On the evening of the 4th, it was very nice.

The setting sun has sunk to the western sky, emitting an orange glow against the faint white clouds, no longer scorching, just bringing a warm feeling. The pale golden sunlight shone in the vast sky, reflecting a pale pink sunset, indicating that tomorrow will be another sunny day.

At this moment, I was at the first line of defense, standing on a turret and looking down at the captives below.

There has always been a very strong gambling instinct in Japanese culture, and when they encounter anything, they habitually want to show their hand, and if they win, they will eat it all, and if they lose, they will have no underwear left, and they seem to subconsciously resist long-term planning, and they will think about defeat before they win. (Note 1) This kind of character is probably related to the harsh environment in which the Japanese people live, and after all, it is far inferior to the civilization of our continent.

Because we underestimated this bad problem of the Japanese, we did not know what to do for a while after receiving the news that Doi Toshimori had committed suicide. Fortunately, the Iwai task force sent to ambush had good news that Terasawa Hirotaka, the lord of the Karatsu domain, had been captured, and his son Kentaka had been killed by snipers on the way to escape.

By the time Terasawa Hirotaka was brought to the front of the battle by Fang Wenhaibu, the Karatsu Army, which had been able to maintain stability in the strange balance, immediately fell into chaos. From the shogun to the bottom of Ashigaru, everyone was deeply shocked that the feudal lord who had abandoned him and ran away was so brazen, and they were also frightened that the shogunate's old man, Nakadoi Toshimori, had committed suicide, and the fighting spirit that had been left disappeared in an instant.

As a result, we captured nearly 4,000 Karatsu soldiers at one time, too many to fit in the prisoner of war camp in Nagasaki (Note 2).

Now the civilian officers who had been summoned from Higashibiki Castle had completed the counting and classification of the prisoners of war, and were organizing the disorganized prisoners to line up and prepare to take them to Higashibiki to board the ship and transport them to the Marideyama fortress in the south of Sasebo.

Fang Wenhai, who had returned from the Bang Long Waterfall, also stood beside me, quietly watching the black pressure of the prisoners below, not daring to make a single noise under the pressure of the gendarmes' leather whips and wooden sticks.

"You've done a great job." I turned to look at them and said with a smile.

"Captain Fang led the army to successfully complete the task and made the first contribution, if nothing else, he will be promoted after the war." I looked at Fang Wenhaidao.

"I remember that you graduated from the Lingao Infantry Military Academy?"

"Yes, sir, I graduated from Lingao in 26 years, and I was assigned to Taiwan as soon as I graduated."

I nodded, according to his situation, from captain to major is no longer necessary to go to Jeju Lu School for further study, it is likely that Governor Qin will sign the order directly and become a school officer.

I turned my gaze to Kong Youde again. Well, this big man probably figured out my design for the Void Fortress, and now he felt a little faceless to see me, and lowered his head when he saw my gaze move over.

I snorted lightly and didn't speak to him. This guy performed well in this war, dared to fight, and was not afraid of death, and maybe he could be promoted to lieutenant colonel. Although the rank of the assistant army was lowered by one rank compared with the rank of the Wehrmacht, he finally broke through the barrier from major to lieutenant colonel.

"Alright, comrades, let's go to dinner." I rubbed my face a little, trying to ease the fatigue. In the past few days, I haven't slept for 5 hours, and I run in the conference room and the staff headquarters in white and black every day, and my iron body can't bear it.

"Please inform Comrade Geng Zhongming, please ask him to take a look at the affairs of the wounded and sick camp, and I will go and see the broken things of the prisoners." I can't help but want to laugh when I think that Fang Hai was still a lieutenant after the war, and Fang Wenhai, who is only one word different from his name, is already a school officer).

"After the other comrades have eaten, go and rest. If tonight's battle doesn't go well, tomorrow you'll have to bother you to get rid of some stubborn enemies. ”

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That night, the northeastern sky turned bright orange-red, and the entire city of Saga was plunged into a sea of war and flames.

The landing battle, which began at eight o'clock in the evening, was in full swing, and dozens of transports covered with ironclad departed from Shimabara and sailed to the port of Saga under the cover of several destroyers and gunboats.

Garrisoned in Saga were Naokei Iida and Ichishin Shobayashi of the Kumamoto Domain. These two are known as the "Kato Sanjie", and they are famous in the Kyushu region and even in the whole of Japan. As for Iida, he was even handpicked by Toyotomi Hideyoshi as one of the Seven Pillars of Gun... Probably good marksmanship when he was young. It's just that now both of them are old and frail, and there are still a few points left in that body like a dragon marksmanship, which is really hard to say.

At the head of the fleet was Shang Kexi's brother Shang Keyi, with the rank of captain. This was also the first time he commanded a landing operation, and judging from the summary after the war, his performance was average, and his naval talent was indeed a little weaker than Shang Kexi's.

Sanji Kato abandoned the harbor and allowed the 1st Saga Regiment to land in the dilapidated harbor, and the battle began with brutal street fighting. Fortunately, the three heroes did not expect that more than 300 spies would be mixed in the city and cause various sabotages in street battles, and the Kumamoto Legion, which originally had the advantage of fighting on the inside line, was struggling as if it were in enemy territory.

A platoon of the Saga Imperial Alliance infiltrated the city disguised as Kumamoto's army during the battle, conducted a fairly qualified special operation, and made its way to the castle tower in the center of the city.

Although the area of more than 200 meters near Kato Sanjie was heavily defended, the rifled guns, which the Japanese had never touched, once again showed their power beyond this era. A bullet fired from an attic on the south side of the castle tower struck Shobayashi Isshin, a retainer of Araki Murashige, a native of Takatsuki in Settsu Province, who was shot in the abdomen, splashing several meters of blood on the spot, and even his intestines flowed out (it was later learned that this person was still relatively vigorous, and it took him half an hour to die).

Iida lived up to his reputation, and after escaping the first round of shooting, he drew his saber in a matter of seconds and fired a bullet completely by feeling. In the sparks from the collision of blades and buckshot, it was almost a fraction of a second away from death.

The sniper did not care about the outcome of the battle after firing the bullets, and immediately fled the position under the cover of his comrades, blending into the crowd before the nearby Kumamoto army could react.

Later that day, as the Christian cannon fodder army of more than 2,000 people was thrown into the battlefield, Zhang Pan (major of the Xiecong Army) and Mao Chenglu (captain of the Xiecong Army), who were in charge of commanding the land battle, took control of the battle situation by virtue of their superiority in strength, and gradually compressed the Kumamoto Army to Shiraishihara in the north of the city.

Another unit under the command of Captains Wang Chengluan and Zheng Jikui landed at Yanagagawa Castle (Note 1) in the south of Saga, and with the help of spies, they opened the gates and quickly stormed the castle, capturing the castle on the same day, cutting off the coastal communication arteries between Saga and Kumamoto.

After the capture of Yanagawa, the Kumamoto Army, which was still stubbornly resisting in Saga, had actually lost its strategic significance. Now, if Iida wants to lead this lone army back to Kumamoto, he will either follow the coastline and recover Yanagawa - this is the fastest and most convenient way, and it is here that the Kumamoto Legion marches to Saga - but it will be the most difficult, because if Wang Chengluan's troops hold off the Kumamoto Legion for a few hours with the city walls, Zhang Panbu, who has escaped from the city, will catch up with the Kumamoto Legion in the field... And then, naturally, there was a battle of annihilation under Yanagawa Castle, which was undoubtedly something that Iida never dreamed of.

The other way is to head southeast from Shiraishihara to Chikugo, which is more than ten kilometers away and crosses the Saga River. Once in Chikugo, they can head south along a mountain road that runs almost parallel to the coastline, and after two days and two nights of walking on a bumpy road, they should arrive in Kumamoto... However, if they want to choose this path, it is better to hurry, because Mao Chenglu has already led people to prepare to seize this city together.

However, Iida eventually chose the third path, and he led his army to retreat overnight to Tosu to the northeast, and instead of trying to return to Kumamoto, he got stuck between Saga and Kokura.

This step cannot be said to be good or bad, the advantage is to avoid the risk of being intercepted by our army in the middle of the way, it can also preserve the physical strength and armament of the Kumamoto army, and it can also strategically prevent the possible meeting of Saga and Kokura; The disadvantage was that the Kumamoto headquarters lost an elite force of nearly 5,000 men, which was very unfavorable for them to defend against the shelling and harassing landings of our army in the later period.

And in Kokura Castle, a city that was still in ruins after a fire, arsonists were once again welcomed. After landing at the port without hindrance, Qian Ran personally led a detachment of marines into the city, annihilated the small number of ashigaru that had already been frightened birds, and moved into the castle tower (a small castle that survived the fire), and then raised the lieutenant captain's flag above the castle tower, announcing that it would be used as the headquarters of the northern front.

Hosokawa Tadashiri, the lord of the Ogura domain, fled to Kasuga in the southeast under the protection of the remnants of the army led by Hideo Furui, and after dawn, he abandoned his armor and fled all the way to Koda Village, a dozen kilometers away from Kiyama, and seemed to have the idea of joining forces with the Kumamoto army.

And in Kitakyushu, the northernmost part of the island of Kyushu, the Choshu clan, which had been rebelling overnight, threw itself into the cause of kicking his former teammates with amazing enthusiasm. Taking advantage of the opportunity of the princes of Kitakyushu to support Kokura Castle,

Mori Terumoto's adopted son, Mori Hidemoto's righteous brother Hidemoto, led his troops to force his troops across the Kanmon Strait, took control of the port before the Kitakyushu army could react, and then broke through the hastily assembled resistance army with cavalry on the west side of Komonji Mountain, took advantage of the situation to enter the castle, quickly routed the resistance in the castle, and occupied Kitakyushu in the early morning of the next day.

Note 1: The lord of the Yanagawa domain was Tachibana Muneshige. Tachibana was ambiguous in this war, announcing that she would join the shogunate's crusading army, but on the other hand, she did not send troops into actual battle, and only opened the road of the Yanagawa domain to the Kumamoto army. A few days before the Song Dynasty declared war on the shogunate, this old fox, known as the "unparalleled in the western country", went to Kokura by land again, and went directly to Edo by boat, successfully jumping out of the chaotic battlefield.