joseph in Memphis. Johnston.

That is, there was already serious infighting in the western theater of operations of the Union Army, Joseph . Johnston's soldiers and horses were already in full array, and if it weren't for the Chinese regiment left in Memphis in the center, the two sides would almost have really fought.

So Lincoln saw this as a golden opportunity, a chance to retake the West and strategically encircle the South!

As Grant said to Lincoln when he was still there, the key to the Southerners is the West, and as long as the West is finished, the Confederates will lose their blood-forming ability, and the East will soon collapse.

Once, Grant almost succeeded, but unfortunately he was hit head-on by the Chinese and lost everything in an instant, but now, the Chinese are leaving, and the situation seems to be getting better.

In short, at a time when both the North and the South were in a stalemate, attacking the softer and more chaotic West seemed to be the best option, so Lincoln decided to go west again with all his might, in order to completely defeat the damned Southerners.

However, just as Lincoln was ambitiously preparing for the Second Expedition to the West, the arrival of an uninvited guest disrupted their plans. (To be continued......)