Prime Minister Bizen

After hearing the news that Li Rusong led the Ming army into the dynasty, King Li Yan of North Korea greeted Li Rusong in person at the Yishun Pavilion in Uiju.

Li Rusong was wearing a third-rank civil official scarlet robe embroidered with a peacock patch, and sat in a red bright sedan chair given by the emperor in high spirits, and he was not seen coming out for a long time.

It wasn't until Li Zhan, king of the Joseon Dynasty, saluted him that he belatedly leaned out of the sedan chair, and greeted Li Zan with a very apologetic expression.

"愍 ([mǐn] is the same as "compassion") your country was invaded by the Japanese for no reason, and a large number of troops came to rescue it. Now we are going to wipe out the criminals, so the former king can rest assured."

This attitude is like the elders comforting the younger generation, but Li Rusong is much younger than Joseon King Li Yan in terms of grade and rank.

Li Rusong's attitude aroused the dissatisfaction of some North Korean officials, but he is the commander-in-chief with 5 heavenly soldiers in his hands. Without them, North Korea would not be able to recover North Korea's Eight Ways by itself, so it could only glare at Li Yan, but couldn't hold back for a long time Make a fart.

On the contrary, Li Yan, who is the king of the country, took the initiative to answer very generously, "It is useless to defend the country with a widow, and I will miss the emperor, and send all the adults to go on a long-distance expedition. Although I plan to confuse my heart, how can I repay the kindness of the world?"

Then he said to him, "Xiaobang's life is only in the adults." After that, he took the initiative to offer tea and wine to him.

Afterwards, under Li Rusong's recommendation, Li Yan gave the tea and wine ceremony to the chief generals of the three associations, and all three accepted it like Li Rusong, which can be described as extremely humble.

Perhaps it was Li Yan's humble attitude yesterday that made Li Rusong very useful. On the morning of the next day, December [-]th, Li Rusong called out the camp outside Yizhou City.

Although the Japanese army brought the wounded friendly soldiers and corpses back to the city as soon as possible, the Ming army still seized more than 20 heads outside the city after dawn.

Now I heard that Toyotomi Hidekatsu, who had 20 soldiers from the Ming Dynasty, went south. Not only did he not go north to support Konishi, but he even withdrew directly from Fengshan to Kaesong. Withdrew to Wang Jing to find his elder brother Xiuci.

Of course, there is also good news, that is, although the Japanese army has occupied Pyongyang for 5 or 6 months, Governor Konishi has not deliberately increased the defense of Pyongyang City.

Although from the perspective of technological development, the hip-fired three-eyed gun is a backward weapon, but its short-term continuous firepower output is indeed something that the popular matchlock guns do not have.

Along with the artillery, there was also a certificate of reward issued by the Ministry of War of the Ming Dynasty.

Other small miscellaneous fish have corresponding rewards.

If you can capture and kill small leaders such as Toyotomi Hideka, Toyotomi Hidekatsu, Kato Kiyomasa, Kobayakawa Takakage, Soyoshi Tomo, etc., each will be rewarded with 5000 taels of silver, and will be named hereditary commander; Those who are named the king of the Japanese county.

In order to confuse the Japanese army, he specially sent someone to Pyongyang to inform Chief Konishi that the Heavenly Soldiers entered North Korea to help North Korea accept the country from the Japanese army.

Unexpectedly, this oolong got bigger and bigger. Soon after, Dayou Yitong, who was stationed in Shuoning, encountered a group of North Korean volunteers. Because they were carrying the banner of the Ming army and many of them were wearing reddish-brown cotton armor, they were mistaken for them. The Ming army came from Hamgyong Road.

The main reason is that the Japanese army did not control Ping'an Road and Huanghai Road, so they could not conscript civilians nearby to build city defenses.

Right now, the Ming army's heavy artillery is still being transported in the rear, and the only thing that can be called a cannon in the Ming army camp is the tiger crouching cannon. Before the artillery is ready, Li Rusong will never attack Pyongyang by force.

In the letter, he claimed that 20 Ming troops had gone south and had been blocked in Pyongyang by himself, and that he needed assistance from the rear to wipe out the enemy.

Seeing this situation, Li Rusong was embarrassed for a moment, then smiled and said, "I didn't expect to be hit by what I said, but unfortunately I am not Cao Cao, and this is not Huarong Road."

Sugimura Tomokiyo retreated the Ming army, greedy for the luggage left behind by the Ming army, especially the iron shields held by the Ming army, which are rare military equipment in Japan, so he sent people down the mountain to pick up these shields, but was killed by the Ming army. Returning the carbine, he fled back to the mountain in embarrassment after leaving behind dozens of corpses.

By December 20th in the [-]th year of Wanli and December [-]th in the first year of Wenlu in Japan, the artillery of the Ming army finally arrived at the front line of Pyongyang City.

Looking at the fortified Pyongyang City, Li Rusong frowned. It was hard for him to imagine how the North Korean Army was defeated by the Japanese army relying on Pyongyang City.

It was written above that anyone who could capture and behead the three culprits who advocated the chaos, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Toyotomi Hideji, and Konishi Governor, would each be rewarded with 1 taels of silver, and the title would be hereditary.

On December [-], Li Rusong and the North Korean army arrived in Pyongyang City to inspect the city's defenses.

Then the two sides began to intrigue and delay time. Li Rusong was waiting for the artillery from the rear to arrive in Pyongyang, and Konishi Yukio was because he had asked Toyotomi Hidekatsu of Hwanghae Province and Toyotomi Hideji of Gyeonggi Province for help.

The cannon is light in weight and small in size, which is especially suitable for cavalry to use horses to carry it directly. This gave birth to the cavalry artillery of the Ming Dynasty Army, which is also the first cavalry artillery in world history.

It turns out that the entire city is arranged like a right triangle. The southeast sides of Pyongyang are close to the Taedong River, which are two right-angled sides, and the east side is next to the Datong River, which is not suitable for attack at all.

In fact, he was still unwilling to believe this figure at first, so he sent his retainer and samurai out to investigate the information. Unexpectedly, this retainer and samurai was also a coward, and after going around the city, he lied that 10 Ming troops had surrounded Huangzhou.

Don't look at this man's ruthless mouth before the Ming army came, but after Huang Haidao was tortured by North Korean volunteers for eight years, he was no longer the heroic boy he was when he just entered the dynasty.

But Konishi Xingchang, Zongyizhi and others are still old warriors who have fought for decades. Soon after learning the news that the Ming army went south, they quickly made arrangements. Sugimura Zhiqing led people to garrison Peony Peak. One of the arrangements.

The tiger crouching gun was originally invented by Qi Jiguang during the anti-Japanese war in the Ming Dynasty to counter the Japanese pirates' bird guns.

Huangzhou is one of the two main cities of Huanghai Province. It is 30 kilometers north of Fengshan. Toyotomi Hidekatsu was shocked when he heard that the Ming army had arrived nearby. He abandoned Fengshan and fled south with a large army.

Exaggerating the military strength of the Ming army to 20 is to improve one's combat achievements, and at the same time make people feel that they are really difficult.But what he didn't know was that his sentence of 20 Ming troops took Toyotomi Hidekatsu by surprise.

The key is that Motocho Yoshikawa came to report not long after that there were only 2000 Korean soldiers occupying Shuoning, and he had repelled them. This made Otomo Yoshitomo lose face to his grandma's house.

The ordinary gate on the oblique side of the west is built along the ordinary river. If you want to attack from here, you need to cross the 50-meter-wide ordinary river first, and 10 meters from the Datong gate and Changqing gate on the side is the Taotao Datong river. river water.

The tiger squat cannon can fire shotguns, and it can shoot about 100 bullets for bird guns or 50 large bullets at a time. The firepower spreads over a large area and can effectively kill dense enemy troops. It is a sharp weapon that can effectively kill unknown enemies at night.

Although President Xiaonishi hoped that the peace talks would go smoothly, he always felt that something was wrong, so instead of negotiating the peace at the Fushan Court in person, he sent 23 people including his retainer Dapu Sunliu, and in the end, all 23 people were hacked by the Ming army. die.

Otomo Yoshitaka directly withdrew from Shuoning, causing a breach in the first line of defense and cutting off the connection between Lianchuan and Kaesong. The only way to get in touch is through Matian, Jingjicheng, and Changtan. Notify Kaesong that the effect at the strategic level is greatly reduced.

Paju, Jicheng, Matian, Yongping, and Yangzhou are the second line of defense, and Toyotomi Hideji and Kobayakawa Takakage are stationed in person.

There are also the 3000-jin Shenwei General Cannon and the 7000-jin Hongyi Cannon. These are not artillery pieces that can easily be moved with the army. They need to be transported to the front line by horses and vehicles.

Right now is the time for employing people, plus Toyotomi Hidekatsu fled south from Fengzhou, Toyotomi Hideji couldn't just punish Otomo Yoshitomo, and then sent him back after telling him to strictly guard Shuoning.

Li Rusong, who heard the news, breathed a sigh of relief, and said to the generals, "Fortunately, the Japanese army did not defend Pyongyang, otherwise we would be in trouble."

The artillery of the Ming army can be said to be various, including the rear-mounted Fran cannon and the invincible general cannon. Although the range is only a hundred steps due to airtightness, it can cover a 60-meter-wide section after loading shotguns. .

After 5 days of marching, the army came to station near Anju. They invited Ryu Seong-ryong, the inspector of Pyongan Province, to question him and listen to his introduction of the city defense structure of Pyongyang City.

Li Rusong was deeply aware of the low combat power of the North Korean army, so he had no choice but to place it in the second-line position to prevent another surprise attack by the Japanese army.

Liu Chenglong was worried that the city of Pyongyang was high and strong, and the Japanese army had the advantage of iron cannons. He was afraid that the first battle of entering the DPRK would be a hard fight, so he spoke out to dissuade him.

In order to overcome the shortcoming of self-injury caused by easy recoil when firing, a support frame is installed at the muzzle, so the tiger crouching gun is named after its appearance like a tiger squatting when shooting.

Seeing this situation, Sugimura Tomoki frowned helplessly.If it weren't for the lack of preparations for the Ming army's southward march, and if the city had been built on Mudanfeng in advance, how could there be such a helpless result.

Seeing this situation, Li Rusong sent Zhending soldiers to attack Mudanfeng, but at this time, it was Zongyi Zhijia Lao Shancun Zhiqing who was in charge of the defense of Mudanfeng. He used the rocks on Mudanfeng as a support to avoid the arrows of the Ming army at the foot of the mountain. , The Japanese army shot at the Ming army climbing the mountain between the rock cracks.

In addition, President Xiaoxi's main energy has been led by the nose by that liar Shen Weijing, and he has even believed his lie that the peace talks will be successful, so naturally he has no energy to build city defenses.

He naturally thought that Kato Kiyomasa and Hanabang Masako of Hamgyong Road had died in battle, and fled to Wangjing after abandoning the city of Shuoning. The rebels recovered Shuoning without bloodshed, cutting off the connection between Huanghai Road and Hamgyong Road. .

Different from the certificates of appreciation in history, this time Wanli specially named the three words "false Japanese emperor", which is obviously related to the mention of the emperor in the ruling structure of Japan in the Xiujia letter.

Unlike the Ming army's successful repulsion of Japan, the 8000 Korean troops in the south were killed and defeated under the surprise attack of 3000 Japanese troops.

This was originally Li Rusong's test of the Japanese army's combat effectiveness. Now that the Japanese army's combat effectiveness has been roughly tested, and the approximate shooting distance of the Japanese army's iron cannons has been figured out, the tactical goal has been achieved and the natural choice is to withdraw.

They didn't get an order to withdraw their troops at all. The main reason was that Toyotomi Hidekatsu thought that the Ming army had surrounded Huangzhou, and even if they sent people to inform them, they couldn't go in.

The Ming army was stopped by the Japanese iron bullets, and retreated in embarrassment after dropping a few iron shields.

The Ming army finally checked the corpses and found that there was no corpse of the Japanese commander Konishi. Li Rusong judged that a surprise attack on Pyongyang was impossible, and temporarily changed the plan to a storm.

In response to the Ming army, the Japanese army built two lines of defense north of Wangjing. Kaesong, Shuoning, and Yeoncheon were the first line of defense, guarded by Kuroda Nagamasa, Otomo Yoshitomo, and Yoshikawa Motocho respectively.

The only ones that can launch an attack on Pyongyang City completely by land are the Seven Star Gate at the northwest corner of Mudanfeng Mountain, which is the gate that Zu Chengxun entered when he raided Pyongyang last time, and the Zhengyang Gate.

Strictly speaking, the Tiger Crouching Cannon is not a cannon. It is more like the 30-inch iron cannon that the Japanese also equipped. An important weapon, even the cavalry is equipped.

Coupled with the design of the tiger crouching cannon, the Japanese army paid the price of more than a hundred casualties before they even touched the Ming army camp, and fled back to the city in embarrassment.

For Li Rusong, after the Pyongyang battle lost the suddenness of the surprise attack, the idea of ​​a quick battle was extinguished. He didn't care about the gains and losses of a day or two, and the real war was yet to come.

Oh~ It seems that the North Korean army fled, and Pyongyang fell into the hands of the Japanese army without a fight.

But after listening to Liu Chenglong's introduction of Pyongyang's defense, Li Rusong laughed loudly and said, "I use cannons to cover five or six miles. Why should I be a thief?"

Because the night was too dark, Zu Chengxun, who was on the edge of Zhengyangmen, did not dare to support him. After dawn, he cooperated with the North Korean generals to gather the soldiers and found out that the night attack last night killed an army of 8000 people, and seven out of ten escaped. Eight.

As soon as he finished his words, some blue flags appeared on Mudanfeng. It turned out that the Japanese army sent 1000 people out of the city to guard Mudanfeng in advance, taking advantage of the Ming army's unsteady foothold.

Immediately, he ordered people to set up several large banners in the north of the city, with the words "Korean soldiers and civilians, those who surrender to the banner will not die." However, as a counterattack, it was iron cannonballs shot from Mudanfeng to the foot of the mountain. Really wounded a few North Korean soldiers.

The north side of the mountain is close to Mudanfeng, and the entire northwest side is the longest hypotenuse, but there is also a tributary of the Datong River, the Tongjiang River.

But despite this, Li Rusong is still very afraid of Pyongyang City, and still wants to defeat the enemy by tricks.

Although the Japanese army has been well-trained, and everyone holds wooden sticks without making a sound, they were still discovered by the sentry of the Ming army.

There is a part of flat land on the south side, which is the plain formed by the impact of the lower reaches of the Datong River, but the size is so small that it is not suitable for deploying large soldiers.

But the range of the tiger squatting gun is not far, even the largest caliber can only shoot a distance of about 500 meters, and the effective range of most tiger squatting guns is about 200 to 300 meters.

But the tree wanted to be quiet but the wind kept blowing. That night, Xingchang Xiaonishi and Zong Yizhi led a team of troops out of Qixingmen and Hanmaomen respectively, and launched a night attack on the Ming army camp on the north side and the Korean army camp on the south side.

However, he withdrew not only sold Governor Konishi in Pyongyang, but also sold 3200 people including Toyohisa Shimadzu who was stationed in Huangzhou.

Due to the darkness of the night, the Ming army did not dare to go out to fight, so they used the three-eyed blunderbuss and the tiger squatting cannon to fire at the night through the fence.

He first looked at Mudan Peak on the left, and said to the crowd, "Sun generals are not good at defending. If we build a city on Mudan Peak, it will be intertwined with Pyongyang City, so I cannot attack."

In the hearts of the emperors and ministers of the Ming Dynasty, there can only be one emperor in this world, and that is the Emperor Ming in Beijing.

This certificate of award was later seen by Xiu's family, he couldn't help but burst out laughing, thinking to himself that no one of his own was in North Korea, why did he get on the list?

No matter how you say it, you can be regarded as a friendly person to Ming Dynasty, right?
The point is that it’s alright if you offered me a reward, but why did you give me such a low reward, ranking behind Hideji Toyotomi and Governor Konishi?

I don't accept it!I don't agree!

Of course, the Xiu family could also see from the reward certificate that Emperor Wanli was really serious this time.