New Shun 1730

The secret order also stated some of the strategies and plans of the temple, which seemed to be full of trust.

In fact, it was a faint warning to the navy not to think about how many big votes it would make, but to strictly abide by the Privy Council's strategy and not to fight meaningless battles.

It's just that the expression is very vague, but I am really worried that the navy will get hot-headed and go to Shimonoseki after capturing Hagi Castle, or even go to Kyushu Island to gain military exploits.

It's not that it can't be fought, but it's meaningless. Eggs are of no use except for gaining merit in battle.

Beating the powerful vassals such as Kyushu Island, the governor's office, too painfully would easily break the balance between the shogunate and the powerful vassals in the future.

It will be very unfavorable to the future policy of dividing and conquering and centrally controlling the vassal state.

The Privy Council wanted a unified Japanese market, maintain samurai privileges, and ensure that Japan had at least 400,000 households with spending power, that is, the samurai.

What can Japanese farmers afford at this time?

The Privy Council does not want a Japan that is in chaos, with various vassals collapsing and the Warring States Period, and no one spending money. The people's money is squeezed out like sesame oil to buy arms and build warships.

What the lower-level staff officers and officers are thinking about is gaining military exploits; what the Privy Council is thinking about is how to end the war at the minimum cost.

Li Han hadn't learned the skills of fighting yet, but he understood the hidden meaning of the secret order.

As I said before, it is up to the court whether to fight or not. If necessary, you can ignore the order of the foreign king.

Now that the Privy Council has not only implicitly expressed the concern about gaining military exploits in the army, but has also formulated a very detailed plan, it cannot be ignored.

When military exploits are reduced to the word "brush", military exploits are meaningless to the war itself.

Putting away the secret order from the Privy Council, Li Han smiled bitterly and said: "Everyone, this is a whip, and the wording is quite harsh. In that case, don't make trouble over nothing, and just act according to the Privy Council's plan."

Wu Fangrui thought to himself that my military exploits were enough anyway. Unless I broke through Edo, there would be nothing to compare with.

"Your Highness, please be at ease. If the navy cannot land, it will not be able to do much. If the fleet can seize the opportunity and wipe out the Japanese navy, it will not have any impact. This order from the Privy Council is to say that we should not make random landings and engage in wild battles. "

"I'm going to make a revised plan right now. Your Highness can first send someone to escort the Japanese king back to Tianjin. The warship escort will not affect the subsequent actions."

Li Han smiled and then shook his head.

I thought that neither the imperial edict nor the secret order from the Privy Council mentioned that the Japanese king should be sent to the capital.

If such a big thing is not mentioned, it is obviously not allowed to be sent to the capital. It would be more appropriate to temporarily detain him in Busan or Tsushima.

It probably couldn't be processed after it was sent.

If the Celestial Empire wants to win, it must win in a dignified manner. It must make the Japanese surrender their imperial title and declare themselves as vassals.

Moreover, the Japanese king had no real power. He sent the Japanese to the capital before he could surrender the title of emperor and declare himself a vassal. This became a hot potato.

Winning face has turned into self-deception. When the time comes, the shogunate really appoints a new king, but it will be difficult to handle, and he will not be able to step down.

The imperial court may have lost control after being slapped in the face by the tributary countries.

North Korea recognized the shogunate as the king behind China's back and recognized the emperor as emperor in disguise; Ryukyu was controlled by the Satsuma clan behind China's back, and tribute trade continued... If the emperor's new clothes are not lifted for a long time, everyone will pretend to be stupid, cover their ears and steal the bell, and have fun. ; Once it was revealed, the emperor couldn't help but look like a fool being played.

Now if the Japanese king is sent to the capital or treated as a prisoner, the whole court will definitely be flattered.

If the time comes and the court is deadlocked, no tribute will be paid and a new king will be established. Today's flattery will be a slap in the face in the future.

Even if the Japanese king enters the capital, he must do so after peace talks and with the promise of becoming a vassal.

Otherwise, if the Japanese king is a strong-willed person, and after entering the capital, he yells that you are the emperor of the country where the sun sets, and I am the emperor of the country where the sun rises, etc., there will be no way to end the matter.

This is a shrine. Holding it in your hand can give you some bargaining chips, but it is just a bargaining chip, not the person presiding over the negotiations.

The imperial court was able to distinguish the relationship between the Japanese king and the shogunate.

Although the imperial edict has not yet come, Li Han guessed that it won't be long before someone from the government or someone who knows how to negotiate will come to contact him.

So the Japanese king was first arranged to live in the original Busan Japanese Museum, and he was asked to be specially guarded to prevent him from escaping.

All kinds of expenses should be met as much as possible and can be paid in advance, and they will definitely be replenished afterwards. They can’t eat much anyway, and it seems like they can’t eat meat for much money.

It was estimated that new orders would come within a few days, so Li Huan stayed in Busan and handed over the command of the fleet to Mantou, letting Mantou command the fleet to harass Xiaguan.

Chen Qinghai stayed in Busan and was responsible for escorting and transporting troops to Tsushima.

The high-profile operation began. The vanguard troops first landed on Tsushima Island. After resting for three days, the follow-up troops began to land on the island one after another.

Mantou led part of the fleet to the vicinity of Xiaguan.

We did not enter the Shimonoseki Strait, but observed the situation in the strait with a telescope.

In the Xiaguan Strait, a large number of small boats gathered, it seemed that there were two to three hundred boats, but they were all very small. Huddled inside, I watched Dashun's light boats approaching. They measured the water depth and threw buoys there, but no boat left the strait.

After watching for a while, Mantou turned to the officers around him and said: "The Japanese are not ignorant of soldiers and water warfare. The trees are in chaos, and the toads crawl on the feet. They don't bite people, but their diaphragms respond to them."

The officers who were observing the situation also cursed the Japanese navy hiding in the strait in the distance, thinking that they were a bunch of cowards, so they should come out to fight.

At this time, there was no steam engine, and unless the fleet commander's brain was rusted, he would not choose to go deep into the Shimonoseki Strait.

The Shimonoseki Fort was near the headquarters of the Nagafu Domain, facing the Seto Inland Sea. Landing there could directly threaten the headquarters of the Nagafu Domain.

However, the situation faced by the Japanese this time was fundamentally different from the situation in which Western countries bombarded the Shimonoseki Fort in later history.

The latter had steamships and did not have to worry about being blocked in the narrow strait due to the wind direction pausing; the latter had insufficient landing forces. The Choshu Domain had already bought muskets and cannons at that time, and the forces of Western countries were not enough for landing operations.

Now, Dashun has occupied Tsushima, and Dashun can land and fight, and it has shown that it likes landing operations before.

Therefore, the response strategy on the Japanese side is completely different.

All the naval forces that could be recruited from Kyushu Island, Honshu Island and other places were recruited, and a naval fleet of more than 200 ships was organized to block the Shimonoseki Strait tightly to prevent the Dashun Army from passing through the strait.

The naval battle was definitely unwinnable. After being closed for so long, these people knew what the level of the navy was.

If the Dashun sailing ships dared to enter the strait, they could use these more than 200 small boats to besiege and set fire, and they still had the strength to fight.

But if the Dashun Army did not enter the strait, the recruited naval forces would not go out of the strait to fight.

This is called a toad, not biting people, but annoying people.

It’s not that they can’t win.

There are about 200 small boats. The Japanese ship design has serious problems. The center of gravity is too high, and heavy artillery cannot be placed; the wooden boards are too thin, and using 9-pound cannons on board may shatter the ship.

The largest ship had a Portuguese gun placed on the bow, and some of the Portuguese guns were older than Li Zicheng, the founder of the Dashun Dynasty.

Most of the ships were boarded by the navy and fought hand-to-hand.

Even if the terrain was narrow and the strait was not wide, the worst that the Dashun navy could do was to seriously damage two warships, and then the Japanese navy could be completely destroyed.

But the navy didn't want to get into trouble with even one ship. If they were unlucky and there was no wind all of a sudden, they might even be completely broken inside.

Hiding inside and not coming out, the navy could not pass through the Shimonoseki Strait.

It would be better to set sail from Matsue to Ryukyu and then go north from Ryukyu to threaten the Seto Inland Sea.

That's why Mantou sighed and said that the Japanese were not without knowledge of naval warfare.

This patchwork navy played the greatest role and indeed blocked the Shimonoseki Strait.

But that was all.

They could not stop the Dashun Army from landing. Once they landed, they would set up cannons on the coast. These navy troops would either stay in the strait and be bombarded, or withdraw from the strait and be completely annihilated by the Dashun Navy.

However, this was enough. A navy that was destined to be completely destroyed played its full role, and the disgusting Dashun Navy could only bypass it.

The fleet drifted near the islands outside Xiaguan for a day. Not only did the Japanese navy have no intention of fighting, but they also retreated. It seemed that they had made up their minds not to leave the strait.

Several light and shallow-drafted speedboats measured the depth of the waterway within a safe range, threw some buoys, and marked the passable waterway. They tried to lure them, but the Japanese navy was not fooled at all and just shrank into the strait.

Some samurai on horseback could be seen on the shore, galloping constantly, probably to pass on messages.

Mantou observed and lured them all day, but the Japanese navy did not come out.

Early the next morning, the sounding ship sent to the north brought news that a place to dock had been found.

There was no wharf, only a fishing wharf. Several scouts went ashore, captured several Japanese farmers, and asked about the situation.

After the interpreter asked, he told Mantou that this place belonged to Toyoura County of Nagafu Domain, and was called Ayaragi Village. It is said that the Qin people crossed the sea to the east and taught the locals to raise silkworms and grow mulberry trees, so it was named this way.

This legend is probably fabricated, but it seems that the legend of the Qin people crossing the sea to the east is very popular.

It is only ten miles away from the Nagafu Domain Office and the Kushizaki Castle built by the Mori family.

After asking about the general situation, the farmers were deliberately let go.

The fleet set sail and followed the buoys left by the sounding ship. Going north for more than ten miles, they came to the beach where the water was deeper and closer to the shore.

The beach was very flat, and there was a team of samurai guarding the coast, about a hundred people.

The terrain here is flat, there are no high mountains nearby, and the surrounding situation is in full view. There is also a small river next to it that is not very wide.

There were about a hundred samurai on the shore, far away. Mantou ordered the ships to line up and use cannons to shoot mosquitoes, and bombarded the samurai on the shore.

The speedboat continued to measure the surrounding water depth and throw buoys, and a small group of marines landed in a small boat.

The bombardment, which was a sheer waste of shells, began. There was not even a gun platform here. After two rounds of bombardment, the samurai on the shore scattered.

After the marines landed in a small boat, they planted a flag on it and scouted forward. They were not in a hurry to retreat.

"This is it."

On the flagship, Mantou nodded and chose an excellent position to alarm the defenders of Choshu, Chofu and other feudal domains.

This small village called Ayaramu, although there is no decent dock, but the coast is very wide and there is no obstacle to landing.

When they followed Liu Yu to Edo, Mantou and his team took the road from Nagasaki to Kokura. What was in the Shimonoseki Strait, they remembered it clearly.

There were two very old artillery batteries before, and it is estimated that several more should have been built since the war started. However, they can only threaten the Shimonoseki Strait and cooperate with the navy to prevent the Dashun navy from passing through the Shimonoseki Strait.

It is stupid for the navy and the artillery to shoot at each other.

But Dashun is not like the Western countries in later generations, and troops have to be transferred from tens of thousands of miles away. Tsushima Island has been occupied, and no matter how good the coastal defense artillery of the artillery battery is, it can't stop the army.

Since the Japanese still know that the navy will be blocked in the strait and cannot go out to disgust Dashun, they will definitely gather a large number of samurai near Shimonoseki to prevent Dashun from landing and fighting.

Since the Japanese used the despicable navy to hide in the strait to block the large warships of Dashun, Mantou also used the method of pretending to land to disgust Choshu Domain and feel the bottom of Choshu Domain's military deployment.

If they landed here, captured Kushizaki Castle, and controlled the artillery battery, the navy that the Japanese put together in the strait would be useless. The Shimonoseki Strait would be wide open.

In that case, the connection between Choshu Domain and Kyushu Island would be cut off directly.

This is a must-fight place. All Japanese may not defend it to the death, but Choshu Domain will definitely defend it to the death.