The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 575: There is only one sun in our hearts

"How could this happen? How could this happen?"

On the top of Osaka Castle, Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu completely collapsed. He looked at the so-called high-ranking officials of the shogunate on both sides, spread out his hands, and asked questions with trembling voice.

In Tokugawa Ieharu's view, he had been adopting the conservative combat strategy suggested by Ozeki Masujiro and others, so he gradually fell into a passive position.

So now if he adopts Matsudaira Sadanobu's strategy of actively seeking war, it should be effective and turn the situation around!

As a result, reality gave Tokugawa Ieharu a hard slap in the face. The result of actively seeking war was that he could not even stabilize the situation, let alone reverse it. Instead, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

How could that be? How could any choice be wrong?
On the battlefield, Matsudaira Sadanobu made another misjudgment, because it was not the Chinese Line Infantry but the cavalry that crossed the river first.

If this is a line infantry army crossing the river, they really need to run quickly.

Not only will you be unable to leave if you want to until the Chinese Army is fully deployed, but we are all infantry and have to walk on two legs. As long as I leave first, you won't be able to catch up with me in a short time.

Unfortunately, the first ones to cross the river to reinforce were two battalions of 700 black cavalry composed of surrendered bannermen, and the Fanzhi Guards Cavalry composed of Mongols from the south and north of the desert and the Junggar.

Mozibu treated these Mongols very well in terms of titles and rewards, but he also disciplined them very strictly.

The number of guards that must be provided by the King of Shunyi to the Marquis of Zhongshun, that is, the number of Quexuedai, must be included and cannot be provided as a substitute.

If one is missing, the worst case scenario is that he will be arrested and flogged and put in solitary confinement in Beijing, or he will be stripped of his title and exiled to Southeast Asia.

So currently, Mozibu has a group of more than 4,000 Mongolian cavalrymen, which are similar to Temujin's Quexue army.

After all, the meaning of "Quexue" in Turkic-Mongolian is "Fanzhi Suwei".

The shogunate's samurai were in trouble now. Their small number of cavalry had been almost wiped out before the fall of Hyogozu, and no one came to provide cover for the tens of thousands of people who retreated hastily.

Among the Chinese cavalry, the black cavalry composed of bannermen has always been strong in combat effectiveness.

After all, this was only the late Qianlong period, and the elite bannermen soldiers that Shiquan Laoer had worked so hard to raise over the previous forty years were still there.

As for Mozibu's Mongolian Fanzhi cavalry, they were basically warriors selected from all over Mongolia. They were not very good at fighting tough battles, but they still understood the basic methods of cavalry group combat.

Therefore, after crossing the river, the 1,500 cavalrymen did not charge directly at the shogunate army, but kept running back and forth, intimidating and creating chaos, making the shogunate army's already hasty retreat even more panic-stricken.

Soon, the black cavalry and the Bannao guards cut off the shogunate army. The six or seven thousand who still had the courage to resist were divided into four groups. Each of them was surrounded in their original camps or even in the hills, unable to escape from the battle.

As for the others who are running away in a daze, there is no need to worry about them at all. They will continue to drool even if they are cured.

Because they have already instilled in them a sense of awe for China's invincibility, it will be difficult for them to muster the desire to resist in the future.

On the top of Osaka Castle, even someone like Tokugawa Ieharu, who knew basically nothing about marching and fighting, could see that his side was doomed.

Among his tens of thousands of men, the most courageous ones who fought were trapped outside the city and were wiped out by the Tang people.

However, when he suddenly wailed just now, no one came forward to comfort him. Now, naturally, no one would stand up and have the courage to organize a decent support.

The cowards in the city didn't even look at each other, for they were afraid that others would notice the fear on their faces.

The besieged people outside the city were shouting in anger and fear, waiting for their doomsday.

"Don't be impatient, take your time." Zheng Jinshui did not ask Reinstein to order a fierce attack. Instead, he smiled and said to the military commander:
"Marquis Rui, please hold off on your actions and allow me to remove the poisonous fangs of these Japanese. Then they can serve Your Majesty and China."

"Pull out the fangs?" Reinstein looked at Zheng Jinshui strangely. He knew that he was only the military commander, and how to conquer Japan mainly depended on Zheng Jinshui.

"Anyone who can be a good hawk or dog will certainly have some unruly ones among them. Naturally, their fangs must be removed before they can be adopted."

Zheng Jinshui chuckled, "Those who are surrounded now are the ones with the strongest fighting spirit among the Japanese. Those who are extremely opposed to Dayu and resist the Chinese Emperor as the Great Emperor of the Eastern World must be here too.

The more desperate the situation, the more one can see into a person's heart. I want to let them disintegrate on their own."

Reinstein understood. What he had been talking about for so long was to use despair to filter out the Japanese on the opposite side. Those who couldn't stand it would be accepted in their hearts as dogs, and they could be tamed and used naturally.

Those who remain stubborn in this situation are naturally harmful to China and need to be executed.

Zheng Jinshui's move was very vicious, almost equivalent to a public execution, and he used a blunt knife to cut the flesh, which was almost the same as Lingchi.

By the end of July, the battle for Yodo River was basically over, and 6,500 elite soldiers of the shogunate were cut off and surrounded in four areas from Osaka Castle to Yodo River.

The largest number of them were the more than 3,000 Japanese remnants who were surrounded in the main camp of the former commander Matsudaira Sadanobu.

Because Matsudaira Sadanobu had left the city quickly before, although he said that the commander-in-chief had a large camp, he actually did not have much food.

The Chinese army camped outside Dazhai for eleven days, and the more than 3,000 people inside basically ate all the food they could.

The wind was howling and the food was running out.

But what was most demoralizing was the attitude of the shogunate. As long as the Chinese army did not attack Osaka Castle, they would not respond at all.

Not to mention the reinforcements that came to rescue them, the Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu even pretended not to see them.

"There's no hope. We've already done our duty to the Shogun in Osaka Castle, and even more so to the Emperor who didn't pay us a cent."

Suffering from hunger and hardship, Zhu Xi's school of thought warriors such as Xiyi Chengzhai in Dazhai were fanning the flames everywhere.

Or it could be called fanning the flames, they just completely described the situation faced by these Japanese.

Subsequently, more and more people chose to give up their so-called loyalty and save their own heads.

Because the reason is ready-made. You just need to admit that the king who respects the emperor and expel the barbarians can only be the Great Emperor Guangzhong in the Eastern world.

It doesn't even involve loyalty or not, it's purely an academic issue.

On the last day of July, the largest shogunate army outside the city, led by the famous Confucian scholar Xiyi Chengzai, launched a traditional art to overthrow the superiors.

Nishii Narisai led dozens of samurai into the commander's room and hacked the temporary commander, who was a servant of the shogunate, to death with a sword. Then he surrendered to the Zhonghua Zhendong Army.
Almost at the same time, the fortresses and artillery batteries along the Yodo River that the shogunate had built in six or seven months were basically cleared out.

More than 2,000 of the shogunate's most elite Koga-gumi arquebusiers and Sendai-han soldiers also surrendered one after another.

After this matter was settled, Reinstein and Zheng Jinshui discussed it and decided not to continue to attack Osaka because there were too few people and it would be difficult to achieve much effect if they attacked now.

The 20,000 to 30,000 Chinese Zhendong Army could not even encircle Osaka Castle, which had a circumference of more than ten kilometers. There was no need to attack Osaka, which still had 50,000 to 60,000 defenders.

On the fourth day of August, the Dayu Zhendong Army marched northward along the Yodo River, successively conquering the shogunate army strongholds around Osaka, and continuously cutting off all the shogunate's tentacles outside Osaka Castle, turning Osaka into an isolated city.

On the tenth day of the eighth month, the Chinese Zhendong Army arrived in Kyoto, the capital of Japan that was modeled after Luoyang and was the highest symbol of Japanese culture.

When the samurai mentioned going to Kyoto and expounded on the pros and cons, the Kyoto they were referring to was Kyoto.

No, it shouldn't refer to Kyoto. Kyoto is merely a title of status, signifying it as the capital of Wa. Kyoto's true name is Luoyang, pronounced (rakuyo) in Japanese. "Luoyang has been the center of China since ancient times, the residence of the Son of Heaven, the seat of the dragon spirit of the Han and Tang dynasties, the seat of heaven's mandate, the heaviest burden of the Nine Cauldrons. Gentlemen, who could reign in Luoyang as emperor and rule the world?"

"How can we allow such a divine capital to be usurped!"

Zheng Jinshui, wearing a bright red flying fish robe, raised the imperial saber, which symbolized the imperial axe, high in the air in his hand, and asked loudly while looking at the Japanese around him.

"Your Highness, the warriors of the Yangming School have only one Holy King in their hearts, and that is His Majesty the Great Emperor of China. We do not recognize the usurpers of Kyoto."

"Your Majesty, the ancient masters of the school of thought have long decreed that in the Eastern world, there can only be one Holy King under the Confucian religion. In the entire Eastern world, only the Great Emperor of China is qualified to hold this position."

"There is no two suns in the sky. In the hearts of the warriors of the Jinsi Lu sect, there is only one sun, and that is His Majesty the Great Emperor Guangzhong!"

Damn, are you guys so good at it?

A group of Mito clan samurai who had just surrendered outside Osaka Castle were dumbfounded, and their leader, Sei Seisai, gritted his teeth.

"Your Highness, I am willing to go to Luoyang immediately and explain the pros and cons to the Emperor and the nobles, and ask them to come out and pay their respects to Your Highness!"

According to the Japanese understanding, Zheng Jinshui, who was raised by the emperor since childhood and always by his side, is the emperor's adopted son, roughly equivalent to His Highness Yu'ergan.

Therefore, they performed particularly hard, and the emperor at this time was really not very powerful. If it was the Edo Castle of the Tokugawa Shogunate in front of them, I am afraid these people would not be so easily exclaimed and flattered and rushed to express their opinions.

"Well, Mr. Xiyi is truly a good man. If the usurpers in the city can recognize their sins and are willing to come out and apologize, then I can submit a petition to His Majesty the Great Emperor and ask for leniency."

As he spoke, Zheng Jinshui called over Shimazu Tadamichi, the most loyal dog in Japan, and said, "Tadamochi, you and Xi Yijun go into the city together and persuade them!"

Zheng Jinshui emphasized the words "persuade them well" and then immediately said to everyone, "You gentlemen will persuade the usurpers, but I will deal with the Tokugawa Shogun in Osaka Castle."

As soon as these words were spoken, the Japanese people around could not help but turn their eyes to Shimazu Tadamichi.

Because most of these people studied Confucianism in Japan, when they really considered it from the perspective of China, they suddenly discovered.

China's greatest enemy in Japan, and even the enemy that must be eliminated, is the Shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate. Since he served the Emperor, he could naturally serve as the Emperor of China.

The Ainu people are barbarians, and so are the North American natives. Even the white people in the West are barbarians.

There is only the heavenly family. There is no two suns in the sky, and no two masters among men.

"Hai!" Shimazu Tadamichi also felt a numbness in his body, but he understood more clearly that at this point, it was time for him to show his loyalty as the emperor's most loyal dog.

. . . .

In Kyoto, the city is not too chaotic because the owner of this city is not the so-called emperor.

The only place the emperor could superficially manage was the small Imperial Palace. Many times, even the 30,000 koku of revenue from Yamashiro Province was transferred by the shogunate.

At this time, the real power institution in Kyoto was Kyoto Sodaishi, which was the power center of the entire Kansai established by Oda Nobunaga after he went to Kyoto to discuss the pros and cons with the emperor.

In this war, as an important member of the Osaka-Kyoto defense line, Kyoto also had more than 10,000 shogunate troops stationed there. However, because Kyoto was too large, its defense was full of loopholes and was very difficult to defend.

After Zheng Jinshui left, Reinstein left Chen Qiuze as the commander-in-chief, leading 3,000 Liwei troops, 1,500 Susong Town troops, and 20,000 Japanese vassal troops to start the siege.

However, the fierce attack and defense gunfire had nothing to do with Shimazu Tadamichi. His mission was to deal with the emperor.

The atmosphere in the house was very depressing. As a direct vassal of the Shimazu clan, although the Sadowa domain had a land area of only 30,000 koku, over the past hundred years, the number of close relatives and concubines was not small, which was also an important reason why the Sadowa domain was so poor.

"This is Aceh in Southeast Asia. There's currently a Sultanate of Aceh, but it's been significantly weakened by the Hongxing Town Army under the Nanyang Prime Minister. They could originally deploy 20,000 men, but now they can only muster 6,000 to 7,000."

Shimazu Tadamichi took a map and pointed out the cities around Aceh to his relatives in the Sadowara domain one by one.

“Although it may not look big on the map, the territory of the Sultanate of Aceh is actually almost half the size of our Kyushu Island.

The population is over 500,000, and the products are very rich. If we improve it, it will not be difficult to raise a million dan of shigao."

After hearing this, Shimazu Tadamichi's younger brother Shimazu Tadamichi looked at Shimazu Tadamichi with suspicion.

"Such a wonderful place, with at least a million dan of land and hundreds of thousands of people, why don't the Tang people in the Central Plains occupy it? Is the Great Emperor really willing to reward us with the Sadohara Domain?"

Shimazu Tadamichi gave a bitter smile and said, “Saburo, you think it’s good because we are so poor.

In the eyes of the Tang people, the Sultanate of Aceh, whose people believed in Islam and had considerable combat power in Southeast Asia and could mobilize an army of 10,000 people, was completely useless.

For them, whether they go to Burma, Taiping or Nanji, it is much better than going to Aceh, so they don’t even look at it.”

Shimazu Tadamichi was right, he really looked down on it.

The cost of conquering a troublesome South Sea country like Aceh would be at least 300,000 silver dollars, and the subsequent cost of governance would also be high. If things go wrong, the income might not even cover the cost of conquest, and the country would still be making losses every year.

Of course, more importantly, conquering Aceh requires a lot of troops, at least four to five thousand professional soldiers.

Which Chinese is crazy? If they have the power, they don't bully Brunei and other countries on Kalimantan Island, which are quite rich but have weak combat capabilities, but instead have the time to fight against Aceh, which is poor and arrogant.

Therefore, the retired emperor Mo Tianci personally commanded the Nanyang Zongli Yamen to coordinate the attack and continuously weakened Aceh's strength, but in the end, no one was willing to take on the responsibility of this attack and defense.

"But we don't have any money. Conquering such a big country would definitely cost a lot of money. The cost of guns, cannons and gunpowder alone is not something we can afford.

Moreover, it would be too easy to gain a fiefdom based solely on this merit. What if the fiefdom is moved to another fiefdom in the future?"

Uh, if Mo Zibu were here, he would definitely be very surprised.

Because in his opinion, the emperor, who should have a strong influence in Japan, was actually far inferior to a daimyo with a million koku in the eyes of the samurai.

Shimazu Tadamitsu expressed his final concerns, but Shimazu Tadamichi laughed heartily, "Your Majesty had already promised me when I met him at the Tangshan Palace.

The Fuxing Bank will loan us 300,000 silver dollars, payable in 20 years, with no interest. Furthermore, our sister, Mingzi, will enter the palace to serve the Emperor.

The future Sultanate of Aceh will become a principality, and we, as the founder of the vassal state, can be rewarded with two vassal states of 300,000 koku each and listed as vassal counts of the empire.

The rest of the Shigao will become the lords of this vassal state, which is our nephew's celestial domain."

Shimazu Tadamitsu jumped up at once, his face full of disbelief, "My sister Akiko, this country girl from the Sadowara domain, can actually become a noble imperial concubine. Brother, why didn't you tell me earlier?"

The other Shimazu clan members of the Sadowara Domain were also very excited. "With such benefits, even killing the Emperor's entire family is worth it. Let's do it!"

The only retainer who was relatively sober, Gomakujisai, quickly waved his hands and said, "Let's not do anything. Let the lowest-ranking ronin handle it.

These days I've seen a samurai named Yamajiro who's been very active. He really values this opportunity to become a samurai, so let him lead the charge."

(End of this chapter)