Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 1940 Returning to Japan ([-]) Attacking Again
Decentralization of power, the military discussion before the official start of the war is still indispensable.Especially in view of the anticlimax of the previous Ulsan battle, Gao Yushi, according to his past habits, must conduct a major summary of experience and lessons, so the main generals of the Ming army will gather in Gimhae to attend the meeting three days later.

Originally, the reason why the Japanese army was able to defend successfully in the last Battle of Ulsan has been attributed to problems in the command system of the Ming and Korean armies, which made it possible for the Japanese army to cooperate internally and externally when reinforcements arrived. retreat.

However, at this meeting, Gao Yushi deliberately played down this point in order to ensure North Korea's smooth internal attachment in the future, and instead emphasized the difficulty of the siege itself.He said that if Ulsan City itself is not strong and the Japanese army's combat capability is low, it is basically impossible for Kato Kiyomasa to last until reinforcements arrive with the combat effectiveness of the Ming army.

In order to strengthen this impression, of course, the fact that the Japanese-style mountain castle is easy to defend and difficult to attack is indeed a problem, so Gao Yushi deliberately asked Kai Feiji to participate in the meeting as a "former Japanese general" who is famous for his good defense, and to the Japanese-style castle—— In particular, the structure of the mountain city is explained.

Jia Feiji had indeed seen the world, and she was not stage-frightened in the face of Yishui's senior generals of the Ming army, and she introduced the differences between the cities of Ming, Dynasty, and Japan with eloquence.

According to her, Japanese-style cities have always been different from Ming and Korean cities.The cities of the Ming and Dynasties are mostly a city wall behind the moat, and after entering it is a civilian residential area. There is an inner city in the center of the whole city, and this is usually a larger city. Smaller cities are usually There is no inner city.

The Japanese-style castle is different, because its civilian residential area (castle town) is separated from the main city, so the whole castle is actually a pure military fortress, which does not have the function of protecting civilians.

Of course, there is almost no castle town in the Wacheng built in North Korea, but a direct city, so there is no need to analyze the role of the buffer zone of the castle town.

Using Ulsan Castle as an example, Kai introduced the generals of the Ming army, saying that Ulsan and Dosan were constructed in almost the same way, and they were divided into two parts from the outside to the inside: Outer Maru→Otemon→Sanomaru→Ninomaru→Honmarugo Floor.There is a city wall between each of the five floors, and iron cannon shooting holes are left on the wall, and each floor is connected by a city gate.

This means that even if Uwaimaru is captured, if Otemon has not been breached, then Sannomaru is still in the hands of the Japanese army.

In other words, to capture a Japanese-style city, one needs to break through layer by layer from the outside to the inside, until the final capture of Honmaru can be regarded as a complete capture of a Japanese-style city.

If they are forced to withdraw in the middle of the attack, the Japanese army will soon be able to repair it again, and they will have to repeat the previous attack for the next attack.

According to Jia Feiji's point of view, if the coalition forces of the Ming Dynasty who have never seen such a city, or have not attacked such a city many times, if they still adopt the method of attacking the cities of the Ming and North Korea, they will inevitably suffer setbacks.

In addition, the Japanese army used a large number of arquebus guns in defensive battles, as well as purchased and seized gunpowder weapons such as artillery from the Ming and North Korea. The Japanese soldiers defending the city were trapped and frozen to death.

There is nothing wrong with this tactic itself, but Kato Kiyomasa, who won extremely precious time for the arrival of reinforcements by relying on persistence, was lucky enough to save his life because of this.

With what Jia Feiji said, the generals of the Ming army naturally wanted to ask if there was a way to crack it.Jia Feiji said that generally speaking, it is a one-time storming and breaking the city-this one-time does not mean that it must be completed in one day, but that it must persist in continuous attacks for several days or longer, so that the Japanese army will not be able to retake the outer city and repair it. Opportunity.

If the city cannot be stormed in one go, then the only option is to besiege the city. How long the siege will take depends on how rich the city's material reserves are, and whether it is difficult to maintain the source of troops and the morale of the army.In short, either play fast or play slowly, but avoid playing intermittently.

However, at this time, Gao Yushi actually thought of a solution, that is, if there are mortars, there is no need to be limited by the difficulty of launching artillery attacks in Japanese-style mountain cities.It's a pity... Although this thing has a simple structure, it has high requirements for the barrel.Gao Wushi guessed that Jinghua might not be able to produce seamless steel pipes now, so he had to swallow the words that came to his lips.

At the same time, Jia Feiji also brought some latest news in Japan to the Ming army.In addition to the biggest news of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death, there are others.

For example, between the end of the Battle of Ulsan and the end of the Battle of Dosan, thirteen major Japanese generals, including Ukita Hideka, jointly wrote a letter to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was still alive at the time, on the grounds that the strategic position was prominent and the rescue of reinforcements was difficult. In Ulsan, Dongnae, and Yangsan, the entire army withdrew to Busan.

However, this proposal was strongly opposed by Governor Konishi, Soyoshi Tomo, Kato Yoshiaki, Tachibana Munemo and others, and in the end this proposal was also rejected by Hideyoshi, and the 13 people including Ukita Hideka were also reprimanded by Hideyoshi.

According to the information held by Kai Fei Ji, Hideyoshi then asked the Japanese army to improve and strengthen the fortifications, increase the firearms, and increase the reserves of soldiers and rations in each city on the defense line, so as to rectify and strengthen the entire defense system.

In order to rectify the defense system of each city, in addition to the fact that the Japanese army must stick to the front line, Hideyoshi once again allocated a large amount of supplies from the country. Taking advantage of the favorable weather in winter in the south, according to the principle of "more batches and a small amount" for several important places in the south. Supplementary materials, including gunpowder, muskets, artillery, etc.

Before his death, Hideyoshi also announced a plan to send an army to attack North Korea again in the following year, but fortunately, before it could be implemented, Hideyoshi passed away on August [-]th.Afterwards, the five elders and the five ministers who maintained the operation of the Toyotomi regime decided to withdraw their troops from North Korea, and secretly began preparations for the withdrawal.

Moreover, because the news of Hideyoshi's death was concealed, the Japanese troops sent to North Korea did not know the news that Hideyoshi was no longer alive, and only a few generals of Toyotomi's direct line were informed.

Now that the Ming army has learned about it through informants, she suggested that the coalition forces of Ming and North Korea could launch a final general attack on the Japanese army that had not yet had time to withdraw to the south.

Now that things have come to this point, why hesitate?The generals of the Ming army naturally called for the battle one after another, and Gao Wushi took advantage of the opportunity to issue the previous orders.Another three days later, that is, after all the generals of the armies returned to their own units, the coalition forces of Ming and North Korea divided into three groups and attacked the three strongholds of Ulsan, Dongnae, and Yangsan at the same time.

After the failure of the first attack on the Daoshan Twin Cities by the coalition forces of Ming and North Korea, they quickly received reinforcements from China under the highly pragmatic dispatch. The loss of firearms has been replenished, and the strength of the troops is also full, reaching [-] above.

At the same time, the Beiren Party, which is in power in North Korea, may have been beaten by Gao Yushi last time. This time, it took the initiative to quickly mobilize more than 2 troops, and said that these people can be completely under the command of the Ming army.

In fact, the main force of the Korean army has long since been left. These people are basically cobbled together from various places in North Korea, and the sources are also complicated. —After the Northern Party suppressed the Southern Party, the Southern Party had to donate servants.

Gao Wushi and the other generals knew that these North Korean troops were useless, but Gao Wushi also considered that part of the next battle would require acting, and acting on the battlefield would also require some cannon fodder, so they did not refuse.He even asked these North Korean soldiers, who were similar to beggars, to receive a set of mandarin duck battle coats from the Ming army, and then followed the Ming army to fight.

Soon all the armies were in place, and the Ming army (including the North Korean army who had changed into mandarin ducks and jackets) was divided into four groups: the East Route Army, the Middle Route Army, the West Route Army, and the Navy Army, and started a new round of attack separately.

The East Route Army attacked Ulsan (actually Dosan), the Central Route Army attacked Yangsan, and the West Route Army and Navy Army jointly attacked Dongnae.

The East Route Army was commanded by Ma Gui, with a total of about 39500 people (34000 from the Ming Army and 5514 from the North Korean Army).However, because Kato Kiyomasa and Kobayakawa Hideaki had enough troops but could not hold out, and the city defense had been repaired, the Ming army still failed to make effective progress quickly.

However, since the Japanese army received the order to return home on October [-]th, Kato Kiyomasa finally found an opportunity for the Ming army to retreat for a while after holding on for nearly a month. He quietly withdrew from Ulsan at night and retreated to Busan. .

But this time, Kato Kiyomasa didn't know that the Ming army had Jia Feiji's reminder, the Ming army that was repaired this time did not withdraw completely, and the reconnaissance was even more intensive.

Therefore, he and Kobayakawa Hideaki were discovered as soon as they withdrew from Wajo Castle, and they were severely beaten by Magui on the way back. In particular, Li Rumei's troops played an extremely asymmetrical advantage in cavalry, and Kato Kiyomasa and Kobayakawa Hideaki suffered heavy losses.According to post-war statistics, the Japanese and Japanese armies lost a total of more than [-] people, almost tens of thousands.

The combined forces of Ming and North Korea attacking Donglai totaled about [-], led by Ming general Dong Yiyuan, including the Jurchen coalition led by Nurhachi.

Dongnae is located between Pusan ​​and Yangsan in the Japanese defense line. If this place falls first, then Xiaoxixingchang's headquarters in Liangshan in the north will be divided and surrounded by the Ming army.And such an important stronghold, there are only 7000 Shimadzu troops led by Shimadzu Yoshihiro and Shimadzu Tadahiro-there are only 3000 real Shimadzu troops, and the remaining 4000 were sent to him by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

And Yoshihiro vetoed the plan to ask for help from Zongyi Zhijun and Tachibana Zongshige's army. Therefore, in this battle, Shimadzu Yoshihiro faced the incoming coalition forces under the condition of absolute inferiority.

Yoshihiro Shimadzu, who was aware of the movement of the coalition forces, quickly ordered his troops to gather at Dongnae New City (Wasong) where he was located. surrounded.

At this time, the situation was critical. Although Chuan Shangzhong, the general who was stationed in the ancient city of Donglai, had nearly 27 shi of soldiers and food reserves, his troops were only a few hundred. On the [-]th, the Ming army began to storm the ancient city of Donglai. After a brief defense, Kawakami found that the combat effectiveness of this Ming army seemed...not good enough, so he took the initiative to lead the army out of the city to carry out a counterattack against the Ming army, and successfully attacked the Ming army. Killed hundreds.

What he didn't know was that the so-called Ming army he just killed was actually the Korean army, and after discovering that the Japanese army dared to fight back, Dong Yiyuan ordered Nurhachi to fight back against the Japanese army out of revenge for what Nurhachi had done before (see above). ,
This retaliation was not very successful, because Nurhachi, who fought back against the Japanese army, played quite well, and soon caused heavy casualties to the Japanese army.However, although the Jurchens fought bravely at the beginning, there was no good way to deal with the iron artillery formation that the Japanese army quickly formed.Since the Jurchens are very sensitive to casualties, they withdrew immediately after the Japanese army set up an iron artillery formation and suffered a little loss.

At this time, the Japanese army was in a very dangerous situation. Facing the coalition forces with an absolute superiority in numbers, Kawakami Tadashi had to choose to abandon Dongnai Ancient City and break out in the direction of Dongnai New City.In the end, Kawakami Tadada's troops succeeded in breaking through, but Kawakami Tadashi himself was seriously injured by 36 Jurchen arrows, and more than 150 people from his troops died in battle—only more than 40 people from the Jurchen side died.

When the ancient city of Dongnae was in danger, Tadahiro Shimadzu in Dongnae New City proposed to Shimadzu Yoshihiro to send reinforcements, but was rejected by Yoshihiro Shimadzu on the grounds that the Shimadzu Army’s strength was insufficient, so as to continue to strengthen Dongnae New City defense.

And there is another point worth mentioning. Before breaking out of the siege, Tadashi Kawakami ordered Setoguchi Shigeharu to burn the food and grass in the city, and he succeeded.

Due to the problem of the wind direction in the south facing winter, the grain and grass from southern Xinjiang is not very abundant recently. The coalition army of the Ming and the Dynasties originally had a relatively tight supply of grain and grass. Now the Japanese army burned the grain and grass themselves. As a result, the supplies of the coalition forces of the Ming Dynasty were always somewhat stretched, so they had to choose a short-term decisive battle.

Therefore, after the Ming army entered the ancient city of Donglai, they decided to launch a general attack on the new city of Donglai on the first day of October.

Yoshihiro Shimadzu built a solid Japanese city in Donglai New Town, with complete fortifications and ambush troops.In response to the attack of the coalition forces, Yoshihiro used a large number of iron cannons and adopted methods such as burying explosives. The shells of the cannons were also replaced from solid bullets to iron sheets, iron nails and the like to strive for lethality against people.

The coalition forces, including Nurhachi and other Jurchen coalition forces, attacked Dashoumen in Donglai New City. The Shaanxi army Hao Sanpin, Shi Daoli, Ma Chengwen, and Lan Fangwei were on the left and right, and Dong Yiyuan led the Chinese army directly behind the main attacking force.At this time, there was an episode: when the coalition forces launched a fierce attack, a white fox and a red fox ran from the city to the Ming and Chao coalition forces respectively.

The Ming army didn't think much about it, and didn't take it seriously, but the Shimadzu army was overjoyed when they saw this scene. They thought it was Inari Daimyojin who told them the news of victory, so their morale was boosted.
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PS: Originally, this chapter was almost finished in the first half of the night, but... I fell asleep and didn't wake up until six o'clock.Then I finished coding the last point and quickly posted it. This chapter is still from yesterday.

(End of this chapter)