Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 364 The Decisive Battle in Southern Kyushu ([-]) Prelude to the Decisive Battle
In the 15th year of Tianzheng, on May [-]rd, Hyugagugo Castle.

The entire city was surrounded by 10 Toyotomi troops, and the camps where each army camped were spread out several miles away based on the Xiaomaru River.

Early this morning, tens of thousands of troops surrounded Gaocheng impenetrably. Instead of attacking the country in the past, they separated several reserve teams from their formation and launched an offensive against Gaocheng.

Takajo is located on a high ground about 200 meters north of Xiaomaru River. It is the center point of the entire Hyuga Kingdom, and it firmly controls the Xiaomaru River Basin, which is one of the strategic points of Hyuga Kingdom.

Many people confuse Gaocheng with Gaoguo City. In fact, they are two cities. Gaoguo City is located in the lower reaches of Xiaomaru River in Gaocheng, 5 miles from the mouth of the sea and Xiaomaru River, and is at the end of Gaoguo’s wet source.

Ten years ago, it was here that the rise of the Shimadzu family started. During these 10 years, the size of the Shimadzu family has more than doubled.

The Shimadzu family regards Gaocheng as their spiritual sustenance, and they will never give up this symbolic city easily.

Many samurai believed that Takajo was the city that brought auspiciousness to the Shimadzu family. It was true 10 years ago, and it will be true 10 years later. The current Toyotomi family will be beaten like the Otomo family ten years ago , lost the possibility of recovery.

At least Yushin Yamada, who was in charge of defending Takashiro, anesthetized himself and his soldiers in this way.

Eight days ago, Shimadzu Yoshihiro, who retreated from the Gokase River, handed over this arduous task to Yamada Yunobu when passing through Takashiro. In his opinion, no one in the entire Shimadzu family was better at guarding than Yamada Yunobu. The people of the city are gone.

And he himself needs to go back to Osumi to regroup the army, and at the same time ask his brother on the eastern front for reinforcements.

According to Yoshihiro Shimadzu's opinion, if he continued to divide his forces to intercept the Toyotomi family in this way, he would only see that they were defeated one by one. After all, the size of the Shimadzu family was still too different from that of the Toyotomi family.

Even the Shimadzu family in its heyday had about 6 to 7 mobilized troops of its own + subordinate daimyo, while the Toyotomi family brought in 24 people from the mainland alone.After being divided into two groups, the gap in strength became more obvious.

At this moment, Shimadzu Yoshihiro has not received the news of Chikugo's collapse. He still doesn't know that the subordinate forces of the Shimadzu Family West Road have deserted the Shimadzu Family, and Shimadzu's power has been reduced to Higo Half Country.

What he still thinks is that the western front will use the terrain to resist steadily, and the eastern front will gather 5 people for a decisive battle at Toyotomi Hidecho, defeat Toyotomi Hidecho first, and finally turn around and deal with Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

In his opinion, although the Toyotomi family has a large military force, they are very diverse. Taking Hidecho's Southern Kyushu Army Corps as an example, the most important force composition is the Kibi Corps of Ukita Hideo's family, which accounts for 4% of the population, followed by him. 2% for himself and 1% for Takakage Kobayakawa.

If the relationship between the Xiu family's Jibei corps and Xiu Chang can be divided on the battlefield, we can concentrate on solving the complicated forces on Xiu Chang's side first. When the main force retreats, the Xiu family will inevitably retreat, so the crisis on the East Road will be resolved.

In order to help Yamada Yunobu defend Takashiro, he specially appointed him as the Hinata country's Ertang Jundai, commanding all the forces in Ertang County, with a combined force of 1000 people guarding Gaocheng.

Before leaving, he only asked Yamada Yunobu to defend for one month, and he would naturally bring reinforcements to support him after one month.

However, he still overestimated Yunobu Yamada, or underestimated the combat effectiveness of Hidenaga's Southern Kyushu Corps.

Toyotomi Hidecho was indeed planning to starve Gaocheng at first, so he adopted a strategy of besieging Gaocheng and not attacking Gaocheng. However, with the arrival of the main force of the Xiu family, the number of troops around Gaocheng was close to 10, and the daily consumption of military food was [-]. Astronomical figures.

There was no other way, Xiuchang could only change the siege to a strong attack, anyway, the strength of the attacking party was more than a hundred times that of the defenders.

At yesterday's military meeting, the generals even had a quarrel in order to compete for this opportunity to attack. In the end, perhaps to show his care for the old minister, Hidecho tried his best to let Kuroda Takataka, Niwa Nagashige and Sakuma Shengzheng and the three were in charge of the siege.

This also led to the wonderful scene where thousands of troops besieged Gaocheng just now, and tens of thousands of troops watched from behind.

Since the Shimadzu family made a plan to resist steadily, Takajo, as one of the most important castles in the Hyuga Kingdom, completed the fortifications early, and excavated a circle of 2 meters deep and 5 meters wide around Takajo. Word Hori.

You want to say that not all the strong men were conscripted to fight, where did the manpower come from to dig the soil?

The question is that the Shimadzu family oppressed the common people and let strong women, old people and children build fortifications.

Yamada Yunobu did have some tricks, taking advantage of Takashiro's spoon-shaped terrain, maneuvering the limited iron cannon firepower left and right, and was stunned to support the Toyotomi family's offensive for more than 10 days.

But for the Toyotomi family, even if the strength of these three families is exhausted, there will still be dozens of such reserve teams taking turns.

But for the Shimadzu family, the troops in Yamada Yunobu's hands could not be replenished at all. The larger the number of soldiers who could continue to fight, the smaller the number of soldiers, and failure was a foregone conclusion.

At noon on the second day of the battle, Toyotomi's army broke through the gate of Sannomaru for the first time, and this time the attack was even more rapid. Some people in the crowd shouted, "That's right, Musato Taihei, who broke the city!"

Who else would it be if it wasn't the general of the Kuroda family, Musato Yunobu?

The Kuroda family even sent him to the front line as a member of the first team, which shows Kuroda Takataka's urgency to break the city today.

Maybe it was because seeing the allies on the side break through the castle first, Sakuma Yoshimasa, who was in charge of the gate on the other side, also got angry, and actually led the ants to climb up the castle himself, followed the Kuroda family and then broke through Sanzhi The walls of the pill.

I have said more than once that for a flat city, breaking through the outermost city wall is tantamount to declaring the city's failure.But fortunately, Gaocheng is not a flat city in the full sense. It is located on a soil slope, which can be regarded as a flat mountain city.

The general who defended the city, Yamada Yunobu, did have some means for defending the city. Seeing that Toyotomi's army invaded the Sannomaru, he immediately ordered people to withdraw to the Ninomaru for defense, and used the height difference between the Sannomaru and the Ninomaru to block Toyotomi. The family's attack dragged on until sunset.

As the sun went down, Toyotomi's offensive gradually slowed down. Only a few hundred people were left at Sannomaru, and most of the troops retreated.

Yamada Yunobu showed his good defense ability, took advantage of the night as a cover, and launched a counter-charge against Sannomaru's defenders, and quickly seized Sannomaru while Toyotomi's family was still resting and had no time to react.

Long before the counter-charge, he had already made temporary screens and city gates with wooden boards, and closed Gaocheng again.

It's not that he didn't want to charge against the defenders below the city, but he was unlucky enough to bump into the camp where the Xiu family was, and the hundreds of people who rushed out of the city were eaten up by the night watch troops of the Xiu family.

It was as if a stone was thrown into a pond, and every time it spit out a little air bubbles.

The three generals who had been recaptured Sannomaru were very angry, and they didn't even need Toyotomi Hideaga to discuss with the army, and led people to attack Takashiro before the sky was bright.

The two sides started a tug-of-war relying on the city wall of Takashiro. Since the Nizhimaru was taller than the Sannomaru and the area of ​​the Sannomaru was larger, it was impossible for the Toyotomi family to station too many troops in the Sannomaru.

This made Sannomaru, which was taken during the day, taken back by the Shimadzu family at night.

The tug-of-war between the two sides lasted for 5/6 days, and the weakness of the Shimadzu family's lack of troops began to be highlighted. The original troops were either killed or injured, and it was really difficult to move out the troops in hand.

Zhazi finally realized that after many counter-charges and seizing the city, the soldiers were very exhausted, and fell to the ground and fell asleep after the fortifications were hastily built.

In this matter, the disadvantages of the night attack last night were highlighted. The defenders in Gaocheng City did not get a good rest at all.

In the early morning of the second day, Sannomaru was actually pushed down by the three of them, followed only by Ninomaru. By the time the sun went down, the Honmaru in Takashiro was already crumbling.

Seeing that the overall situation has been settled, Hidecho's bodhisattva heart is overflowing again, perhaps because he doesn't want to see unnecessary life in ruins, he sent someone to persuade Yamada Yunobu, who is guarding the city, to surrender.

Yamada Yunobu did have some backbone, he rejected Toyotomi Hidecho's kindness, and took the opportunity to boost morale with the theme of "Although the high castle is broken and the Yamada family is dead, the spirit of Shimadzu is always there." The people of Shimadzu are ready for jade pieces.

Seeing Yunobu Yamada's refusal, Toyotomi Hideaga was grateful for Yunobu Yamada's loyalty, and wanted to let him live, but was rejected by the Hideo family. This was the first time that Hideo family raised objections in so many days.

"If Yamada Yunobu hadn't been so close to Takashiro's crotch, it would be fine to let him go back.

However, he has made the myth of Takashiro's defenders that Takashiro and his allies have become the seeds of their so-called Shimadzu souls, and will bring their rebelliousness back to the Shimadzu family. In this way, it may be difficult for Shimadzu to truly surrender.

These seeds will germinate deeply in the Shimadzu family. If the world changes drastically one day, the Shimadzu family will inevitably become an existence that stirs up the situation in Kyushu, and it will be even more terrifying than ten years ago. "

After listening to the Xiu family's answer, everyone in the hall agreed deeply, and Xiu Chang's heart seemed to be shaken by Xiu Chang. He asked the Xiu family, "Then how do you think this group of people should be dealt with?"

The Xiu family gave their own solution very succinctly: "Break down the city, massacre the city, destroy the city, destroy its aspirations, and destroy its soul, so that the Shimadzu family will no longer dare to have two hearts."

Hideka's idea was based on the Toyotomi family's point of view, but Hidecho rejected Hideka's proposal on the grounds that he had killed too much, and insisted on releasing Yamada Yunobu and others.

In the end, after negotiations, on the condition of saving the life of the whole city and returning it to the Shimadzu Territory, in exchange for Kaesong of Yamada Yunobu.

Looking at the hundreds of Shimadzu soldiers walking out of Gaocheng slowly with high morale, although there are many people supporting each other, some even can only lie on stretchers and be carried by others, but they give people the feeling that they have won the battle. Feel.

Seeing the state of the Shimadzu family, Hideie turned to look at Toyotomi Hidecho behind him, wanting to confirm his attitude.

Xiujia keenly noticed that Toyotomi Hideaga clenched his fist nervously, and looked at his defense line. The uncle and nephew understood each other's meaning just by looking at each other.

But the matter has reached this point and it is irreversible. It is impossible for Xiuchang to learn from the tiger and tear up the treaty in front of so many people, or send someone to intercept and kill them. In this way, the reputation of the entire Toyotomi family will be damaged.

Fortunately, the influence of Yamada Yunobu's remnant soldier will not be immediately apparent. With the fall of Takajo, Toyotomi's army crossed the Komaru River and continued to invade Shimadzu's territory in Hyuga.

Following the footsteps of Toyotomi's army, Takanabe Castle, Sadohara Castle, Toyo-gun Castle, and Yatsushiro Castle fell one after another, and Toyotomi Hidecho's forces had advanced to the vicinity of the Fukinen River.

At the same time, on the Eastern Front, as the Aso family and Sagara family abandoned the Shimadzu family, Shimadzu's defense line in Higo also had loopholes.

In order to prevent the Chikugo situation from collapsing due to the betrayal of the Ryuzoji family, Yoshihisa Shimadzu had to lead his troops to retreat, completely abandon Higo, and prepare for the defense of Satsuma.

During the two-month battle, the Toyotomi family fought like a broken bamboo, from northern Kyushu all the way to southern Kyushu, basically approaching the last basic territory of the Shimadzu family-Satsuma and Osumi.

Yoshihisa Shimadzu and Yoshihiro Shimadzu had a closed-door consultation for the last time, and finally agreed that the morale of the Shimadzu family must be raised before the peace talks, so that relatively good conditions can be obtained in the peace talks.

And their target is Hidecho Toyotomi who is in Hinata.

At the same time, he sent his old family member Shinnamoto Tadashi to Beijing quietly, asking Ashikaga Yoshiaki who was in Kyoto to intervene in the peace talks with Toyotomi's family.

The two men who said they did it gathered an army of 5 people on May 8. This was the last mobile force of the Shimadzu family.

With Shimadzu Yoshihisa as the general general, Shimadzu Yoshihiro as the former army general, went to Hyuga to support Takashiro, which was still guarding at that time.

At the same time, in order to block Hideyoshi as much as possible on the Eastern Front, Shimadzu Yoshihisa ordered Shimadzu Tadacho and Shimadzu Tadatoshi to station respectively in Yatsushiro Castle and Hitoyoshi Castle in the Higo Kingdom, and must block Toyotomi Hideyoshi Outside the territory of Satsuma.

But the two guarded by only a thousand men, knew that they were just a small boat in the vast ocean of Higo, and it was impossible to stop Hideyoshi's footsteps.

Behind them is the vast Satsuma Mountains. Once the city is besieged, they have no way out.

Therefore, after Shimadzu Yoshihisa and others sent troops, the two abandoned Yatsushiro Castle and Hitoyoshi Castle one after another and returned to Satsuma.

Hideyoshi marched into Satsuma at a speed beyond Shimadzu's expectations. On May 5, Hideyoshi arrived at Higo Sashiki (Ashiki Town, Ahoku County, Kumamoto Prefecture), and on May 10, he arrived at Higo Minamata (Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture) and marched towards Satsuma.

Shimadzu Tadacho and Shimadzu Tadatatsu, who had already been frightened by Hideyoshi's speed, led the crowd to surrender in Izumi Castle and Miyano Castle (Satsuma Town, Satsuma County, Kagoshima Prefecture).

Pioneers Konishi Yukyo, Wakisaka Yasuji, Kuki Yoshitaka, and Kato Yoshiaki set off from Higo Amakusa by sea on the 12th and entered Satsumagawa City on the 13th. The Satsuma defense line that the Shimadzu brothers painstakingly managed had already collapsed before it even had any effect.

Hideyoshi seemed to feel that the movement was not big enough, so he brought Honganji Kenjo, whom he had placed in Kyoto, and asked him to mobilize Satsuma and Osumi's Ichiko sect followers to launch an Ichiku in the two countries, disrupting the defense line of the Shimadzu family from within .

The Xiu family's purpose in doing this is to show all their methods to the world, and let all the big names know that this is the consequence of fighting against themselves.

That is to say, in this desperate situation, Yoshihisa Shimadzu, who was already in Wucheng of Qing Dynasty in Hyuga Kingdom, knew that he had no way out. Omi Hide-chan launched the final decisive battle.

This is also the last swan song of the Shimadzu family before surrender, and a big battle is about to begin.

(End of this chapter)