Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 796 East-West War ([-]) Seizing Puyuan City

Zhuanglin Yixin is in Fengchun's house, and together with Sanada Nobushige, Ikaruga Heiji, and Suga Masatoshi, they are called "Four Riders of the Banner".

This is because these four people were all close ministers of the Xiu family, they all served as the heads of the Banners of the Xiu family successively, led hundreds of bannermen to fight on the battlefield, and successively became famous names above Wanshi under the Xiu family.

After the sons of the Hide family became daimyo successively, Ikaruga Heiji and Shobayashi Isshin were sent to the Sanuki Sanjo family and Sagami Ashikaga respectively as the elders, while Sanada Nobushige and Suga Masatoshi were not promoted because they were always with the Hide family. , but it can be seen from the formation of this time that the Xiu family still attaches great importance to the two of them.

Zhuang Linyixin led more than 600 people to join the siege, and Puyuan City, which had gradually calmed down, became noisy again.With the sound of the conch horn and the re-beating of the drum, the Ashikaga Army launched another attack on Puyuan City under the organization of the old Zhuang Lin Yixin.

Now those who are in charge of attacking the city include the 1000 ronin, Ashikaga's 300 iron cannon ashigaru and 500 recruited ashigaru, and of course the 100 bannermen who are behind the formation. The combat power is not bad.

Of course, Zhuang Lin Yixin also re-arranged the siege, promised to give rewards to the ronin who were in charge of the siege just now, and then they went to the back for a while to rest. The 500 ronin he brought in were responsible for the main attack.

Since the attack section is not as wide as the external curved wheel, the 300 iron cannons can be fired in two rows in sequence.

The Qulun, which is the outermost part of the main body of Puyuan City, is actually a mountainside platform in the southern part of the city. The area here is not large, and at most 200 defenders can be tiled.

However, because of the reason of being built against the mountain, plus the existence of vertical boroughs to prevent climbing, and the continuous presence of people on the platform on the mountain, people will throw away stones through the wooden box outside the temporary installation of the protruding stone screen. Suspension rope climbing is not a little troublesome.

This is the problem with mountain castles. Even at the end of the shogunate, if the morale wanted to force the mountain city to open the city, most of them could only use the method of siege.

It was difficult, but Zhuang Lin Yixin still ordered people to adopt the old method, taking advantage of the advantages of troops to break through the city in two ways.However, he didn't have any hope for the Suspension Ant Attachment. What he valued more was the progress of breaking the main city gate on the south side.

This is also the place where the battle is the most intense. In order to increase the success rate of breaking the gate, ladders are even built on both sides of the city gate, so that you can climb up the arrow rest on the gate, and you can enter the city by climbing over the arrow rest to open the gate.

The defenders naturally knew that this was the most important place, so more than 60 people were stationed here.Ronin continued to attach to the city through ladder ants, but after a while in the city, the corpses were discarded again.

Obin Shinchang, who was in charge of the defense, seemed to have blocked the back of the city gate with something, no matter how the first team hit the gate, it would not be difficult to shake the gate.

Zhuang Lin focused on looking at the ronin who were constantly injured and falling on the arrow rest on the main gate and the curved wheels on both sides of the mountain, thinking about the number of casualties in his mind.

But the reality gave him a quicker reply.Ronin joined the army to earn military merits and become a samurai again, not to fall into the human meat grinder for you.

After dozens of casualties occurred, the ronin group who took money to do things had lost the vigor to continue the attack. First, some people retreated actively when climbing on the hanging cables on both sides, and then some ronin who climbed the ladders on both sides of the city gate still climbed In the middle of it, he jumped down and turned around to run away.

"Don't retreat! The city is about to be taken down!" Seeing someone deserting, Zhuang Lin Yixin ordered the bannermen to enforce the military law, and caught the ronin who dared to escape and took them to the front of the battle to behead them.

The bloody massacre that followed did temporarily deter the ronin who lost their courage, and began to continue to attack the city under the orders of their respective samurai.

Zhuang Lin found out that this might not be useful, so he ordered someone to go down and inform the Ashikaga family, asking him to prepare gunpowder.He was going to refer to Xiujia's use of gunpowder to blow up the door when he was in Jibei.

When the Hide family used gunpowder to blow up the door, the number of iron cannons in Japan was only so many. It is not certain whether the Takeda family and the Uesugi family can have 500 iron cannons. The consumption of gunpowder is not large.

But now the entire Japanese iron cannon is almost becoming a mainstream weapon. The general equipment ratio in the army reserve has reached 15%, and even 20% or 30% can be found everywhere. The consumption of gunpowder has already increased.

Coupled with the presence of cannons in the Xiu family's formation, they naturally prepared sufficient gunpowder.

But in the past, the Xiu family had just started to make their own gunpowder, and the production of gunpowder was far more than the consumption, so naturally there were extra cannons to use to blow up the door.Now that the consumption has increased, the output for one year is not even enough for Shangluo to use this time. It is not easy to be as extravagant as in the past.

Including the Ashikaga family, gunpowder for the entire Kanto was basically provided by the Xiu family.Even the son of the Xiu family pays according to the price when starting a business.

The Ashikaga family had already dissipated all their wealth and recruited more than a thousand ronin groups, so there was no extra money to buy redundant gunpowder.Regardless of how well Ashikaga is firing iron cannons in Kamahara City, Ashikaga has a total of 1000 iron cannons, but he only dared to send 300 people forward, which is enough to see how picky the family is.

Now let him bring the remaining gunpowder over to light the fireworks, which made the Ashikaga family bleed.

But at this moment, his younger brother is by his side, and things that hurt his face are not in line with the character of the Shi family.So after pondering for a while, he ordered to his old Noda Homono, "Umasuke, take two barrels of gunpowder to support Hokimori."

The gunpowder needs to be delivered by the elders in person. It is not because Noda Homono is the elder of the Ashikaga Internal Affairs Bureau. He naturally knows how much the Ashikaga military expenditure is.This is to let him watch Zhuang Lin and save some time!
Noda Fan Chao came to Zhuang Lin Yixin's side, and quickly reduced the consumption of 2 barrels of gunpowder to 1 barrel.

If you want gunpowder to blow up the gate, the preparatory work is very long. For example, you need to ensure that the gunpowder barrel will not be splashed by the defenders on the arrow rest of the gate tower when you put it under the gate.Therefore, during the whole preparation process, Zhuang Lin Yixin continued to gather people towards the gate tower, hoping that Ashikaga could control the gate tower.

At the same time, the vanguard is still in charge of knocking on the door, so as to cover the fact that they are filling gunpowder under the city.

Hitting the door in the first hand is not a brainless collision. On both sides of the first hand in charge of hitting the wood, there will be two rows of ashigaru holding wooden poles, responsible for blocking the arrow feathers shot from the head and sides. The wooden gunpowder The barrels can be quietly transported to the gate of the city behind their backs.

Due to insufficient gunpowder, Zhuang Lin Yixin could only choose to blast the gatepost with gunpowder. After placing the position, he suddenly knocked on the gong for withdrawing troops. The head of the city retreated, but the vanguard continued to hit the door under the cover of the wooden hand.

Until the sound of the second gong sounded, more than 20 people in the vanguard, including Mu Yushou, ran back desperately. After throwing a certain distance, Zhuang Lin bent his bow and shot at the gunpowder barrel with a rocket.

The gunpowder barrel that had been soaked in kerosene was instantly ignited, and the flames looked extraordinarily bright in the dark night.At this moment, the defenders at the top of the city realized that the situation was wrong, and immediately shouted to the rear, "Get water! Bring water!"

But the rear is not only the distance from the water tank, the burning speed of the gunpowder barrel is obviously faster than that of the human cannon.

With a loud bang, Kambara Castle Sannomaru (Nanmaru) exploded, and the impact shook the foundation of the city gate.

The huge sound and impact attracted the cheers of the Ashikaga soldiers, and they began to think about the scene where the city gate was blasted and they attacked the city.

But obviously a barrel of gunpowder was not enough, and the city gate did not collapse as expected.Zhuang Linyi glanced speechlessly at Noda Fan Chao, and he also lowered his head in embarrassment.

"Perhaps adding another bucket can blow it up." They all said this in their hearts.

Different from the embarrassing Ashikaga soldiers in the city, the Ouping family soldiers in charge of guarding the gate all showed the joy of surviving after the catastrophe, and their morale was even higher than before.

"Continue to break the door!" Looking at the defenders who were on guard at the top of the city, it was obviously impossible to blast and break the door again, so Zhuang Lin Yixin could only use stupid methods to continue the attack.

At the same time, the Ashikaga family outside the city could not see what was going on inside the city, but with the sound of gunpowder explosion and the flashing fire in the dark night, he said confidently to his younger brother beside him, "Look, little Puyuan I didn't pay attention to the city at all.

Just two hours into the first day, I had taken down all the outer lines of defense and entered the city.Eleven Lang will stay here for a while, and later his brother will bring you into the city together. "

But he obviously miscalculated the time to break the city, and he didn't hear the notification "Nanwan has been taken" from the front until the night was dark.

The face of the Ashikaga family was a bit ugly, just at this time the Honjin on the other side of the river sent an envoy, dressed in a blue battle jacket and a black standard Nanban body, wearing a blue feather tassel, just like the Hide family's attendant team.

"Major General You Jinwei, my lord said that the Puyuan City is strong and cannot be destroyed overnight. Your Highness's performance has been received. The vanguard has been attacking the city for a long time, so it is better to withdraw our troops and rest for a while."

In fact, the Xiu family had already received the news that the original plan's peripheral Qulun had been taken down. He naturally knew the order of the Ashikaga family to continue attacking Nanmaru, but the Xiu family did not stop him.

After all, the Ashikaga family is already an independent daimyo, and it's time for him to grow up.Xiujia also hopes to see that the Shijia can win Nanmaru, which will lay a good foundation for continuing to attack the city tomorrow.

Even when the gunpowder exploded, Hideka was sitting on the Mazha of the main formation, looking at the head of Kambara Castle illuminated by the fire, eating chazuke with big mouthfuls.

But after a long time after the gunpowder blasted the gate, the city still hadn't fallen, and it was getting dark, so the Xiu family sent someone to stop the Ashikaga family's insistence on attacking the city.

Whether it is a samurai or an ashigaru, a samurai or a ronin, they are all human beings after all.People have to rest. If siege warfare was so easy since ancient times, there would be no need to build cities.

With the Hide family's order here, the Ashikaga family has now stepped down, and began to send orders to the city to retreat.

But people withdrew, and morale was a little low.The Xiu family also expected all this. After all, it is human beings who attack the city, and human beings cannot escape the shackles of human nature.

The Xiu family ordered people to bring the sauced meat that had been cooked a long time ago, and ordered them to distribute it to the soldiers who participated in the siege today, and rewarded each of the ronin team in charge of the main attack with 1 kan, and each of the iron cannon and foot light team 200 coins .As for the Xiu family who died in the battle, he said that he has been ranked in the register, and his family members will be given a pension of 3 Guanwen each.

Human life was so cheap in the Warring States Period, and San Guanwen took one life away.

The Xiu family naturally also knew that the Ashikaga family had exhausted their family wealth in order to support him, so these expenses were allocated by the Xiu family from their own military funds.

But the Xiu family contributed money and effort to appease the soldiers of the Ashikaga family, which made the family who had always wanted to prove themselves in front of his father somewhat embarrassed.

Toyotomi Shige's family didn't dare to continue to stay in the formation of the cold-faced elder brother, so they just found an excuse and slipped away.After several hours of offensive and defensive battles, Puyuan City finally gradually quieted down, and both the defending and attacking soldiers began to rest.

But the Ashikaga family, who was the main attacking vanguard, couldn't sleep. He took several important ministers to a meeting in the front line. The theme of the meeting was "How to quickly capture Kambara Castle as a gift for the Hide family."

After a long discussion, the Ashikaga family finally decided to take Kambara Castle at all costs.So much so that at the beginning of the battle the next day, he transferred his most elite bannermen to take charge of today's lord.He even sent all of his 800 iron cannons, plus the 360 ​​of his retainers, to the front line, intending to use three-stage strikes to shoot at the city without stopping.

I don't know if I saw the arrival of the Banners. The city gate that had been fighting for a day yesterday became extremely fragile, and it collapsed directly under the impact of the first strike organized by the Banners today.

In fact, everyone who has studied physics and chemistry knows that this is because the wood is extinguished with cold water after it explodes and catches fire, which affects the structure of the wood.

However, this was regarded as a sign that the city would definitely be broken today, which greatly boosted the morale of the Banner crowd.

It has been said more than once in the previous article that breaking the outer city walls of the mountain city is only the beginning of the siege battle, and there are still several levels waiting for you.

The main body of Kambara Castle, the Sannomaru Nanmaru Falling Castle, is a winding [S]-shaped mountain road, with curved wheels in three directions of the mountain road.On the west and north sides of the mountain road are the Ninomaru, and on the east side is the Higashi Maru built on the mountain on the other side of the valley.

If you want to continue to attack, you can either climb the mountain to the right and enter the Ninomaru from the top of the East Maru, or walk through the [S] shaped mountain road, and continue to attack the city from the south side at the end of the mountain road after being continuously named and reduced by the opposite side.

Of course there is a third way.

If you don’t choose to climb the mountain to climb the Tomaru, and you don’t want to reduce the number of people in the corner aisle, there is a steep slope at the northeast corner of the first straight line of the [S] shape, and there is a suspension bridge at the end, and the back of the suspension bridge is directly connected to the Tomaru.

Although walking from here seems to be able to avoid attacks from other angles, but with that steep angle and suspension bridge, ordinary people can't take it.In the military discussion before the war, the first two methods of siege were also adopted, but the main siege force was handed over to consumable cannon fodder to recruit ashigaru troops.

(End of this chapter)