Brother Zhu Youxiao

"Fixed shot reloading, height 35, distance one mile and six, pre-shoot one round... let it go!"

"Boom bang bang-"

A beautiful day is destined to start with the firing of the artillery of the Ming army.

The dense stone bombs hit Nagoya Castle like a shower. Although they had been prepared for a long time, when the stone bombs really hit, the psychological preparation made all night fell apart under the first round of shelling.

"How much gunpowder and stone bombs are there?"

Yang Wenyue was riding on horseback, holding binocular clairvoyance eyes in both hands, squinting his eyes to look at Nagoya Castle, and asked Wu Aheng without looking back.

Although the two sides have the same official position, they are old comrades-in-arms and colleagues for many years after all, so they don't care who is in charge and who is in charge.

In such a thing as a war, it is too laborious and laborious for one person to control the entire battle situation. Wu Aheng chose to hand over the battlefield to Yang Wenyue, and he himself was responsible for the supply and logistics of the army and other military supplies.

Therefore, when Yang Wenyue asked him, he replied without thinking:
"From the fall of last year to the present, the imperial court has transported 130 catties of gunpowder, and several exploratory attacks have consumed 12 catties."

"In this war, we distributed 15 catties each to the rest of the soldiers and horses. Yesterday we knocked out more than 14 catties in one breath, and now there are more than 81 catties of gunpowder left."

"It's stone bullets. Although the more than 9 stone bullets in stock were beaten yesterday to less than 14 stone bullets, the number of stone bullets has been replenished to [-] this morning after being chiseled by the peasants, and the quality is very good. .”

When it comes to the quality of the stone bullets, Wu Aheng wants to praise the peasants in Yingzhou.

Perhaps they were squeezed too hard by the shogunate, samurai, and daimyo, but they cherished their current life very much, for fear that the Ming army would fail because of their own laziness, and the samurai would take back the few acres of land they got at home.

Therefore, in terms of the selection and quality of stone bullets, they have done a good job and are very ingenious.

Although it is a bit difficult to find granite suitable for making stone bombs on the Nobuo Plain, you can still find some good stones if you look carefully.

Wu Aheng suspected that if the stones were not difficult to find, then 12 civilians might be able to hand-polish 10,000+ stone bullets in one night.

"so much?"

Yang Wenyue put down his binocular clairvoyance, turned his head to look at Wu Aheng in a little surprise, obviously he also felt that the speed was very fast.

But after his surprise was over, he looked towards the battlefield, turned his head and said to Cao Bianjiao:
"Since there are enough gunpowder and stone bullets, the Herald Cannon Battalion will fight for another five hours today..."

"The last general takes the order!" Cao Bianjiao bowed to receive the order, and sent Tang Qi to the front position to deliver the order.

Such an order seemed like a waste of gunpowder to many generals of the new generation, but to Yang Wenyue, soldiers were the most important resource.

"put!"

"Boom bang bang-"

The rhythm of twelve consecutive bombardments per hour reappeared on the battlefield. Five-pound stone bullets flew randomly, hitting the top of Nagoya city with sand and gravel, and the female wall collapsed.

The number of houses in the city has been broken down. Standing in the castle tower in the city and looking down, you can only see the messy city and the civilians of the shogunate who are constantly crying.

Many small ashigaru and civilians hid in some corners, but more people chose to live at the root of the city wall.

There are few people on the streets of the city, but there is a large area of ​​black people standing at the base of the city wall.

"How much gunpowder does the Ming army have?!"

Inside the castle tower, Tokugawa Iemitsu gritted his teeth and put down the binoculars in his hand, and rested his other hand on the Japanese sword at his waist, as if he was so angry that he wanted to chop something.

Perhaps for a regional country like Japan, whose annual gunpowder output is only [-] jin, let alone bombing with [-] cannons for a day, it is a day with [-] iron cannons. The amount of gunpowder was enough to make Tokugawa's heart ache.

Their national production in a year is not as good as the current production of Daming Gunpowder Bureau in one day.

For Yang Wenyue, if the gunpowder is gone, he should write a letter to the capital.

According to the speed at which Nagoya ran to Fukuoka, then took a boat to Busan, North Korea, and then sent it to the capital in an expedited eight hundred miles, and then the capital dispatched gunpowder from the nearest Yanshan Gunpowder Bureau.

At most one and a half months, at least 50 catties of gunpowder will arrive at Osaka Port, and these gunpowder can be used by Yang Wenyue to fight recklessly for three or four days, knocking down fortified cities.

Facts have also proved that even Nagoya Castle, which has been repaired by Tokugawa Iemitsu many times, can't last long in the face of [-] artillery bombardments.

"Master General!"

The sound of the armor sounded, and the veteran Date Masamune ran up to the castle tower with a serious face, which made Tokugawa Iemitsu, who turned his head, feel something was wrong.

"The bluestone on the periphery of the city wall has shown signs of cracks in a large area."

Date Masamune brought bad news, which made Tokugawa Iemitsu look gloomy:

"Can it be repaired?"

"Of course not!" Date Masamune shook his head:
"These cracks are not enough to affect the city defense now, but in order to avoid blocking the slits, the old man suggested that we send someone to clean them up while the Ming army's artillery ceased firing."

Japan's city defense design has some unique details, such as slits, fan slopes, and split-level shooting. The slits refer to the perforations of iron cannons on the city walls.

The perforation was carved out of stones, and it was funnel-shaped as a whole, small on the outside and large on the inside, with an area of ​​less than ten square centimeters outside. There was a trapezoidal slope inside the perforation, about one foot three inches long and one foot six wide. inches, with a height difference of about eight inches.

This design allows soldiers to lie prone and support their elbows to stabilize shooting, and the effect is good.

In order to defend Nagoya Castle under the attack of the Ming army, Tokugawa Iemitsu also specially added many means and designs.

For example, there are many shooting towers protruding out of the city wall about two feet above the main city's castle tower, which are used to attack the enemies who attack the city and are located in the dead corner of the wall.

Such characteristics, coupled with the fact that the city wall of Nagoya City is steep and curved, especially the vertical junction of the city wall has a larger arc, and the distance is obviously elongated, so the Ming army will need to climb a longer distance, and the closer it goes up Vertical, the easier it is to be shot and killed by the Japanese army.

Finally, because the city wall uses larger overall stones, which are handed over to the craftsmen to polish them smoothly, so that the gaps between the stones are small and difficult to climb, so no matter who wants to attack this place, it will take a lot of effort. casualties.

This is only the periphery. We must know that Tokugawa Iemitsu still carried forward the staggered military design of the Japanese army in Nagoya Castle, in order to create defense depth, increase the firepower strike area, and attempt to disperse the collective strength of the Ming army.

Facing the split-level city wall, even if the individual soldiers of the Ming army are strong, they can push forward from a single line, and the artillery support can cover the entire city wall. It will be shielded by the staggered layers and be afraid to cast a mouse, and dare not use it with all its strength.

In addition, some of the important city walls in Nagoya Castle were built with monolithic boulders, and there were also darkrooms in the city, where warriors could surprise the Ming army through secret passages.

Due to the small number of people and the small space for maneuvering, Japanese military thinking emphasizes frontal resistance, so it is necessary to be meticulous in tactical details.

This Japanese-style military concept is reflected even in the battlefields of World War II. If you have to find an easy-to-understand comparison object, then Nantianmen and Iwo Jima in a certain TV series are enlarged versions of Nagoya Castle.

The reason why Tokugawa Iemitsu came up with so many methods and insidious designs is that, to put it bluntly, he saw the rigidity of Yan Siqi, Zheng Zhilong and other Ming army commanders in the previous failures.

If it was not Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng who came this time, but Yan Siqi, Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang and others commanded the battle, there would probably be more than 6 Ming troops in Japan, and at least nearly [-] casualties in Nagoya Castle.

However, Tokugawa Iemitsu's trap failed the moment Zhu Youjian called Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng to Yingzhou.

When Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng came to the battlefield, they could see his careful thinking at the first sight. This is why Yang Wenyue refused to agree when Cao Bianjiao and others wanted to take advantage of the victory yesterday.

From Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng's point of view, the current Nagoya Castle is a millstone, and the soldiers who rush up will be crushed like beans.

This style of play of the Japanese army was actually learned from the Central Plains during the Tang and Song Dynasties, and this tactic was actually used more ruthlessly than them, and the difficulty of design was several blocks away from them.

Banzhou Hailongtun...

This is a place name that all civil and military officials of the Ming Dynasty will subconsciously be nervous when they hear it. It is located on the top of Longyan Mountain in the former Bozhou territory. It is a split-level stone fort that has been continuously built since the Song Dynasty.

The relative height difference of the entire stone castle is hundreds of feet, and there are nine gates built on staggered floors. Compared with the current Nagoya Castle, it is even more desperate.

But even such a stone fortress can only block the Ming army for more than forty days, and the current Nagoya Castle can hold off the Ming army for even less time.

Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng didn't want to waste the lives of the soldiers, so the attack method they chose was to use artillery to knock down the Japanese army's split-level buildings one by one.

"put!"

"Boom bang bang-"

The roar of the artillery continued to sound, and every round of shelling seemed to hit Tokugawa Iemitsu's heart like a heavy hammer.

Facing Date Masamune's words, he didn't have too many arrangements, he just nodded slightly, and then solemnly begged.

Date Masamune also had no mother-in-law, so he turned around and went to arrange the important affairs of the city defense.

He left, but Tokugawa Iemitsu felt that the room was darker for a while.

Right now, they actually don't have much retreat, after all, they all chose the condition of "seal in another place" to surrender, but Yang Wenyue and Yan Siqi did not agree.

From this point, it can be seen that the Ming army is obviously not going to let any of the shogunate nobles go.

Tokugawa just thought about it, and sat on the ground a little weakly.

The gloomy weather outside the window was less than one-tenth of his current mood.

"Boom--"

"put!"

"Boom bang bang-"

For a full five hours, when the Ming army's sixty rounds of shelling were completed again, only the pungent sulfur smell was left on the entire artillery position.

In the direction pointed by their muzzles, it can be seen with the naked eye that the walls and fan slopes of the entire Nagoya Castle have been battered to pieces. I am afraid that such shelling intensity will continue for another day. will cease to exist.

"Ming Jin withdraws the troops, orders the whole army, today the whole army has extra meals, slaughters [-] pigs, and slaughters [-] sheep..."

Putting down the binocular clairvoyance in his hand, Yang Wenyue stroked his long beard, obviously very satisfied with today's victory.

But after he finished speaking, he paused again, and then added:
"Give extra meals to the military and civilian husbands, slaughter three hundred pigs, three thousand chickens and ducks, let them divide into 2000 people after eating, and take torches to dance their own folk dances before the battle at night, and pay attention to sending people to protect them Safety."

"Yes!" Today's Cao Bianjiao didn't have so many questions, he just followed orders like a soldier.

Yang Wenyue looked at his back as he turned to give orders, nodded slightly in satisfaction and said:
"Your Highness has a reason for letting this son come to practice. Yesterday he would talk back, but today he thinks clearly."

"Hehe..." Wu Aheng stroked his short beard and said heartily:
"Anyway, I have followed His Highness for a long time, and with the structure exposed when some outer walls collapsed today, it would be a bit stubborn to talk back."

"That's true..." Yang Wenyue chuckled and shook his head, then rode back to the formation with Wu Aheng.

At the same time, Tang Qi of the Chinese Army also began to run around in private, passing on news.

"After a brief order, the artillery battalion retreated back to the main formation. Today, the whole army will have extra meals. Eight hundred pigs will be slaughtered, and one thousand sheep will be slaughtered!"

"Ugh..."

Hearing that they could eat meat again for dinner, not only the artillery battalion soldiers who got the news started cheering, but even the other eight battalions of the Ming army also cheered.

The cheers in front made the peasants who were excavating stones behind stop what they were doing, thinking that the heavenly soldiers had taken down Nagoya Castle.

"Master, have the heavenly soldiers captured Nagoya Castle?"

Under the messy simple processing wooden shed, a group of fifteen or sixteen-year-old youths who were no more than four feet four or five inches tall raised their heads and asked an elderly man who was in charge of managing them. When the man heard the question, he also got up and looked out.

At this time, Tang Qi came on horseback and explained Yang Wenyue's arrangements to the Ming army guard who was in charge of 12 civilians. When the Ming army guard heard the news, he sent more than [-] scribes in the army to the work shed to spread the word.

One of the clerks walked up to their work shed, and when the old man in charge saw Daming's translator coming, he quickly patted the dust on his body, showing respect.

However, the scribe didn't dislike him, but smiled and said in Japanese with a slight Ming accent:
"Dororo, wait a moment and tell the folks who came to you to hand over the stones, and say that the two managers have ordered that the whole army will have extra meals today, and the same goes for the civilian camp."

"Each camp has 25 extra pigs and 250 chickens and ducks. You go and collect them yourself, clean them up, and pay attention to burying the internal organs."

"Hey, hey... I really appreciate Master Jinglue and Master Gao Xu's love for us! Please rest assured, we will take care of it properly, and we will not delay the polishing of stone bullets at night!"

The old man Dororo nodded and bowed quickly when he heard the words, and took the wooden sign representing 25 pigs and 250 chickens and ducks from the hand of the scribe Gao Xu.

There are 1 people in the first camp of the Minfu Camp. Perhaps for these 1 people, 25 pigs and 250 chickens and ducks can only allow everyone to eat three or four taels of meat the size of a baby's fist.

But even so, white rice with meat and broth was a combination that the lower-level shogunate could not imagine.

"Change some more soy sauce and salt. It's too poor to eat." Gao Xu looked at Dororo who nodded and bowed, and took out two wooden signs marked "Sauce Ten" and "Salt Ten" from his pocket .

Dororo knew very well that the two wooden plaques represented ten catties of soy sauce and ten catties of salt, so he smiled more happily, bowed and nodded at a wider angle, wishing he could jump up and kneel down in the air.

"Okay, let's arrange your affairs. Each battalion can choose 500 people to make meals. Don't choose too many."

"In addition, after eating, 180 people from each battalion went to dance at a location one and a half miles away from Nagoya Castle in front of the battle."

"Hi! Hi..."

Gao Xu waved his hand and left the wooden shed, only Dororo was left standing there, nodding and bowing to his leaving back.

When Gao Xu completely disappeared before his eyes, he turned his head triumphantly and shook the three wooden signs in his hand and said:

"Look! My uncle said a long time ago that only by following the Heavenly Soldiers will you be blessed."

"This is meat, soy sauce, and salt. Only warriors can eat it. You guys are lucky to be able to eat meat for two days in a row."

Dororo looked at the wooden sign in his hand and felt very happy.

"Master Dororo, what does pork taste like?"

"Which is better, pork or mutton?"

"Are there any silver relics to eat today?"

"Master Dororo..."

A group of fifteen or sixteen-year-old teenagers questioned Dororo, but Dororo was honest about this kind of thing:
"I haven't actually eaten pork, but I heard some heavenly soldiers say that pork is the best because it has a lot of oil."

Saying this, Dororo felt that his saliva was about to flow out, but soon he regretted:

"It's a pity that after the Heavenly Soldiers defeat the shogunate, they shouldn't hire civilian husbands. At that time, we can only go home and farm honestly."

"Then you won't be able to eat silver relics?" A [-]-year-old boy looked disappointed.

"Of course I won't be able to eat it." Dororo slapped the opponent's shoulder, then waved his hand and said:
"Okay, hurry up and tell the people in the quarry to find five hundred people to come out and cook with me!"

"Hi!"

Hearing this, a group of peasant children in the [-]th and [-]th grades ran out of the wooden shed and went to the quarry to find someone.

But more than an hour later, when the sky was completely dark, the smell of meat began to come from the Ming army camp, blowing along the monsoon wind to Nagoya Castle three miles away.

The smell of meat caused many foot light to sniff the air, salivating frantically.

Although none of them had eaten pork, mutton, or even chicken and duck, they knew that it was the smell of meat, because the houses of samurai and daimyo in Nagoya Castle had this smell around them.

Although I don't know what kind of taste this kind of meat tastes like and whether it is delicious, but the smell is not much different.

It's just that the "luxury" of meat has nothing to do with them. In other words, the only thing they can do that is related to meat is to smell the smell of meat from the Ming army camp and eat the cold corn balls in their hands.

One a day, one pound of corn rice balls, not to mention the taste, in terms of calories alone, it can't even satisfy the daily calories of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy, let alone those who need to prepare for battle.

Facing this rice ball, many ashigaru were not qualified to finish it in one sitting. Instead, they broke off one-fifth of the rice ball and kneaded it into a rice ball the size of a ping-pong ball, before sipping on it.

The remaining four-fifths will be their meals from tonight to tomorrow evening.

"My hometown..."

"My hometown..."

"Under the hot summer sky..."

"In the middle of the night, my mother knits a straw hat for me..."

"I don't have to worry about getting sunburned when I'm farming during the day. I'm very happy after wearing it and dancing..."

"It's just that the samurai knows it. My mother is gone. I became an orphan and wandered in the Asama Mountains..."

Suddenly, folk songs sounded in the dark night, and the style of this folk song was a satire on the rule of the shogunate.

Under normal circumstances, the ashigaru people in Nagoya Castle would definitely not dare to look up.

But the death of Paoze in the past two days, the great contrast between the two sides, and the homesickness brought about by the cruelty of the war gradually made some people raise their heads at the risk of being killed.

They squatted behind the incomplete parapet wall and saw the peasants holding torches in a circle and dancing around the bonfire in the dark.

The singing of the folks kept coming, and more and more ashigaru began to stand up and watch...

"Damn Mingren!"

In the castle tower, Yang Wenyue's intentional "singing" was naturally heard by Tokugawa Iemitsu and others.

Looking at the peasants dancing around the bonfire on the dark horizon, Tokugawa Iemitsu gritted his teeth, and Date Masamune also clenched his fists and said:

"This is a conspiracy. If we ignore it, the morale of the army will collapse."

"But if we manage it, it will definitely make the ashigaru and the folks dissatisfied with us."

"I can't control this much anymore, let's defend Nagoya Castle first, let them continue like this, and Nagoya Castle will be breached tomorrow." Tokugawa Iemitsu turned around and said viciously:

"Send samurai to the city to supervise the battle, and ask all the ashigaru and peasants to squat down and lean against the city wall, not to wait and see the group of lowly peasants who have rebelled against the enemy!"

"Hi!" Date Masamune reluctantly responded, and Tokugawa Iemitsu also knew that this move was a bad move, but he couldn't help it.

The supplies in Nagoya City are not abundant, and it is impossible to be as extravagant as the Ming army was to the civilians, let alone promise to distribute the land to the civilians and the ashigaru. Therefore, facing the ashigaru and the civilians, they can only choose violence.

In this situation, Tokugawa Iemitsu's military order was quickly conveyed, and soon the samurai in armor began to climb to the top of the city and shouted loudly.

"Bastard, what do you want to do if you don't sleep?"

"Don't look at anything!"

"Hurry up and repair the city wall!"

Under the command of Tokugawa Iemitsu and others, the samurai began to scold Ashgaru and some armed civilians. Although their number was only one-tenth of the number of Ashigaru and the civilians, the cowardice of the civilians and the civilians made them worse.

At first, it was just verbal scolding, but later on, people gradually started to do it.

In this regard, many ashigaru could only bear with it, and sat down timidly, with their backs against the female wall, listening to the "folk songs" coming from behind the wall.

"The goal has been achieved..."

On a watchtower in the Ming army camp, Yang Wenyue put down his binocular clairvoyance, with a smile on his face.

Wu Aheng next to him also put down his binocular clairvoyance, stroked his beard and said:
"Although it's not as good as besieged on all sides, the anger of Ashgaru and the peasants in this castle has accumulated."

"Right now, we only need a good opportunity to release our anger."

"No!" Yang Wenyue shook his head and said with a smile:

"I still need to add a few more bundles of firewood. This time, if I don't spend a single soldier, the [-]-odd army of the shogunate will fall apart..."