Prime Minister Bizen

The reason why Li Rusong asked Li Rubai to go south as soon as possible is because he currently has insufficient troops to besiege Wang Jing.

Fighting all the way from Pyongyang, Jinchuan, Kaesong, and Paju, the former army as the main force suffered a lot, and even sent troops as the central army in the battle of Paju.

Now Zhang Shijue of the Right Association is trapped under the city of Baochuan. Thanks to the previous battle of Xiaoyao Mountain, the troops of the Right Association are seriously insufficient, making the siege weak, and they cannot return to the city of Hanyang with Li Rusong's troops.

Li Rusong asked Li Rubai to speed up his withdrawal from Shuoning, because he wanted him to lead people to support Zhang Shijue's troops, to break through Yangzhou and completely encircle the Japanese army in Hanyang.

The scale of Seoul is very large, and even part of the city wall directly relies on the surrounding mountains, including Beiyue Mountain, Luoshan Mountain, Nanshan Mountain and Renwang Mountain in the surrounding mountainous areas.

Although the area of ​​Seoul is very large, it is still quite a distance from the Han River. It is still impossible for the Daming Navy to bombard Seoul on the Han River.

After removing the heavy artillery on the ship, Li Rusong could only pin his hope of breaking the city on the three 3-jin Hongyi cannons.

However, what made Li Rusong even more disappointed was that on the night of February 2, a fire dragon ignited on the Han River, and the Ming army ships moored on the Han River burned into one piece.

Previously, Li Rusong ordered the navy to cross the river, and cut off the Japanese army's north-south connection and enjoyed the sweetness. Therefore, when attacking Hanyang, he also ordered Ji Jin to lead the navy to block the Han River.

However, since the Daming Navy had not gone ashore for a long time, many of the sailors who made their first battle with North Korea this time were recruited from maritime merchants, not professional soldiers of the Ming Army.Therefore, Li Rusong allowed some ships to dock and some sailors to go ashore for repairs.

Although it was said that the Korean army was injured in yesterday's night attack, everyone knew that the Japanese army was looking at the Ming army. If the Ming army and the Korean army called each other's camp yesterday, wouldn't it be the Ming army who was damaged?
The Koreans did not tell the Ming army about the secret road leading to Gaoyang and Yangzhou in the middle of the Northern Hanshan Mountains. It was obvious that they were behind the scenes. How could Li Rusong accept this?

Li Sunshin couldn't answer for a moment. At that time, he did encounter a Japanese pirate ship with several cannons on the edge of Jindo. How could he not see it when he arrived at the headquarters of the Japanese pirate navy?

But now that the sea route is cut off, it is equivalent to the Japanese army's logistical supply being cut off. The Japanese army has no other way to continue occupying North Korea except to collect food locally.

The only places where Japan can collect food in North Korea are Gyeonggi Province, Hamgyong Province, Gangwon Province, and the eastern part of Chungcheong Province, southern Gyeongsang Province and the central region.

These ships are loaded with gunpowder and artillery, and the ship will explode once it is ignited.On the night of the 6th, Li Rusong had just rested when he heard the noise of the army outside.

Shi Xing was ordered by Song Yingchang to find an opportunity to negotiate a peace with Japan, but Shi Xing also said that the current peace talks will damage the image of the court. He will urgently transport a batch of military rations to Pyongyang, so that Song Yingchang can find a way to gain some advantages in a short period of time. initiative.

On the night of February 2, Fukushima in Yangzhou City was ordered by Toyotomi Hideji to come out from the valley southwest of Yangzhou City and launch a night attack on the Ming army stationed outside Gaoyang City.

This time the night attack completely broke Li Rusong. He pointed to the nose of Liu Chenglong who came to explain and asked, "Heavenly soldiers came from China to support Erfan, and they were seriously injured. However, you and the others have no food and information, what do you mean?" "

In order to prevent being encircled by the army, the Ming and Korean naval forces withdrew from Geoje Island on the same day, and attacked Geoje Island and Jueyeong Island again on the 28th. With the speed of the Fuchuan, they directly pursued to the outside of Tsushima Island, destroying 45 Japanese ships and achieving a great victory.

Although Li Rusong had his own reasons for withdrawing troops, he had disobeyed Emperor Wanli after all. Soon after, Emperor Wanli called him back to Beijing in the name of debriefing, and named him Prince Taibao, the governor of the Chinese army and the governor of Zuodu.

At the same time, they contacted the volunteer soldiers in Gyeongsang-do and Jeolla-do, and asked them to find a way to cut off the transportation routes of the Japanese army inland.

In the beginning, they still carried out raids on the area controlled by the rebels, but later they found that the Korean people had cleared the walls and cleared the country against them, and after sweeping again, they could not sweep away much, so they turned the butcher knife on the North Koreans who obeyed them.

Even in the Kanto area, 500 koku were prepared for every 500 koku to be transported to Nagoya. According to the loss on the road, in order to transport the 400 koku, Hideka had to pay an additional [-] koku.

Liu Chenglong said: North Korea's eight provinces have been heavily looted by bandits, many places have been abandoned, and North Korea doesn't have much food left.But the food for the Heavenly Soldiers will definitely be supplemented as much as possible.

Although Ji Jin dealt with it in a timely manner, according to statistics afterwards, only 16 large and medium-sized Fuchuan were lost, not even 1/10 of the Ming army's naval ships, but the psychological pressure on the main force of the Ming army was huge.

He wanted Hideyoshi to agree to his request to withdraw from North Korea, but the stubborn Hideyoshi still insisted that he must fight to the last person in North Korea.

If you want to ensure the military rations of the Ming army in the dynasty, you must transport food from Liaodong and Shandong.At the time when there was no railway and sea transportation, it was undoubtedly a very large project to supply more than 4 Ming soldiers with horse chews, and even to support the Korean court.

Li Rusong, who was attacked in Gaoyang City, was very angry. He attributed the attack to North Korea.After all, the Japanese army came from their own belly, and it could not be the enemy of Hanyang head-on, only the Yangzhou defenders next door.

However, at this time, two very important news came from Kyoto. One is that Hideyoshi's concubine Chacha gave birth to Hideyoshi another boy for Hideyoshi.

Who knew that the Japanese army attacked Gaoyang at night through a secret road yesterday.

This was Li Rusong's original plan, but after the Japanese army attacked Gaoyang at night, Li Rusong became prejudiced against the Koreans, and even planned to withdraw his troops directly to the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

Starting from Pyongyang, the Ming army went down to Kaesong and Popazhou for consecutive victories, and several Japanese army regiments originally stationed here were driven away.

Renji is the Minister of the Ministry of War, and he is a serious Jinshi. He is just a military general, Qiu Ba, and Li Rusong is not reasonable to talk to him in such a low voice, so he will get angry. After thinking for a while, he agrees.

You must know that at this time Li Rubai's troops had brought people to make peace with Zhang Shijue, and the leaders of the two sides were discussing how to divide the troops to surround Yangzhou and Baochuan.

When the Japanese army retreated at dawn, the Korean Corps, which was mainly hit, lost more than 3 people.

It just so happened that Takakage Kobayakawa was seriously ill, and he begged Hideyoshi to allow him to return to Higo for treatment. With Hideyoshi's consent, Takakage Kobayakawa was able to return from North Korea and told him the real situation in North Korea.

Naturally, the explosion of the Han River could not be concealed from the Japanese defenders stationed in Nanshan. They informed the other Japanese troops in the city of the situation, and the morale that had been low due to the siege was suddenly boosted.

At the same time, he wrote to Zhang Shijue and Li Rubai in Yangzhou, telling them the situation here, and asking them to withdraw their troops from Baochuan to Kaesong.

In fact, Zhang Shijue and Li Rubai's units also had a lot of epidemics, but fortunately, because these two units were separated to sweep up other North Korean cities before, the military rations were still somewhat guaranteed.

Although Wanli didn't like Li Rusong's move to lead the troops back without asking for instructions, he also knew that he did so to preserve the main force of the Ming army.

It means why Japanese pirates attack us from a road we don’t know. Even Japanese pirates know this road. Don’t you Koreans know?Why didn't you tell me that?
A series of attacks in the recent period, coupled with the delay in the arrival of military rations supported by North Korea, made the military rations of the Ming army in the dynasty unsustainable, and the Ming army in Goyang City and outside Baochuan City reported dysentery. , it gave Li Rusong the idea of ​​retreating.

It’s just that the anchor has been anchored for a few days, and nothing unusual has been seen. The entire Mingshui division has maintained a skeptical attitude towards whether the Japanese army hit the artillery, thinking that it was false information reported by North Korea.

Frustrated by the fall of Hanyang City, Li Rusong is no longer as energetic as when he first entered the court. He even felt that his previous strategy of going all the way south along Kaesong was too risky. He still planned to withdraw to Pyongyang for a short rest and then go to take Hamgyong Road. go south.

So the Ming army retreated to Pyongyang after returning to Kaesong, and finally on February 2, the whole army withdrew to Pyongyang.

After discussing with the generals, Song Yingchang decided to cut off the logistics supplies on the opposite side. The most important thing was to allow the Daming Navy and the Korean Navy to destroy the Japanese navy anchored in Busan and block their way of transporting food from Japan.

In fact, how could Hideyoshi not know that in order to conquer North Korea, today's Japan has long been turned into a powder keg.How could he not know how hard the life of the Japanese soldiers in the court was?
However, he was the one who initiated the conquest of North Korea, and he would never allow failure. This would undoubtedly have dealt a huge blow to his reputation.

On the evening of the 17th, I arrived at the naval camp in Geoje Province. Mr. Lai Daotong and the others who were stationed again had no precautions, and were caught off guard by you.Under a round of artillery fire, 24 Japanese ships were destroyed, and 2 of my own ships ran aground because of ignorance of water.

Since the Japanese disaster in the spring of last year, all parts of North Korea have suffered from military disasters in turn. The geographical food cannot be grown at all, and the Korean court naturally cannot recruit military food.

You must know that among the Eight Routes of Korea, Pyongan Province was not captured by Japan, and Hwanghae Province has been recovered. Jeolla Province had previously mobilized most of its troops because Kobayakawa Longjing had to deal with the main force of the Ming army, and now it is again occupied by volunteer soldiers.

After hearing the general situation from Li Rusong, he was also extremely indignant, and after seeing the soldiers of the Ming army turned yellow and emaciated due to lack of food, he also agreed with Li Rusong's suggestion to withdraw troops.

The moment he went out to investigate, he happened to see a boat explode on the river.

The Ming army also caused some riots due to the impact of the roar of the North Korean military camp next door, and lost hundreds of soldiers for no reason. This was also a big psychological blow to the Ming army.

Since April, the Japanese Wang Jing and Chungcheong-do troops have dispatched more than 4 people to search for food around Chungcheong-do and Gyeonggi-do.

Li Rubai withdrew his troops from Shuoning to support Zhang Shijue who was besieging Yangzhou. Here in the Yangzhou Basin, the most important ones are Baochuan City built at the end of the Baochuan Canyon, and Yangzhou City in the southwest of the basin. The other cities are Yongping and Gapyeong. The eastern part of the basin is already half-abandoned by the Japanese army.

In fact, since January, the military rations of the Asahi Japanese army have been on and off the warning line, and they have to be sent off to Hideyoshi almost every month to report the shortage.

He angrily scolded North Korean general Li Yi, "How did the Kou know the secret way? I never listened to you?"

Li Rusong told Emperor Wanli the reason for his withdrawal when he was reporting his duties in Huijin. He said that North Korea’s failure to recruit military rations was actually not an official problem with North Korea.

But in fact, the power of the five military governors of the Ming Dynasty during this period has long been diluted by the Ministry of War.

Now that the recovery of Wang Jing is in sight, Liu Chenglong is naturally unwilling to withdraw the Ming army.At this moment, the Ming army has indeed reached the end of its strength.

However, collecting food is a matter of exhausting the water for fishing. As time went by, the Japanese army could collect less and less food from the fields, and the resistance they encountered became more and more intense.

Hamgyong-do and Gangwon-do in these places are originally poor roads, and it is beyond their ability to supply the two legions of Kato Kiyomasa and Hanabang Masayuki. The other legions are naturally unable to supply only half of Gyeonggi-do, half of Chungcheong-do, and most of Gyeongsang-do. Therefore, the main rations of the Japanese army have always been transported from the mainland.

Since ancient times, wars have been based on national strength, but now North Korea cannot be self-sufficient in food, and it is unrealistic for Ming to ship military rations. Under the premise of lack of military rations, even if there are many advantages on the front line, it is just a cloud.

But in order to guard against the Japanese army's surprise attack, Ji Jin still asked the small boat to parade on the river to report the situation.

At the beginning of the war with Wang Jing, Kobayakawa Takakage once wrote to Hideyoshi saying that Wang Jing had no more than 2 stones, which was less than 10 troops spent in January.

But he said to Li Rusong, "The emperor insists on destroying the Japanese. The general suffered a setback today and will withdraw to the country under the city of Hanyang. I am afraid that the emperor will not like it. Why not retreat to Pyongyang for repairs, and I will raise the military rations for you. How about looking for a better opportunity?"

The storming of Paju brought the loss of more than 3000 people to Yang Yuan's former alliance. In addition to the battles of Jinchuan and Pyongyang, more than 4 people of Yang Yuan's former alliance had been killed, almost half of them.

Unlike the Japanese army, the news that the ships of the Ming Navy on the Han River were attacked dealt a big blow to the Ming army.

After the war, Ji Jin asked Li Sun-shin, "You once wrote a letter saying that the Japanese pirates' naval ships were strong and powerful, so why haven't you seen the Japanese pirates' gunboats you mentioned in the past few days?"

And once the Japanese army forcibly collects food locally, it will inevitably intensify the conflict between them and the local people, and further give birth to new volunteers.

After listening to Li Rusong's explanation, although Wanli was reluctant in every possible way, he also understood that the Korean War had reached the point where peace talks had to be made.

Over time, the navy became slack from top to bottom, and many sailors had rested on the shore. Even if abnormalities were found, these large ships could not start in time, and they were rushed into the formation by Japanese suicide oil tankers, causing a fire.

The reason why he never withdrew his troops was because Liu Chenglong, the inspector of Ping'an Province, and Li Jie, the governor of North Korea's Ping'an Province, had been persuading him, so he was thinking of the friendship between the vassal states and the will of Emperor Wanli.

He originally wanted to wait until he took Yangzhou before taking Seoul. So far, the Ming army has indeed done its best, and it is definitely impossible to continue without repairs.

Zhang Shijue was unable to lay siege to Baochuan for more than half a month, mainly because the Japanese army in Yangzhou city harassed and attacked him at night.And he didn't have enough troops to surround Baochuan and Yangzhou at the same time.

At that time, Song Yingchang, the servant of the Ministry of War, heard that Li Rusong was going to withdraw his troops from Hanyang, and went south from Yizhou to meet with him and ask why.

As for the Ming army in the court, it was temporarily handed over to Song Yingchang, the servant of the Ministry of War, and the generals of the various ministries assisted.

In fact, Li Rusong withdrew his troops from Wangjing. Apart from the above reasons, he felt that the current logistics of the Ming army was too long. The road was cut off.

At that time, Hideyoshi didn't want to admit defeat. He asked the Japanese army to raise their own food in North Korea, and at the same time stepped up the exploitation of the military food of the local Japanese people.

At the same time, Kobayakawa Takakage and Toyotomi Hideji, who were stationed in Wangjing, were still waiting for Mori Terumoto's reinforcements, and they had even received the news that Fukushima Masanori Yangzhou was besieged.

After this battle, the Mingshui Division refused to help Li Rusong isolate the two banks while going deep into the Neijiang River, which also restored the connection between Seoul and the Japanese army in Yongin.

However, as the shipping line between Tsushima Island and Pusanpu was cut off, even if a large amount of food was transported to Nagoya, it could not be transported to North Korea, and the Japanese troops in North Korea began to run out of food.

Therefore, he ordered the entire army to organize its equipment, and first move the wounded, sick, and heavy artillery straight to Kaesong, and then the infantry and cavalry would withdraw later.

The matter that made Li Rusong unsatisfactory is not over yet, Yu Zhang Shijue can't effectively surround Yangzhou, Fukushima Zhengzheng in Pocheon, Hachisuka Jiazheng and others.

Originally, Li Rusong's main force for besieging Hanyang was the Chinese army, but now that the navy retreated, the camp was short of food, and the camp was plagued by disease, according to Li Rusong's thinking, the troops should have been withdrawn long ago.

Although Masayoshi Fukushima finally rushed to the wrong camp, the Ming army did not expect the night attack of the Japanese army, which eventually caused a lot of chaos.

Seeing that Li Rusong was about to retreat, Li Ruo knelt down in front of him and begged him not to retreat, but Li Rusong had made up his mind at this moment, and it was true that no one else could persuade him anymore.

As a result, within a few days, they heard the news that Gao Yangming's army had withdrawn, and soon after, the news of Yangzhou and Baochuan's withdrawal from the siege, they won the victory in a daze.

In any case, the joint navy led by Ji Jin and Yi Sunshin successfully defeated the Japanese pirate navy and cut off the sea route for Japan to transport military supplies from the mainland to North Korea.

On March 3, Ji Jin brought more than 16 ships of the Daemyung Navy that had been revived, joined dozens of ships of Yi Sun-shin in Jeolla Province, and headed eastward to Jueyeong Island to destroy the Japanese navy. .

Although Tsurumatsu has grown up vigorously in this generation, and is now 7 years old, Hideyoshi is still happy with the joy of getting a child when he is old. He can't wait to rush back to Kyoto from Nagoya to see his newborn child .

Also taking advantage of this happy event, Takakage Kobayakawa suggested to Hideyoshi again, asking for peace talks with Daming, and was finally allowed by Hideyoshi to have a tentative exchange with Daming.

Toyotomi Hideji, who was ordered by Hideyoshi, sent Governor Konishi, who was familiar with the envoy of the Ming Dynasty, to be in charge of the peace talks.

However, it is clear that both he and President Konishi misunderstood what Hideyoshi meant. Hideyoshi meant to let them try to negotiate.

But in their understanding, this was what Hideyoshi meant by submitting to Daming for formal peace talks.