Since the capture of Osaka Castle, Li Chenfang has increasingly found that the governance of Osaka Castle after the war is more difficult for him to cope with than the difficulties and troubles encountered in the process of capturing Osaka Castle.

On the battlefield, no matter how strong the enemy is, you know where the enemy is. But after taking the city, although the Japanese were very deferential in front of him, the endless problems in the city told him that under the surface of this peaceful city, there were also many forces against their rule, but these opposition forces were not up to the enemy's standards.

During the shogunate's rule of Osaka Castle, merchants and craftsmen wanted to reduce taxes and expand markets, manual laborers wanted to control food prices and secure their jobs, and almost all townspeople wanted the shogunate to ease restrictions on commerce and life.

These demands did not change after he captured Osaka Castle, and unlike the shogunate, he did not have an entire army of the shogunate behind him to intimidate the citizens of Osaka. Although behind him stood an entire Ming Empire, they could not reveal their identities; Second, the Ming Dynasty was too far away from Japan to make these citizens feel more threatened.

Therefore, apart from opposing the shogunate, these townspeople did not agree with him on other domestic policies. They all believed that they had made a great contribution to the capture of Osaka Castle by His Highness Tadacho, and hoped to obtain an internal policy that would be more favorable to their class.

Li Chenfang sometimes felt that if it weren't for the force he had in his hands to suppress everything, it was estimated that these townspeople would not even be able to maintain their superficial obedience. Fortunately, after he captured Osaka Castle, he quickly disarmed the townspeople and formed a force that was completely subordinate to him, which made these townspeople suspicious.

However, he also felt that these people were like a large ship that was difficult to control in the storm, and he did not know whether this ship would be able to survive the storm smoothly. Therefore, Li Chenfang couldn't wait to send out the army that had just been formed, on the one hand, to integrate the troops that had just been formed; On the other hand, it is to deter the surrounding villages and communities, and to give him more time to integrate the forces of the entire Osaka Castle.

It should be said that Li Chenfang's plan is still good. Just as he sent his troops to sweep around Osaka and pretended to be marching towards Kyoto, the Kyoto area, which had just learned that Osaka Castle had not long fallen, suddenly panicked. Itakura Shigemune, the Kyoto shodai stationed in Nijo Castle, had only about 1,000 troops in his hands, and although the Kyoto shoji had theoretically the power to requisition the nearby feudal domains, in fact, after the promulgation of the "Samurai Zhuda", no one paid attention to the order issued by the Kyoto shodai to transfer troops without an order issued by Edo.

Itakura Shigemune could only ask for help from Edo, and at the same time alert the Choshu Raiders stationed in the Bichu and Bizen areas, and began to strengthen the vigilance in the Kyoto area. Since it was rumored that Osaka Castle was captured by troops sent by His Royal Highness Tadanaga, in order to be able to deliver the documents to Edo safely, Itakura Shigemune still took great pains, and who made Tadanaga's residence just block the main road between Kyoto and Edo.

Thanks to the great improvement of Japan's land transportation facilities by two generations of generals, Ieyasu and Hidetada, the journey from Kyoto to Osaka has been shortened to five and a half days. In other words, even if there is no Tadashi blocking the way, it will take more than 12 days to obtain a counter-rebellion order authorized by the shogunate.

Li Chenfang, who knew nothing about this, did not know that the rigid bureaucracy of the shogunate had bought him the most critical time. At noon on the seventh day of Li Chenfang's capture of Osaka, Yuta Higuchi and Goro Hirano finally arrived at Okawa with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Wings of the Osaka 1st Division.

They did not hide their whereabouts on the road, but swept the village shrines loyal to the shogunate with great fanfare. Therefore, when they stood on the edge of the river, the city of Sakai on the opposite side had already been informed by the fugitive samurai and had built fortifications on several bridges over the river.

Although Yuta Higuchi was the commander of the 1st Division, he was very good at putting himself in the right position and knew who was the real master of this army. Therefore, since the dispatch of the army, he has been very interested in handing over the command of operations to his nominal deputy, Hirano Goro, and Higuchi's attitude quickly won the favor of Hirano Goro.

Although more than a decade of peaceful life has left Yuta Higuchi without the martial prowess of a warrior, it does not mean that all the skills and experience he learned in the first half of his life have been wiped out.

As a participant in the two battles of Osaka, Yuta Higuchi was familiar with the geography of Osaka Prefecture, including Izumi Province, where Sakai City is located. Therefore, he naturally explained the surrounding terrain to Hirano Goro, and when the two stood together, Yuta Higuchi was more like Hirano Goro's subordinate than his boss.

After listening to Yuta Higuchi's explanation, Hirano Goro said thoughtfully: "The southeast is a mountain range, the south is a hill, and the east and north are plains, and Sakai City, sandwiched between the Okawa River and the Ishizu River, is a good place for business development, but it is not conducive to defense." What do you do on the small hills east of Sakai City? Will they ambush a team of men there? ”

Yuta Higuchi glanced at it and said cheerfully, "It's not a hill, but the tombs of ancient emperors and ministers, and there are about a hundred of them. So Captain Hirano, rest assured, they won't set up an ambush there. ”

Although he already thought that he had become a naturalized Ming person, Hirano Goro still paid homage in the direction of the burial mound, and the officers around him immediately learned to pay homage in the direction of the burial mound.

After completing the worship ceremony, Hirano Goro pointed to the two stone bridges downstream and the wooden bridge upstream, and said, "The rebuilt Sakai City does not have many streets in total, and there is a lack of defensive walls on the sides, so Inagaki Shigetsuna has deployed nearly 300 troops at the three bridgeheads, obviously with the idea of fighting us by the river.

However, it is not clear how many troops there are on the other side, so my opinion is that the Mori Katsuya will lead the second wing to attack the two stone bridges downstream, but they don't have to exert all their strength, just test the opponent's firepower and combat capabilities.

Matsudaira Kazuma led the 4th Wing to attack the wooden bridge upstream, and sent half of his men to continue to look for a place to cross the river upstream, to see if they could attract the opponent to divide his forces.

The 1st Wing was stationed at the rear of the 2nd Wing to rest, and the artillery detachment waited for the 2nd Wing to test the opposing firepower before deploying it. It was just after mid-day, and after a few hours, if there was no change in the enemy's forces, a general attack would be launched.

With the support of artillery, the 2nd Wing rushed out of a river crossing, and then I personally led the 1st Wing across the river to attack. After breaking through the enemy's riverside position, the second wing pursued the remnants of the enemy along the river, the fourth wing from the east, and the first company from the north, and attacked Sakai City in two directions..."

On the plains, where you can see the scenery for miles at a glance, there are hardly any surprise attacks and ambush battles other than hard-hitting attacks. Therefore, Hirano's offensive tactics were quickly recognized by other officers.

However, Hirano's concise battle plan was quickly ruined by the combat forces of both sides, and the battle almost turned from a serious battle into a farce.

Although the officers and soldiers of the shogunate south of the Ogawa River were samurai, they were the defeated generals of Osaka Castle and their training in peacetime was abandoned, and their organization was inferior to that of the Osaka division on the other side.

Unlike the shogunate officers and soldiers, Li Chenfang, from the first day of the establishment of the 1st and 2nd Divisions, demanded that obedience and discipline be the top priority, rather than relying on the bravery of a certain samurai on the battlefield to motivate soldiers to fight.

In addition, the predecessor of this army defeated the entire Osaka Castle with only a few hundred people, so the soldiers of the newly formed Osaka First Division not only had high morale, but also were more obedient to discipline.

The lower reaches of the river are about 60-80 meters wide, and the length of the two stone arch bridges is more than 100 meters, and the width of the bridge deck is 5-6 meters. Since both sides had iron artillery troops, the beginning of the battle became a situation in which the iron cannons of both sides fired at each other.

The iron artillery fire of the two sides was divided into two teams of men and horses on the bank of the bridgehead and the bridge deck, and the width of the large river was just at the edge of the effective range of the iron cannons, and the shooting across the river basically missed the opposite side. Although you can shoot at the opponent by running to the bridge deck, it also means that you are also within the range of the opponent's iron cannon.

So after the iron artillery units of both sides learned a lesson on the bridge deck, they quickly reached a tacit agreement, and they both stood outside the range of the other side and began to fire, so that they could have the life to return to their own positions to reload ammunition.

Hirano Goro and the officers and soldiers from the former 2nd Battalion of Haiphong quickly realized that something was wrong, and a group of soldiers rushed onto the bridge in a mess, and then quickly fired a shot, not caring where their bullets flew, and couldn't wait to retreat. The soldiers who were in a hurry to retreat often blocked the firing path of the second-row soldiers, making the battlefield extremely chaotic, and this kind of battle scene was not even as good as the fighting in the countryside, which disappointed Goro Hirano.

He had to transfer more than a dozen subordinates from the 2nd Battalion of Haiphong, replace the command officers of the 2nd Wing, and then reorganize the attack of the 2nd Wing. As a result, when the officers and soldiers of the shogunate were desperately shooting into the sky, the Osaka Division turned into a place for actual combat training.

Unlike the Osaka Division, where the Supreme Commanders Goro Hirano and Yuta Higuchi were on the front line of the battle and made real-time adjustments to the problems that arose in the combat units, Shigetsuna Inagaki, the commander of the officers and soldiers of the shogunate on the other side, never appeared on the forward position.

As a result, the Shogunate officers and soldiers who were guarding the positions on the banks of the river could not obtain effective command at all, and could only fight to the end in vain according to the old combat methods. These officers and soldiers watched the army on the opposite side start with the same chaos and disorder as themselves, and then gradually became orderly under the constant shouting and scolding of the officers, and their morale became more and more low.

These shogunate officers and soldiers outside the castle did not carry * out of the city, and Sakai City did not have much* reserves, so the iron cannon fire on the side of the shogunate officers and soldiers soon gradually decreased, and most of the soldiers could only hide behind wooden shields and endure, and the salvo of three or five people on the opposite side waited for the moment of handover.