New Shun 1730

Yamauchi Shigetsugu raised this battle to the level of prosperity and decline, which shows his desperation.

After that incident, he quit drinking and his mind became much clearer.

Ii Naosada used the method of using the past to satirize the present, pointing out that we should learn the technology of the southern barbarians, and he also knew in his heart that this battle was really about the future.

During the Shimabara Rebellion, the Dutch sent warships to help attack the city occupied by Shimabara Catholics without saying a word, and bombarded it for several days.

This time, the Dutch didn't even say a word.

Whether Dashun can allow the Netherlands to trade in Japan in the future is a question.

Japan banned religion again, and it is impossible to find Catholic countries for cooperation. But in Southeast Asia, apart from the Netherlands, there is only Spain, which is extremely fanatical about Catholicism in the eyes of the Japanese. The Spanish missionaries who were martyred and canonized in Japan can form a company.

Before, Liu Yu took the initiative to send Shi Shiyong to teach Japan the method of archery and archery, which has always been lacking in Japan, but blocked science and technology books, so that Nagasaki has not received any science and technology books in Chinese texts in recent years.

The war has been going on for a long time, and the Ii family is the first daimyo, so now they can see clearly.

When the time comes, Dashun will drive the Dutch away and block the technology with the navy - we knew before that they only sent books on the Three Principles and Five Constant Virtues, which shows their evil intentions. Can they still forget such a skill now? Once the technology is blocked, how can it be so easy to build muskets and warships and learn new tactics?

Dashun's previous technology blockade was very serious, otherwise Nagasaki would not use trade letters as rewards to seek uncastrated war horses and military books.

Korea is not stupid either. Before, because of the dispute over whether to call it the Grand Prince or the King, Japan threatened Korea with military force. The Busan trade often involved several tons of silver, but the bottom line of the Koreans has never been moved, and they really don't give war horses.

Ii Naosada doesn't think there is any difference in replacing war horses with guns and cannons at this time.

If Dashun doesn't give it, the Netherlands may be forced to give up trade by Dashun, and Spain's Luzon believes in Catholicism...

Yamauchi Shigetsugu said that the rise and fall of Japan depends on this move.

"Let's do it. When the country is in crisis, everyone has to make sacrifices. The common people are ignorant and unwilling to sacrifice themselves for the country, so we will help them die. Go and burn all the houses, create smoke and dust, and block the view."

"We must capture Xiaobin City and capture as many Tang soldiers and officers as possible."

After the order was issued, Yamauchi Shigeji put on his armor and took the initiative to ask to take on the first wave of attack tasks.

Even if they burned all the houses around and relied on smoke to cover, they were not sorcerers and did not know how to shrink the land and increase the width.

The terrain determined that they could only send forward in waves, but the subsequent waves of assembled support were not threatened by the naval guns, so they could be connected.

More than 200 elite warriors were selected, and all abandoned the iron cannons because there was no space to launch shooting cover.

The requisitioned river boats began to assemble upstream, and the subsequent waves of support were also divided and lined up outside the range of the gunboats.

Once the houses on both sides started to set fire, they would move the assembly point forward 300 steps, as close to Obama Castle as possible.

The armored warriors stretched their muscles, wiped their swords, and waited for Yamauchi Shigeji's order.

Soon, the houses near the coast caught fire. With the autumn and winter wind, the fire quickly connected. Cries and screams came from the flames.

The arsonist rode on a short horse and threw oil cans continuously. The burning fire rose to the sky with the wind, and smoke and dust rose everywhere.

Yamauchi Shigeji lay on the bow of the boat, and the civilians who were conscripted to row the boats, under the order of the samurai, shook more than 30 small boats to the delta where Obama Castle was located.

The front of Obama Castle was a bare open space. Before defending the city, the buildings that blocked the view must be demolished, the trees must be cut down, and the enemy must not be given the opportunity to approach secretly. This is the basis of fortress defense.

The artillery officers in the city observed the approaching boats calmly. Several artillerymen had already become a little soft-hearted, especially when they touched the spoils such as the Buddha statues found in Xiaobin Castle.

But following the officers' orders, they still mechanically stuffed the wooden-supported shrapnel shells with the fuse length cut into the muzzles.

The shooting direction had been measured long ago, and all the artillerymen had to do was to fine-tune the angle after resetting.

Boom boom, a few cannon shots, the shrapnel shells filled with gunpowder, with a chamber pressure far less than that of the naval guns, sent a parabolic trajectory and landed on several ships.

After three days of killing, the officers' experience with the fuse length was enough to allow some shells to explode accurately above their heads.

Just like the fireworks during the New Year, after the explosion, the scattered fragments directly killed the samurai on the two ships.

Yamauchi Shigeji reached out and pulled out a piece of iron stuck in his cheek.

After wiping the blood all over his face, he drew out his Japanese sword, shouted "serve the country", and led the charge towards the small beach city more than a hundred meters away.

The warriors behind him carried wooden ladders or other things to climb the city, and subconsciously shrank their heads, as if the shells exploding above their heads would not hurt them.

The small beach city in front of him had already changed its appearance, and the not-so-high platform protruded outward, like a hedgehog with thorns sticking out.

There was no trench in front, and the low defensive building only needed a wooden ladder to climb over.

The heavy armor plates made a rattling sound, which was quite a bit like the momentum of the Dashun attack on the Muluhan Mountain City that day.

But that time, most of the Cossacks still had matchlock guns, and the artillery of Dashun was still superior even in that battle. Even so, Dashun still buried hundreds of veterans with meritorious service in front of the Murugan Mountain Acropolis.

Courage plays a decisive role when the difference in weapons is not big.

So in the Spring and Autumn War, courage was the key to victory; and in the expedition to the Xiongnu, it was the Han soldiers with large yellow crossbows who fought one against five Hu.

Yamauchi Shigetsugu had courage, but he had no cannons or rifled muskets.

Since he could remember, his family kept telling him the story that before the death of Nao Xiaogong, his ancestors were not allowed to be buried alive with him.

He started learning swordsmanship when he was old enough to hold a knife. He could cut a rolled straw mat with one knife, and the cut was smooth, and the straw mat standing on the ground without roots would not fall.

While following the master to Edo, he communicated with swordsmanship masters from all over the country and learned the method of riding and shooting from Shi Shiyong from Dashun.

He didn't need to farm or work, and he ate his salary. What he had to do every day was to hone his martial arts, learn military tactics, and recite poems and sing songs with others when he was free.

He had calluses on his hands from holding a knife, so he could be pricked with a needle without bleeding; he could wear heavy armor and run a hundred steps with enough strength to kill people; facing the people who had risen up but had never touched a weapon under the sword hunting order, he could fight one against a hundred.

His salary was 600 koku, one koku and three pyo, which was larger than the measurement of Dashun. Converted into the price of rice, it was about 1,200 to 1,300 taels of silver a year.

Then, he died.

When he was still forty steps away from Xiaohama Castle, a rotating lead bullet entered his left eye, and the hot and somewhat softened lead pierced his eye and messed up his brain.

The one who shot Yamauchi Shigeji to death was a mast shooter who had made a bet with his comrade next to him before, whether he could shoot the injured samurai to death from a hundred steps.

He was in his early twenties, wearing a navy blue and white striped sailor shirt.

Because they could not bear the bites of lice on the ship, the sailors always liked to burn their hair with torches and then cover it with a wet towel to extinguish it, resulting in uneven hair.

There were no shoes on his feet, and the big toe that needed to be used to climb the mast was a little deformed and thick.

Even if he stood in the city instead of on the shaking deck, his toes were subconsciously spread apart, like the roots of an oak tree digging the ground.

The young man was a disaster victim recruited by the navy, of course not the first batch.

Japan had disasters every year, and Dashun didn't have much, and it was cheap for hungry people to serve as soldiers. Most of the soldiers in the navy were hungry people.

Before joining the army, the young man had never touched a knife, let alone played with a bow and arrow musket. Dashun did not have a sword hunting order, but the poor were good at literature and the rich were good at martial arts. This young man had no money to learn literature, so it was naturally impossible for him to wield a sword and a gun.

Since he could remember, his family kept telling him that children should not be idle and should work. When his mother was spinning, he would use a reed stick to roll the cotton into strips; when he was seven or eight years old, he would carry a basket and pick up manure everywhere around the village; when he was eleven or twelve years old, he would follow his father to pull weeds in the fields.

During the Chinese New Year, they could eat a meal of boiled cabbage and vegetarian meatball soup with a little fat added, one bowl for each person, and a piece of white meat would be placed on the top of each bowl - one piece for each person, not too big or too small, because if the size was slightly different, it would cause a huge family conflict because of this meal, and people would think that their parents were partial.

On New Year's Eve, they could eat a meal of white steamed buns, but the inside was still made of sweet potato flour, and the outside was wrapped with a layer of white flour.

A random drought would ruin such a life. It happened that the navy was recruiting soldiers, and being a soldier was a way out.

Three months of training, eating well, distinguishing left from right, and learning to line up. Then thrown on the ship.

Those who were seasick were dismissed to workshops, shipyards, or thrown to the iron smelting factory in Liaodong; those who were not seasick were tested to see if they had the ability to climb the mast.

The young man relied on the skills that the poor people of Dashun had learned since childhood, such as climbing elm trees to pick elm money and climbing mulberry trees to pick mulberries, and relied on his excellent tree-climbing skills to become a mast shooter.

He was given a gun and practiced every day. If he practiced well, he would have enough food.

The monthly salary was one and a half taels, and after passing the regularization, he would be arranged to work in a trading company or be allocated wasteland in the Whale Sea. From the age of fifty, there would be retirement annuities and dividends within the navy. The fixed amount was not much, but he would not starve to death. Why was it set at fifty years old? Because the average life expectancy was less than forty.

After three years in the army, the monthly silver was two taels, totaling forty taels. One set of military uniforms, a musket, and a lot of gunpowder a year, totaling one hundred taels.

This was the most elite force of Dashun, the mast shooter who spent the most money. Whether it was the expensive rifling barrel or the accuracy fed by countless gunpowder, it required money, a lot of money.

He was not the cheap line soldier who trained for three months, was issued guns and lined up to fill the line, and had to pay an average of two taels of silver per month from the time he joined the army to the time he died, plus the average price of military equipment.

The young man did not know that he, who was worth an average of one hundred taels, had just shot and killed an elite warrior who had inherited the title since he was twenty years old, was now thirty-five years old, and received a total salary equivalent to thirty-five thousand taels.

He just stood on a high place, aimed at the enemy, and looked for someone who looked like an officer according to the requirements of daily training.

Yamauchi Shigeji's armor was pretty good-looking and conspicuous, so he shot once.

After the shot, he took out the paper-wrapped bullet from the leather bag on his waist, licked the oil on it, tore the paper bag with his teeth, put the lead bullet with a wooden butt into the gun, and continued to look for the next target.

It was not until the first wave of attacks subsided that he took out a small knife he won in a bet and carved two more Chinese characters "正" on the butt of his gun. This was one of the first few characters he learned, and it was very suitable as a mark to record how many people he had killed. One Chinese character "正" meant five.

He had never had the chance to kill before, but he really had the chance to kill people after the Battle of Ohama. Up to now, he has killed three people. According to the average salary of a samurai with 100 koku of rice, the rice in these years is enough to support the cheapest line soldier in a battalion.

And the cheapest line soldier in a battalion can always kill 15 samurai.

Even if the swordsmanship of these samurai is like Miyamoto Musashi, the archery is better than Imagawa Yoshimoto, and the spearmanship is far better than Honda Tadakatsu.