New Shun 1730

Ikeda Tsugumo, the lord of Okayama Domain and the left general of the left guard who was almost dismissed for his unauthorized divorce, could not escape the "Great Return to China" of Toyotomi Hideyoshi who marched 400 miles in five days.

But when he finally arrived at Iwami, the Dashun Army had not attacked there.

After the outposts of both sides had a slight contact, the Dashun Army did not launch a large-scale attack.

However, the light cavalry of the Dashun riding on tall horses still left a deep impression on the Japanese warriors.

There were no good horses in Japan. Although Liu Yu smuggled some to the shogunate for trade tokens, the number was small and limited to "royal use". The horse breeding technology was not up to standard, and no good offspring were cultivated.

In the eyes of the Japanese warriors, the light cavalry of the Dashun soldiers were gorgeously dressed, wearing woolen cloaks, with two flintlock rifles inserted on their waists, holding curved sabers in their hands, and always carrying all kinds of strange trophies on their horses.

There was no armor on his body, and he was very good at horsemanship. When Shi Shiyong went to Edo to "teach" the method of riding and shooting, he left a deep impression on many senior samurai who joined Edo. In the eyes of the samurai in the Okayama clan army, the riding skills of these Fubing light cavalry may not be as gorgeous as Shi Shiyong in Edo, but they are very practical.

These people are in groups of three or five, always appearing in unexpected places, barbaric and lacking discipline, but they have not suffered any losses in the limited number of contacts. Often when the Japanese samurai found the bodies of their companions, they would find that all the valuable things on their bodies had been stripped away.

There was even a situation where five people rushed into a large county and plundered the county governor and looted the property of the county governor's home.

These small number of light cavalry brought great psychological pressure to Ikeda Jizheng. Cavalry has always been the short board of Japan. Ikeda Jizheng doubted whether he could withstand the attack of the Dashun Army.

However, with such a strong reconnaissance, it would not fail to find the troops of Ota Sukeharu who were gathering and marching. The Dashun Army might be worried about the rear and had to retreat.

But it is also possible that no matter how many ways you come, I will only fight one way, first gather troops to defeat the 7,000 troops of Ikeda Jizheng, and then return to fight a decisive battle with more than 10,000 elite hatamoto of Ota Sukeharu.

Ikeda Jizheng did not dare to move, and could only defend Iwami and wait for Ota Sukeharu's order.

Ota Sukeharu also tried his best to march towards Yonago.

His biggest expectation now is that the Dashun army is short of troops and did not eat up Ikeda Jizheng first and then come back to eat up his troops.

It's just that Dashun's scouts ran too far, and his vanguard troops were harassed by Dashun scouts when they were still 70 or 80 miles away from Yonago.

The local people were making a uprising, and Dashun's scouts and light cavalry had no worries at all. Instead, they helped the local people kill the village and county leaders who they dared not kill in the name of "robbing the rich to help the poor".

Give food to the people, and take away the gold and silver scouts and light cavalry, anyway, rice can't be taken away.

At least within 80 miles of Yonago, the initiative of battlefield intelligence was all in the hands of Dashun.

Fortunately, this was Japan after all, and it was easier for Japanese spies to be placed, and Ota Sukeharu could also get some intelligence in the direction of Yonago.

There were good and bad news.

The good news was that after the Dashun army broke through Songjiang City, it did not immediately attack westward, but stayed in Yonago, waiting for the troop transport ships to continuously transport reinforcements.

Under the drive of the Dashun army, the local people were building trenches and fortifications, and building some simple fortresses in the style of southern barbarians in Yonago City.

This proved that the fire-fighting tactics were correct. Ota Sukeharu could now wait for Ikeda Tsunemasa's troops to move eastward and join him to complete the Battle of Yonago.

The bad news was that the combat effectiveness of the Dashun army was a bit scary. It took only three days from the siege to the capture of Songjiang City.

Moreover, the port was continuously transporting troops here. The Dashun army had a good relationship with the local people, and even shouted the slogan of "saving the people from their woes", and many radical people who participated in the uprising continued to join.

There are a lot of cannons, and the army uses a strange kind of musket without a matchlock. The formation is very dense, and there seems to be cavalry, but it is difficult for scouts to get information about how many there are.

But from the notices that Dashun sent to local merchants and people, there should be a lot of them, because the notice said that they would buy beans and horse feed in large quantities. I am afraid that there will be no less than hundreds of cavalry arriving in the future, and there may be thousands.

Ota Sukeharu felt a little weak and felt that he could not win. In such a narrow terrain, he could only fight hard, and he was afraid that there would be heavy casualties.

Especially the once abandoned Yonago Castle, which was being built and reinforced by local people hired by the Dashun Army. There were many firearms and it might be difficult to conquer.

But he had to fight even if he couldn't win, otherwise he would be even more defeated when the Dashun Army repaired the fortress and the subsequent reinforcements arrived.

He had ordered Ikeda Tsugumasa in Iwami to move closer to this side and capture Yonago as soon as possible.

Otherwise, if the Dashun Army gained a foothold here, it would be a transit point and could land anywhere from Shimonoseki to the ports here.

…………

At the port of Yonago, the Dashun army seemed to be increasing its troops, but in fact, they were ready to withdraw.

The light cavalry scouts had already detected the army of Ota Sukeharu, and had long noticed the army of Ikeda Tsugumasa in the direction of Iwami.

General Wu Fangrui looked down on these two armies.

"The terrain of Yonago is very suitable for defense. With the help of engineers, using the rice stored in Yonago Town and Matsue Castle as funds to hire Japanese civilians to build the city, they actually have no chance of conquering it."

"If our army can convert Yonago Castle into a simple bastion, it is estimated that they will not be able to conquer it next year."

"Three elements for a quick attack on a bastion: three times the artillery, well-trained engineers, and grenadiers specially born for slope protection. The Japanese have none of these three. How many come, how many die."

"A quick attack fails, so we can only siege."

"But if we siege... we have naval support. In fact, if we want, we can stay here as long as we want."

Liu Yu made his name by attacking bastions. The people he taught are naturally very concerned about such things. This is also caused by the special external environment of Dashun. Northwest and northern Mongolia need to rely on the tactics of defending bastions to ensure their loyalty.

Bastion attack and defense is also the specialty of the army after the Dashun military reform. Wu Fangrui saw the weakness of the Japanese army at a glance.

He is not exaggerating. Even if the French Marshal Vauban, who is known as the first person to attack bastions, is reborn with the soldiers of Ota Sukeharu and Ikeda Tsugumasa in his hands, he can do nothing about the bastions that Dashun wants to build.

If you can attack a city but can't produce enough cannons, it's the same as not being able to do it.

Wu Fangrui's evaluation of the level of the Japanese army at present is that if it only talks about attacking a city, it may not be as good as Zheng's army 80 years ago.

The muskets are exactly the same as Zheng's muskets back then, and the number of cannons is much less than Zheng's.

In fact, the Japanese at this time may not be able to beat the Ming army a hundred years ago... At least, they are much worse than the long-fought army in the Imjin Joseon Japanese Invasion.

He thinks that there is no need to go through so much trouble in this battle. Just land on Kyushu Island. What can the Japanese army do to us?

The internal contradictions in Japan are so deep that Wu Fangrui does not believe that the princes of Kyushu Island can implement benevolent policies. Will the local people still regard the Dashun Army as the king's army?

From the perspective of pure efficiency, Wu Fangrui thinks that the navy's actions are completely unnecessary.

He was a soldier, and only considered efficiency, not the many games that the people in the court had to consider. He couldn't help feeling a little depressed in his heart - the war was like this, and it didn't show the ability of the army, nor his ability.

Going straight to the Japanese capital, in his opinion, given the current situation, changing a dog to be a staff general, the result would be the same.

Hearing this, Li Li knew in his heart that Wu Fangrui was helpless. The army might not be able to fight such a war, and there was no opportunity to show off, so they had to talk nonsense.

"General Wu, we want to attack instead of defending. The general idea has been decided and cannot be changed. The navy does not want to stay here and attract all the main forces of the Japanese, creating a void and giving the army an opportunity to land in Choshu. It is a waste of resources to use the navy with such good mobility as a fortress garrison."

"In General Wu's opinion, how many of our troops can we fight in a field battle against such Japanese?"

Li Li was not clear about the Japanese mobilization, but he learned from the interrogation of several prisoners captured by the light cavalry scouts that the opposing troops came from Okayama and Osaka, so it can be seen that the Osaka direction is now very empty.

However, we don't know how many Japanese people there are near Heian-kyo, north of Osaka.

Wu Fangrui smiled bitterly in his heart, thinking to himself, field battle? I'm afraid there is no chance.

Bantian laughed and said, "Seventh Prince, in my opinion, it should be no problem for 5,000 to defeat 15,000. Their cavalry is very poor, and their artillery is even worse. Their muskets are still using matchlock iron cannons. Since these Japanese are coming from the direction of Osaka, there are not many troops near the Japanese royal city."

"If Osaka is like Songjiang, the Japanese royal city should be like Jinling, and the capital of this dynasty, analogous to Japan, should be in Edo. Since more than 20,000 Japanese have been mobilized, and the troops from Choshu and Kyushu cannot move, how many troops can be left near their royal city?"

"If Xiaobin is analogous to Tianjin, the Japanese royal city may be in Xianghe, where Xianghe meat pies are made. Even if you climb, you can climb there in five days."

Speaking of this, Wu Fangrui felt that this battle was really boring.

The low-key investigation of Xiaobin City has been completed.

The scouts landed by speedboat not far from Xiaobin City and found out the general situation of Xiaobin Port.

In terms of geographical location, it is quite similar to Tianjin to the capital.

However, Xiaobin is not as far from the capital of Japan as Tianjin is from Beijing. It is at most equivalent to Dagukou from Langfang.

The terrain of Xiaobin City is too perfect. It is difficult for Dashun to find such a port suitable for defense.

The whole bay is like a person stretching out his arms, surrounded by the void, and the two peninsulas that extend out form a natural deep-water bay.

The entrance to the bay is only three or four miles wide, and there are peaks on both sides of the peninsula. Once you break into this gap, there is a bay more than ten miles wide, which is very suitable for the deployment of the navy.

Even if... even if two artillery batteries are built at the entrance of the bay surrounding the peninsula, the navy of Dashun can only land from other places and go around the back of the artillery battery to capture the artillery battery, which will waste at least one day.

However, there is no half artillery battery.

What's even more bizarre is that Xiaobin City is built on the estuary delta, less than 80 feet away from the dock.

At this distance, there is no need for naval guns. The sailors squatting on the mast and shooting the officers on the opposite deck with Minié bullets can shoot at the castle tower of Xiaohama Castle with their guns on the ship.

This may be the most suitable terrain for warships to exert their maximum effect, and there may not even be a second place.

Wu Fangrui thought to himself, what kind of war is this? It's so hard to get a chance to lead troops, but it turns out to be this kind of war. How can he show his ability? It's said that the seventh prince is the chief general, but in fact, isn't it me who is actually in charge?

Thinking again, he thought that the Privy Council had made it so that those who were good at fighting had no outstanding achievements, which made it difficult for the brothers who wanted to make achievements. When he went back, he would take the title of conquering the capital of Japan. When he was bragging at the table, what would he say if others asked him about it? Should he say that he didn't fight at all and went to Japan for a tour?

Li Xi didn't think so much. He just wanted to get an accurate analysis of the Japanese's combat power from the man who had followed Liu Yu to fight against Junggar.

In his opinion, the Japanese were vulnerable, which was just what he wanted.

After thinking for a while, he picked up the pen and wrote four words on the paper, leaving it for the Japanese generals who would arrive in Mizi in a few days.

"No need to send you."