New Shun 1730

At lunchtime, the Japanese offensive was already weak.

In front of the narrow city, corpses were piled up in all directions.

In the city, several naval logistics soldiers carried a jar wrapped in straw and began to distribute the daily lunch snacks when they went out to sea.

In addition to the food to fill their stomachs, there were all kinds of strange things. For example, the dates in this jar, the newly picked dates were soaked in strong liquor to prevent spoilage, which was used by the navy to prevent scurvy.

Weihai was too cold and there were no lemons. The navy was not fighting in the tropics for the time being, so they could only eat some strange and easy-to-store things.

The navy had not yet been formally organized, and there was no navy department in the court, but it had everything it needed. The logistics supply was a special department of logistics and transportation. It was to ensure that the navy's own marines had no problem fighting, but it only needed the army to help support some cavalry, so the trading company was asked to help.

The sailors liked this kind of crispy dates very much, and the key was the strong smell of wine in it. In addition to a glass of strong liquor given after dinner every day, this kind of drunken and crispy dates was their favorite food.

The hot rice was steamed in the area behind Xiaobin City near the sea. The flames on both sides had little impact on Xiaobin City, except that some burning black ash fell on the white rice.

The rice was served with a spoonful of lard with heavy salt, five drunken dates per person, and an onion that Liu Yu introduced from Japan and planted in Wendeng and other places - this thing originated in West Asia, first spread to Europe, then to America, then from America to the Philippines, and finally from the Philippines to Japan, and from Japan to Weihai, and it can go around the earth if you use it hard.

Lard with rice is a delicious meal that can only be eaten when the war starts.

The soldiers who had fought for a morning poured cold boiled water on the rice, separated it from the cold, stirred the white lard with chopsticks, picked up the bowl and gulped down a mouthful, biting a mouthful of the spicy onion.

Then he carefully arranged the drunken dates that were distributed to him, put them in his pocket, took out one and held it in his mouth until it was chewed like sugarcane residue, and then swallowed it reluctantly.

If he had a good relationship with the officers, he could drink the remaining wine soaked with dates in the jar.

Such a life was considered a standard for celebrating the New Year compared to the vast majority of Dashun people at that time.

The navy has always followed a saying: Only when you are full can you fight; only when you eat all kinds of strange fruits can you avoid scurvy; only when you drink water can you avoid diarrhea.

Some of these strange principles were integrated into military regulations, and some became a habit. The logistics support of the navy has always been sufficient.

The situation of withholding military pay and snatching food from the soldiers' mouths had not happened since Liu Yu left not long ago.

The soldiers who had eaten lunch lazily basked in the autumn and winter sun and wiped the gunpowder residue on their muskets.

On the sea behind them, there was a row of warships with naval flags flying high, which made them feel at ease and did not feel panicked about being surrounded.

Although these warships stopped firing their guns after the battle began in the morning due to the cover of flames and smoke, the small boats that were sent to deliver ammunition from time to time still made these soldiers feel full of hope.

Although there was no shortage of ammunition, the captains of the navy still chose to use this method to boost the morale of the defending soldiers and prove that the soldiers in the city always had a way out.

…………

On the other side of the battlefield, the remaining Japanese samurai silently ate rice balls.

Ii Naosada, the lord of Hikone Domain, was a very frugal person. He strictly abided by the shogunate's frugal order. Even when he went to Edo, he ate rice balls, and was praised by Tokugawa Yoshimune for this.

Following the example of the superiors, the samurai of Hikone Domain only ate rice balls when they fought.

Some stale rice balls can be soaked in tea to remove the stale smell of the rice balls. It is said that this was the way Toyotomi Hideyoshi ate when he marched out of China.

Many samurai couldn't swallow their rice balls and their mouths were dry. Having not fought in a war for so many years, many of them have never even seen blood.

Some of them participated in the morning attack and witnessed the death of their friends who usually drank and talked about poetry under the muskets, and even many of them were hit by artillery while on the boat.

Recalling the limbs shattered by lead bullets and the bodies smashed by solid shells on the battlefield, the samurai who went to the battlefield for the first time kept churning the acid in their stomachs.

Some samurai quietly observed the lords in the distance, wondering if they would fight again in the afternoon.

In the short one-hour offensive in the morning, more than 400 samurai died under the city, and the morale of the army had actually collapsed. It's just that this is not a field battle, and they can retreat and gather without collapsing.

The most recent attack was still seven or eight feet away from the outermost defense of Xiaobin Castle, but that was already the limit.

"We can't fight any more!"

"There's probably no way to conquer a castle like this."

"Even if the God of Echigo attacked Odawara Castle, it wouldn't be that difficult."

"The Tang people's iron cannons are very accurate, and the big guns can shoot farther..."

The dejected samurai whispered about their fear of the castle in front of them. They had already compared this castle with their legendary Odawara Castle, the world's most majestic castle.

Some samurai from Hikone Domain even began to mock the samurai from Obama Domain who had withdrawn from here before and fought with them.

"You didn't even defend a castle like this for a day? Are the subordinates of the Sakai clan so cowardly?"

The samurai who withdrew from Obama Domain drew their swords and cursed: "Let the Tang army try to attack Hikone Castle! Can you defend it?"

Shouts and groans were heard one after another.

Ii Naosada knew that this battle could not be fought. The most capable warriors he brought had already fought their way out.

The remaining warriors were poor warriors who had to borrow money from merchants on weekdays and then waited for the merchants to default on their debts. The salaries of these warriors were not high. Although eating was not a problem, they could only get enough food and clothing.

Including today, the battle had lasted for four days. More than 800 warriors were thrown dead under the city. With such casualties, if it was a field battle, the city would have collapsed long ago.

Although they could still gather outside the range of the gunboats for the time being, he knew that if the battle continued, he might have to refuse to attack.

Several of his trusted retainers died under the city, and two of them were even killed by the shells that exploded above their heads before they even went to land.

After only one hour of attack, the subsequent warriors refused to board the ship to die, thinking that this was a meaningless attack.

Ii Naosada raised the telescope again, looking at the nearby and sparsely populated Xiaobin Castle, and fell into despair.

What he despaired about was not the muskets and artillery of the Dashun Army, he at least knew that those muskets and artillery were better than those in his hands, and they could shoot farther and more accurately.

What he despaired about was the remodeled Xiaobin Castle, which seemed to be disorderly but actually had rules.

But he couldn't understand it, and he had carefully recalled from the military books he had learned, but he still couldn't find out what the rules were for defending the city like this.

If the defense arrangement of this city was disorderly, it would be even more desperate. If even a disorderly city could not be captured, the quality of the soldiers who formed the Dashun Army was much better than the samurai under the policy of separation of farmers and soldiers.

This battle could not be fought.

With a sigh, he took back the telescope and ordered: "Retreat."

The horn of retreat sounded, and those dejected samurai were as if they had been pardoned. I don't know who spoke, and first a shout of escaping death was made, and then such shouts became one.

Listening to such howls, Ii Naosada was sure that his order to retreat was correct. If he continued to fight, he might be defeated and flee. He would rather escape as a ronin than take another step towards the city.

The strategy of besieging Wei to save Zhao was correct.

The tactic of burning the houses on both sides to block the firing range of the gunboats was also correct.

The first batch of samurai who rushed up were all elite, and they were ready to die.

The strategy seemed to be correct, the tactics were also very detailed, and they were ready to die. However, they just couldn't win...

There was no army in the Kinki region that could reach Obama within half a month. Kyoto, Osaka, Nara, the Dashun army that broke in could go wherever they wanted.

Ii Naosada was desperate for more than just this.

But the Obama Castle, which was defended by at most four or five hundred people, could not be captured by more than three thousand of his own people, and it was even possible that the Dashun army had only single-digit casualties.

This means that as long as it is close to the sea, if five hundred people defend a city, at least ten thousand troops with enough cannons are needed to try to attack.

Moreover, the time required to capture the city would be measured in months.

The mobilization of a 10,000-man army would require the coordination of at least several feudal domains, and the marching speed would be even slower with cannons.

All of this goes back to the defensive strategy Liu Yu set for Tokugawa Yoshimune: firefighting.

Any other strategy would be ineffective. Ii Naosada did not believe it and believed the nonsense of Wei-Jiao-Zhao, which proved this point again with facts.

And this firefighting tactic requires cannons and tens of thousands of people, which means that the army can only advance at a snail's pace; the speed at which the Dashun Army attacked Obama means that even if the garrison was increased four or five times, it could only hold out for a few days; and to hold out for a few days, even if the marching speed was the same as that of the Great Return of China, a field army would have to be piled up every 200 miles.

And all of this means that the entire Japan needs at least 300,000 field standing troops and 600,000 garrison troops to fight on.

But these are something the shogunate could not gather anyway.

The firefighting side needs 900,000 troops, one-third of which have to run around.

The party that set the fire only needed a fleet and three to five thousand land forces.

As long as there were less than 600,000 garrison troops and 300,000 field troops, there would be a gap, and the Dashun Army could seize the gap to land and attack the city.

There was no need to attack Kyoto or Edo.

As long as they played like this for a year, they could drag down the whole of Japan.

The shogunate went bankrupt, merchants withered, and uprisings were everywhere.

Before retreating to Hikone Castle, the desperate Ii Naosada asked someone to bring paper and pen and wrote a request to the shogun.

After writing this request, he was ready to commit seppuku.

He died to persuade the shogun to take it seriously.

He described the process of the battle of Obama as carefully as possible, which led to what he really wanted to say - please negotiate with the general, please lift the ban on Dutch studies, please sleep on straw and taste gall, please stop fighting.

And on the details of how to sleep on straw and taste gall in the future, he put forward his own views to the shogun.

Now it seems that there are only three ways to fight against the tactics of the Dashun Army.

One is a mythical fantasy, with the Six Ding and Six Jia's magical travel method, or some kind of magical car that can travel hundreds of miles a day and transport thousands of troops for long-distance maneuvers at a time.

The second is to build a large navy to keep the enemy out of the country.

The third is to reform the samurai system, train samurai, train firearms, hire Dutch instructors, and learn tactics from the Dutch.

In addition to the first mythical fantasy, in the choice of training the navy first or the army first, Ii Naosada suggested to the shogunate to give up the navy first and build the army.

"Building a navy takes time, and the Tang Kingdom will definitely notice it."

"Today, we can attack in the name of Ryukyu. We can always find excuses to accuse them. If they notice, we must destroy them. The navy has been building ships for several years, but they may be destroyed in one day."

"If the navy is destroyed, the land battle cannot be won. Just like today, no one can defeat them in Japan. Investing millions of gold may be gone in one day."

"Therefore, changing to land battle first is the right way. First, it is not easy for Tang to notice. Second, if the land battle can be won, even if there is no navy, the city will not be lost, and Tang will not dare to land. Even if it loses, it will only pay compensation in gold and silver."

"If there is an army that can win in field battles, how dare the Tang people leave only 500 people to attack Kyoto in the Battle of Obama? They dare not go deep into the city. Even if there is a navy, if they cannot take the city after more than ten days of siege, they will wait for the army to surround them. The army must withdraw. Even if we cannot win, we can still hold on. "

"It costs money to train the navy, and it costs money to train the new army. You can't have both, and there must be a priority. If you see that the Tang navy is strong and you want to keep the enemy out of the country, then you will fall into Liu Yu's trap!"

"When the navy is half built, the people are hungry and the merchants are poor, and the treasury is empty. If the Tang navy raids the port, the gold and silver will be rotten wood, and the years of hard work will be gone."

"Even if there is a ceasefire, how can the Tang keep its promise if Liu Yu is not dead? How can he keep the ceasefire and watch the general build a navy?"

"First land, then sea! First land, then sea! Only if you survive first, you are qualified to consider the future. The army is to guarantee survival, at least so that the Tang can only suck blood, not cut flesh and bones and suck marrow."