New Shun 1730

A good cook cannot cook without rice.

Ota Sukeharu does not have many soldiers.

Needless to say, the various feudal domains in Kyushu Island.

The soldiers of Choshu Domain must defend the coast of Shimonoseki Strait.

Hiroshima Domain just had an uprising the year before last, and there was a flood last year. They were so poor that they could only cooperate with Choshu Domain to defend Shimonoseki.

The father of the lord of Tottori Domain, where Yoneko belongs, Ikeda Soyasu, just died this year.

As soon as his father died, the people of Inaba and Hoki broke out in the "Moton Uprising" to resist the tax increase.

At this juncture, the Dashun Army shouted a word of benevolence and righteousness, which was really benevolent and righteous. The people in the uprising were making a fuss, and they were just opening the door to welcome the king.

The only powerful feudal domain that was still okay was Okayama Domain. It has done well in the past few years and has some surpluses. There are uprisings in the vicinity, so Okayama Domain is temporarily safe.

But he divorced the daughter of the Date family for no reason the year before last, and did not report it to the shogunate, which led to the breakup of the relationship with the Date family, and the shogunate was also very angry, and was investigating before the war.

At this time, when the army was about to be used, the shogunate had to declare its innocence, and finally formed a field army with Okayama Domain as the main force.

But this field army has a small number of troops, only 6,000 to 7,000 people, and it is still a reserve force in the central region.

If Dashun goes to attack Shikoku Island, it can cross the strait to Shikoku; if Dashun attacks Osaka, it must support Osaka; if Choshu can't hold on, it must rely on this army for support.

The matter is urgent, and it is definitely too late to wait for orders from Edo, so Osaka Castle Lord Ota Sukeharu has to make a decision.

Should we continue to follow the orders of the shogunate and gather and wait in Okayama Domain? Or take the initiative to support?

In addition, Ota Sukeharu has a mobile corps, which is the hatamoto sent by the shogunate. It is the last mobile corps west of Nara, with a number of about 11,000 people.

11,000 people is already a lot.

Under the helpless reality, we can only follow Liu Yu's method, with a field mobile corps of about 10,000 to 20,000 people, divided into several war zones.

Some people are left to garrison in each coastal city where Dashun may land.

What needs to be done is to defend wherever Dashun fights, and then these mobile corps will act as firefighters and run around.

In the Battle of Tosa, the new artillery of the Dashun Navy told the shogunate that the mountain city of the old era could not be defended for ten days.

According to the strength of each feudal lord, they defended their own homes, and each one was defeated, and there was only one way to go.

Forming mobile corps to put out fires everywhere may be a battle, but the initiative to fight or not is in the hands of Dashun.

If it really drags on for a year, the shogunate and the feudal lords will be dragged to death.

I don't want to be dragged to death and learn to defend the city by myself, but I can't defend it, and I will be killed by "righteousness".

The 10,000 people in the hands of Ota Sukeharu are almost the most capable troops near Kyoto and Osaka, and they are also the last fire brigade in the central region.

Of course, Osaka cannot be lost.

But it is meaningless to defend Osaka, so the mobile corps of each domain south of Osaka and the elite soldiers of the shogunate's hatamoto are all concentrated in Wakayama Castle.

If they defend there, Dashun will not be able to cross the Kidan Strait smoothly, and Osaka will not be in any danger.

If Wakayama is lost and the Kidan Strait falls into the hands of Dashun, then Osaka, which is close to the sea, will not be able to defend it under Dashun's warships.

Other places are okay, the shogunate is really afraid that Dashun will go to Shikokusa again and use it as a springboard to attack Osaka directly.

Therefore, the part of the troops guarding Wakayama is not under the control of Ota Sukeharu, and he cannot mobilize it.

Now the navy of Dashun is making a big fanfare to attack Yonago. In the eyes of Ota Sukeharu, the next plan is very clear.

It is difficult to go east from Yonago because it is a mountainous area and inconvenient to move.

There is only one way from Yonago to Tottori, and there are passes on the way. So if you want to fight eastward, there is no need to attack Yonago, but you can land directly in Tottori.

Going south, unless the brain of the general of Dashun is eaten by a dog, far away from the navy supply, go deep into the vast mountains?

Therefore, the only possibility is to go west, occupy Yonago, attack Matsue Castle, attack Iwami Silver Mine, and take Jiangjin.

Needless to say, Iwami Silver Mine, Jiangjin uses the Eno River to connect Sanyin and Sanyang. The side facing the whale sea is Sanyang, and the side facing the Seto Inland Sea is Sanin.

You can't see anything at ordinary times, but once someone lands, Jiangjin is a must-fight place.

Jiangjin cannot be lost.

If Jiangjin is captured, it means that the connection between the Choshu Prefecture and other domains and the east is cut off.

At that time, the main force of the army will be sent from Tsushima Island to capture the Nagafu Domain, control the Shimonoseki Strait, and the Jiangjin River transportation channel...

Relying on the advantage of the Dashun Navy is equivalent to completely dividing all the Japanese forces into four parts that cannot be taken care of at the head and tail.

The Kyushu Domains, the Choshu, Suoho and Hiroshima Domains, Shikoku Island, and the eastern forces.

At that time, the forces of Kyushu Island and Shikoku Island are dead, and under the naval blockade, they are equivalent to nothing, and Dashun can directly sweep eastward.

Even if it is not the case, Iwami Silver Mine can still produce hundreds of thousands of taels of silver a year. If it is lost there, Dashun will burn and smash the mine. The shogunate will have no money and will not be able to hold on for too long.

The reason why Dashun no longer lands directly near Iwami is very simple in Ota Sukeharu's view. There is no good port there.

The silver transport port in the early years has long been abandoned, and land transportation has been used instead. Moreover, there is no transit between Busan and Iwami, and there is a lack of food there, so it cannot be raised locally.

This was the situation. The soldiers of the Choshu and Hiroshima clans did not dare to move, fearing that they would make a feint to the east and attack in the west, lose the Shimonoseki Strait, and the situation would be even worse.

The only troops he could mobilize were the 7,000 soldiers of the Okayama clan, plus the 10,000 or so he had.

How to defend, however, was a big problem.

Attack the enemy where they must save, this is the art of war.

For Dashun, Yonago is a natural harbor, a rice-producing area, and the closest to the transit point of Oki Island. Yonago itself is a place that Dashun must defend, and it is the general rear base for Dashun's landing operations.

Attack where they must defend, besiege Wei to save Zhao, and save Iwami and Jiangjin.

But the problem is the strange terrain of the Yumigahama Peninsula where Yonago is located. If tens of thousands of people attack, they will probably all die there.

The narrow peninsula is like a Ding Ding, with a width of more than ten miles facing the sea, all of which are natural deep-water ports, without reefs, and the sea conditions have always been excellent.

The peninsula is less than three miles wide. If the gunboats use all their strength, the shells can fly out of the peninsula, which is completely within the coverage of the warships and cannons.

There is also a river at the root where the peninsula connects to the plain.

Crossing the river to attack is stupid. There is only a passable area less than two miles wide on the east side of the river, and the former Yonago Castle is still stuck on the road.

Now a decision must be made, whether to let the Okayama Domain soldiers go north to defend Iwami.

Leading more than 10,000 troops near Osaka and Kyoto, risking huge casualties, to attack the Taishun Army on the Yumigahama Peninsula?

If not, it will be doomed.

In desperation, Ota Sukeharu could only report the situation to the shogunate, and at the same time, as the lord of Osaka Castle, he issued an order to the lord of the Okayama Domain to go to Iwami for defense overnight.

He led the last mobile force nearby, with the awareness of fighting all these 10,000 people, hoping that Matsue Castle could hold out for a while until the Okayama Domain troops marched to Iwami.

He knew the terrain of the Yumigahama Peninsula where Yonago was located, but there was no way, so he could only bite the bullet and fight.

If he could win, it would prove that there was still a need to fight.

If they can win, it proves that Dashun, despite its naval and terrain advantages, still cannot defend such an excellent port for defense.

Then from now on, they can only learn from the Japanese pirates of the past, harassing everywhere and taking advantage of every opportunity, instead of using this large-scale, unprecedented long-distance landing operation.

At that time, the main battlefield can only return to the most suitable Kyushu Island, and maybe it can become a Mongolian war, and finally drag Dashun to retreat.

If it cannot be captured, there is no need to fight. I have done my best.

There are no tricks and strategies to use, it is just a hard-hitting field battle in the narrow peninsula terrain.

It is useless to lure the enemy deep into the sea, and Dashun is not stupid, how could it leave the coastal port?

The only way is to rely on the Okayama Domain to block and his own detour to fight a head-on decisive battle.

In the order to the Okayama Domain Lord, Ota Sukeharu hoped that he could replicate Toyotomi Hideyoshi's "China Great Return" miracle in the past and reach Iwami as quickly as possible.

It is not necessary to defeat the Dashun Army, but to delay the Dashun Army and give him time to march to Yonago.

However, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's "Great Return to China" was really a bit too much for the samurai of this era.

The lord of Okayama Domain had no choice but to abandon the few cannons he had and run away with 7,000 soldiers from various domains.

…………

Yonago Town.

The people welcomed the Dashun Army.

In the Yuanwen Uprising in history, the lord accepted the conditions of the people and gradually calmed down. In Tottori, which had a population of 300,000 in history, 60,000 people participated, which was a huge momentum.

The uprising was not an uprising, but a petition.

Many naval officers participated in Tosa's affairs. They knew that Japan had its own national conditions. They did not dare to rebel when there was an uprising, and only dared to negotiate conditions before people were willing to join.

However, because of the war of Dashun against Japan, the uprising, which had been slightly calmed down, became more intense at this time.

Especially, the feudal lord had just agreed to accept the peasants' demands, and then the shogunate sent an order to prepare for war... To prepare for war, you need money and food. You can only go back on the conditions you agreed to before, and ask the people to build cities and transport food.

Going back on your word is more infuriating than not agreeing, so a more intense struggle began.

The officers with experience in Tosa, after arriving in Yonago, shouted slogans such as "No harm to the hair, save the people from suffering, the Celestial Empire is here to help the people fight for benevolent governance" and so on.

The landing was a group of marines who had been training in Weihai and could not rob. The local merchants were surprised to find that these Celestial Empire people actually spent money to buy things, and exclaimed that they were really the king's army.

The fact is that Liu Yu's prestige in Weihai was enough to give enough money, and the marines were not sailors. They considered themselves to be decent people, not soldiers. Of course, the main reason was that they had not fought much and were not good at robbing.

After only three days of landing, several leaders who led the uprising came to Yonago and asked whether the Dashun Army was really as they said in their slogans.

The officers who had been to Tosa slightly modified the original manifesto in Tosa, changed the names of the places and people, and distributed it like this.

They smashed the granary of the local nobles in Yonago, distributed grain and rice, and encouraged the people to help attack Matsue Castle. Not only was it easy to get there, but they also encountered the opportunity when the uprising had already started, which was really smooth.

Matsue Castle is only more than 20 miles away from Yonago, and there is an inland sea in the middle that can be paddled with a bathtub. They borrowed small boats from Japan to transport soldiers and food; hired Japanese people to carry firewood and fill the trenches, almost doing the Tosa thing all over again.

The Marine Corps, who are suitable for fighting on the sea and have long been accustomed to fighting as soon as they get off the ship, continued to increase their troops to Yonago and broke through Matsue Castle within a few days.

They distributed grain and rice, hired laborers, and shouted the slogan "Fight to Iwami and share the silver" with great momentum.

Whether the slogan can convince people depends on the level of the Dashun Army's siege. After seeing how fast Songjiang City was captured, more and more people joined.

Anyway, they can eat rice by following the army. The princes of the Tang Dynasty have come forward to guarantee that they will ask the shogunate to order their lords to reduce taxes in the future.

But no one can tell the local people that if it weren't for the changes caused by the Dashun Army's attack on Japan, their lords would have really agreed to their conditions...