Brother Zhu Youxiao

Chapter 370

"Sakura"

"Sakura"

"Under the clear sky in March in Yangchun"

"Endless cherry blossoms"

"Flowers are like clouds and seas like rosy clouds"

"The aroma is so picturesque..."

When Daming in April was still busy with the return of Siam and Xu Xiake, Yingzhou on the other side of the ocean was full of laughter.

On the mountain road leading from Nara to Nagoya, a short man named Yingzhou was carrying a hundred catties of rice and wheat while carrying a rice ball, singing folk songs happily.

Ming soldiers watched them from both sides of the road and guarded them as they marched towards Nagoya.

Such a team is very long, and everything they do is to meet the food supply problem of the front-line troops.

Unlike what Yan Siqi and the others thought at the beginning, the peasants and peasants in Yingzhou had no idea of ​​welcoming back the shogunate rule at all.

The reason why such an idea does not exist is because of the meal of "silver relics" of white rice and the free farming and labor right now.

In the past wars, if the civilian husbands did some unruly behaviors, they would be whipped by the samurai adults.

However, here in the Ming army, the Ming army doesn't care what they do, let alone singing, even if they dance, no one cares about them. The Ming army only needs them to transport food to the front line on time.

As a former low-level person, Yingzhou farmers can be said to turn over and sing.

In such a scene, even Yang Wenyue, who was riding on a horse, couldn't help shaking his head and said:

"The people are not patriotic, which is enough to show that the shogunate rule is unpopular."

"Even so, I don't see them daring to rebel. It is clear that His Highness's evaluation of the natives of Yingzhou is correct. They really "fear power and not virtue."

Wu Aheng, who was riding side by side, agreed, and behind them were Cao Bianjiao and Cao Dingjiao.

They looked around vigilantly, and Wu Aheng also explained to them when he saw this:

"Don't be so nervous, the Butang on the outskirts is dense enough. If there are really Japanese pirates attacking and killing here, it can only be said to be a miracle."

"Yes..." Cao Bianjiao and Cao Dingjiao could only bow to show their acceptance.

"The Japanese pirates have a strength of about 12, but most of them are new recruits who have been trained for less than half a year. Thinking about it, our army of [-] is enough to sweep the north and the south."

Yang Wenyue didn't take the Tokugawa shogunate seriously, just because before coming to Yingzhou, he had a general understanding of some of the fighting methods of the two sides tomorrow.

After reading it, he only felt that Yan Siqi and Zheng Zhilong had wasted a lot of time.

If he had been transferred from the beginning, it is estimated that the entire territory of Yingzhou has been taken by Ming now, and even Yang Wenyue has been able to mobilize the resources of Yingzhou to feed back the land of Ming.

There is also Wu Aheng who thinks the same as him, but compared to Yang Wenyue, Wu Aheng thinks very simply:
"His Highness said in his handwriting that enough people must be involved."

"A quick battle is definitely not what His Highness wants."

"If enough people are involved, it doesn't have to be done slowly." Yang Wenyue stroked his beard and said:
"These 12 Japanese pirates are enough to implicate millions of people."

"At present, our army has [-] soldiers and horses and more than [-] artillery pieces. After conquering the entire territory of Yingzhou, we should withdraw the army to Liaodong, and then mobilize resources to feed back to the imperial court."

"As you know about the severe drought in the country, His Highness is extremely busy with money and food matters. If we can't share His Highness's worries at this time, wouldn't it be a waste of His Highness's entrustment."

"That's true..." Wu Aheng nodded slightly.

During the conversation between the two, the men and horses going north gradually crossed the mountains and arrived at the Nongwei Plain.

The Noo Plain is located in the south-central part of Honshu. Together with the Kanto Plain and the Kinki Plain, it is listed as one of Japan's three most elite plains. There are rivers such as the Kiso River, the Nagara River, and the Ibi River flowing through the Noo Plain.

From the perspective of the battlefield, the terrain here is high in the east and low in the west, and it is condescending. In addition, Tokugawa Iemitsu and others led people to take advantage of the winter to strengthen the defense and city defense of this place, and transport all the artillery from Edo and other places to this place. Therefore, it is not easy to lay down this place.

In order to avoid conflicts in command, Yan Siqi specially transferred Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang and others to the capital, leaving Osaka to Jin Xuan and the battlefield to Wu Aheng and Yang Wenyue.

In this way, the few of them are just names, and they can still make achievements after the war, and they can also leave a good impression on Yang Wenyue and others, killing two birds with one stone.

It can be said that Yan Siqi did a good job, because after Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng arrived at the Nongwei Plain, the first thing they did was to modify the camp left by Zheng Zhilong and others.

In the eyes of these two veteran generals of the country, the camp that Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xiang set up did not even reach the level of the She'an rebels back then.

Therefore, their first step is to rebuild the camp, and the second step is to inspect the armaments of each army.

Five days after such days passed, the Ming army removed the sixth battalion of soldiers and horses that attacked Gifu and other mountainous areas, and the sixth battalion of soldiers and horses that stayed behind in Osaka, and the remaining ten battalions of more than 3 soldiers and horses had assembled and arrived on the Nobi Plain.

The mobilization of soldiers and horses of the Ming army brought considerable pressure to Tokugawa Iemitsu.

In addition to leaving tens of thousands of soldiers and horses in Gifu and other places, the remaining [-] soldiers and horses were gathered in Nagoya.

From the perspective of military strength alone, the shogunate is twice as large as the Ming army, but judging from the weapons equipped, the Ming army is a blow to the shogunate.

Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng did not attack immediately, not because they were afraid of Tokugawa Iemitsu, but because they wanted to attract all the Japanese troops to Nagoya.

Things did not go beyond their expectations. Facing the heavily assembled Ming army, Tokugawa Iemitsu, who realized that the strength gap between the two sides was too large, continued to recruit civilian husbands.

A steady stream of civilian husbands were sent to Nagoya only after being issued with a bamboo gun and some bamboo armor. When the time came to the third day of May, nearly 20 Japanese troops had gathered near Nagoya.

"almost……"

Putting down his binocular clairvoyance, Yang Wenyue waved his hands behind him, and Cao Bianjiao, who was standing on the school platform, immediately ordered:

"The artillery battalion is ready to move forward!"

"Beep--"

The wooden whistle sounded, and the flags fluttered. Under the sound of the wooden whistle, more than [-] five-pound guns were pushed onto the battlefield.

"Beep!"

"Enemy attack! Be alert!"

Cries continued to ring out, no matter whether it was the top of the city or the defensive camps outside the city, in short, all the Japanese troops exploded like frightened birds.

The fortifications of the Japanese army on the outskirts of Nagoya were mainly composed of ditches, horn walls, horse refusals, trenches, and deer walls imitating the Ming army.

Not only that, they also built many planks with sloped soil to resist the impact of stone bullets.

Such a defensive camp is indeed very good, but the only thing they underestimated is the number of artillery of the Ming army.

"Bagaya..."

Iemitsu Tokugawa couldn't help cursing when he saw thousands of artillery pieces of the Ming army being slowly pushed onto the battlefield with a binoculars.

In half a year, the Japanese army only produced 63 artillery pieces, while the Ming army produced [-] artillery pieces in one breath.

While Tokugawa Iemitsu cursed secretly for such a gap, he couldn't help but feel a little hard to measure the outcome of this battle.

After half an hour of suffering, when the Ming army advanced the artillery to a distance of two miles from Nagoya City, all the artillery stopped, and the gunners began to dig the artillery positions.

Around them, [-] cavalry troops cruised to protect the artillery positions, so that all the generals of the Japanese army could only watch helplessly.

They have already experienced the combat effectiveness of the cavalry of the Ming army in many battles.

Adding the [-] Ming cavalry on the Nobi Plain, even the [-] Japanese troops may not be able to defeat them, and they will die if they leave the camp.

"Fixed-shot reloading, direction Yinshi three quarters, height 35 degrees, test-fire one round, release!"

"Boom bang bang-"

With the completion of the formation of the position, the artillery of the Ming army outside the Nagoya city roared again, and thousands of stone bullets were shot out, smashing hard into the Nagoya city and the camp, creating a huge massacre in the Japanese army formation. slice of death.

Although there was a heavy rain yesterday, fortunately, the Ming army did a good job in preserving gunpowder. They wrapped all the gunpowder with grease cloth earlier, so there was no resurgence of moisture, and it can still be used normally.

In addition, the Yanshan five-jin artillery of the Ming army had a long range, and the artillery of the Japanese army could not deal with the opponent at all, so they could only be beaten passively.

After an hour of shelling, not to mention how many places the parapet wall at the top of the city was destroyed, more than ten gaps in the barracks outside the city alone were shot out.

If there were not some gaps filled in time, Yang Wenyue was ready to command [-] cavalry to charge through.

"Fixed loading, the direction remains the same, the height is [-] degrees, test firing for one round, let it go!"

After a cup of tea time passed, the Ming army launched a second round of test firing.

Accompanied by the sound of "rumbling" artillery, the adjusted height finally reached the height Yang Wenyue wanted.

Thousands of stone bullets all smashed into the barracks outside the west city of Nagoya, knocking the Japanese soldiers in the barracks upside down and splashing sand and soil.

"The direction and altitude remain the same, call me for five hours first!"

Putting down his binocular clairvoyance, Yang Wenyue explained to Cao Bianjiao, and Cao Bianjiao immediately issued a military order.

Under his instructions, the artillery of the Ming army began to bombard the Japanese barracks in an orderly manner at the rate of twelve rounds per hour.

The Ming army shelled the Japanese barracks in the front, while the Japanese farmers in the rear were talking and laughing to mine stone bombs for the Ming army.

Their speed is not fast, and it takes three or four hours for one person to make a stone bomb, but they can't hold back their numbers.

The 12 Japanese farmers were talking and laughing, digging and polishing stone bombs, and the soldiers left behind by the Ming army would not criticize them and urge them.

Whoever gets hungry in the middle of the journey will go to Huotouying to eat by himself, and the food and drink are the same as those of the Ming army.

Some resting civilians even went to the front line to watch the battle, holding white rice balls of "silver relics" that they could not eat before, and joked while eating:

"These idiots fought for the shogunate and they didn't have any money. Why did they work so hard? They might as well just surrender and eat the "silver relics" that only samurai can eat."

"You call them stupid. If they are smart, they should surrender like us."

"Ha ha ha ha……"

The Japanese farmers joked and laughed at the compatriots on the opposite side, or they didn't know what compatriots were at all.

After all, in Japan under the rule of the shogunate, farmers were nothing more than consumables. They were praised when they were needed, but when it came time to share benefits, they would be kicked away.

Compared with the shogunate who only knew how to exploit and exploit, the peasants in the south felt that Ming was the one who came to liberate them.

In other words, it is not "feeling", but "certain".

After all, besides Daming, who would give them "silver relics" to these lowly mud legs?

"put!"

"Bang bang bang-"

The artillery positions of the Ming army were still roaring. Compared with them who were able to shoot comfortably, the Japanese army who was beaten unilaterally seemed very uncomfortable.

The armed Japanese soldiers in the camp were beaten and hid in embarrassment. Many people were either killed by stone bullets, or cut their arms and stabbed their bodies by sawdust shattered by stone bullets. For a while, the camp was full of dead and injured.

After three hours of bombardment, nearly [-] stone bombs washed the ground, Tokugawa Iemitsu's face was ashen, because more than half of the armed civilians in the camp were killed or injured.

Although to him, the armed civilians are just consumables, but even if they are consumables, it is impossible for them to die without even a little value.

"Let them withdraw to the city first!"

"Hi!"

Tokugawa Iemitsu issued an order to Date Masamune who was next to him, and the other party quickly ordered the recall of the Japanese troops in the Xicheng camp.

Their actions were clearly seen by Yang Wenyue, and Wu Aheng even said:

"It seems that there are too many casualties, and the Japanese pirates can't hold on anymore."

"Then take advantage of the victory to pursue and destroy the elite of their city leaders." Yang Wenyue said, and turned to Cao Bianjiao and said:
"Move the artillery forward three hundred steps, at a height of 35, and hit his city head!"

"Yes!" Cao Bianjiao responded with a bow, and ordered someone to pass the order.

The artillery position received the order fifteen minutes later, and then it took half an hour to move forward to build the position, and then continued to bombard the Japanese Nagoya Castle.

The rumbling cannons showed no signs of stopping, and all the Japanese soldiers crouched tremblingly behind the parapet.

Even if some daring people stand up, most of the time they will be faced with galloping stone bullets, which will mash the whole person and splatter blood.

The shock of watching his comrades being beaten into pieces with his own eyes made many armed civilians and ashigaru flee to the top of the city in horror, and Tokugawa Iemitsu was powerless to stop this situation.

At the same time, he also knew that even if this group of people escaped, they still had to return to the city after they regained their calm and faced the threat of swords and guns from the war supervisor team.

"My lord, there is no sign that the artillery of the Ming army has stopped at all."

"Asshole... Are their gunpowder inexhaustible?!"

Date Masamune and Tokugawa Iemitsu at the top of the city were annoyed by the artillery fire of the Ming army. They also wanted to fight back, but they had no ability to fight back, so they could only be beaten passively.

The sixty or so artillery pieces in the city had a range of only one and a half miles, which was not enough to threaten the artillery positions of the Ming army.

Not only that, with such a small number of artillery, I am afraid that they will be attacked by the artillery of the Ming army as soon as they expose their positions.

In this way, the Japanese army really has no heavy firepower.

"put!"

"put!"

"put……"

A whole day passed, and the two artillery battalion generals who commanded more than 6000 gunners went from excitement at the beginning, to numbness later, and finally dullness at the end. No one knows how many stone bombs they ordered to shoot in a day.

Perhaps except for the Japanese army facing the stone bombs of the Ming army, no one else can imagine what a terrifying picture it was.

"The army returned to the camp to rest overnight, and will continue the bombardment tomorrow at [-] o'clock."

Yang Wenyue looked at the city of Nagoya, which had many gaps in it, and decisively gave the order for the whole army to rest and reorganize.

Even though he knew that if heavy troops pressed up right now, Nagoya Castle might be captured, and the price of resting overnight was that these gaps would be repaired, but he still gave the order as usual.

His actions naturally aroused the confusion of Cao Bianjiao, Cao Dingjiao and others, so Cao Bianjiao did not respond directly, but asked in doubt:

"Jinglue, why don't you take advantage of the victory and pursue it?"

"Yes, Jinglue, if you rest overnight, wouldn't you give the pirates time to repair the city wall?"

The doubts of the two were also the doubts of many generals in the Ming army, but Yang Wenyue and Wu Aheng frowned on their doubts.

Only then did they discover that, in just a few years, although the basic quality of the generals of the Ming army had improved, the level of war planning had dropped a lot.

In this regard, Wu Aheng could only stand up and explain:

"If you attack fiercely on the first day, the morale, supplies, money and food of the enemy army will be enough to support the army to fight bravely again."

"Even if it is not enough to resist our army and be driven out of Nagoya Castle by our army, the casualties of our army will not be reduced."

"First use artillery to grind away their morale, use time to consume their supplies, money and food, and then launch a general offensive at the end, in order to defeat the enemy with the smallest casualties, and even encircle and annihilate them."

"You guys still need to learn a lot about fighting..."

"This... I will finally understand." Cao Bianjiao and others could only reluctantly bow to the words, but Yang Wenyue saw that they actually did not agree with this statement.

So after Cao Bianjiao and the others left, Yang Wenyue said to Wu Aheng:

"Those trained in the Yanshan Military Academy are only suitable for general banners, and officers like small banner officers are not suitable for generals."

"Leading more than [-] troops naturally requires talent, so there is no rush." ​​Wu Aheng was not as pessimistic as Yang Wenyue, but interceded for Cao Bianjiao and the others.

But facing his intercession, Yang Wenyue shook his head, obviously not agreeing with this statement.

In his opinion, the new generation of generals of the Ming army now have a feeling of nouveau riche, but this feeling is not used on the right path, but used on the point of not caring about the lives of soldiers.

Perhaps only Yang Wenyue and his group of people who have survived the She'an Rebellion and the Battle of Restoring Liao Dynasty can know how precious the life of a veteran who has fought many battles is.

Yang Wenyue would rather exchange hundreds of thousands of catties of gunpowder and hundreds of thousands of stone bullets for victory than exchange the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers.

Tomorrow’s barracks had different conditions that night. The Ming army laughed, ate meat, and sang songs. Even if the 12 Japanese civilian husbands were allocated a thousand sheep, everyone’s face was full of oil, and they wanted to put the pot Lick the bottom clean.

In contrast, in the Japanese city of Nagoya, many ashigaru got nothing more than a pound of corn and rice balls, plus some wild vegetables.

The cries of pain from the wounded echoed continuously in the city, forming a stark contrast with the camp of the Ming army.

But even so, this is a moment when the Japanese army can barely rest.

However, this moment did not last long, because Tokugawa Iemitsu and other shoguns actually did not think that they could defeat the Ming army, let alone how to retreat completely.

It's not that they didn't send someone to send letters of surrender to Yan Siqi, Yang Wenyue and others. In order to have a way out, Tokugawa Iemitsu was even willing to retire and become a small feudal lord of Owari.

This was already a very humiliating choice for him and the Tokugawa family, but even so, Yang Wenyue rejected their idea.

The reason is very simple. If Ming wanted to completely stabilize Japan, the first thing he had to do was to stabilize the local environment.

Be it politics, military, or economics.

These three are all related to the feudal lords, because they occupy nearly [-]% of the land in Japan, control most of the shops, and have armed forces that can threaten the Ming army's rule.

Therefore, no matter from which point of view, it is impossible for Yang Wenyue to accept their surrender.

What he wants is to completely annihilate the Japanese army, wipe out all the daimyo, and then distribute the land to Japanese farmers, and then relocate a large number of people to enrich Japan, use the Japanese population to open up routes to North America, and build supplies town.

These are what Zhu Youjian asked him to do. Compared with these, the concentrated annihilation of the Japanese army and the impact on the population are not worth mentioning.

Zhu Youjian still underestimated the means of Yang Wenyue, a scholar-bureaucrat in the Ming Dynasty, especially in the area of ​​catching up with seedlings and expanding their careers.

In Yang Wenyue's view, they don't need to affect so many people at all, they can completely rely on developing land to win the hearts of the people, and then restrict the flow of local population, and only provide them with one direction of employment, that is, the North America route.

As long as migrant workers are restricted, millions of farmers will start to worry about their own food, and this issue will erupt into conflicts with the migration of Han people.

At this time, Ming Dynasty only needs to issue another article. In order to sympathize with the people of Yingzhou, restrict the participation of Han people in the development of North Asia Merica, and only provide Yingzhou people to go to work. It only needs to spend more than 300 million taels of silver to hire millions of people. The people of Yingzhou are willing to open up North Asia Merica for Ming Dynasty.

Maybe this is a bit of a loss in the economic account, but don't forget that all the commodities consumed by these millions of people can only be obtained from Daming.

So in fact, the money went around and went into the treasury, and they would not riot like the captured prisoners, because they chose to go to North America to work by themselves.

In this regard, the cost of maintaining the rule of North America for Ming Dynasty has dropped by more than several times.

It can be said that under Yang Wenyue's idea, there is no need to dispatch anyone from the mainland of the Ming Dynasty. Only more than [-] million Yingzhou people are enough to develop parts of North Asia's Merica to areas such as the Ming Dynasty in more than ten years. The level of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces.

This is the art of controlling the people. Not only will the people of Yingzhou not feel pain, but they will thank the court for giving them the opportunity to go out to work and earn money.

"call……"

After drying the ink, Yang Wenyue put the handwritten letter in the envelope, then got up and walked out of the camp, and handed the handwritten letter to the attendant at the door, asking the other party to send someone to send the letter back to the capital quickly.

After hearing the words, the relatives responded immediately, then turned and left.

I'm afraid even Yang Wenyue never imagined that it was his letter tonight that would completely establish the situation for the people of Yingzhou Province to become the most outstanding migrant workers in Ming Dynasty.

　It was in Fuyang the night before yesterday, and then the fever reached 38° at noon yesterday, and I gritted my teeth at 39:[-] pm to write another chapter. I thought I could write another chapter, but the fever reached [-]° last night, and as we all know, the second update did not wrote.

　　This morning I wanted to get up and write, but I got up and took a body temperature, 40.7°
　　Then I lay down for another half a day, and the body temperature dropped to 38.6° at [-] o'clock in the afternoon before I started to grit my teeth and update it.

　　I still don’t know why I recovered from the sun, and the sun is more serious than the first time...

　　Tomorrow's update, in my personal opinion, is estimated to be an update, and the update time will be after [-] pm...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)