Cutting 1719

Chapter 424 Taking Tsurumaru Castle

"Boom—"

The continuous roar came from the surface of the sea, and Shimadzu Katsutoyo, who was watching the battle, was heartbroken. Even if he didn't know how to fight in water, he still understood what kind of predicament the Satsuma Navy was facing. However, the style of fighting, even burning jade and stone together, becomes especially difficult under the command of the opposing general.

It's like a samurai with limbs and limbs, looking for the only chance to slit the opponent's throat with the blade in his mouth!
Difficult, too difficult!

"Boom-long-"

There were two more loud explosions. It turned out that the ship loaded with gunpowder in the Satsuma Navy was unfortunately hit, so that the gunpowder on board was ignited, causing a second explosion. Send the ship to the bottom of the sea.

Shimadzu Jifeng was extremely gloomy. He no longer had any illusions about the achievements of the navy, and he only had to fight on land. He whispered: "Order all the troops and prepare to meet the enemy!"

"Yes!"

Sergeant General Tao Zhengfang had a solemn expression on his face, and then sent someone to pass on the order. For a while, the atmosphere in the Satsuma army became unprecedentedly dignified, and everyone knew that a big battle was coming.

The current 8 Satsuma soldiers plus thousands of civilian husbands are the soldiers that the Shimadzu family can gather, but they are not all of their strength. The total number of troops invested can reach about [-], and it is also the largest force mobilized since leading the Three Kingdoms of Southern Kyushu.

However, the problem is that the large-scale mobilization order is particularly harmful to the neighboring countries. If the large-scale mobilization order is issued right now, it means that there will be no end to death-but neither Shimadzu Tsuitoyo nor Xue Qingkanghisa has such an idea. Negotiate.

What's more, Shimadzu Jifeng is still very confident in his 80 vassal soldiers, because among his current 100 vassal soldiers, iron cannon ashigaru occupies half, and there are more than [-] people, which is also a loss Shimadzu's arquebus guns, obtained from trade with Westerners over the years, are very sophisticated, with an effective range of about [-] meters to [-] meters, which is much stronger than the bird guns used by the Qing army.

In addition, among the remaining 4000 people, there are 800 horse-riding warriors who use hand-to-hand weapons such as spears to charge the opponent in a relatively dense formation. However, because Japanese horses are too short and slow, so The impact force is not strong, so they will also dismount and fight on foot, somewhat similar to the existence of dragoons.

As for the others, they were all Ashgaru who used spears. The length of the spears was more than four meters. They formed a four-row formation and stood at the forefront, each with a bit of panic in their eyes.

To put it simply, as one of the most powerful troops in Japan, the soldiers of the Satsuma domain are naturally much stronger than the Qing army. They have certain strengths in terms of equipment, morale, and the quality of soldiers.

Therefore, neither Shimadzu Jifeng nor Xueqing Kuranghisa would think that the Satsuma clan would not be able to win for a while. They were more worried about falling into a long-term tug-of-war with Ning Chu. None of them will be Ning Chu's opponent.

Even the reason why the Tokugawa shogunate chose to be neutral and acquiesce is to take this opportunity to see how powerful the Ningchu army is, so as to have an accurate understanding of the strength of the East Asian continent today. After all, these Japanese are spying on East Asia all the time. The fertile soil, hoping to take the opportunity to discuss some cheap.

Just when Jifeng Shimadzu was thinking about the decisive battle on land, the Satsuma navy on the sea had gradually approached the Ningchu naval fleet, and the distance between the two sides was less than two miles, but at this time the Satsumo navy only had small boats left More than [-] ships, and the rest were sunk to the bottom of the sea.

But in the eyes of Shuiyan Muzhi at this time, the key to victory was reached, so he ordered the left and right to let the rest of the warships find their own targets to attack.

"The rise and fall of the Shimadzu clan will be fought here!"

Since the original flagship was sunk, Makiyuki Mizuiwa has been transferred to another warship, and his arm is already soaked in blood - a piece of wood hit his arm when the previous flagship was sunk .

At this time on the sea, Ningchu's various warships had already lined up in a horizontal line, and the gun positions on the ship were also pouring firepower. Projectiles exploded near the Satsuma navy warships. At the same time, some The people took out the secret weapon to win from the inside of the cabin, that is, the newly developed innovative two-year-made ship-borne rocket.

The innovative two-year-made ship-borne rockets are specially used in naval battles. The charge is a full [-] catties. The power of each rocket is amazing. As long as it hits a ship, even those warships with a displacement of more than a thousand tons , Under a few rockets, he will also drink his hatred.It's just that its accuracy is relatively poor, so it can only be used within two miles to maximize the effect.

Speaking of using these rockets to hit the Satsuma warship, it is really a bit wasteful, but Qiu Ze really likes this weapon, so after getting closer, he first thought of rockets to attack.

"call out--"

As the rockets were ignited, a white smoke spewed out from their tails, and then flew out, drawing a beautiful arc in the sky. Although some of them fell into the sea, the rest also fell into the air. After landing on the Satsuma warship, a series of huge explosions followed, bringing them to the bottom of the sea.

Shui Yanmuzhi was really shocked to see Ningchu Marine Division pull out such a weapon. He quickly thought of it from the military book from the Celestial Dynasty, could it be that this is the legendary Shenhuo crow?But why is it so powerful?
But before Shuiyan Muzhi could think of more things, the second round of rockets also covered him, and this time the ship he was on couldn't escape. In this way, the warship sank to the bottom of the sea together with the warship, and the other warships were also sunk, and the Satsuma navy declared that the entire army was wiped out.

After completely disposing of these dozens of small boats, Qiu Ze licked his lips, looking a little bit unsatisfied, but he was a little embarrassed when he saw Deng Ziyi who was stunned at the side, and said: "The navy is no better than the army brothers. After killing the navy of Manqing, I have never met a decent opponent, so I am a little excited."

"Hehe, where is it?"

Deng Ziyi was naturally polite, and then smiled: "After watching the performance of the Navy Brothers, we will be our Army Brothers later, but we still need Lao Navy Brothers to watch over the sea and provide artillery support."

This time, although the Sixth Division brought the artillery battalion belonging to the division, plus the artillery of the two regiments, there were at least forty artillery pieces, but it was nothing compared to the navy. Each ship had dozens of artillery pieces of different sizes. No. [-] artillery, used for fire cover, its power is naturally overwhelming.

However, with the end of the naval battle, the sky was getting dark, which was not conducive to landing operations, so Qiu Ze chose to park the ship on the nearby sea, waiting for the sunrise tomorrow.The Satsuma army also stepped up to repair their positions and sent soldiers to patrol the shore to prevent the Ningchu navy from attacking at night.

On the next day, when it was just dawn, Qiu Ze ordered the whole army to approach the shore of Kagoshima, but halfway through the journey, there was only a puff of smoke rising from the shore, but it was the people on the shore. Fan soldiers have discovered the movement of Ning Chu's navy and issued an alarm.

"Hmph, it's extremely alert, but it's a pity that it's of no use."

Qiu Ze sneered, and randomly ordered the whole army to get ready to carry out the landing with all their strength.

After the Ningchu navy approached the shore, Qiu Ze took the lead in firing all the artillery, and the dozens of warships loaded with artillery fired at the shore and other suspected positions.

"Boom—"

More than 200 cannons fired a volley, and the firepower was overwhelming for a while, which made Shimadzu Jifeng on the shore a little dumb, but before he could sigh, he quickly realized a mistake-due to the attack on the Ningchu artillery. The estimate was wrong, so that the distance of the shore fire artillery he had arranged was too close, and they were all within the range of Ning Chu's shelling!

Sure enough, after this round of naval bombardment, almost half of Satsuma's shore artillery was destroyed, and only a small half of the artillery was not hit. As for the dead and injured Satsuma soldiers, there were as many as hundreds of people
"Quick! Let the artillery withdraw first!"

Shimadzu Jifeng was so regretful that his intestines were green, and he quickly issued orders to the surrounding generals, but at this time everyone knew that they were going to withdraw, but it was already too late.

Those surviving artillery were not able to withdraw immediately, not because their movements were too slow, but because of the heavy artillery, and Ningchu's second round of artillery fire was so fast that the remaining artillery was also destroyed. It was completely destroyed, and even hundreds of people were killed
"Patriarch, the shore defense can no longer be defended, we should withdraw to Tsurumaru Castle, and issue a mobilization order to the whole vassal state for backup!"

Xue Qing frowned for a long time. He already felt that something was wrong. Perhaps the original plan was to underestimate Ning Chu too much. The only way now is to fight with all his strength.

"No, the shore defense cannot be defended. That's because it is within the range of the Chu army's warships. Our army only needs to retreat ten miles to avoid the range of the warships' artillery fire. If the Chu army dares to go ashore and fight on land, our army will never Will lose again!"

Shimadzu Jifeng shook his head slowly. If he chooses to retreat to the city and stick to it if he just loses in the water battle, his prestige will be greatly reduced. Let alone the war, the daimyo's position may be affected.

In the single-minded thinking of the Japanese, it would be a great shame if they were defeated without a fight, and they needed to apologize to Amaterasu, and the way of apology was to commit seppuku.

"Order the whole army to retreat ten miles! Fight to the death with the Chu army!"

Xueqing Cangjiu naturally understood this truth, so she didn't say anything to refute, she just nodded and said softly: "Everything is according to the master's plan."

"Boring boring --"

After a burst of gongs representing the withdrawal of troops sounded, the soldiers of the Satsuma armies also began to retreat slowly. They gave way, lined up in neat rows and headed towards the rear. Everything was very orderly, and it seemed Extremely methodical, this is where Shimadzu Tsuitoyo's greatest confidence lies.

When the Satsuma army was retreating, the Ningchu naval ships also approached the shore, and began to release small boats to land on the shore. The two regiments of the Sixth Division landed in order, but the landing was extremely long and took nearly two hours. , By the time everyone successfully assembled on the coast, it was already noon.

Deng Zi was also wearing a clean and tidy military uniform, with white gloves on his hands, holding a long eight-faced Han sword, which is a gift sword issued by the generals of the army today, not equipment for combat , with an exquisite and small innovative two-year-made revolver pinned to his waist, he looked very mighty.

"I have told you all other things before the battle. Although the scale of this battle is not large, it is also a battle that His Majesty is concerned about. If you want to make meritorious deeds, take Tsurumaru Castle before dark! "

As the loudspeaker transmitted Deng Ziyi's voice, a flame rose in everyone's hearts. In this day and age, who doesn't want to make military exploits and enjoy wealth?
Although many of them can no longer catch up with the merits of the founding battle, the current pioneering battle in a foreign country is also rich in rewards, and naturally everyone is extremely enthusiastic.

"Take Tsurumaru Castle! March!"

The distance of ten miles is not far away, at least when the Fuhan army was cheering, it was enough to reach the ears of the Satsuma clan. Although the soldiers below did not understand Chinese, the Shimadzu family The high-level officials are very familiar with Sinology, and even Shimadzu Katsutoyo himself can compose poems. Although it is only at the level of the later Qianlong, it is not bad in Japan.

When all the high-level members of the Shimadzu family heard the phrase 'Taking Tsurumaru Castle', their faces were all gloomy, and the servant Tao Zhengfang was even more furious.

"Baga! Who do they think they are! On my Satsuma land, they dare to be so arrogant. My lord, I am willing to lead the army to meet the enemy!"

"Hmph, Yifang-kun, don't worry, wait for them to get closer, lest they run off to the beach before fighting!"

The Ashgaru General Yamashita Yinsai shouted in a low voice, although he has the same official position as the Attendant General, but his qualifications are older, and he has been an Ashgaruto figure since the previous feudal lord, so he is not polite to Tao Zhengfang.

"Humph"

A flash of anger flashed across Tao Zhengfang's face, but he was unwilling to argue in front of the Patriarch, so he stood aside, sulking alone.

"Okay, the left and right can't wait for a while, since they dare to set foot on the shore today, they must be prepared to stay!"

Shimadzu Jifeng said coldly, "Although the vassal government has little money, it is enough to reward everyone's achievements! If you can kill the local general, the high-ranking officials will naturally have a lot of money!" Having said this, Shimadzu Jifeng bent down, He saluted very solemnly.

"Please do your best!"

About half an hour later, 4000 people from the Fuhan Army and more than [-] artillery pieces arrived in front of the Satsuma Fan army. Although there was still a distance of four miles between the two sides, the atmosphere was extremely dignified, and the battle was almost imminent.

Whether it is Deng Ziyi or Shimadzu Jifeng, they are already full of confidence, waiting for the other party's downfall.

(End of this chapter)