The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 709 Burning
On July 15th of the fifth year of Guangde, the Ghost Festival in the lunar calendar, a strong earthquake struck Honshu, Japan. The epicenter was located in the center of Edo Castle where Tokugawa Iemitsu was located, specifically at Gohonmaru where the Shogun was located.

It is said that Tokugawa Iemitsu did not have time to write a will - which was what the defeated shogunate usually did - and fell silently into the bottomless crack, and the last sound he made was a sound full of blue Yamete.

Everything fell into dead silence.

Earthquakes frequently occurred in Japan. The Japanese people living on the islands were often buried alive by landslides caused by earthquakes, crushed to death by falling rocks, burned to death by fires, and killed by vagrants who took advantage of the fire to rob...

In short, earthquakes are a very common thing for everyone, and can be said to be commonplace, just like Kang Yingqian's lust and Liu Zhaosun's pursuit of immortality, which are not worth mentioning.

However, the Edo earthquake was unprecedented in its intensity, destruction, and death toll.

More than 100,000 houses collapsed overnight, and several shrines were turned into ruins. The tablets of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Tokugawa Hidetada were burned down by the fire.

The fire caused by the earthquake set all the houses that were not collapsed on fire, and the damage caused was more serious than the incendiary bomb air raids that the Qi army had carried out for half a month.

The residents of Edo suffered heavy casualties and were hit by a series of earthquakes and fires. At least 100,000 of the 500,000 people died. Fearing siege by the Qi army, many people did not dare to escape from Edo Castle until their death.

Speaking of this, we cannot help but praise the Japanese craftsmanship.

According to the shogunate's pre-war planning and deployment, and the "10 million dies in battle" battle plan formulated by Tokugawa Iemitsu and the daimyo, the samurai and peasants in Edo and the surrounding areas must stay at their posts and not escape easily no matter what happens.

It has to be said that the Japanese people showed admirable strict discipline in carrying out the orders of the shogunate.

The same discipline is also reflected in the way they clean the toilet. It is said that they have to clean it seven times regardless of whether the toilet is clean or not. After watching the Cuju game, fans will stay to clean up the garbage on the field.

Of course, the above stories all happened in another time and space, so I won’t elaborate on them here.

In short, on the Ghost Festival in the fifth year of Guangde, despite the frequent earthquakes and raging fires, the resilient people of Edo still held on to their respective posts until the flames devoured them...
Edo Castle had a population of over 500,000, and from a global perspective, it could be considered a true metropolis.

However, overnight, all the prosperity became a thing of the past, and destruction came.

The earthquake not only caused a fire, but also triggered a tsunami. Half an hour after the earthquake, huge waves more than ten meters high swept across the entire city of Edo like a wall, like the Last Judgment, taking away all the Japanese people.

By noon on July 16, half of Edo Castle was submerged in water and half was still burning.

Schools of octopus, tuna, salmon, and saury swim in the city.

Although the Japanese had suffered heavy casualties, the punishment on Edo Castle did not stop there.

After the earthquake, fire and flood, Mount Fuji erupted violently.

The boiling magma poured down the hillside like a flood. Wherever the boiling magma passed, the mountains, rivers and grass were all turned into charcoal.

Edo Castle lies to the north, nestled against the volcano Mount Fuji. To the west, a series of small towns and villages are also close to the volcano. The fastest way to leave Edo is to head east. However, there is a river to the east, with only two bridges to cross.

After the volcanic eruption, the torrential downpour of volcanic ash and debris, the thick smoke rising from the raging fire, and the toxic gases emitted by the lava eruption did not dissipate for several days.

The Qi army evacuated to the west of Kyushu Island early and watched the fire from the other side of the river.

The amount of smoke and projectiles was huge. The smoke and dust in the sky blocked the sunlight, floating in the air reduced visibility, and fell to the ground, covering the roads on Honshu Island and making people lose their way.

The toxic gases emitted by volcanoes are even more deadly.

The Tokugawa shogunate and the hostages held by the various feudal domains in Edo were eventually taken away by earthquakes, fires, floods, and volcanic eruptions. Only a few thousand of the 500,000 people escaped the city.

Combined with the losses suffered by other domains in the disaster, the disaster caused millions of casualties and Honshu turned into hell.

Before the earthquake, the Qi army had already withdrawn from Edo in an orderly manner, leaving only a small number of Korean soldiers pretending to continue the attack, while the main force retreated westward to Fukuoka Domain in Kyushu.

Before withdrawing his troops, Zhao Lujiao ordered the Sixth Corps to set fire everywhere around the city gate to ensure that most of the Japanese people had no chance of survival.

On July 20th, three days after Mount Fuji erupted, something even more terrifying happened.

At noon on the 20th, a roar from the ground resounded throughout the island. Then, the entire Honshu Island, with Edo as the center, cracked in the east-west direction, forming a huge crack hundreds of miles long and half a mile wide.

Countless sea water flowed onto the ground along this huge crack. At first, it was just a spring, and then it became bigger and bigger, turning into a fountain. Finally, a huge flood roared out from deep underground like a beast breaking free from its chains, submerging the entire Honshu Island with the force of thunder.

Honshu Island, which had experienced fires, earthquakes, and lava, had already become riddled with holes. At the last moment, it was completely torn in half and sank into the sea at a speed visible to the naked eye.

That same day, part of northern Shikoku Island was also submerged. By July 22nd, all of Honshu, part of Shikoku, and part of Kyushu had sunk to the seabed. The Japanese people—descendants of the evil gods—who had inhabited the archipelago for ten thousand years—were practically wiped out, with over three million dead in the last ten days. Of course, from another perspective, their souls could finally return home, to the pitch-black depths of the sea. They could continue to serve the evil gods, whose bodies were covered in tentacles and whose heads and bodies were covered in slime.

From this perspective, the Japanese should express their gratitude to the Emperor...
~~~~
On the 22nd, the tsunami gradually subsided, volcanic ash continued to drift eastward, and the Qi army continued to evacuate to Tsushima Island. Japan truly became an abandoned place.

If Wakoku still had a certain strategic value and could become a port for the empire to continue its conquests, now, after the attack of this super earthquake and flood, all the excellent ports in various places have been lost, and the low-lying plains everywhere have been submerged by sea water. Not to mention building a seaport, even the garrison cannot be supplied with food.

Such a country like Japan naturally has no value anymore. It is in the best interests of Da Qi to let this land and the ethnic groups on it fend for themselves.

In late July, the shogunate army was defeated without a fight, and the daimyo of each domain died in Edo Castle. The surviving daimyo from all over the country surrendered to the Qi army.

The Tokugawa shogunate's rule in Wakoku completely collapsed.

On July 25, Zheng Sen, trapped on Shikoku Island, cut off from food and supplies, harassed by volcanic ash, and helpless, suddenly died of an old illness caused by remorse and fear.

After Zheng Sen's death, the remaining pirates suddenly collapsed and rushed to Kyushu Island to surrender to the Qi army. Everyone knew that with these disasters, Japan would inevitably suffer from famine this winter. By then, there would be a lack of food and clothing, and tens of thousands of people would stay in this desolate place, and in the end they would starve to death or freeze to death.

Of course, there are still some stubborn ones who vowed to fight to the death with Liu Zhaosun, expressing their determination to fight to the death with him - although Liu Zhaosun's whereabouts are unknown now - the pirates don't care about the empty words of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness, and they don't care who they are loyal to, as long as they can make money.

So a few scattered pro-war factions were killed by others.

Before Zheng Sen's body was cold, the pirates started to fight among themselves and then surrendered to the Qi Dynasty without delay. The surrender faction had an absolute advantage, so the surrender went smoothly.

After the Zheng pirates surrendered, Zuo Liangyu, who was also stationed on Shikoku Island, finally panicked.

Long before the Qi army's eastern expedition, Lao Zuo had always wanted to see the limelight.

He wanted to wait until the shogunate army and the Qi army were both defeated, and then come out to clean up the mess. In this way, even if he could not win in the end, he could at least gain a reputation after the war.

Zuo Liangyu had the capital to fantasize. He had more than 10,000 Ming troops under his command, all of whom were equipped with firearms. When he fled from Shandong, he was carrying several thousand taels of gold and more than 300,000 taels of silver. These were hard currencies in Japan, so he had no shortage of food and fodder.

However, as soon as the battle started, Zuo Liangyu realized that something was wrong. First, when the armies of various feudal lords fought against the Qi army, they almost collapsed at the first contact. Even the elite and fierce Satsuma army was slaughtered by Liu Zhaosun. The Qi army was invincible and fought all the way from Kyushu to Edo. No army could stop them.

Zuo Liangyu thought about what he had done before, how he had stabbed Liu Zhaosun in the back so many times. He thought the Qi army would not let him go.

The more he thought about it, the more terrified he felt, so he took the initiative to seek out his advisers to discuss countermeasures. After careful consideration, the adviser suggested to him that Zuo Liangyu should treat the fake Third Prince of the former Ming Dynasty who had been captured earlier as the real one, offer him to the State of Qi, and surrender to the Great Qi in exchange for his life.

Such a plan sounds wishful thinking, at least the emperor would never agree to it.

Unfortunately, the emperor is now missing, so the power to make decisions is handed over to the commanders of each corps and several cabinet ministers.

How should these prisoners be dealt with?

As for how to deal with the prisoners, the civil and military officials of the Great Qi Dynasty discussed it a lot, and everyone had his own opinion.

After Deng Changxiong discussed with Zhao Luejiao, Wang Congzhi and others, they unanimously decided to execute the remnants of the Zheng and Zuo families immediately.

Zhang Pu and Lu Xiangsheng, however, believed that these captives should be fully utilized and transported back to the country to participate in work.

Zhao Lujiao insisted on being executed on the spot. Xie Yang said that the mines along the coast were already full of people, and the warships had limited capacity, so it was impossible to transport so many prisoners at once.

Deng Changxiong said that taking too many prisoners with them during the withdrawal would only slow down the march and there was no guarantee that other things might happen later.

So everyone finally reached a consensus to investigate the surrendered prisoners in a timely manner and execute on the spot those who committed any evil deeds.

Zuo Liangyu and other captives were beheaded and their heads were used to build a memorial.

Taking advantage of the retreat, the Qi army once again cleaned up the various fiefdoms in Kyushu, ensuring that all that should be collected was collected to the greatest extent possible.

Despite natural disasters and man-made disasters, many people fled the towns and hid in the mountains.

In fact, since most of the farmland in various fiefdoms was destroyed, and the volcanic earthquake had an impact, the grain production in various places was not optimistic, and the limited grain was also collected free of charge by the Qi army.

Those Japanese people who survived the disaster and hid in the mountains were destined to starve to death and would not be able to survive this cold and long winter.

(End of this chapter)