1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2118
Or because the continuous artillery battle at Hirado Port effectively "prevented" the landing of the enemy fleet, even if Tagawasuke learned the news of the enemy's landing on the west coast at this time, he did not intend to directly abandon Hirado Island. A base that has been in business for many years.He still believes that he can rely on the advantage of playing at home to continue to deal with powerful enemies from thousands of miles away on the island.

However, out of caution, Tagawasuke immediately summoned Tagawa Qizaemon and prepared to arrange for him to leave Hirado first.He is very clear about who the Han leaders and staff under his command are loyal to. The defeat is not a disaster for the Hirado clan, but if something happens to his adopted son, the Hirado clan may really fall apart.

As long as Tagawa Qizaemon is kept, even if the Hirado clan loses temporarily in the war, even if Tagawasuke himself dies in the battle, there will eventually be a person with enough weight to gather the remaining forces under his command after the war and bring Tagawa His dominance was maintained.

"Shichizaemon, after a while you will leave here with my guards and take a boat at a secret location. Wei Zhi's people will send you and your mother to Kyushu, where it is safer than Hirado." Tagawasuke tried his best to keep his tone Be calm and avoid the other person feeling flustered.

But Tagawa Nanazawaemon was already precocious, and he knew the ins and outs of this battle with the Kaihan army. Of course, he knew that the opponent that the Hirado clan was going to fight this time was very powerful, and he might lose to the opponent.And Tagawasuke wanted to send him away from Hirado, which obviously showed that he was not optimistic about the prospects of this war, and he was going to arrange an escape route for himself.

"Father, don't you think we are going to be defeated before the Haihan army set foot on the land of the Hirado Domain?" Tagawa Nanazawaemon asked puzzled.

"I was careless. While we were dealing with the attack on Hirado Port, the enemy sneakily landed in Boxiang Bay in the west. I sent Kojiro to lead the troops to retreat from the enemy, but he failed." Tagawa saw him questioning , and don't intend to hide the truth from him.If you don't explain the current situation clearly, even if you send him to Kyushu, it will be difficult to preside over the follow-up affairs.

Tagawa Nanazawaemon said: "Then we must call for a decisive battle with the enemy. My father wants to send me away from Hirado to avoid disaster. Wouldn't it chill the hearts of the vassals?"

Tian Chuansuke said in a deep voice: "The war is definitely going to be fought, but you can't help if you stay in Hirado. Instead, you need to separate people to protect you. I believe you also know that one of the reasons why the enemy attacked Hirado is that I want to get rid of you from the world, so I can't let them catch you on the island. Don't worry, the vassals will definitely agree to this arrangement. After all, most of them were once your biological father's subordinates and friends. It's impossible Sitting and watching puts you in a dangerous situation. If you leave Hirado, those who stay here will be able to calm down and fight the enemy to the death, understand?"

The reality is cruel, but the truth is just as Tagawasuke said, Tagawa Nanazemon must leave this place in order to relieve the pressure on the Hirado Clan's actions against foreign enemies.And because of his special status, leaving Hirado at this time will not be opposed and hated by the feudal vassals. There must be far more people in the Tagawa clan who agree with this arrangement than those who oppose it.

"Hurry up and leave, I don't know how much time I can buy for you, for our Tagawa Clan and for the Hirado Clan, you must live well!" Tagawasuke waved his hand and said, "Go, hurry up!"

"Father, please take care!" Tagawa Nanazawaemon knew that his adoptive father had made up his mind, so it would be useless for him to say more here. On the contrary, it might cause more people to die in order to buy time for him to escape, and he should act according to the arrangement best solution at the moment.He kowtowed deeply on the floor, then got up and walked out without looking back.

Tagawa Nanazawaemon didn't ask Tagawasuke whether he would find a way to break out of Hirado Island, which was a superfluous question, and he didn't ask how to reunite after the war. He knew that from this moment on, he had to really start to fulfill the duty of the heir to the feudal lord. Duties gone.If Tagawasuke unfortunately dies in Hirado, he will naturally become the next feudal lord, and will take revenge as his future goal in life.

Regarding his biological father, Zheng Zhilong, he actually didn't have much affection at all. After all, shortly after he was born, he was adopted by Zheng Zhilong to the childless Tian Chuansuke, his uncle.If you think about it carefully, he was actually raised by his mother and uncle, and his biological father had never met a few times.Therefore, in Tagawa Qizaemon's heart, "father" is actually the adoptive father Tagawasuke, and the biological father is just the mother's dead husband, nothing more.

However, many Han people came from Daming in the past few years. It is said that they were all powerful characters who once obeyed the orders of their biological father Zheng Zhilong. Tagawa Shichizaemon had no interest in these people at first, but his adoptive father told him that these people are willing to be loyal to the Tagawa clan, but only if Appoint him as the heir to the power of the Tagawa family, because these people think that the property left by Zheng Zhilong should be inherited by his only son, so they have to try to make Tagawa Qizaemon the most powerful person in the Hirado domain—— Starting from becoming the next Patriarch of the Tagawa Clan.

Of course, Zheng Zhilong arranged for these people to flee to Hirado. It is hard to say whether he already had the idea of ​​magpie's nest and dove in the future.

But even if these people did not make such a request, Tagawa Shichizaemon knew that his adoptive father would leave the position of Patriarch to himself, because there was no one in the Tagawa clan to compete with him, and he was the only heir.But because this relationship can also win over a group of people to work for the adoptive father, he is of course happy to see the success.So for these Han subordinates from Ming Dynasty, he also accepted them all according to Tian Chuansuke's arrangement.

While these people regarded him as the young master, they also played a great role in promoting the development and growth of the Tagawa Clan and even the Hirado Clan. They brought resources in various fields such as military affairs, navigation, trade, intelligence, and connections. And these are good things that the Hirado clan could not have wanted in the past.It is precisely because of the advanced technology brought by these people that the Hirado Domain has a firearms force, an armed fleet, a doubling of trade volume every year, and news channels and partners at home and abroad.

Various resources were continuously concentrated in the Hirado Clan, and under the manipulation of these people, they turned into huge wealth and military strength, making the Hirado Clan stronger at a speed visible to the naked eye.If it wasn't for the Haihan people who suddenly jumped out to interrupt, the Tagawa clan would probably not stop controlling the Hirado clan in a few years, but would expand further outward, annexing the entire Hizen kingdom in the northwest of Kyushu, and becoming a powerful kingdom with greater power. place name.

But now with the sudden arrival of the Haihan army, it seems that Tianchuan's good luck can only stop here temporarily. If they can't pass the Haihan hurdle, they don't have to think about who they should annex in the future, let alone Complying with the demands of the Eighteen Zhi Remnants, they sent troops to avenge Zheng Zhilong and other Eighteen Zhi leaders.Keeping Tagawa Qizaemon is more important than keeping the Hirado clan. Naturally, these Han leaders will not object to Tagawa's sending him to Kyushu to avoid the war. The young master was sent to a safe place before.

Seeing his adopted son walking out firmly, Tagawasuke let out a sigh of relief. He knew that this farewell might not have the chance to meet again, but if it was fate, he could only accept it calmly.He has been a vassal under the Matsuura Clan for many years, and he has seen many scenes of beating and killing life and death. He doesn't have much fear of death. As long as he can arrange his affairs well in advance, even if he dies in battle, it's no big deal .

As the feudal lord of the Hirado domain, he has the responsibility of guarding the land. If he can't even look after his own territory, he can die.But Tagawasuke can die, but the Hirado Clan cannot just die like this. As long as Tagawa Qizaemon is still there, no matter whether it is Tagawa clan or Shibashiba, there is still a chance to make a comeback after all.

"Come here, get my armor!" Tagawa Jiezhong ordered angrily.In fact, he hadn't fought in person for a long time, but this didn't affect his confidence in his fighting power.I think he was also a fierce general back then, if he hadn't made many achievements on the battlefield for the Matsuura clan, how could he have become the number one retainer of the Hirado domain? His relative appreciated it and was willing to adopt his own son to him.

Although the enemy had already landed on the west side of the island, Tagawasuke still believed that the situation had not deteriorated to the point of no return.In addition to the more than 3000 feudal troops summoned from the entire Hirado Clan in advance to gather around the Hirado City area, the same number of peasants and soldiers were temporarily recruited from the people a few days ago. .

However, due to the problems of grain supply and order transmission, these farmers did not gather near Hirado City, so the number of people that Tagawasuke can immediately mobilize is actually less than [-].Among them, the elite troops who actually use firearms, or are equipped with horses, armor, and standard swords and bows, are actually only a thousand people.

But this has almost exhausted the strongest combat power created by the Hirado clan's treasury. Except for the armed fleet led by Wei Zhi, which is still lurking in the open sea, almost all the remaining troops of the Hirado clan that can fight are assembled here. up.

Tian Chuansuke still insists that there cannot be too many enemy troops landing on the west coast. His reason is that since the enemy troops have deployed a large-scale armed fleet on the east coast to attack the port, it will inevitably lead to the warships used by the landing troops on the west coast. Not too many, otherwise why not gather together and attack Hirado Port directly to save trouble.

As long as the port's coastal fortifications can block the enemy fleet at sea and prevent them from landing in Hirado Port, then it should be a feasible solution to concentrate land forces to clean up the enemy troops that touch the shore from the west first.

Of course, Tagawa Kojiro's lightning defeat has proved that the enemy army that touched the shore is not a big one, and it will not be easy to defeat or even annihilate it easily.Tian Chuansuke decided to lead the army to attack in person to ensure that the situation of being defeated by the enemy will not happen again.He previously gave Gao Hongfu 2000 people to rush to the western front to intercept the enemy, but most of the 2000 people were farmers and soldiers. He only hoped that Gao Hongfu would not make any mistakes. to the battlefield.

But it was easy to say, but the actual battle situation could not fulfill his wish.More than half of the 2000 troops led by Gao Hongfu were temporary farmers and soldiers, and he did not dare to let these people take the lead, otherwise, once they were defeated by the enemy in the narrow mountain battlefield, the defeated soldiers who fled back would probably be killed. Disperse the regular army behind.

However, Gao Hongfu was also a little reluctant to let the regular army with limited troops take the lead to find out the truth, so he deployed a small number of peasant soldiers to act as pioneers in the front, the regular troops followed behind, and the remaining peasant soldiers were responsible for laying the ground and transporting the luggage. supplies.

The soldiers who had escaped earlier said that the opponent’s rifles were firing extremely fast, and they didn’t need to use formation shooting tactics. They didn’t seem to need to stop and slowly reload ammunition at all. They defeated Tagawa Kojiro’s troops with only intensive firepower, Takahashi Minami listened After saying these news, there are already some bad premonitions.

As far as he knows, only a few elite troops in the Haihan army are qualified to equip this legendary Lianzhu musket. If this is the case, then the Haihan army that landed from the west coast is likely to be an ace army with rich combat experience , rather than a small group of troops who landed from Boxiang Bay for reconnaissance purposes.

When Gao Hongfu led the troops in Shibazhi, he also had a head-to-head confrontation with the Haihan army on the battlefield. He knew very well that the elite of the Haihan army was not comparable to the ordinary musketeers. For a long time, it is definitely not a good strategy to fight head-on.

Therefore, he did not choose to intercept the opponent head-on on the way from Boxiangwan to Hirado City, but commanded the troops to set up an ambush in the mountains and forests on both sides of the road, preparing to wait for the opponent to throw himself into the trap.Although this may not be able to completely defeat the opponent, if it causes relatively large damage to the Haihan Army, it can be regarded as completing part of the task.

But the Haihan army seemed to know his tactics well, and instead of trying to quickly pass through this mountain road, they patiently sent small teams in all directions to investigate the forests on both sides of the road.In this way, the peasants and soldiers who are not good at performing latent tasks will soon be exposed.And the Haihan army still didn't rush forward to clear the area, and retreated immediately after finding out that there were many people lurking in the forest.

"What's the idea of ​​this Haihan man?" Gao Hongfu found out that the other party hadn't made rash advances, and was a little suspicious at the moment.Hirado City is behind him, and it is definitely impossible for the opponent to outflank his rear, but if they don't attack in this direction, what kind of opportunity are they waiting for?
"Not good! To the south!" Gao Hongfu suddenly realized something, and immediately sent people forward to check the movements of the Haihan Army.

(End of this chapter)