Kisogawa Ichiro trembled and reported to his boss Goro Hirano and Mitsumasa Ikeda, the representative of the shogunate: "... Last night there were 34 dead in the battalion, 87 seriously wounded, about 355 wounded, and 11 missing... According to our investigations, most of the injuries were inflicted in the dark by indiscriminate attacks by their flattering companions..."

Hirano Goro looked at the rows of corpses placed on the hillside of the camp, and asked Wing Commander Kiso Kawaichiro with a blue face, "The enemy troops who attacked your barracks last night are all here now?" Just these 37 corpses, not a single one is alive? ”

Kiso Kawaichiro swallowed his saliva, stood up more straight, and said: "In addition to these 37 people, we also captured three seriously wounded enemy soldiers alive, one of them confessed, a total of 46 people who came to sneak attack last night, so there should be 6 more people who escaped." Xia Guan has already sent a team to search the vicinity, and they shouldn't be able to escape far..."

Hirano Goro glanced back, about 5 or 6 miles away from the outpost camp of the Osaka Division and the local feudal army, and said coldly to Kiso Kawaichiro: "You are a good soldier, the camp of more than 2,000 horses was actually attacked by 46 people, why was your head not cut off, in that case, it saved me a lot of trouble." Today was supposed to be the day of a full-scale attack on Higashifukusan, what are you going to attack now? Do you just take this group of remnants of the defeated army with you? ”

Kiso Kawaichiro replied in a low voice: "The commander of the Hui Division, the main general of the East Fukuyama position, Arima Shinjima, is now the second corpse lying on your left hand. According to the confessions of the captured enemy soldiers, yesterday afternoon Arima Shinjima gathered the crowd and selected the 46 people who attacked the camp in the evening, and then dismissed the others. Therefore, before the arrival of the division commander, I have sent a squad to reconnoiter Dongfushan, and news will come back soon. ”

Hirano Goro wanted to say something, but Mitsumasa Ikeda on the side hurriedly stopped him and said: "Now is not the time to clean up military discipline, Mizuno Katsunari of the Fukuyama Domain and representatives of other small feudal clans in the China region are on the side, I think we should go and contact them first, and see how to continue to pursue those fleeing royal forces." ”

Hirano Goro thought about it, and then instructed Kiso Kawaichiro on the side: "I will make a note of the attack on the camp for the time being, if you continue to make such low-level mistakes in the future battles, just wait for your retirement and go home to retire." After your unit occupies the position in Dongfushan, continue to send small units to reconnoiter forward and collect battlefield intelligence for the follow-up troops..."

Seeing that Goro Hirano wanted to leave, Kiso Kawaichiro on the side hurriedly asked, "Then what to do with the corpses of these enemy soldiers?" ”

"Do you want to ask me? cut off their heads and hung them on the side of the road, and buried their bodies in a random place, so that those rebellious thieves could see what would happen if they dared to resist the officers and soldiers. Hirano Goro couldn't help but get angry again, and said hatefully.

Mitsumasa Ikeda hurriedly objected, "I'm afraid this won't work, Hirano Temple." ”

Hirano Goro immediately replied dissatisfiedly: "What's wrong with this, these bastards have killed and injured so many officers and soldiers, and they should be dealt with so ruthlessly." ”

Mitsumasa Ikeda shook his head and said, "If we hadn't suffered such a big loss, the most we would have said would have been brutal or something like that. But in the current situation, when people outside mention these Satsuma samurai, they will inevitably mention the losses of the officers and soldiers. In this way, it is the officials and soldiers who lose face, and they get the fame they want, isn't this lifting a stone and shooting themselves in the foot? ”

Hirano was silent, and after a few seconds, he lowered his voice and asked, "So what do you think Ikeda-sama should do about this?" ”

Mitsumasa Ikeda glanced at the representatives of the feudal domains, who were separated by the soldiers dozens of paces away, and looked at some of them with their necks stretched out, and said, "In order to give these local feudal states confidence in the shogunate's military force, I think we should count these corpses as the king's army."

It is said that after the successive defeats of these royal armies, and after hearing that the shogunate army had gathered men from Kyushu to attack their supporter, the Choshu Domain, they felt that defeat was imminent, so they risked their lives to launch a night attack on the official army. But their actions were noticed by our brave officers and soldiers, and under the brave counterattack of our officers and soldiers, the attackers were killed one by one, and only a few of our troops were slightly wounded.

Although the actions of these attackers were foolish and ignorant, the officers and soldiers, despite their commendable courage, decided to bury them on the spot and erect a monument to record the incident, in order to warn the people on all sides not to be fooled by those rebellious thieves who sacrificed their lives in vain..."

Hirano Goro glanced at the corpse on the side, and his eyelids jumped unconsciously, "Not bad, but how can we explain to their families?" If the corpses of the officers and soldiers are buried together with the traitors, their families will probably not do it. ”

Mitsumasa Ikeda replied disapprovingly: "As long as the shogunate increases some pensions, I believe that their families will not have any opinions." Of course, don't engrave a name on the inscription, which will save us trouble. The other thing is to educate these officers and soldiers so that they never mention what happened last night. ”

Hirano Goro stretched out his hand and scratched his forehead, and finally made up his mind to order Kisogawaichiro, "Did you understand what Ikeda-sama said?" Can you do this? ”

Kiso Kawaichiro replied stiffly: "The lower official will definitely handle it properly." ”

Hirano Goro walked up to him and said in a low voice, "If you don't do it properly, you're really going to take off this clothes." Also, single out our people and report them as other causes of casualties..."

Although Mizuno Katsunari was very interested in the situation on Hirano's side, he was still very calm and did not look around like the representatives of other feudal states. He set out from Fukuyama Castle early in the morning, originally intending to rush to Okayama, but on the way, he accidentally ran into Mitsumasa Ikeda, Goro Hirano and these representatives of the newly surrendered feudal kingdoms, who were going to go to the front line to supervise the battle in person and watch the shogunate advance capture Higashi-Fukuyama, the last line of defense to Fukuyama Castle.

Mizuno Katsunari's timely defection was just the icing on the cake for Mitsumasa Ikeda and Goro Hirano, so they were not very enthusiastic about the old prince, who had experienced the battles of Sekigahara and Osaka. However, they did not refuse the Fukuyama clan to return to the arms of the shogunate, and also took Mizuno Katsunari to the camp where the striker was.

Mizuno Katsunari also guessed in his heart that the other party wanted to give these feudal states who had been at both ends of the rat in the past few months a dismount and show them the force of the shogunate. It's just that everyone didn't expect that after arriving at the shogunate army's forward camp, they would actually see such a military camp that had experienced a big war, and everyone didn't know what to say for a while. Mitsumasa Ikeda and Goro Hirano also isolated them from the barracks and went to the barracks to inquire about the news, which made everyone feel that something was wrong.

However, compared with these representatives of the feudal states with uncertain elements, although Mizuno Katsunari came late, his psychology is extremely assertive. In his opinion, even if the shogunate's vanguard was attacked and suffered heavy losses, it could not change the defeat of the Choshu domain and the royal army, because the shogunate's strategy of isolating the Choshu domain had been successful, and the next victory was only a matter of time. To waver at this moment is undoubtedly a rather stupid thing.

Therefore, when Mitsumasa Ikeda and Goro Hirano came over and told everyone that the corpses were the men and horses of the Emperor's army that had come to attack last night, and that only a few people were injured in the army, Mizuno Katsunari was the first to stand up and praise the bravery of the officials and soldiers and stand up for the claims of the two shogunate officials.

Led by Mizuno Katsunari and the representatives of the Ichigan feudal kingdom were also suspicious of these claims, Mitsumasa Ikeda invited the people to the camp that had already been cleared to discuss the next steps against the Emperor's army and the Choshu domain.

In a clearing fenced in with cotton cloth and bamboo poles, everyone sat down in small ponyes and listened to Mitsumasa Ikeda talk about the current situation on the battlefield and information from all sides. However, everyone listened, but no one made a sound, which disappointed Mitsumasa Ikeda and Goro Hirano.

But at this time, Mizuno Katsunari got up and said to the two: "Since it is a military meeting, you should naturally speak freely, I see that everyone seems to be quite worried, why don't you let me, an old man, throw bricks and lead the jade first, how about a few words?" ”

Mitsumasa Ikeda suddenly smiled and said, "Mizunoden has a lot of experience, and it would be best for you to start this, so we naturally want to listen to it." ”

Mizuno Katsunari was not humble either, so he stood there and said: "The samurai and ronin who called for the reverence of the king before, taking advantage of the dissatisfaction of the peasants this summer, incited the peasants to riot in various places, and finally gathered tens of thousands of rebels in the Chinese region. The main domain and the other smaller feudal domains in the region were unable to contend and had to wait for the shogunate to send troops to quell the rebellion.

After Ikeda Hall and Hirano Hall led the shogunate army to attack, they adopted the tactics of slow advance and rapid attack, first allowing these rebels to gather and then break them in one fell swoop, thus quickly pacifying the peasant rebels in the Okayama area, which can be described as a stroke of genius.

However, the situation is different now. The wolf ambitions of the Choshu Domain had been exposed, and the men they had planted in the army of the Emperor also fled back to the territory of the Choshu Domain with these rebels. At this time, if we talk about a slow advance and a rapid attack, it will only give time for these rebels to run in with the forces of the Choshu Domain, and if they are allowed to build fortresses and cottages with the help of the terrain, it will cause great trouble to our attack.

The climate in the Choshu area is similar to ours, and although the winter weather is warmer than in Sasaka and Kyoto, it still snows from December to January. Therefore, if the time is delayed, we may have to wait for the winter to pass and fight again.

Therefore, I think that the most important thing is to take several sorties, to advance and attack in a hurry, to disrupt the rhythm of the retreat of these rebels with continuous attacks and pursuits, and to push the war into the territory of the Choshu Domain as soon as possible, without giving the Chūshu Domain time to mobilize personnel to build fortifications..."

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