Win the Ding 1617

"The Volunteer Squad was defeated?! More than a thousand casualties?"

In Huayu's large tent, he was so shocked by the bad news that he sprinkled the Nanhai Xianlu in his hand on the wooden floor.

Feng Qianli, the infantry battalion officer who came to report the news, was Feng Mofeng's family nephew, and he was usually the most calm.

"Young Marshal, originally, the artillery fire at the top of the city only wounded and killed more than a hundred people, but the huge panic caused by the artillery fire made the group of wanderers trample on each other, pushing and colliding. The Kumamoto defenders dug a large number of people on the ground north of the city. You can bypass obstacles like pits and ditches, but when you retreat, people are flustered and panicked, and naturally they are in a panic. One person fell into the pit, and more than a hundred people trampled over it. Naturally, there were heavy casualties!"

"These Japanese slaves are really useless! If our Nanzhong Army attacked this city, with so many soldiers, even ten Kumamoto cities would have been captured!"

Liang Kuan pouted at the side, expressing his disdain for the defeat of the shogunate army.

"Alas! It's a pity for those wanderers. If they are transported to the mines and forests in Nanzhong, they will be good labor for building bridges and roads to open up wasteland and make iron!"

"Commander Liang, don't worry about its casualties. Send an order to withdraw our artillery brothers first, leaving a few artillery on duty, and bombarding the city with a few shots from time to time!"

Li Huayu gave Liang Kuan a meaningful look, "Don't forget your errand!"

In front of the formation of the Volunteer Army, someone brought thousands of straw bags on a cart. In addition, the commander of the First Army, Tadashi Kuroda, and the commander of the Second Army, Tokugawa Yoshinao, escorted thousands of bags of rice to the battlefield. forward.

The two made a few words of humility to each other, and Tokugawa Yoshinao, who was the daimyo of the three imperial families, did his part.Waving the military fan in his hand, "Fill those pits and ditches! Anyone who throws a bag of soil within the range of artillery fire at the head of the city will receive a bag of rice! Not much! Ten catties!"

"Attack the front and two wings with all your strength, and don't retreat timidly! The Iron Cannon Team and the Iron Cannons at the head of the city are covering each other. The volunteer team is responsible for filling up the trenches and pits. The commander leads the general's shogunate flag. Anyone who dares to take a step back , Kill Unforgiven!"

Hearing Tokugawa Yoshinao's arrangement, the ronin were terrified, but their morale was boosted.There was a frenzied light in his eyes.Yes, as long as you rush up and throw a bag of soil under the city, you can get ten catties of white rice when you come back. The big tube on the city has also cast a few rounds.This will presumably dare not cast it again.Why don't you rush to earn the ten catties of rice at this time? !

In the blink of an eye.Another round of thousands of people's charge began.

The difference from the last time was that the rogues put long knives in their waists and carried heavy dirt bags on their backs.Throw straw bags between the pits in small steps to fill up the attack path.

The daimyo houses along the Kumamoto castle walls are the five-tiered turrets of Tonomomaru, the third-tiered turrets of Iidamaru, the Uto turrets, the Kanmon turrets (Nagaoka Shoshu pre-turrets), the flat turrets, the five turrets, the Kita [-]th turrets, Dongshibajian, Yuanzhijin, Sijian, Fourteen, Qijian, Tianzi and other oars were contracted out by sections, each responsible for a section, driving those ronin and peasants to go to the battle and fill in the battle. Earth pit and trench traps on flat ground.Consumes the ammunition of the city head.

The two commanders, Kuroda and Tokugawa, devoted their main energy to how to unplug the Toyokuni Temple in the northeast corner of the castle located in the middle of Mount Tateta. The army's important stronghold outside the city constantly used firepower and troops to carry out side attacks and small assaults on the siege troops from the side, restraining the rhythm of the attacking troops.Together with the ruins of Miaojie Temple at the foot of Mount Hanaoka in the southwest of the city and the two shrines of the Hosokawa family, they became the outlying strongholds for defending Kumamoto Castle.

The Dafo Langji of the six shogunate artillery teams was transferred to the foot of Mount Tate, and began to slowly move upwards towards the ruins of the Fengguo Temple on the mountainside, preparing for shelling.

From the arrow holes on the scull, Huashan Jiushou looked down the city. Among the shogunate troops rushing towards him like a sea tide, the most enthusiastic ones at the front were those ronin, each of them carrying grass on their shoulders. bag, screaming at the top of his lungs.These people are all over Japan. As long as they have money and food, they are the cheapest cannon fodder in the army. as many as there are!"

A punch hit the bluestone platform in the arrow's eye, and a stream of blood came out from between the fingers.

Regardless of the pain, Huashan Jiushou ordered the retainers beside him: "Send a signal to all oars, and the people who fill the trenches will fire after they enter the range of the iron cannon!"

"Iron Gunner is ready!"

The orders of the iron cannon generals sounded one after another.

"Prepare"

Amidst the sound of clanging metal, the iron gunners took off the black iron cannons from their shoulders, and put them on the limestone walls, the castle tower, and the perforations of each scull.

As mentioned above, in addition to the castle tower, Kumamoto Castle, the limestone walls and various towers called sculls can not only be used by archers and iron gunners to shoot at the attacking troops below the city, but also consider the problem of shooting dead ends in a humane way. "Wu Zha Fan" is a facility with a reverse slope that provides shooters with the best shooting angle!

"It's a pity that the iron cannons lost too much in the Battle of Juchi. Otherwise, there are more than three thousand iron cannons in the city, so why are we afraid of the [-] people of the shogunate under the city?"

Seeing that the front line of the shogunate army was less than a hundred steps away from the pits and trenches he had dug, Huashan Jiushou felt regretful.If the iron cannons in the city hadn't suffered huge losses in the Battle of Kikuchigawa, the [-]-odd iron cannons alone would have caused the shogunate army to return home with heavy losses in the city!

The ronin who shouted wildly all the way rushed into the edge of the city wall full of pits and ditches, and it seemed that the entire north was covered by crowds.Group after group of ronin resisting the earthbags struggled to throw the earthbags into the pit, then quickly turned around and retreated, and ran back and forth on the road.Pushing and colliding with the crowd rushing up from behind, the road was densely packed with human heads for a while.

"Fire!"

"put!"

There was a muffled sound of gunshots, and screams continued immediately in front of the city.Although there were not many musketeers in the city, only a few hundred, the advantage was that they were familiar with the terrain below the city, and they knew how far the pits and ditches were from the city.When excavating these obstacles that day, it was used as a target reference.Those ronin who rushed to the city with heavy straw bags on their backs were physically exhausted and couldn't dodge.Surrounded by the prepared cannons that crossed from the top of the city to form a fire net, a large area fell immediately.

"Let it go!"

Another burst of thunder exploded, and the ronin who had just started to panic were shot down in groups, and many of them were even shot out.

What I saw was another fiasco that trampled on each other.

"Fire!"

The iron cannons of the shogunate took advantage of the time when the iron gunners at the top of the city retreated to reload the gunpowder, and began to block fire at the arrow holes on the castle towers, lime walls and other defensive facilities on the city, in order to cover the waves of the ronin. Trench filling activities.

The dense sound of gunpowder like popping beans resounded under the city, and puffs of white gunpowder smoke rose from under the city wall, and the projectiles flew out of the gun barrel under the impetus of gunpowder, either flying straight or obliquely.All of a sudden, the firing ports of each iron cannon scull were sealed airtight.

The sound of the first row of gunfire just stopped.There was another burst of military fans waving behind the volunteer team, and then, the gunners of the second row of shogunate stepped forward and fired at the top of the city.There was only a cry from the volunteer team, and it was dark that another trench filling activity had begun.

In a blink of an eye, the trenches under the city were filled in several sections.The ronin of the Volunteer Squad cheered and threw the soil bags on their shoulders into the nearby ditch.

"put!"

There was another sound of platooning guns from the top of the city.A large cloud of white smoke rose rapidly behind the limestone wall.

It is different from the platoon of guns that just hit and filled the trench.This time it was aimed at the iron artillery team of the shogunate army under the city.The two sides used the Nanzhong Iron Cannon in their hands to start a brutal confrontation with each other.

The advantage of the Shimadzu army on the city is that it has a bunker and has a small outer and inner large shooting port; the shogunate army under the city has sufficient ammunition, and can buy it on credit from the Nanzhong Army at any time.There is no need to worry about insufficient ammunition, and there are a large number of iron cannons, often three or five iron cannons block a firing port.

The two sides fought evenly for a while, and both suffered heavy casualties. From time to time, iron gunners were hit by projectiles flying from nowhere, and they fell to the ground without humming.

With the sound of cannons, six Dafolang machine guns fired one after another to bombard the ruins of the Fengguo Temple on the mountainside of Litian Mountain. The distance of three hundred steps was the best range for the Dafolang machine guns.

Six artillery shells weighing about ten pounds whizzed towards Fengguo Temple ruins. Amidst a series of bangs, heavy iron balls hit the temple wall with several gaps, hitting the island firmly on the temple wall. The soldiers of the Jin family were flying with blood and flesh, and their limbs and arms were flying around along with broken bricks and rocks.Those big iron balls on the frozen, hard and slippery ground had the best conditions to play. After falling into the courtyard, they bounced and rolled powerfully in all directions, increasing their lethality several times.

"what!"

"One!"

A cannonball shot into the temple, immediately rolling away a flesh and blood alley, the lethality is remarkable.

Several Shimadzu soldiers who were hit by shells and had their arms, calves, or feet taken away by the huge impact, rolled on the ground holding their limbs and screaming in pain.

"kill!"

With the Shogunate General Matsudaira Nobuzuna waving his military fan, more than [-] shogunate troops once again launched an attack on Kumamoto Castle.

"Brother Feng. Do you think they can rush to the top of the city this time?"

"Reporting to Commander Liang, I think it's good if they can touch the city wall. According to my observation, at least one-third of the pits, traps and ditches have not been filled. If they rush up at this time, it will undoubtedly cost their lives. fill!"

"Will you bet? 20 silver dollars. I bet they won't make it to the top of the wall."

"That's good! I bet 30 yuan that they may not be able to rush to the city!"

Hearing the two guys behind him taking the scene of bloody fighting as a gamble, Li Huayu couldn't help but feel a little itchy.

"You said, why are you so urgent? Isn't it okay to let those people completely fill the pits and ditches before attacking the city?"

Liang Kuan and Feng Qianli glanced at each other and could not help but smile.

"Young Marshal, this is where these dwarves' ghost tricks are so sinister!"

"Those rogues are the so-called knight-errants in my Chinese classics. Since ancient times, they have used martial arts to violate the ban. They usually wander around the countryside with swords and swords. If something happens, they immediately draw their swords to each other, causing disaster. This is one of them. "

Ronin affect local security and disrupt social order. This is what Huayu has been hearing endlessly since he landed in Japan. Hearing this, he couldn't help but nod in agreement.

"Secondly, since the Battle of Sekigahara, most of the old divisions of Sekibaira Hideyoshi of the former Wa Kingdom were transferred, and many people were defeated and died. The strength of the Western Army's great names has been greatly weakened. They cannot support so many divisions. Then they became ronin."

"So, what Matsudaira Senior Middle School did today was to use the hands of the Shimadzu army to slaughter these ronin, so as to relieve the pressure on General Tokugawa in the future."

"It is estimated that after today, the voluntary army composed of ronin will be frustrated and unable to attack, and then it will be the turn of those famous troops to attack the city!"

After listening to his two officers' analysis of the battlefield situation.Li Huayu couldn't help but click his tongue.There is a sense of destruction of the three views.It turns out that fighting on the battlefield is not only to face the enemy, but also to count the friendly forces and cannon fodder in one's own camp.Maximize your interests as much as possible!

Now, Li Huayu finally understood why his father asked his brothers to read Shiji, Zizhi Tongjian, old and new Tang books.There is also reading bamboo books to record the year.

but.Read thousands of volumes.It's not as good as traveling thousands of miles with profound knowledge. If I hadn't been to this country, how would I know that the swords in front of me and behind me should be on guard?

As if to prove Liang Kuan and Feng Qianli's words.The Volunteer Squadrons, who had just rushed through several trenches, were bombarded by artillery fire from the top of the city again.

This time, Huashan Jiushou, who was commanding at the head of the city, was even more ruthless.After putting the volunteers into the best range of the Dafo Langji, the striker ordered to fire after seeing that the striker was within the effective range of the iron cannon.

The Dafolang machine has a great advantage in firing speed. After cooling down, the gunners who have loaded the five sub-guns have also recovered their physical strength, and the operation of the Dafolang machine is smooth.However, in just 1 minute, several rounds of cannons ejected from the chamber.

Cannonballs whizzed past one by one, continuously falling into the formation of the volunteers. Wherever dozens of shells went, there was a crackling sound, and the limbs were flying, and the flesh and blood stumps, accompanied by the impact of the shells, screamed in alarm The sound continued, and countless ronin who were shouting for a fierce battle just now lost their limbs and turned into a pool of flesh and blood, and the city was full of chaos again.

It would be fine if there was only Dafo Langji, but when the iron artillery team under the city was a little flustered with the help of Dafo Langji, the iron artillerymen in the city poured bullets down the city desperately.

"This battle can't be fought, withdraw quickly..."

A volunteer leader was frightened by the scene of such a tragic death and injury, he waved the flag and long knife in his hand and shouted.

There are dead people everywhere in front of you, human organs and limbs smashed by shells everywhere, and former warriors who were shot and cried on the ground everywhere, and not far away, the iron cannons on the top of the city are still moving towards the city. Projectiles were sprayed under the city, and from time to time, flames danced faintly at the shooting port.Behind him, those big and wild cannonballs kept jumping back and forth, breaking the formation of the volunteer army. Seeing the invisible wall made of cannonballs, he was so frightened that he turned pale and looked at the surroundings desperately. man yelling loudly.

Taking advantage of the interval between reloading and reloading after the Dafolang machine gun on the top of the city, the ronin of the Volunteer Squad retreated back to the position before departure.

This time the charge cost nearly [-] lives, and most of those who did not come back were still wailing around the city, begging for someone to save him.

A somewhat dazed guy crawled out of a ditch covered in dirt and dust, supported his body with a half-broken spear, stood up with all his strength, and staggered towards this side. Climb over.

Feng Qianli proudly put away Liang Kuan's signature and looked at the battlefield filled with the smell of fireworks and corpses from a distance, "Young Marshal, should we let them go over and clean up the wounded and send them to our camp?" ? It would be good to send them to Nanzhong as coolies in the future if they can be cured. These people probably won’t dare to go to the battlefield if they are killed in the future!”

On this side, the volunteer army suffered heavy casualties, but on the other side they captured the ruins of the Fengguo Temple.The Shimadzu Army stronghold in the north of the city was pulled out.

Matsudaira, Tokugawa Yoshinao, Kuroda Tadayuki and others who were complacent heard Li Huayu's suggestion, and immediately ordered people to report to the city, and packed up the wounded soldiers and sent them to the Nanzhong military camp for medical treatment.

The day's fighting came to an end as the sun sank into the sea.

Both the city and the city took the time to repair the fortifications, treat the wounded soldiers, and count the losses.

"How many people have you sent here?"

Looking at Liang Kuan, who was covered in blood all over his body, Li Huayu was a little concerned. This was the key to completing the task assigned by his father.

"Damn! These dwarves are really ruthless! Today, more than 4000 people were thrown into the city in two sieges! This is not counting the samurai of those famous families!"

"Send it to our camp, and let the military doctor do a hasty check. There are about a thousand people who can be cured without leaving disabilities. Although they are disabled, they are still able to work, about six to seven hundred people. The rest It depends on whether their Amaterasu God blesses them or not!"

"Very good! Send a batch of ammunition and cloth to Mr. Songping! Tell him that this is the ammunition that our army supports him in countering the rebellion, and a reward for the meritorious soldiers below! Tell him that we will provide artillery support every day in the future, We can also contribute to the treatment of wounded soldiers.”

"Also, order people to go to the volunteer teams everywhere, send some meat-eating drinks, and tell them that if they don't plan to live in their hometown after the war, they can go to Nanzhong."

There were heavy casualties in the city, and life in the city was not easy.

"The two large barrels exploded due to the overheating of the barrels, and several gunners ascended to heaven. 47 iron cannons were lost, and the two iron cannons were severely damaged. I am afraid they cannot be used. Gunpowder, shells, and projectiles are consumed. More than [-] soldiers were killed or injured."

In the castle tower in the city, Nabeshima Katsushige and Kawayama Hisamori listened to the reported casualty figures, sweating profusely on their backs.

This is only the first day of the war. How can such a huge loss be sustained?How to talk about surrendering with the shogunate after inflicting huge damage on the shogunate army?

"Order people to sneak out of the city, go to Kagoshima City, and ask the lord for help! Ask him to prepare reinforcements and ammunition!"

The next day, the siege continued! (To be continued..)