A tour of Japan's Warring States Period

Preparations are going on in full swing inside Fukushima Castle, and there is no idle time outside Fukushima Castle either.

The soldiers felt that the dignified Kiso Fukushima Castle turned out to be nothing more than this, and they might be able to go home in three to five days to celebrate the winter New Year. You can also get a reward for victory, even if it is only a few dozen coins or a few liters of rice, it is enough for a family to have two full meals.

Of course, the samurai would definitely not think so. Strategically, it was a consensus to despise the Kiso family, and tactically, it was a quality that a qualified commander should have to value his opponents.

Yamauchi Yoshikatsu has been in the war for four or five years. Last night at the military meeting, Murakami Yoshimitsu said that we should be prepared for the Kiso family to attack the camp with fire arrows. If you shoot from high to downwards, you always have an advantage.

So today we all brainstormed and moved the camp to a higher place to avoid being hit by the fire arrows coming from the mountains. Then Hosokawa Saime asked the soldiers who had nothing to do in the afternoon to dig river mud in the already cold Kiso River, which made the soldiers complain. But when everyone saw the mud smeared on the wooden fences, wooden rafters, and bamboo bundles in the camp, they all understood.

At first glance, it was the idea of ​​Matsumisai, the old man of their Hosokawa family. Because the old man seemed to have done this kind of thing often, he just walked casually by the Kiso River. When he reached a certain place, he stopped and ordered the soldiers to dig. Sure enough, It's not all rocky beach, it's all mud. Next to her, Hosokawa Harime looked like she was being taught and listened to the lectures with an open mind.

It's your own secretly passed down tactics again, how annoying!

Others also want to know, but this kind of thing is passed down from father to son or family history, and it is not easy for you outsiders to inquire about it. Even Yamauchi Yoshikatsu couldn't ask for it because it would be a taboo.

Koheita thought that the treasures of the Hosokawa family were these two old men who had been in the quagmire of a bad war for more than 40 years and were still alive and kicking. This kind of battlefield experience is simply incomparable. Even if they are familiar with military books, they are not as rich as the actual combat experience of these two old warriors.

After the mud has covered the entire camp, the basic problem should not be a big deal. Just carefully place the soldiers on watch at night and arrange enough bonfires.

Xiaopingtai simply suggested that a shallow trench of half a meter should be dug twenty meters outside the camp. Anyway, it’s just a matter of two shovels, so it’s not a difficult arrangement. But it is a trap for those who sneak close to the camp in the dark night. After all, in the dark night, you will find a ditch suddenly appearing in front of you.

This proposal is not too troublesome, and there is nothing wrong with it except that the soldiers have to work harder. Yamauchi Yoshikatsu also directly adopted it, and then asked everyone if there was anything else they wanted to add?

The samurai, including Koheita, all felt that it was almost done, so let’s start dinner! Taking advantage of the sunset, the soldiers who went outside to collect firewood and fetch water also came back. The camp was naturally filled with laughter, washing pots, cleaning rice, and shouts of distributing salt, miso, and radishes.

When everyone sat down to eat, Yamauchi Yoshikatsu got to the point of talking and asked everyone if they had any good ways to prevent fires. Especially now when camping in the wild, there is no protection like in the city.

There are too many things involved in this thing, so everyone is communicating and adding to it.

Xiao Pingtai casually mentioned that everyone has read "Three Kingdoms"? In the Battle of Wu Yiling in the Han Dynasty, the elite Han army was attacked by Lu Xun, and the soldiers were killed and wounded. The first emperor, Emperor Zhaolie, retreated to Yong'an in a hurry, and finally died in hatred.

Hosokawa Saime and Yamauchi Yoshikatsu were of high cultural level and both said they knew, while others nodded and shook their heads. So Xiaopingtai picked out the key points and repeated them again.

Emperor Zhaolie led the Han army to conquer Zigui. After leaving the mouth of the Three Gorges and entering Jingzhou, the terrain suddenly opened up. Because they were advancing both by land and water, and because of the convenience of food routes to the rear, the army had always camped along the highlands along the Yangtze River.

However, Lu Xun used the strategy of exhausting his troops and set up dozens of camps, allowing the Han army to attack them one by one. The time was delayed until summer. On the bank of the Yangtze River, the terrain is vast and unobstructed, and the sun shines directly on the Han army's camp. The hot soldiers screamed and complained incessantly.

Emperor Zhaolie, who had been fighting all his life, somehow made a stupid move and allowed the soldiers to move their camps into the woods far away from the river bank. As a result, most of the Han army was isolated from Huang Quan's navy and away from the turbulent Yangtze River.

There was a drought and no rain at that time, and the vegetation in the woods was steaming and igniting at the slightest sign. Wu Jun then went around in large numbers, setting fires at will. The Han army was attacked by fire and there was no water source around them. In the end, the three armies were defeated and the dead were not counted. Fu Shu (rong, not called Fu Tong), who was even the central guard, died in the battle, directly burying tens of thousands of Han soldiers.

Song Jianzhai was the most touched after hearing this. He has fought in bad wars for more than 40 years and has the most experience. There must be something that makes him feel the same way.

Yamauchi Yoshikatsu saw the old man nodding his head and asked him if he had anything to add.

The old man was quite happy and started to comment directly. In fact, it is actually very difficult to implement a fire attack in a wild battle. Generally speaking, the only seasons that can be implemented are summer and the turn of autumn and winter. Summer is because it is hot and everything is dry, making it easier to catch fire. At the turn of autumn and winter, the north wind is strong, the wind lends power to the fire, and the fire assists the wind.

But even if the season is right, it doesn’t matter if the environment is wrong. The first is the problem of combustion accelerants. Wooden tents are easy to burn, but they don’t burn fast enough and are easily extinguished. The current combustion accelerants are naturally oils, including sesame oil, rapeseed oil, and fish oil (including whale oil). Oils are expensive and generally small forces cannot afford them.

The second is gunpowder. The deflagration of black gunpowder is not that good and the explosive power is insufficient, but the burning performance is much better than that of wood. But it’s more expensive and less used. Therefore, on the battlefield in Japan, we can basically rule out the possibility of someone using hundreds or even thousands of kilograms of gunpowder to attack because everyone is poor.

Therefore, if you camp near a water source, that is, a river with sufficient flow, even if the enemy launches a fire attack, as long as there is not much accelerant, it may be extinguished quickly, and the results will generally be very small. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the commander is incompetent, the soldiers are weak, and they are directly defeated.

Emperor Zhaolie will be attacked by fire mainly because of the convergence of various unfavorable circumstances, otherwise it would be too difficult to fail.

A newbie who enters the battlefield for the first time talks about fire attacks, thinking that throwing in a few pine torches and shooting a few fire arrows will seem to be all right. If it were that simple, why would we need the army? It is enough to raise hundreds of dead soldiers and send them out to throw torches in the middle of the night when there is a war. Isn't this a joke?

Everyone laughed after hearing this, and the old man spoke very carefully and not boringly. Sure enough, he has enough experience in bad battles, and his level is not guaranteed, it is guaranteed.

"Urgent report, more than a hundred torches were found outside the camp, and the number of enemy soldiers is unknown. They are firing arrows into the camp!"