Daming Military Empire

Chapter 219
The shogunate army outside Shimabara City didn't know that Amakusa Shiro had joined Tianchuan Yuhuang's camp, and Zheng Zhilong was secretly planning there to wipe out the 12 army in one fell swoop.Nobuzuna Matsudaira heard that there was a powerful group of pirates passing by the waters near the Hizen Kingdom. He was not worried at all that this group of pirates would be against him. The main force of the shogunate, unless the pirates wanted to seek death, would never dare to tease him.

Of course Zheng Zhilong didn't want to seek death, even if he went ashore to fight, he might not be able to defeat the 12 shogunate army, but this time he came to assist secretly, not the main force of the attack, so he didn't send troops to land to attack the shogunate army. Instead, they sent people to urge Hong Xu and Gan Hui to quickly integrate the new army, preparing to attack back and forth, and take away the main force of the Tokugawa shogunate in one fell swoop.

Now Tianchuan Yuhuang has assembled nearly 2 troops. If they are all recruits, they may not be able to form a combat force after half a year of training. , Hong Xu and Gan Hui have more than 6000 battle-hardened pirates, and less than [-] real recruits, and most of them are wandering warriors, who have some combat experience, so practice is quite fast.

The main weapons of Tian Chuan's army are samurai swords, bird guns, and earthen cannons. These were the weapons used by Zheng Zhilong before more than 4 pirates were incorporated into the Daming Navy. Now most of them have become officers and soldiers of the Nanyang Navy. Naturally, the weapons were also replaced with the standard flintlock guns and howitzers of the Ming Dynasty. These birdcracks and soil cannons were reserved for Hong Xu, Gan Hui and Shi Daxuan. The original weapons of more than [-] people are more than enough to equip [-] people , so now Tagawa's army is armed with a bird gun and a samurai sword.

As for the earth cannons, they are not equipped with wheels. It is too troublesome to lift them up. Basically, they are placed on the walls of various cities for defense. If you are going to attack the city, you can consider bringing some, but this time they are not going to attack. City, so don't care about the earth guns, just practice the most basic platoon gun and three-stage shooting.

After practicing for about a month, the new army of the Tianchuan Clan was basically ready to practice. The platoons of guns had been placed neatly, and the three-stage shooting had also been practiced in a decent manner. enough.

At this time, the morale of the shogunate army has been extremely low. The consumption of nearly a year has exhausted the savings of the Tokugawa shogunate. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ensure the supply of food and grass. The salary has not been paid for two months. It's getting colder day by day, and the dilapidated tents can't keep out the cold wind at all. More and more people in the army are catching cold. If Shimabara Castle can't be captured a year ago, the 12 army may not be able to hold the initiative. retreated.

Can they attack Shimoshimabara Castle?Needless to say, they definitely won’t be able to take it down. If they could take it down, they would have taken it down a long time ago. The rebel army in the city is equipped with Dutch matchlock guns and hundreds of cannons. It is inconvenient to move. It is estimated that the rebel army will rush out of the city to attack them actively.

The shogunate army has not launched an attack on Shimabara Castle for nearly half a year. Nobuzuna Matsudaira's main tactic now is consumption. He also thought it was a band of pirates secretly supporting the rebel army in the city. No matter how powerful the pirates are, they can be as powerful as the Shogunate. Well, there are hundreds of thousands of civilians and rebels in the city, and he doesn't believe that a group of pirates can be richer than the Tokugawa shogunate.Of course, if he knew that it was the Ming Dynasty who supported the rebel army behind him, he might have led the army to run away. Just kidding, the Ming Dynasty is not ordinary rich now, let alone 10 people, it is 100 million, 1000 Wan, they can all afford it.

This morning at three o'clock in the morning, just after dawn, several cannons were heard from the direction of Shimabara Castle "boom boom boom", Matsudaira Nobuzuna who was sleeping was startled and sat up from the tatami.However, he immediately lay down again. The insurgents did a lot of this kind of thing, and they often fired cannons to harass them in the middle of the night. Being able to do it all night is like being insane, the purpose is to make them so noisy that they can't have a good rest.

The entire shogunate army has long been accustomed to this kind of harassment, so after a few shots were fired, there was no movement at all in the shogunate army camp. Except for the guards who were staring at Shimabara Castle, everyone else continued to sleep soundly. If they can't come to the big camp, they can play as much as they like, and they will stop when they have played enough.

In order to avoid the artillery fire of the rebel army, the shogunate army's camp was set up five miles north of Shimabara City, and the artillery of the rebel army in the city could shoot two or three miles away at most, so they didn't worry about the shells falling into the camp at all. Come inside.

However, they did not pay attention to the direction of the shell. In fact, the shell was not shot from inside Shimabara Castle, but from the sea outside Shimabara Castle. Ten super battleships have been lined up in a neat row, and are loading shells, ready to bombard the camp of the shogunate army. Just after the sound of the guns, the first battleship in front was released to test the range.

Standing on the first battleship and commanding it was Zheng Zhihu, the admiral of the Nanyang Navy. He held up his binoculars, carefully observed the impact of the shells, and then loudly ordered: "All battleships have them, and the guns on the first floor are raised five degrees." , the second-tier naval guns are raised by two degrees, and the third-tier naval guns are lowered by three degrees."

Immediately, one of the orderlies behind him quickly climbed up the mast and played a semaphore to notify the other warships, while the other orderly ran to a trumpet-shaped megaphone and repeated his order loudly.

At this time, the commanders at all levels put their ears close to the sound tubes everywhere. As soon as the order from above was given, they immediately directed the artillery to start adjusting the angles, and soon the angles of all the artillery were adjusted.

Zheng Zhihu roughly estimated the time, and immediately ordered loudly: "All the warships form a single row along the coast and raise half of the sails at a low speed. When the horizontal direction is level with the enemy's camp, immediately fire ten rounds."

Fifty battleships began to advance slowly as the ordering flags were waved. Zheng Zhihu had the most advanced binoculars in his hands to see things five or six miles away in the light of dawn. The sentries of the shogunate army did not have binoculars in their hands. It wasn't until the battleship approached the camp two miles away that the sentry on guard spotted the fleet at sea, and the shrill shouts were recalled in the camp of the shogunate army: "Enemy attack, enemy attack, enemy attack at sea."

At this time, I realized that it was too late. It takes time to put on clothes and equipment. Before the soldiers in the military tents were dressed and ran out, the warship had already entered the shooting position. Flying towards the shogunate army camp, more than a dozen or so kilograms of shells hit the dilapidated army tents. The result can be imagined. The shogunate army camp was plowed out with blood grooves, and countless screams rang out.

This is just the beginning, and the 12 army battalion is also four or five miles away. After Zheng Zhihu's flagship fired the first round of shells, it did not stop moving forward, but moved forward slowly at a uniform speed, releasing a round of shells every 1 minute. The more warships entered the shooting position, the roar of the artillery became more and more intense, and countless shells flew towards the shogunate army camp, and the whole camp almost became a purgatory on earth, with stumps everywhere, blood flow, thousands of soldiers whose tents were smashed It was full of holes, and countless people screamed and rolled on the ground, it was simply horrible.

Fifty super battleships have [-] cannons on one side, and [-] cannonballs for ten rounds of rapid fire. Zheng Zhihu asked them to load solid bullets. At least a blood trough more than ten meters long can be plowed out of the crowd. If it hits a densely populated place, a shell of a [-]-style howitzer can cause at least dozens of casualties. One can imagine.

If they were in the city, they would basically not cause much casualties. No matter how powerful the purely smashing shells were, they would not be able to penetrate the city wall. As long as they hid behind the city wall and did not show their faces, they would be fine. However, they were the attacking party. They could only camp in the wild, but they didn't camp far from the coast for the sake of convenience, so they were tragic.

Since the battleships of the Ming army were equipped with sub-mother howitzers, the loading speed was astonishingly fast, so the ten rounds of rapid fire did not take too long, and ended in less than half an hour.Zheng Zhihu stood at the stern of the flagship and observed the effect of the shelling with binoculars. When he saw the tragic situation of the enemy camp, he couldn't help being a pirate who killed people for more than ten years. ah!Originally, he wanted to turn around and do another round, but seeing the result, he shook his head and sighed, and ordered in a low voice: "Send the signal flare, notify Hong Xu, Gan Hui, and Amakusa Shiro to start attacking."

As soon as his words fell, an orderly behind him immediately took out a huge rocket launcher from the wooden box next to it, raised his hands and aimed it at the sky, and another orderly took out a fire pocket from inside, lit the fuse, and soon, "Chirp "The huge rocket launcher rushed into the sky, and with a "pop", a cloud of fireworks burst out.

"Come on, kill..." There were shouts of killing in Shimabara Castle and more than ten miles north of Shimabara Castle at the same time, and the [-] rebel army and the [-] Tianchuan army rushed to the shogunate army camp at the same time.

There was no fierce resistance as imagined. There were only a few roars of earth cannons and a few sporadic bursts of bird guns in the camp, but there were more miserable screams.A sudden rain of shells has disabled the entire shogunate army. Although only 3 to 4 people were directly killed, no less than [-] to [-] were seriously injured and disabled, and the remaining [-] to [-] people were scared to death If you have the guts to resist, if there is another round of shelling like this, more than half of the people will be smashed to pieces. Who dares to resist!

Their chief general Matsudaira Nobutsuna was straightforward, he was directly smashed by a shell, and died! The 12 shogunate army was wiped out inexplicably. The rebels and Tianchuan army who rushed into the camp were almost frightened by the tragedy in the camp. Daming fights against it, the shells almost the size of a watermelon are like rain, who can stop it!"

Zheng Zhilong was also taken aback after receiving the battle report. Daming had never done such a naked massacre before. He didn't expect that the intensive bombardment of the camp with [-] artillery pieces would cause such consequences. With a quick glance, one can think that this is definitely done by the Daming Navy. No pirate can have so many cannons.

He thought for a while, and quickly ordered: "Quickly block the news. All the combatants who dare to leak the news will be killed without mercy. In addition, quickly clean up the shogunate army camp and fill it up. All the corpses will be transported to Amakusa Island for burial. All the shells were recovered, and all the captives were escorted to Liaodong to be strictly guarded. Before taking Dongying, we must not leak the news!"

His order directly created a huge mystery. The 12 shogunate army disappeared so bizarrely. The place where they camped became a flat land, flat and flat, as if no army had ever been stationed at all.

Where did the 12 troops go? It is unrealistic to ask the enemy. Even if they knew, they would not tell. Tokugawa Iemitsu could only send people to search everywhere like crazy. However, after several months of searching, even people Not a single hair was found.

It wasn't until many years later that Daming relaxed his supervision, and some veterans escaped from Liaodong, that everyone knew that all of this was done by the Daming Navy, but at that time the overall situation was settled, so what if they knew!
(End of this chapter)