New Shun 1730

In the following days, the inside and outside of the palace did not disturb each other, forming a strange peace.

The samurai outside pretended not to know what happened inside, and the officers of the Dashun Army inside pretended not to understand the Japanese address to the King of Wa in the palace, and pretended not to see some etiquette that seemed a bit presumptuous.

The samurai did not dare to attack the palace, and Wu Fangrui also knew that it was a dream to evacuate with the King of Wa under such circumstances. Neither side could do anything to the other. This kind of peace of pretending to be blind to each other might be the best decency.

Then, Akihito sent a formal document to Toki Yoritoshi outside, which was handed over to the Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune.

The letter simply borrowed some examples from history, especially those that temporarily forbeared and finally succeeded, as the reason for him to negotiate with the Dashun Army.

He said that he did not understand political affairs and military affairs, so he hoped that the Shogun would select a talented person who was familiar with Chinese studies and etiquette to assist him in the negotiation.

Talented people are to talk about serious matters, and those who are familiar with Chinese studies and etiquette must be the people of the Tou Lin family of the Seido University.

Akihito didn't care about the real negotiations.

He took this step just to pave the way for the shogunate.

What the shogunate chooses is its business.

Just like Wu Fangrui said, either establish a new one or obey the order. The emperor's order is nothing in the eyes of the shogunate. Sometimes they can't even leave the imperial palace. As long as they obey the order, it proves that they really want to talk.

…………

North of Kyoto, Li Li led the army and moved forward in an orderly manner according to the marching plan formulated by the staff.

It is not far from Kyoto. The vanguard is in Sanzenin, fighting with the last wave of hundreds of samurai before arriving in Kyoto, and it will be over soon.

A military report was sent from the rear. The last big vassal of the Japanese in the Kinki region, Hikone, gathered about 2,500 to 3,000 samurai east of Kyoto and was about to attack Obama Castle.

This is a classic tactic of Wei Wei to save Zhao, hoping to make the Dashun Army turn back.

But after studying it, the staff gave Li Li a full guarantee.

Let's go with the two or three thousand people of Hikone Domain. Only five hundred soldiers are left in Obama, but it is enough. The port will not be lost.

Obama Castle was destroyed by the bombardment before.

After the gun time construction in the past few days, it has already formed the prototype of the defense system of the pure firearm era.

After conquering Obama Castle before, the Dashun Army did not set fire everywhere like Wu Fangrui did to create chaos, but followed the routine to issue a notice to reassure the people and denounce the crimes. The people were still cheering.

Hiring people to build defenses, as long as they are paid, the people will be happy.

The people of Obama Domain started petitioning three or four years ago, and the lord has never allowed it.

In history, petitions have been refused all the time. After several years of holding back, an uprising was held back. It was an uprising, not just an uprising to sacrifice the leader.

Things on the Japanese side are actually easier to deal with than on the Dashun side.

If the Dashun people really want to win the grain and follow the emperor, they have to defeat the landlords of Dashun, divide the land, and distribute the land equally. The difficult part is the word "equal land".

There is no need to divide the land in the Japanese country, because theoretically, land trading is illegal. Just tell them to pay less grain tax.

Anyway, Dashun can't occupy Obama, and the army will withdraw the next wave of grain harvesters. Not to mention the thirty-one tax, they dare to say that they are completely exempt from grain.

The samurai legally have the right to levy taxes on land, but in fact they are not directly responsible. Instead, the feudal lords send people to collect taxes and then distribute rice to the samurai according to the "size of the fiefdom" of the samurai.

Therefore, some officers in the navy have the idea of ​​expelling the samurai, replacing them, and actually sealing off Japan. Because it is really simple.

The differences in the land system, tax system, and bureaucratic system on both sides involve too many things.

Before, the seventh prince of Dashun, Li Li, could not see the deep-seated things in this, and did not feel that these slogans were used to win the hearts of the people, which was not right, not good, or detrimental to the rule of the Li family of Dashun.

He knew about the founding of his country since he was a child, but he had never seen it with his own eyes. Now the Japanese trip can get a glimpse of the events of the past.

In his opinion, Dashun was not bad, and the taxes of the court were not high. According to his thinking at this age, as long as those corrupt officials who did not abide by the laws of the country and raised taxes privately were killed, the sea would be peaceful and the river would be clear.

Born in the deep palace and raised by women, he naturally would not think that the actual land rent in some places of Dashun was similar to the five officials and five people in Japan, but Dashun had one official, five masters and four tenants.

Since he did not understand the real situation of the lower class, he felt that the words of issuing a notice to pacify the people and proclaiming benevolent politics were not excessive, and he did not think that this might cause the lower-level soldiers in the army to have any strange ideas.

However, most of the soldiers in the navy were either starving families or refugees who lost their land. Although these notices were directed to Japan, these people would inevitably have many thoughts in their hearts.

However, at this time, this idea was just quietly sprouting in their hearts. The battle in front of them and the indoctrination of the idea of ​​"I am no one" made them not think too much for the time being.

After the local people got over the initial panic, they were still very friendly to the elite of the Dashun Navy who actually spent money on buying things. Of course, it may also be friendly to the white silver.

In short, under the command of the military cadets who had studied fortress engineering in Jinghai Palace, they spent money to spend the rice of Xiaobin City and hired local people to strengthen the city defense.

It was still very easy to build.

These soldiers in Weihai were very familiar with the Japanese's taro, which was actually a straw woven bag, which was wrapped with various strange things such as dried abalone, dried seahorse, kelp, etc. The straw bag outside was called taro.

This thing was used to hold soil, which was just right for building defenses. The labor cost in Japan was low, and the taro bags cost very little money, so they bought a lot of them.

The wooden castle tower was smashed, the old stone wall of Xiaobin Castle was demolished, and the taro bags were filled with white beach sand. Within a few days, Xiaobin Castle began to take on the appearance of a bastion.

Anyway, there were warships to support the shooting, and there was no need to consider the anti-gun slope, the workload was reduced sharply, and it was a special form that bullied the few people and guns.

Two rivers surrounded Xiaobin Castle, surrounded by water on all sides, facing the sea.

In the bay, half of the warships were lined up for artillery fire, and half of the warships were on guard outside the bay to prevent the Japanese navy from blocking the bay with fire attack ship tactics.

The construction never stopped until the samurai of Hikone attacked. The artillery platform, which had been carefully calculated for angles, was simple but very scientific.

On the third day of Hikone's attack, the pile of corpses under Obama Castle was almost one or two feet high.

With Obama Castle as the midpoint, there was the sea behind and rivers on the left and right. Under the threat of gunboats, the Japanese samurai could not attack from the left and right sides under the fire support of gunboats.

The only attack route was in front of Obama Castle, and they could only rely on this narrow terrain to attack fiercely.

Moreover, the range of assembly and attack was only a narrow ellipse with a width of 20 feet and a length of 100 feet.

This was calculated long ago by the officers who had studied fortress engineering. Gunboats could block the area outside the circle by firing from the oblique surface.

And because of the obstruction of Obama Castle, such an open space was formed that would not be shot by gunboats.

Naval guns are all fired flatly, not curvedly. So it's like putting a coin in front of the light, and the shadow area behind the coin is the place that the gunboat cannot threaten.

It's a pity that Obama Castle was built on the delta and protruded into the sea, making the flank easily exposed to the range of gunboats. It's like there is a row of lights, and the shadow area blocked by only a coin is so small.

Although Hikone Domain is the largest domain in the Kinki region and the strongest domain among the hereditary daimyo, it is not the remnant of the Western Army that guarantees its existence by force. The total stone is only more than 200,000 stones.

The lord of the domain, Ii Naosada, does not have many soldiers. Some of the warriors of Hikone Domain went to strengthen the defense of Mount Kale, and be careful that Dashun would use Shikoku Island as a springboard to cross the Kidan Strait to bombard Osaka.

After receiving the news that Obama Castle was captured, Ii Naosada was worried that the Dashun Army would advance along Lake Biwa and attack Hikone Castle.

But soon, news came that the Dashun Army went straight to Kyoto and did not care about his Hikone Castle.

With the help of the remaining soldiers of Obama Domain, the guards of Hikone Domain, and the soldiers of the nearby domains, he originally wanted to support Kyoto to "serve the king".

But the retainer who was familiar with military books persuaded him with the story of Sun Bin's Wei-wei rescue Zhao, thinking that it might be too late to go to Kyoto at this time.

It would be better to attack Obama instead.

If Obama could be captured, then the Dashun Army that advanced to Kyoto would be an isolated army without a rear. When the troops of each domain were assembled, they could be surrounded and annihilated.

This logic was very consistent with the art of war. After investigation, it was also known that Obama Castle had only left more than 500 soldiers to guard it.

Ii Naosada believed that the great event could be accomplished, and he led nearly 3,000 soldiers to attack Obama Castle directly to cut off the rear of the main force of the Dashun Army landing.

However...

The retainer's art of war was very smooth, but he only talked about Wei-wei rescue Zhao, but did not say that the premise of Wei-wei rescue Zhao was that Qi was strong enough. Under the command of Tian Ji and Sun Bin, the Qi army was able to capture Daliang City.

So, a very correct military strategy was used like this:

On the first day of the attack, they assembled within the range of the gunboats, but were bombarded by warships at sea. They were defeated before they could attack.

On the second day, they still did not learn their lesson and attacked again, and were defeated again.

On the third day, they finally learned their lesson and attacked head-on to avoid the side attack of the gunboats, but the terrain was narrow and they could not deploy too many troops, so they could only attack in waves of 200 people.

Ii Naosada looked at Obama Castle with a telescope, frowning.

He was one of the few feudal lords who played with the strange skills and glass mirrors of the southern barbarians, and he left a good story: He was playing with a telescope in the castle tower and saw the ugly appearance of a retainer who was drunk in the town under the castle. He asked the retainers around him who that was, but no one said anything. Only one foolish person believed the nonsense that "loyal people do not speak nonsense" and told the truth.

As a result, Ii Naosada still thought that this retainer who told the truth was unusable because he was using other people's ugly appearance to show his loyalty to the master. He was a flatterer.

At this time, he saw the piled up bodies of samurai and the wriggling wounded under the city through the telescope that left a good story.

Some wounded samurai wanted to crawl back, but the desperate thing was that the rest of the samurai retreated outside the blockade of the gunboats, and no one helped them.

In Obama Castle, some mast shooters mobilized from the ship used the wounded samurai as targets like hunting pheasants.

Shooting for fun.

In the telescope, a Dashun sailor wearing a blue and white patterned shirt was dancing and talking to the people next to him, then raised the musket in his hand and killed a samurai who crawled 150 steps away.

Several people next to him reluctantly took out some money from their bodies and handed it to the sailor. Obviously, they were gambling.

Behind the Kohama Castle, on the pier protected by gunboats, the navy, like a provocation, used requisitioned boats to deliver bags of sea sand to Kohama Castle.

Sea sand can be delivered, not to mention rice, this is a provocation to Ii Naosada: If you want to siege the city without fighting, we will accompany you as long as you siege.

On the dilapidated castle tower, several shining copper cannons, reflecting the sun's rays, pierced Ii Naosada's eyes.

Putting away the telescope, Ii Naosada was deeply depressed.

Dashun's gunboats all used solid bullets, because there were no indirect-fire guns with a smaller chamber pressure on the gunboats, and they did not dare to play with the extremely dangerous wooden support shrapnel shells on the warships. They were afraid that they would blow up their own gun decks first without bombing the enemy.

But on the several simple gun platforms built in Kohama Castle, those new small guns could use shrapnel shells unscrupulously.

Some of the previous casualties were caused by these shrapnel shells.

Whether it was the ultra-long-range Minié bullets that the mast archers used to shoot the wounded soldiers, or the unprecedented shrapnel bullets, they all gave Ii Naosada a special feeling.

It was not the kind of incomprehensible despair that the Qing officials in history felt after seeing the steamships sailing against the current with black smoke, which was almost like the earthlings looking at aliens.

It was the kind of heaviness that was understandable, and precisely because it was still within the scope of understanding, there was a sense of some gap, and there was a glimmer of hope.

He had played with a telescope, and as a hereditary daimyo, he had also participated in the military exercises after Tokugawa Yoshimune reorganized the falconry, and had seen the 40-pound mortars that the Dutch sent and the Swedes used as gunners to practice the "Southern Barbarian Siege Technique".

But the last Swede in Japan had been dead for almost a hundred years, and that 40-pound mortar might have participated in the Dutch 80-year War of Independence, and it was a miracle that the last falconry could be launched.

It was this kind of "it's still just a big gun and a cannon. It's just that the range is longer and the shooting is more accurate" and a bit of hope that made him feel: it seems that if he works harder, he can conquer it.

It's not a big problem.