I did not know what the Pyongsung market was until I looked it up, and very little information was available about it. There may be a lot of info, but maybe my Google-foo is not up to snuff. However, this PDF discussed what Pyongsung is. According to that paper:

These days, most Chinese imports being brought into the country through Shinuiju are coming through Pyongsung before being sold to to various regions throughout the country. Traders from the east coast cities such as Hamheung, Wonsan, as well as Sariwon, Haeju, Nampo and other areas regularly travel to Pyongsung in order top stock up on goods.

Now if Pyongsung is the hub for goods for other major cities to get supplies and is hard to find food there, that is not a good sign for the regime if the elite cannot get their rations. Also, Relief Web reported:

As we enter March, more and more farm worker households in South Hwanghae Province are making ends meet by eating gruel instead of rice because of the acute lack of food. Strangely enough, the rice prices in this traditional bread basket region are higher than those in North Hwanghae Province, prompting even the rice merchants to exclaim, “This is something we have never seen before in the republic.” In most farm areas in South Hwanghae Province, including Baechun, Yeonahn, and Ahnak Counties, the households were given only 40kg of rice in November. A new year has come and new season has turned since then, but so far there is no news of additional food distribution.

The emphasis I did not get. Does this mean only 40kg of food was rationed to all of those counties to individual homes? If that is true, that is very, very bleak. Furthermore, there seems to be some flashback to the Great Leap Forward:

Because of problems with falsified food production reports in Uiju County in North Pyongan Province, inspections of local farm collectives by the military prosecutors’ office have begun. The Daemun-ri Farm Collective had reported that it had attained the production goal, but the actual amount that came into the Grain Policy Division(Local Food Administration Unit; ) of the local army was a far cry from the reported amount. Ultimately, this discrepancy resulted in prosecutors combing through the production numbers of every single working group in the farm collective and discovered that, even in one working group, there existed tons of discrepancy between the reported and delivered food production amount. The army decided to expand its inspection efforts, assuming that this is not an isolated incident. In response, one official said, “How are you going to solve this problem with inspections? It’s not a problem that has been around for one or two years. It’s an old problem throughout the republic.”

and

[...]“this year is going to be a difficult time even for mid- and low-level officials,” which demonstrates that North Korea’s chronic food shortages have worsened and affect food rations even for government officials[...]

So this says a lot if true.

do you think a military unit could slaughter an entire town/region without feeling any regret?