Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1575 Taking Chestnuts from the Fire ([-])
As the vanguard of the defense against Toyotomi's army, Yamanaka Castle was built very solidly.However, the difference in strength is also obvious. The so-called five times the attack, now the difference in strength is as high as ten times. Of course, the psychological pressure on the defenders is very great.Although the general attack of Toyotomi's army was originally scheduled for noon, because Hideyoshi's team arrived after noon, the actual start time of the general attack was around [-] pm.

Headed by the city lord Matsuda Yasunaga, the Hojo Army led by Hojo Ujikatsu, Mamiya Yasutoshi, Asakura Keishi and others also tried their best to defend, but Daizaki Demaru was captured first, and finally Nishinomaru was also captured. Around dusk, the whole city was captured.

The city that the Hojo clan spent several years building was taken away in just half a day. This news was undoubtedly shocking to the Hojo clan. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army is far superior to the Hojo clan's traditional military system of "elite samurai leading a large number of farmers and soldiers" in terms of combat effectiveness.

If Gao Wushi were here, he might not be surprised by this battle situation, but he might be worried about the current military system of Ming Dynasty, because the military system of Ming Dynasty is actually very similar to the model of the Hojo family, nothing more than generals Guards are compared to warriors, and guards are compared to peasants and soldiers.

Fortunately, in the Korean War in the original history, the first batch of troops dispatched by the Ming Dynasty were the direct descendants of the Li family army, and the proportion of family members was high enough. Later, the direct descendants of General Xuan’s family were dispatched, and the main force of the army was also the family members. Japanese army.As for Li Jiajun's injuries, that's another topic.

The idea of ​​Toyotomi's army was to defeat them one by one, so on March 29, another army was attacking Jiushan Castle at the same time.

According to the arrangement of the Hojo family, Ashigara Castle-Yamanaka Castle-Jiuyama Castle (leek, Tongjiu, leek of leek.) This line formed the Hojo clan's western defense line, and Hideyoshi's plan was to capture two of them at the same time.

In charge of the Toyotomi Army's attack on Nirayama Castle were Oda Nobuo, Hosokawa Tadaka, Gamo Ujigo, Hachisuka Ieken, Fukushima Masanori and others, leading a total of [-] troops.

However, compared with the mountain city which was captured in only two hours or so, Jiushan city was not so easy to capture.In the original history, the final Kaesong surrender here was on June 24, and the cage city battle actually persisted for three months.And those who stick to Jiushan Castle are Hojo Clan's subordinates, and their disadvantage is actually very big. There are only 600 people in total, which is even less than the guards of Mountain Castle.

In later generations, many people believed that the mountain city was breached in less than half a day, but the Jiushan city lasted for three months, because the fortifications of Jiushan city were relatively strong.However, if the fortress is strong, or if the structure of the city is ingenious, in fact, the mountain city is not under the Jiushan city at all.

In fact, the real problem is that the difference in consciousness of the attacking side caused this situation.Because, as for Hideyoshi, the mountain castle must be captured, because it is his own team's main force that is dispatched here. The team concentrated a large number of Jinghua cannons he smuggled from Daming;

In contrast, Jiushan City does not necessarily need to be captured immediately.It's good to conquer, even if you can't conquer, it doesn't matter to the overall situation, and to a large extent, it's better to conquer slowly-you can't beat Master Guan Bai, can you?
Therefore, in this way, taking advantage of the momentum of attacking the mountain castle in one go, Hideyoshi's army deployed in Hakone Mountain on April [-]st, and arrived in Hakone Yumoto on the third day.After three days of repairing, Hideyoshi's main force marched towards Odawara, and began to adopt a posture of encircling Odawara.

The Odawara Castle was as everyone had expected. Under the heavy protection of the big castle and the moat, even if Hideyoshi used an army of more than 20, it would not be easy to capture.This giant city has an ultra-wide moat, a tall city wall made of stone bricks, and a solid and complex structure. Although Hideyoshi has a lot of cannons in his hand, he lacks heavy artillery. It is not very convenient.

Of course, in addition to this, he still has another problem, that is, the Maritime Trade Alliance has already quietly lowered the export volume of saltpeter, resulting in an almost unlimited supply of sulfur in Japan, but there is no supporting package for saltpeter, resulting in a fundamentally low gunpowder output. Go, even close to shutdown recently.

In all fairness, the walls of Odawara Castle, which are more than one foot high, are nothing compared to the real great city of Ming Dynasty, but in Japan, it is indeed a bug-like existence, and the city and town are tightly wrapped.There are nine exits leading to the outside of the city on the outer gate, and the only way to enter and exit the city is through these nine exits.Moreover, each entrance was guarded by a member of the Hojo family or several generations of important ministers who followed the Hojo family. The defense was very tight. Toyotomi Hideyoshi inspected it himself after arriving, and had to admit that it was impossible to capture the city in a short time.

Hideyoshi re-examined and believed that this battle would inevitably become a protracted siege, so he specially built a new city for the capture of Odawara Castle.This new city is Ishigakiyama Castle, known as the "One Night Castle" in the world, and is often called Ishigakiyama One Night Castle.

However, the "One Night Castle" is not true. Hideyoshi started to build the Ishigaki Mountain Castle on April 26th.Although it is called "one night city", future generations will be more or less influenced by the impression that it was built in a short period of time, but in fact this city has been built for quite a long time, and all the fortifications were completed on June [-].So it is actually not a "one-night city", but an eighty-day city (Note: According to "Jiazhong Diary").

During this period, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was always lustful, even brought his concubine Yododen from Osaka Castle to Ishigakiyama Castle, and invited many Noh performers to perform Noh. While doing so, he continued to besiege Odawara Castle and waged a protracted war.

For the Odawara Raiders, Hideyoshi not only mobilized 22 troops, but also ordered the navy to attack the Izu Navy stronghold on the Izu Peninsula, and deployed a navy to Sagami Bay to encircle Odawara Castle from the sea.

In contrast, the Hojo Army counted all the soldiers scattered in the inner branch cities, and there were only about 6000 soldiers.Among them, like the mountain city that has been captured just now, there are 700 or even [-] guards in a city, and no matter how small the branch city is, there are at least [-] people.

On the one hand, Hideyoshi encircled Odawara Castle, and on the other hand, he defeated each of the sub-castles within his command.

Most of the small towns surrendered within less than a day of siege.However, the five cities of Matsuida Castle, Nirayama Castle, Hachigata Castle, Iwafu Castle, and Shinobi Castle have withstood for a long time, and have not yet fallen.

With the intervention of Gao Yushi, the episode of history appeared at this moment, specifically in Ninja City.

In fact, Ninja City is not a city in the true sense, it is a natural fortress made up of several small islands scattered in swamps and lakes.

Small islands are connected by bridges, but some islands have no bridges and can only be reached through other small islands, which constitutes the city's intricate topography.The topography of Ninja City predestined that even if the city is besieged, there is no need to worry about food and water sources, because the lakes and swamps are covered with a large area of ​​lotus. Now this season happens to be able to eat lotus roots, and the fish resources in the lake are also extremely rich. This is enough to keep the city self-sufficient.

However, Ninja City also has a big problem. The most critical problem is the serious shortage of human resources, so the military strength is extremely weak.When Ninja City was carrying out the Cage City, the people nearby all went to the city to take refuge, but even so, the total number of people in several island fortresses was only more than 3700, less than 8 people, and about [-]% of them joined the battle Among them, of course, most of them are mainly for city defense assistance, and it is hard to say whether they are officially participating in the war.

After excluding the local people, the actual strength of Ninja Castle is about 80 warriors and 400 ordinary soldiers.At the beginning, the Toyotomi army that attacked Ninja Castle had more than 2 troops, and the peak in the later period increased to more than 4. The general of the entire army is Ishida Mitsunari, who has been mentioned many times in this book.

Although Ishida Mitsunari is deeply trusted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his troops also crushed the soldiers of Ninja Castle, but in the attack, the army led by Ishida Mitsunari has never been able to break through any of the front-line defenses of Ninja Castle.

In fact, it's not that Ishida Mitsunari doesn't know how to command, or that the soldiers are afraid of the enemy. It's really that the general in charge of guarding Ninja Castle is too brave. As long as Ishida Mitsunari attacks, the general of Ninja Castle will always take the lead and rush to the forefront.Coupled with the help of an older but experienced samurai, Ishida Mitsunari attacked left and right, but could only return in vain.

Ishida Mitsunari led the army to attack for seven days, but they all returned without success. After learning about it, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered Ishida Mitsunari to use water attack.

This order stunned Ishida Mitsunari, because Ninja Castle was originally a fortress city formed by the joint formation of islands in the lake. This kind of terrain has already determined that water attack will not have any effect, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi insisted on using water attack. On the day of the water attack, he will lead other generals to watch the battle.

The characteristic of the Pursuing faction is that they do not have much strength and rely entirely on the power given by the patriarch. Therefore, it is impossible for Ishida Mitsunari to disobey Toyotomi Hideyoshi's order.In desperation, Ishida Mitsunari had no choice but to find someone to build the embankment. Seven days later, the 28-kilometer-long, 9-meter-high, and 7-meter-wide embankment was officially completed.

However, there is no doubt that among the people who came to build the embankment, there were personnel from the Ninja City defenders who mixed in, and they tampered with some key positions during the embankment project.At this time, because of the rising water level in Ninja Castle, Toyotomi's army was unable to attack.

The defenders of Ninja City even took the opportunity to have fun.General Shinobi even held a banquet in the city, which made the Toyotomi army who were watching from the hills in the distance couldn't help being shocked and angry, and then sighed again and again.

The rising water level also impacted the dam, which naturally burst due to its own loopholes.Because Ishida Mitsunari was prepared when he built the dam, the casualties of the army he led were not serious, but in any case, his morale was already extremely low.

Here comes the question, why did the battle-tested Toyotomi Hideyoshi force Ishida Mitsunari to use water attack on Ninja Castle?
The answer is actually not that difficult: because there was a peak event in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's half-life conquest, called "Flooding of Takamatsu Castle" [Note: There are not many historical disputes about this matter, so I will not explain it. Friends who are interested can directly go to Baidu].

Since flooding Takamatsu was Toyotomi Hideyoshi's previous masterpiece, it is understandable that he wanted to replicate a brilliant victory in the final battle of Tianxia Pingping. The legendary "head and tail echo".

However, at this moment, Ishida Mitsunari suddenly turned around, and Toyotomi's army's spies found out the news, and the Joyoro of Ninja Castle—that is, the acting city lord Narita Yasuki died of illness!

According to Ishida Mitsunari's understanding, Narita Taiki is the most resolute main fighter in Ninja Castle, and because he is the uncle of the city lord Narita's head, he has a unique position in Ninja Castle, and he can be said to be the backbone of Ninja Castle.Then, once Narita Yasuki died, wouldn't it be just around the corner that Ninja City would fall?
Wait a minute, there seems to be something missing here-during such an important war, why did Ninja Castle have Joyo?In other words, where did the city lord Narita head go?

The thing is like this: After the Odawara conquest order was issued, as soon as the news of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s dispatch of troops reached Odawara Castle, the Hojo family ordered Narita, the lord of Ninja Castle, to lead half of the troops to help Odawara Castle, so Narita took half of Ninjo The defenders have already gone to Odawara Castle to help in the battle, which is why the number of soldiers in Ninja Castle is so small that there are only a few hundred people. They originally had more than a thousand troops.

The head of the Narita clan went out to help the lord. According to tradition, he usually arranges his son as the castle representative.However, the problem is that he has no sons, only three daughters, so he had to hand over the job of Shiro to his own uncle Narita Taiki.

With Narita Yasuki's status and appeal in Ninja Castle, of course he has the ability to do a good job in this castle generation, but unfortunately he has died of illness again.According to the information Ishida Mitsunari received here, Narita Taiki's son, Narita Nagain, is a cowardly person. Although he is tall, he is not brave and burly. He is just tall and fat, and he can't even climb up on a horse.

Moreover, Narita's character is very cowardly. It is said that when he walked in the countryside, although he was dressed as a samurai, even the peasants in the field dared to ask him to help with farm work-this is almost unimaginable in Japan where the class is solidified. The people of Ninja City dared to call him "His Royal Highness Adou" not only in private, but even in front of him.

Naturally, Ishida Mitsunari would not take such a person seriously, so regardless of the morale blow caused by the embankment breach, he ordered the generals to attack again.

Who knows, this attack still failed.The reason for the failure was that the chief general of Ninja Castle attacked again decisively and defeated the front army of Toyotomi's army with elite troops, and the rear army immediately collapsed on its own.

Although Ishida Mitsunari was furious, there was nothing he could do about it—the people under his command were all coalition forces, almost all of which were big names. If Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to sit in the town in person, he would be able to command it. Unfortunately, Ishida Mitsunari could not command it. what!He is only 30 years old this year, and he has no direct military exploits at all before. Those big names are all similar to Daming's "generals", who would listen to him?
Besides, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's previous order also gave them an excuse, one by one clamoring for Ishida Mitsunari to continue to build the dam-building the dam can grind foreign workers to preserve their strength, which is naturally harder than running to the mysterious general in Ninja Castle Fight ten thousand times.

However, when Ishida Mitsunari's head was as big as a bucket, there was also someone in Odawara City who was anxious.

This person is Narita, the lord of Ninja City, who just learned that his uncle Narita Taiki died of illness. The reason why he is so anxious is that, in his opinion, Ninja Castle itself is already in danger. There is also the safety of the mysterious general.
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PS: It hints that the general of Ninja City has reached this point, so it's time to guess who it is?Hey hey...

(End of this chapter)