Ming Zhengzhi, I am Zheng Kezang

In mid-June of the 45th year of the Yongli calendar, under the pressure of the Ryohama Group, Matsumae Fan sent a crusade team to the Western Ezo tribe, with Shin Ida Supervisor as the captain, Matsujing Zuomashou as the team leader, and Matsumae Heita as the supervisor. There are also famous samurai in the feudal clan, such as Yuzuma Zuo Oysaki Igo, Navy Commander Matsumae Kita, Guard Akiyama Kakutaro, Guard Takahashi Tsushima, Gunfire Team Worker Kiyoza, etc.

The entire crusade team includes 260 members including apprentices and doctors. In addition, there are military servicemen, pyrotechnics, emergency services, translators, armor craftsmen, archers, gunpowder craftsmen, craftsmen, captains, boats, and flags. There were 72 handymen, drummers, fireworks teams, cooks, grooms and other handymen. The Lianghama Group also provided an additional 51 ronin forces and 47 armed handymen. Twenty heavy rattan bows and Marugi bows, 430 spear handles, 270 katanas, seventeen collars, twenty horses, and two Guan boats.

Of course, in addition to the above-mentioned Japanese, the Matsumae Domain also summoned fighters from the Ainu tribes of the Eastern Ezo, Kunihou, and the islands, and managed to gather 150 people.These Ainu warriors are equipped with simple hunting knives and hunting bows. Although their combat power is better than nothing, they are very powerful together.

In the face of such a "powerful" opponent, the Western Eizai Ainu tribes, which can be called large tribes with twenty or thirty middle-aged men, are basically powerless to fight against. A considerable number of tribes are forced to abandon the areas where they have lived for generations. Northern Ezo migrated, and of course some tribes took shelter under Zheng Jun's sect.

"The actions of the Matsumae clan are obviously aimed at the clan." Although Ma Yuan is not good at military strategy, his experience in the boy camp made it easy for him to understand what the Japanese were planning. "Now that the first gunboat in the dock is being built, the supply of timber cannot be stopped at this time."

"However, the cruise gunships of the Northern Fleet have just left, and it will take another month for the next batch to arrive. In addition, the first and fourth sentries followed Cao Tongzhi to go north to Kuwu, and the second sentry and the black sentries joined the army with Ma. I have gone to Wokuowei, and the newly-built fifth and sixth posts and Deputy Commander Xie are still in Seogwipo for training. It is not easy to defend Ishikari River Fort and the shipyard with the current third post and artillery post Now, let’s go to a field battle with Matsumae?” Liu Wenlai, the supervisor of the first regiment of the Hailongxiang Division, who came from the Jiayin period of the boy camp with Ma Yuan, directly complained to his old classmate who was his boss. "If something goes wrong, it will be impossible to recover."

Ma Yuan also nodded frequently at the beginning, but at the end his eyes suddenly lit up, and he hurriedly reminded Liu Wenlai: "Aren't there more than 1000 released Qing army prisoners in the Dudu Mansion?"

"Brother Jinping, you want to use the Qing army captives to defend the city? That's not possible." Liu Wenlai immediately shook his head. "Don't look at how obedient they are now, they must have never forgotten the misery of being a miner in Tamsui. At this time, if you give them weapons, don't you encourage them to retaliate and make trouble." , Liu Wenlai obviously strongly disagreed, but he also dared to speak too bluntly, so he reminded him tactfully. "I'm afraid I'll see a mess when I come back out of the city."

"I also know that it is impossible to let these people defend the city." But Ma Yuan still did not give up, he changed the channel. "Is it possible to take them to attack? What I mean is that Ishikarigawa Fort and Shipyard each leave one infantry and one artillery team enough to defend. As for the remaining troops to face the Matsumae Domain, although the number is not enough, they can be used as supervisors. It’s not impossible to press the formation.”

"Use one troop as the supervising team, and another artillery team as supporting firepower." Liu Wenlai held his breath and thought for a while. "There are only 50 people in a team. Even if you control the situation with the circle shooting method, you can't suppress too many teams. Three hundred, no, at most 400 people." Liu Wenlai calculated. "But how to deal with these people's weapons, the ugly words are in the front, and the firearms are out of the question."

Liu Wen made a good point. The released ex-Qing troops of the Eizi Governor’s Mansion existed as laborers and farmers. There was no plan to let them go into battle again in advance, so all the soldiers and armors were not prepared. Don't fail Ma Yuan: "There are some iron pieces in the shipyard, which were originally used to make iron nails and reinforced connectors. Now it's too late for blacksmiths to make swords and swords, but the gun head is enough."

Unable to resist the repeated requests and orders of Ma Yuan, who is the governor, Liu Wenlai was forced to select 400 people from the labor force for short-term drills. Fortunately, these people used to be soldiers. After recovering, Liu Wenlai, who was suffering from insufficient troops, secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Some people will say why should we contribute to Ming Dynasty." However, we have soldiers, but we can't use them with confidence, so Ma Yuan intentionally made pre-war mobilization. "There are two reasons. First, Japanese pirates have always been very cruel. They killed a lot of people in Jiangnan and North Korea. If they really took control of this land, do you think they would let you go? No, this is Impossible. Once the war is defeated, the Dudu Mansion will not even have enough capacity to evacuate craftsmen and equipment. Naturally, we have to throw you all down to the Japanese pirates. You will be lucky if your heads are cut off. If you fall into the hands of the Japanese alive ,” Ma Yuan smiled coldly. "As far as I know, ordinary farmers under the Japanese pirates can only eat radishes to satisfy their hunger, and they can only eat two meals a day. As for the life of slaves who are inferior, you can guess for yourself." What the captives of the Qing army feared most was nothing more than living their days in the mines again. Therefore, when they heard that the fate of being a Japanese slave was worse than serving in the mines, their originally weak bodies suddenly stopped. "Secondly, as long as the Japanese pirates are defeated, the governor will naturally be rewarded. What is the reward? It is impossible to let you go back to your hometown, and gold, silver, pearls and jade are useless to you, so what is the reward, woman, yes, I will give you a wife to carry on the family line." .”

Originally, it was Zheng Kezang's regulations to provide wives for these converted laborers, but now Zheng Jun's main focus has just been withdrawn from the mainland battlefield, and he has not had time to take care of the physical needs of the former prisoners, so Ma Yuan Taking advantage of the opportunity to say this, the people below were immediately pleasantly surprised.

"Then who can get a woman?" Ma Yuan continued. "Naturally, it is the one who cut off the most heads of the Japanese pirates, the one who cut off the generals of the Japanese pirates, and the one who captured the Japanese pirates' flag." Ma Yuan reported. "I have already written to Governor Anlong of the Seogwipo Governor's Mansion, asking him to prepare [-] Korean girls. If you want it, you will get it quickly."

After Ma Yuan cheered up, the morale of the laborers was also boosted for a while. Liu Wenlai took the opportunity to reorganize the troops, and distributed 400 people to the army in the regiment, as well as the deputy sentry officers of the two infantry posts and the post supervisors. Under the pawn commander, [-] second commanders and [-] corporal commanders were temporarily set up, and a command system was initially established.

But before Liu Wenlai sent troops here, the transport fleet directly under the Dudufu encountered the Guan Ship of the Matsumae Domain in the waters of Okushiri Island.The Guan ship claims to be the fastest among all kinds of ships in Japan, but no matter the size or speed of the ship, it cannot compare with the thousand-material big bird ship equipped by Zheng Jun.Therefore, although the number of water ladies in Matsumae Fan was large, and they took advantage of the wind direction to attack Zheng Jun first, they did not cause any damage to Zheng Jun's big bird ship.

After avoiding the Japanese attempt to ram the boarding ship, the captain He Zhichao immediately ordered to shell the Matsumae Domain with the only small bow cannon.Artillery is called a large cannon in Japan. During the Warring States period, only a few powerful daimyos had equipment. After entering the Tokugawa shogunate era, only the shogunate army had equipment. Even though the Matsumae clan claimed to have financial resources comparable to 30 koku daimyos, they had never seen it. Such a weapon, so it suffered a big loss in the fight.

However, the artillery equipped by He Zhichao is only three-inch (6 pounds) in caliber, and can only hit one or two out of ten shells. Caused more damage to the Guan ship he was on.Seeing that the war situation was about to be stalemate, but at this time the backwardness of Japan's shipbuilding technology became apparent.After holding on for a long time under Zheng Jun's artillery fire, the tenons connecting the hull of Matsumae's guan boat were deformed under the vibration, and as a result, the hull began to seep.

The watermen of the Matsumae domain panicked and ran their boats on the beach of Okushiri Island. Seeing the strange movements of their opponents, He Zhichao, who suspected fraudulent approach, repeatedly bombarded them with artillery. After the watermen on board were dispersed, they sent people to take a small boat After boarding the Guan ship, I discovered the reason.Joyful He Zhichao looted all military materials such as Taidao, Sanjian gun, rice, and flags carried on the Guan ship, and then set a fire to burn the Guan ship.The watermen of the Matsumae Domain were forced to struggle on the deserted island for more than two months, and were finally rescued by the search fleet before the snow fell. Of course, this is a later story.

Now that the battle had already taken place on the water, Liu Wenlai no longer hesitated. On June 400, he led more than 56 mixed Zheng troops and [-] "warriors" from the Western Eminu tribe all the way south. On the side of the Toyohira River, a tributary of the Ishikari River, the Matsumae clan's subjugation team met.

Since it was a national war, the two parties who had exceeded their respective authority naturally couldn't start fighting immediately after meeting, so the envoys went back and forth to fight for the commanding heights of public opinion for their own side.The Matsumae clan said that the West Ezo land is Japan's territory, and asked Zheng Jun to leave; Zheng Jun said that the West Ezo people are the tribe we protect, and asked the Matsumae clan to go back.Matsumae said that I have the central texts of Hashiba and Tokugawa as evidence; Zheng Jun said that I have the certificate of paying tribute to the Western Ezo.Both parties could not convince each other. In view of the loss of food, the Matsumae Fan finally couldn't bear it anymore. The leader of the crusade team, Shin Ida Supervisor, issued an ultimatum to Zheng Jun, asking Zheng Jun to withdraw from the Western Ezo Land within three days. Liu Wenlai The reply was "fuck it", and the negotiations broke down.

"Go back and tell Team Leader Arai," Liu Wenlai said in a deliberately arrogant tone as he glanced at the Japanese who had come to send them off to the battle. "If he wants to fight, then fight, don't talk nonsense." Liu Wenlai signed his name on the war letter sent by the Japanese. "Tomorrow at noon, everything will speak with swords and guns"