The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 556 Changzhou BBQ, delicious

Historically, the Choshu clan was the first to break the rule that only samurai could serve in the military. Therefore, at that time, the Choshu clan not only had a large number of soldiers, but also had good quality.

Many of the castle townspeople and farmers who were promoted to soldiers at the time thought they had become samurai, and so they fought fiercely to preserve their hard-earned "samurai status."

Although it had not reached that point at that time, with the continuous construction of successive feudal lords and family elders, the Choshu domain, with a mere 370,000 koku, only 40% of the size of the Satsuma domain, was able to support more than 8,000 samurai, as well as servants and rural samurai who were between samurai and farmers.

These 8,000 people are definitely a powerful force in today's Japan.

However, this strength is too relative.

When Mori Shigenari led more than 6,000 Choshu samurai and watched them line up under the leadership of his own family and the heads of close families such as Shishido and Fukuhara, he never thought that the next battle would be such a devastating defeat.

Deng Tingjia and Wu Wenhui, who came to cause trouble for the Choshu clan, also understood one thing: fighting these Japanese daimyo and attacking the castle towns was not the most deadly approach, because even if hundreds or thousands of people died, these daimyo would not shed a tear.

If one or two hundred of their warriors were killed, the daimyo would immediately feel as if they had lost their parents.

So if you want to kill, kill these warriors first.

"Samurai of the Choshu clan, move out and kill all the Tang invaders on the beach!"

Although Dayu soldiers continued to land in small boats from battleships, the Choshu clan elder Fukuhara Norikiyo waited until seven or eight hundred people had disembarked before giving the order to attack.

This was a very clear-headed guy. He never thought of eating all the enemies on the sea. The Choshu clan did not have the strength to do so.

Therefore, his plan had always been to only kill these few hundred people, preferably to capture a large part of them, so that he would have the qualifications to negotiate with the Tang people, and maybe even encourage them to help attack the shogunate.

However, Fukuhara Norikiyo's idea was very good and his arrangements were very appropriate, but he did not notice that the weapons in this world would develop so fast.

Historically, Japan has always been regarded by Europeans as a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty and basically considered as part of the empire's mainland.

Therefore, before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, only a few British, French and Russian fleets attempted to open up the Japanese market, and most of them mainly went to Nagasaki for negotiations.

Japan's real large-scale contact with Europeans began after the Qing Dynasty was defeated in the Opium War of 1840. The Eastern world lost its leader, and their interactions with Europe were no longer limited to the Netherlands, but became thoroughly in-depth.

So at this time, even the Satsuma clan had limited knowledge of the outside world, let alone the Choshu clan.

The result was that on this dim evening, when the Choshu samurai just approached the shore, countless meteors shining with golden light fell from the sky.

This is not magic, but the latest flying fire meteor rocket launcher invented by Dayu based on the rockets obtained from the Mysore Kingdom and the Ming Dynasty materials surviving from the Siku Quanshu.

Most of the Choshu samurai stopped charging and stared in amazement at the brilliant flames in the sky that looked like shooting stars. Makai Mori Ubei even had the urge to kneel down and kowtow.

Then, these meteors slammed heavily onto the ground, instantly causing an extremely terrifying explosion. The yellow-green flames almost soared into the air and turned into mushroom-like fire clouds.

Uebei Mori heard a shrill scream, and the three or four samurai gathered around him were directly hit by a rocket.

In an instant, yellow-green flames and pieces of flesh flew everywhere, and these people were blown to pieces in an instant.

"What kind of gunpowder is this? How can a single bomb kill four or five people and even shatter their bodies?"

Uebei Mori screamed in horror. He certainly didn't think this was a miracle. He knew it was a bomb, but the power was far beyond his expectations.

As soon as he finished speaking, another rocket hit him directly. However, this time it did not hit anyone directly. However, the flames of the explosion seemed to have life and splashed everywhere. A large piece of it hit Uebei Mori.

He just felt as if he was poured with a bucket of extremely hot boiling water. The intense pain made him, who prided himself on being brave, scream on the spot.

Uebei Mori dropped his katana and started beating it with all his might, but the yellow-green flame, like a flame from hell, did not extinguish at all, but instead burned even more fiercely.

"Roll on the ground, roll on the ground!" Someone shouted, and Mori Ubei seemed to hear the order and quickly rolled on the ground in an attempt to put out the flames.

It was truly like this, rockets were raining down from the sky like meteors, violent explosions were happening everywhere on the ground, and Uebei Mori was rolling back and forth in this hell filled with explosions and yellow-green flames.

I don’t know how long it took, but when he felt the burning sensation on his body was not so strong, Mori Ubei finally stopped rolling.

He stood up and looked at his body carefully, and found that his clothes were full of holes of various sizes, and a burnt smell came from his flesh.

A slightly sweet but extremely pungent smoke drifted over. Uebei Mori couldn't help but cough violently. Then he felt his throat was extremely dry and his head was dizzy.

It's poisonous, this smoke is poisonous!

Just as Mori Ubei was about to shout to warn his other comrades, he heard a huge roar coming from the sea. It turned out that the large-caliber guns of the warship had finally adjusted their position and began to bombard the Choshu clan soldiers.

Now everyone knew that they could not continue the fight. In this short half-minute bombardment, almost everyone had people around them killed or injured, at least three or four hundred people were killed.
"Retreat, retreat, retreat to the hillside over there." This is also one of the advantages of the samurai army. Everyone is very proactive.

In such an unfavorable situation, they basically stabilized their position by shouting alone, and then retreated collectively for a distance to reorganize.

But the Chinese army would not give them a chance. Under the command of Deng Tingjia, they had already reached Yanqing Town on the beach and followed directly in the footsteps of the Choshu clan soldiers.

The Choshu clan soldiers had just begun to reorganize on the hillside when the pursuers from Yanqing Town arrived. They set up seven or eight tiger-crouching cannons and four small-caliber mortars at the foot of the mountain and began to bombard without any pause.

At the same time as the artillery bombardment, light infantry armed with Flying General 1777 rifled rifles and equipped with Minié bullets also quickly gathered. Their light and dense gunfire made the Choshu clan soldiers scream in pain.

Up to this point, the Choshu clan's artillery team hadn't fired a single shot, and these samurai suddenly felt extremely nervous.

They shouted and called on the arquebusiers to pick up the so-called arquebuses, forming a loose array of musketeers, cheering each other up, and moving forward quickly.

Although the head of the teppo group, Hiroshu Shishido, an Ikmonshu, had conflicts with the previous feudal lord, Shigeki Mori, he still stood up at this critical moment and risked his life to organize the teppo group warriors to resist the Tang invaders.

The warriors around him were also extremely brave. Many of them were still covered in blood, but they still moved forward, trying to defeat the enemy with the cannons in their hands.

However, the generation gap between the weapons of the two sides was really too big. More than 3,000 Choshu artillerymen had only moved forward more than 30 meters when more Minié bullets came at them like a storm.

Shishido Hiroshu's forehead was sweating with nervousness because the big samurai around him were constantly knocked to the ground, and the enemy was at least one hundred and fifty meters away from them.

"Bantou, we can't move like this. The enemy's artillery is too powerful. Charge forward and stop when you are within our range."

Shishido Hiroshu was delighted by this suggestion. He drew his katana from his waist, roared, and led the charge. The Choshu soldiers hoped to reach the arquebus range and engage in a firefight, but their complete refusal to use muskets allowed the Yanqing Town and navy's sharpshooters to fire freely, resulting in even greater casualties.

When they finally got within shooting range, the Yanqing Town sharpshooters, who had been inflicting heavy casualties on them, retreated smoothly.

Wu Wenhui led 400 line infantry forward. They took advantage of the fact that the Choshu clan soldiers were not yet stable and rushed forward to launch a three-stage attack with line infantry.

Smoke obscured the battlefield. After a round of shooting, Wu Wenhui raised the eight-sided Han sword, which was used to identify his identity and was basically only used for command, and roared, leading the charge.

"Long live! Long live! Long live!" The soldiers of Yanqing Town following him, like the Imperial Guards and the Beijing Camp Army, cheered loudly and then launched a long live charge.

The Choshu clan's artillery team that advanced had no idea that they would suddenly be hit so hard by the line infantry. Before they could recover from the chaos, the soldiers from Yanqing Town arrived.

Maori Ubei showed a confident smile on his face. He raised his samurai sword and waited for the soldiers from Yanqing Town to arrive so that he could teach them a lesson.

But as soon as he made a move, he knew that things were not going well, because even in such a complicated battlefield environment, Tang Kou still did not choose a one-on-one fight.

Uebei Mori was facing two soldiers wearing black eight-petal iron helmets and holding muskets with bayonets.

Uebei Mori wanted to stab the one on the left, but the one on the right immediately made a gesture to stab Uebei Mori, so Uebei Mori could only change his sword style to defend himself temporarily.

But as he defended himself like this, the Tang soldier on his left, whom he was just about to stab, roared and stabbed at him with his bayonet like a poisonous dragon.

Mori Ubei had finally managed to repel the one on the right, but then the one on the left arrived. He was really at his wit's end, and he desperately tried to avoid the bayonet, taking two steps back in embarrassment.

But before he could steady himself, the person on the right who he had just repelled came again.

The two men used a very familiar joint attack tactic, which made Mori Ubei panic. Even though he was a master of swordsmanship, he was almost killed on the battlefield.

Fortunately, just when he was looking at himself in a mess, the Japanese on the battlefield cheered loudly. It turned out that the lord's direct subordinate, the chief, had come with the samurai who were guarding the lord.

Mori Ubei also shouted excitedly, and with two consecutive sword strikes, he forced back the two people on the opposite side. Together with countless warriors, he started to charge with shouts.

The Tang invaders on the opposite side finally couldn't hold on any longer, and they began to retreat in a panic. Mori Ubei shouted and chopped down the soldier on his left who had stabbed him so badly, knocking him to the ground.

The soldier was quite young. Although he was chopped down, he did not surrender. Instead, he took out a bomb from his chest, lit it while howling, and threw it at Mori Ubei.

Maori Ubei was afraid and did not dare to go up and chop the right hand of the Yanqing Town soldier who threw the bomb. As a result, the bomb was successfully thrown out in that instant.

The violent explosion successfully blocked several Choshu clan soldiers from pursuing him further, and he was able to roll several times on the spot and escape from the death that was close at hand.

Moreover, this explosion was like a horn, and a large number of bombs flew over. The Choshu clan soldiers who were just charging were immediately blown to the ground and then beaten back.

On the hillside, the former feudal lord Mori Shigenori, who had just retired but still held real power, was furious.

"If we can't even defeat these Tang invaders, what's the point of dreaming about overthrowing the shogunate? All of us Choshu samurai should just commit seppuku."

Under his strict command, the warriors began to fight back amidst the bombs and actually succeeded in advancing a certain distance.

Deng Tingjia also realized that these 6,000 Choshu warriors could not be defeated in one go, and he was happy to fight back and forth, causing more Choshu warriors to die.

Thus, the two sides began to fight endlessly over the gently sloping hill on the seashore leading to the castle town of Hagi Castle.

The battle lasted from the evening of the first day to the afternoon of the second day. More than 2,500 of the 6,000 Choshu warriors were killed or wounded. They could no longer hold on and began to retreat. Deng Tingjia took the opportunity to occupy the high ground.

On the morning of the third day, the soldiers of Yanqing Town captured the coastal defense artillery of Hagi City. After clearing out the cannons, the fleet's warships finally poured into the port of Hagi City.

More than a dozen large ships launched countless incendiary bombs and flammable and explosive picric acid bombs, turning the entire castle town of Hagi into a sea of fire.

The houses in these castle towns are all made of wooden boards, which are difficult to extinguish once they catch fire, not to mention picric acid, which can burn when attached to steel.

On the flagship Wen'anzhi, the Dayu Nanjing Imperial City Envoy, the chief eunuch of Nanjing City, saw all this and nodded with satisfaction.

"Your Majesty has ordered that all the samurai of the Choshu domain and the adult males of the castle towns be killed. This will be up to you generals."

After saying this, seeing the generals nodding, the Imperial Envoy continued, "Generals, you must pay attention to this, because His Majesty is not just talking, but has directly ordered us to come here to supervise. There must be a deep meaning behind this.

As subjects, we shouldn't ask why, we should just execute orders 100 percent."

The generals nodded one after another, guessing that the emperor wanted to kill a chicken to scare the monkeys, and that the Choshu clan had always been at odds with the shogunate, so punishing the Choshu clan would not be met with fierce opposition from the whole of Japan.

Well, they all make sense, but they are not the biggest reasons for Mo Zibu.

The biggest reason is that in history, the Choshu clan was the main force in the overthrow of the shogunate. After the Meiji Restoration, it monopolized a large number of senior officer positions in the Japanese Army. Even many middle and lower-level officers were from the Choshu clan.

Let me list some people to give you an idea of what they are like: Hirobumi Ito, Takayoshi Kido, Shinsaku Takasugi, Aritomo Yamagata, Maresuke Nogi, Gentaro Kodama, Masayoshi Terauchi, and so on and so forth.

By the way, Sansou, who opened up his heart not long ago, is also strictly speaking a member of the Choshu clan.

Compared with the Satsuma clan, which was mainly based on the navy, these people caused particularly great harm to China.

This is not to say that the former Japanese navy were good people, but compared with the Japanese army, the navy controlled by the Satsuma clan still had some Confucian ideas.

They hoped to defeat Britain and the United States in the navy first, and then use Confucianism to reversely assimilate China and digest it slowly.

Historically, this main goal of theirs has never been achieved, so many of their actions that harm China have not yet begun. Therefore, compared with the army, they appear to be less bad and have committed relatively fewer evil deeds.

Therefore, Mo Zibu chose to severely punish the Satsuma clan, but he would not destroy them. Instead, he would give them a chance to be dogs.

But the Choshu clan, the samurai of the clan office and the people of the castle town just decided to have some barbecue together.

　Recently, Tiger's father has had some health problems, and his mood has indeed been affected. This is also the reason why there have been few updates in the past few days. He is currently in Chengdu for a follow-up examination, etc. It may take about a week to get the final confirmation. So in terms of updates, Tiger can only try his best to update continuously, and use this opportunity to think about some of the previous issues. Please forgive me, there is really no other way.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)