Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 321
"put!"

"Bang bang bang-"

On the surface of the sea, accompanied by the roar of artillery, ships trying to sail out of the port into the sea were sunk by shelled stone bullets, and their opponents were armed merchant ships several times their size.

This is not Annan, let alone Tianzhu, but Kobe and Osaka in Japan, which are close to Daming.

Seven months have passed since the seventh year of the Apocalypse. During these seven months, Yan Siqi did not enjoy the blessings by doing nothing, but took Kyushu Island immediately after the arrival of the soldiers and horses from the Eastern Army's Governor's Mansion.

That is to say, at this time, among the four islands of Japan, the main island, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido, two islands have already been captured by Yan Siqi.

Relying on his large number of armed merchant ships and the general Yanshan cannon equipped on them, Yan Siqi chose to attack from north to south with the army.

He personally led the Fourth Battalion of Arch Guards to attack Kobe and Osaka on the main island, and these two ports were the ports with the largest trade throughput in the sea trade of the Tokugawa shogunate.

More importantly, behind Kobe and Osaka is Kyoto City, where Emperor Yamato Mizuo lived.

Taking Kyoto and capturing the emperor will be an important blow to the Tokugawa shogunate.

The fourth battalion of soldiers and horses landed in Kobe and Osaka under the leadership of Yan Siqi, while Zheng Zhilong in the south led the rest of the soldiers and horses to land in Yamaguchi and Hiroshima in the south of the island, and marched towards the north.

Regarding Yan Siqi's military action, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the general of the Tokugawa shogunate, naturally took actions to block it.

The destruction and surrender of vassals such as Kyushu and Four Kingdoms made many big names on the island see that Yan Siqi's ambitions were not limited to this.

Therefore, when Yan Siqi began to completely invade the island, under the call of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the daimyos on the island formed an army of [-], [-] civilians, and a coalition of [-].

Since the sixth year of the Apocalypse, although the Tokugawa shogunate has retreated one after another, one-third of the [-] troops still belong to them.

After gaining absolute military power, Tokugawa Iemitsu commanded [-] troops to defend Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya and other places, trying to drag Yan Siqi down in the protracted war.

It is normal for him to make such an arrangement, because among the four islands of Japan, the combined population of Kyushu Island and Shikoku Island is only two million.

In contrast, the main island, which has a population of more than [-] million, has given them great logistical support.

As the guard battalion changed armor, clothes, and flags, although Tokugawa Iemitsu guessed that there was Daming behind Yan Siqi, he did not expect that Daming would end in person.

Although Yan Siqi, who had the first battalion of sailors and the fifth battalion of infantry, had less than [-] troops, they were still attacking the Tokugawa shogunate, which had more than eight times the number of them, with their sharp firearms.

One after another, troop transport boats landed in Osaka, and groups of guard battalion soldiers in crude armor disembarked.

After disembarking, they assembled the chariot on the ship, then threw a light and fluffy quilt into the sea water, put the heavy quilt full of seawater on the simple chariot, and then manually pushed the chariot to start the landing operation.

The soldiers lined up vertically, using chariots as cover, two people pushing the carts, and ten people hunched over the rear.

Such scenes are all over the coastline of Osaka Port, with hundreds of people in scale. A battalion of more than [-] people landed on the coastline, pushed their chariots forward, and marched towards Osaka Castle.

Although they were severely taught by the Ming army with artillery during the Korean War, after the Tokugawa shogunate seized power, the number of artillery in the prefecture was not large.

For example, in Osaka City, there are only eight artillery pieces with a range of more than one mile. The other so-called artillery pieces are nothing more than large arquebus guns like the ones carried by the Ming army.

At this time, Osaka Castle was destroyed due to the war between the Tokugawa family and the Toyotomi family [-] years ago. Although it has been repaired since the first year of the Apocalypse, only two of the three phases of the project have been completed so far.

However, due to the important location of Osaka, threats from the sea also need to be considered, so the Tokugawa family set the sky code of Osaka Castle in a different location, and built it at a higher location.

The west city wall, north city wall, east city wall, and the third city wall that the Gongwei Battalion needs to attack in the south are all made of stone, with different thicknesses of more than ten feet.

Although the scale of the city is small, it is not inferior to some important towns of Ming Dynasty in terms of city walls.

"put!"

"Bang bang bang..."

With the igniting of the eight cannons, three-pound stone bullets were fired one after another, and after a distance of half a mile, only three hit the three chariots.

The quilt soaked in seawater resisted most of the impact, but the back of the wooden board of the chariot still showed signs of being blown apart after being hit.

"Stick and wait for the artillery!"

The person in charge of leading the army to land was a thirty-year-old general named Yang Tiansheng who had participated in the Battle of Liao Dynasty.

At this moment, he shouted loudly, picked up the whistle in his hand and began to blow, and the rhythmic whistle was blown continuously under his leadership.

Gradually, the people in the guard camp no longer pursued the speed of marching, but stopped one after another, waiting for the follow-up sand ships to land on the shore with artillery.

Overlooking from the head of Osaka City, on the broad coastline, the Ming army used chariots to form a three-story fortification, and in the distance in the sea, sand ships with a length of two feet were put down carrying a five-jin gun and a gun cart. , four sailors are responsible for transporting the landing.

Such a scene is not limited to one place, but all the more than [-] armed merchant ships that came to besiege Osaka Castle put down their sand ships.

These sand boats rowed to the shore under the operation of the sailors, and Yang Tiansheng on the shore also quickly ordered:
"The cannon post responds to the cannon, and the cannon advances slowly. When the rifleman hears the whistle, he fires the cannon to suppress the pirates!"

"Yes!" Butang, who was on Yang Tiansheng's left and right, began to walk through the ranks with a bowed body, and the general issued orders one by one.

As the artillery was transported by the sandboat, they landed on the coastline door by door, and more than [-] gunners began to support them, putting the artillery on the gun mount with difficulty.

The gun carriages of the Ming army have been improved. Although the gun carriages are also made of iron, the wheels are wrapped with Eucommia gum obtained from the Eucommia tree and sulfur powder by the Military Armament Academy, forming a rubber tire-like existence.

In this way, the tires of the gun car have stronger grip, and they will not damage the rammed earth road when marching on the beach and on land.

The artillery cart carrying the artillery was pulled by the gunners. When the sixty-two artillery arrived on the chariot, Yang Tiansheng immediately ordered the artillery post to establish a position on the spot and fired at the head of Osaka City.

The sound of the shovel continued to sound, and the artillery cart was fixed with sea sand. After a quarter of an hour, the defense of the gun post also responded to Yang Tiansheng.

"Leave the rear sentry to protect the artillery post, and the left and right front three posts march from the beaches on both sides of the artillery!"

"Beep--"

With the sound of the wooden whistle, the chariot began to move, marching towards Osaka Castle on the beach with difficulty, and gave up the middle position to the artillery whistle.

"Fixed fire loading, target at [-]:[-] noon, test fire at an elevation angle of [-] degrees, prepare..."

"put!"

Accompanied by the garrison whistle blowing, one gunner waved the flag, and the other gunners also lit the matchlock.

Amidst the burning sound of the matchlock "chi chi", the last sixty-two five-jin guns roared...

"Bang bang bang-"

The sixty-two cannons consisted of ten cannons, divided into six teams to fire, and the firepower continued to suppress the eight low-quality Franco cannons at the head of Osaka Castle.

The iron gunners of the shogunate on the city wall mounted large matchlock guns on the "cannon mount", and watched the Ming army's infantry chariots advance to a hundred steps, and then lit the matchlocks one after another.

The sound of "cracking" iron cannons kept ringing, shooting at the Ming army's chariot, shooting through the quilts that were continuously watered with sea water, and then feebly hitting the wooden boards on the front of the chariot.

"My lord, the chariot of the rebels has advanced to eighty steps below the city, do we need to take the initiative?"

At the head of Osaka Castle, on a sky code, a four-foot-five-six-inch (1.44) man in Japanese armor turned around and looked at the man who was less than four-foot-six inches tall and was sitting on a chair to report the news.

This man, less than four feet six inches tall, was wearing Japanese armor, sitting on a bamboo chair with half a fan in his hand, sitting behind the parapet to watch the battlefield.

His name is Matsudaira Tadaaki, and he is the adopted son of Ieyasu Tokugawa. Together with his father, he participated in the Battle of Sekigahara, the Battle of Osaka Winter, the Battle of Domyoji, and the Battle of Yuda as part of the Tokugawa Army, and helped the Tokugawa family defeat Toyotomi. The Toyotomi family after Hideyoshi's death.

Because of his exploits on the battlefield, after the Tokugawa shogunate established the trip, Tokugawa Ieyasu gave him the reward of moving Settsu Osaka.

Originally, before the war, he had already moved to Yamato Koriyama Castle eight years ago. However, with the outbreak of the war and the retreat of the army, Tokugawa Iemitsu had to invite him out as a "veteran".

Before the war, Tokugawa Iemitsu gave him [-] troops to garrison Osaka Castle. Relying on his familiarity with Osaka Castle, Matsudaira Tadaki knew very well that even if the rebels had sharp artillery, they would not be able to take down Osaka Castle in a short time.

What he was worried about was not the firearms of the Ming army, but the short-handedness between the shogunate soldiers and the rebels.

The rebels are mainly Ming people, and even the idiots can see this from the fact that they are all over five feet tall.

I searched all over Japan, but I couldn't find nearly [-] people taller than five feet, let alone the existence of five feet, five or six inches in the rebels.

Physical strength is not bad, not to mention that the Gongwei Battalion was well guarded by Zhu You, so in Matsudaira Tadaaki's view, the group of rebel soldiers who were all fleshy and armored were no less than those who arrived in Gundams. exist.

Most of the soldiers in the shogunate were only four feet five or six. Facing the rebel soldiers who were nearly seven or eight inches taller than them, Matsudaira Tadaaki couldn't even imagine how tragic the short-handed combat would be.

Therefore, when faced with his subordinate's ignorant suggestion to go out to fight in the city, he immediately reprimanded:

"Idiot! We have [-] people, and we can completely defend Osaka Castle and wait for the general's reinforcements."

"Will we be able to defeat these more than [-] reactionaries when we go out of the city? Besides, their number is far more than [-]!"

Matsudaira Tadaaki pointed at the sea with half a fan, and all the retainers looked at it one after another, and even saw the troop carriers being put down one after another.

Obviously, the number of enemies exceeded their expectations...

"Stick to Osaka Castle! For the General!"

After Matsudaira Tadaaki finished speaking, he pulled out the three-foot Japanese sword that was comparable to his height, and the battle heated up as the Ming army's chariots advanced.

"Fixed shot loading, elevation angle of [-] degrees... let it go!"

"Bang bang bang-"

The firearms of the Ming army had the upper hand. With the firing of the artillery post again, the whole beach was under fire for a while, and the stone bullets flew and hit the artillery on the left and right sides of Osaka Castle, deliberately avoiding the front that the Ming army might want to attack.

In the face of five catties of stone bullets flying towards them, even the proud iron gunners of the shogunate could not resist such a fierce attack. They had to squat behind the female wall, lie down and load ammunition, and wait for the sound of the cannon to stop at the firing point. shooting.

Some archers tried to suppress the Ming army with arrows on the Tianshou. However, when the chariot advanced, the Ming army who landed later began to assemble cloud chariots.

More than a dozen cloud chariots were propelled towards Osaka Castle, which made Matsudaira Tadaaki, who was sitting on a bamboo chair, unable to sit still. He stood up and lay on the three-foot-high female wall to observe the battlefield.

The Ming army who arrived under the city wall first did not attack the city directly, but held up rifles and used three-stage firepower to suppress the city wall.

"What is this? Self-generated firecrackers? The rebels will definitely not be able to produce so many self-generated firecrackers. It should be Da Ming's support."

"Bastard..." Clenching his teeth, Matsudaira Tadaaki was furious, but at the same time a little terrified.

The damage caused by the Korean War to Japan was too heavy. In the two Korean Wars, more than half of the Japanese army of more than [-] troops defended to the death, and it was not until Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power a few years later that he recovered.

If Ming came to attack Japan, judging from the fact that Yan Siqi had already occupied Kyushu and the Four Kingdoms, the Ming army might be able to directly land on the island.

Matsudaira Tadaaki still remembered the fear in the eyes of some daimyos who had retreated from North Korea when they mentioned the Ming army.

Nagashino battle, when all the daimyo thought that Japan had completed the firearms to replace the cold weapon cavalry attack, and the cold weapon cavalry would be submerged in the long river of history.

Not long after they landed in North Korea, the cavalry of the Ming Dynasty with the difficulty of hell rushed over...

"With its four hooves, trample on my formation"

What the short eight words bring may be the fear engraved in the bone marrow.

It is precisely because of the fear of the cavalry of the Ming army that Matsudaira Tadaaki was deeply afraid that there would be cavalry like the Ming army among the rebels, so he defended the city.

Right now, it seems that even if Osaka City is defended to the death, the artillery and self-generated firecrackers of the Ming army can still suppress nearly [-] defenders.

"Report the number of self-generated firecrackers of the Ming army to the general, and the number of cannons will also be reported. General, please send reinforcements as soon as possible."

"Hi--"

Matsudaira Tadaaki reacted and began to arrange quickly, and his retainers also ran away one after another.

Soon, the Ming army Yunche and more than [-] reinforcements arrived. As a result, the number of southern shogunate soldiers facing the Ming army reached nearly [-].

When the ladder of the cloud car was placed on the top of the city and the Ming army began to ascend the city to fight, the Japanese pirates who tried to defend the city with wood and rolling stones were often suppressed by continuous volleys of guns when they stood up.

Naturally, occasionally they can also launch an effective counterattack, disrupting the rhythm of the Ming army, but when the Ming army on the ladder jumped to the top of the city, what they saw were ugly men who were only as tall as their own chests. Shogunate.

The pumpkin hammer began to be brandished in the hands of the Ming army, and the sword and poker players first landed on the top of the city, followed by the musketeers slowly landing on the top of the city.

Immediately afterwards, the Ming army who landed at the top of the city began to use the mandarin duck formation to restrain the Japanese pirates. They used rifles when they were far away, and wolf hoops and long spears to greet them when they were close.

For a while, the [-] Japanese pirates who were in charge of guarding the southern city retreated steadily in the face of hundreds of Ming troops who landed on the city.

Matsudaira Tadaaki had no choice but to lead his retainers to attack the Ming army. The "Japanese" coming in like a tide actually gave the soldiers of the Gongwei battalion a feeling of being defeated by thousands of people.

However, with the stalemate in the battle situation, the thick clouds in the sky began to turn dark.

"It's about to rain, Ming Jin withdraws!"

Realizing that it was about to rain, Yang Tiansheng, who was in charge of the command, immediately commanded the army to retreat, and with the sound of gold ringing, the Ming army on the top of the city began to fight and retreat.

Since the cloud car is used, it is easier to retreat.

Taking advantage of the rain not falling, the Ming army dragged the cloud cart to withdraw from the battlefield, and established a camp three miles west of Osaka Castle.

When the Ming army camp was established, the drizzle began to fall, washing away the blood-stained Osaka Castle, and the corpses were burned by Matsudaira Tadaaki's order.

It's just that among those corpses, the corpses of the Ming army are pitifully few, only a few dozen scattered, while the corpses of the shogunate soldiers number as many as thousands.

"We fought for less than an hour, and we killed more than [-] people. If this continues, we can only hold on for half a month at most."

In the rules of the sky, a retainer stated the casualties of his own side, while Matsudaira Tadaki, who was sitting on the seat, said:

"It's the rainy season now, and the offensive of the rebels won't last long. Relying on Kyushu and Shikoku, they can only retreat in the end."

Matsudaira Tadaki understood that things were not that simple, but he still spoke to appease everyone.

It's just that the low morale can't be mentioned in a few words. After a while of discussion, everyone can only hope that the rainy season will be longer.

They are not the only ones who have such thoughts, there are also Annan, Zheng and Ruan families who are thousands of miles away.

With the arrival of the rainy season, people in the coastal areas are relaxing at home one after another. The whole of East Asia seems to be disturbed by the rainy season, except for Fujian...

"Since the summer in Fujian, there has been a severe drought in southern Fujian, with terracotta everywhere, affecting millions of people."

"The people in southern Fujian fled to Quanzhou and Fuzhou, and fled south by boat, hundreds of thousands..."

"Nanju Yishangshu, governor of Fujian Province, asks the imperial court to allocate [-] taels of relief money and food to appease the rest of the people in southern Fujian..."

In the palace of the King of Qi on the address of Dading Palace, Zhu Youjian, who had just returned from a hunting trip with Zhu Youxiao, was sweating profusely, and saw Dong Yingju, the servant of the household department who was with the army.

Dong Yingju reported to Zhu Youjian the severe drought in Fujian this year, and Zhu Youjian also took over the memorial from Fujian governor Nan Juyi, glanced at it and said:

"Fujian is already densely populated. After several relocations, the arable land in the hands of the people is still less than three mu per person."

"Currently, southern Fujian is experiencing severe drought, and Annan and Jiugang need people to relocate..."

Speaking of this, Zhu Youjian set up a memorial and said to Dong Yingju:
"You wrote back to Nan Juyi, saying that people in Fujian who are suffering from drought and who are willing to move to Annan will be given [-] acres of land and [-] stones of relief food."

"If anyone relocates to the old port, the treatment will remain the same..."

The relocation of Jiugang is ten acres per person, while Annan's is twenty acres per person. However, Zhu Youjian's relief food in Jiugang was reduced to six stones a few months ago, and the treatment is not as good as Annan's now.

Obviously, Zhu Youjian wanted to force the disaster victims in Fujian to move to Annan, but Dong Yingju, who was single-handedly promoted by Zhu Youjian, was worried about this:

"The war in Annan is not over yet, I'm afraid many people don't want to go."

"Go to the old port if you don't want to. Is it possible that if you don't want to go to the old port, you just wait to starve to death?" Zhu Youjian replied.

There are not many records of the drought in Fujian in the history books. In the final analysis, it was in the late Ming Dynasty that Fujian Party officials did not do much.

Even Zhu Youjian, if someone hadn't mentioned it, he wouldn't have remembered that Fujian is also one of the few southern provinces that also suffered from the drought in the north.

This is not to say that he ignores Fujian, but that he has already made great efforts to relocate Fujian people.

Nearly half of the more than [-] million people in Ryukyu Prefecture and the more than [-] million people in Old Port were emigrated from Fujian.

It's just that Fujian's population density is indeed too high, which was the same from the early Ming Dynasty to the late Ming Dynasty, and even the late Qing Dynasty.

According to Zhu Youjian's estimate, with a population of more than [-] million on paper, the actual number of people in Fujian may not be less than [-] million.

In addition, the amount of cultivated land in Fujian is only about [-] million. It is no wonder that Fujian has been in turmoil since the Xuande period.

Although the imperial court has relocated nearly [-] million people, the number of acres in Fujian still cannot satisfy the cultivation of the local population.

During peacetime in all provinces, private grain was operating normally, and Fujian merchants could go to Huguang, Jiangxi, and Sichuan to buy grain.

But this year, the three northern provinces are severely drought-stricken. Except for Beizhili, which has many rivers and lakes in this era, and can barely support itself, Shanxi and Shaanxi need to buy food.

In addition to the severe drought in eastern Sichuan in the three major grain-producing areas of the Ming Dynasty, the price of grain bought by the imperial court has reached more than [-] renminbi.

The land of Fujian belongs to a province with less military farms and less blessings. Naturally, when encountering the current severe drought, they cannot buy grain as richly as Shanxi and Shaanxi.

The only way for the people in Fujian to live well is to relocate.

"I passed on my decree that from now on, except for the people in five provinces of Shaanxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Hexi who are suffering from severe drought, officials can go to the court to ask the imperial court to allocate relief food, and the people in other provinces who are suffering from severe drought will be registered by local officials. register, asked the Ministry of Households for food stamps, and the people moved to Annan and Jiugang..."

"The relocation policy, according to what I just said, will not change for the time being."

Zhu Youjian is about to start a large-scale migration of people after the severe drought. Over the years, he has supported the six major shipyards and built so many ships for the Huangdian and the Inspection Department, just to use them at this time.

Reducing population density is a means to resolve land mergers in a disguised form.

Generally speaking, this means of reducing population density is war and killing, but what Zhu Youjian wants to do is immigration.

He also thought about where the food for the relocated people would come from.

Now that they have moved out, it is naturally impossible to transfer grain from Daming to Annan and Jiugang. Leaving aside the old port, it is self-sufficient and can supply Daming.

As far as Annan is concerned, moving millions of people to Annan requires an astronomical amount of food. In addition, the people had no food in the first year, so they naturally needed the support of the court.

However, this support is not to buy grain from Guangdong and Zhejiang, but from the vassal states of Ming Dynasty.

"Order the Ministry of Rites to send people to the four countries of Siam, Ganbozhi, Boni, and Sulu to buy grain at a [-]% increase and transport it to Annan according to the local grain market price."

Having said that, Zhu Youjian looked at Dong Yingju, then at the gate of the palace, and finally said:
"If the Ming Dynasty wants to go deep into the vassal state, it must bring benefits to them. A win-win situation can bring suzerain and vassal together..."

　There is only one chapter at this point today, catch up on sleep, and I will give you another chapter when I wake up at three or four in the morning, so except for the sixth child who is watching the football game, don’t wait for Chapter 2 for other people who work and study normally.

　　Two chapters will be updated normally at 29 o'clock tomorrow night, and it will be updated at [-] o'clock in the evening when you fly home the day after tomorrow. From the [-]th, the update status of one chapter at noon and one chapter in the afternoon will resume.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)