Kyoto to Osaka is more than 80 miles, if you are traveling by boat, it will be a one-day trip at most. But the march of the army was different, and at the pace of a normal march would have taken at least two and a half days.

However, after accepting Inagaki Shigetsuna's suggestion, Naotaka Ii decided not to march at the usual pace, and he ordered Kimata Morian to lead the Red Reserve to assault the front, while he followed closely behind with his retainers Anbara Chaoma, Nagano Yeki, and Saigo Shigeto with the main force, trying to storm Osaka Castle in two days.

Although Li Chenfang placed a brigade in the Hirakata area between Kyoto and Osaka to monitor the movements of the shogunate army in the direction of Kyoto. But he didn't expect that in such a small and mountainous terrain as Japan, there were still people with a cavalry team.

Hirakata is a lodging ground between Kyoto and Osaka, with the Yodo River to the west, the Ikoma Mountains to the north and east, and the flat Osaka Plains to the south. It can be said that it is also the junction of the edge of the Kyoto Basin and the Osaka Plain.

According to Li Chenfang's plan, once the Hiraka defenders discovered the movement of the shogunate army in the direction of Kyoto, they would rely on the complex terrain of the Ikoma Mountains to contain the opponent with a small number of people, and then wait for reinforcements from the Osaka side to wipe out the enemy on the edge of the Osaka Plain.

If the shogunate brigade is coming, then the defenders can also use the ships to withdraw to Osaka by water. However, the raid by Ii's Red Reserve cut off the connection between the port and the lodging ground almost immediately. They tried to drive the defenders out of their humble lodging grounds, and then chased them down the Osaka Plain.

It was only a unit under the Kataoka Wing stationed at the Hirakata, and it was not the elite of the Osaka army, but fortunately, nearly a third of the personnel of this unit were veterans of the Hyogozu defensive battle, so under the surprise attack of the Ii Red Reserve, they did not completely break up and flee out of the village.

The so-called Akabei is an elite cavalry dressed in uniform clothes, which was originally the name given by Takeda Shingen to his own cavalry. In the Tripartahara Battle, Tokugawa Ieyasu was deeply impressed by the strict formation and force of the Takeda Akabei team.

When the Tokugawa clan defeated the Takeda family, Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered Ii Naomasa to establish the Ii Akabo Army based on the surrendered Takeda Akabi. In the Battle of Osaka, Ii Akabei made a deep impression on the feudal domains.

However, after the death of Naomasa Ii, the Red Reserve quickly corrupted. Except for the head of the family and the chief retainer, no one else was in command of the army. And the Red Reserve, which originally abided by the harsh and impersonal military discipline during the Naozheng period, also began to be free and loose with the death of the first head of the family.

Therefore, after surviving the initial panic, the defenders in the Hirakata camp immediately realized that although the other party was the famous Ii Akabei, he was not as disciplined and powerful as the rumors.

The Japanese horse breed is very similar to the Mongolian horse, and the narrow terrain of the Japanese island makes the Japanese horse more degraded than the current Mongolian horse. Horses are small in size and lack of impact. But for the size of the Japanese, the two are a perfect match.

If you encounter such a group of cavalry with spears and swords on the plains without shelter, no matter how chaotic the discipline of these cavalrymen is, it is enough to make the infantry in these lodging fields suffer a great loss.

However, with a wooden fence on the perimeter of the lodging grounds, the defenders were able to hide behind the fence and confront the cavalry. On the side of the Red Reserve, after being shot down several times by the Osaka military muskets behind the wooden fence, they finally put away their posture and returned to the group amid the shouts and curses of the leader.

After more than an hour, the reorganized army of Kimata Moriyasu ordered 300 Chibei to dismount and attack from the west with iron cannons, while the other 200 Chibei cavalry followed behind the iron artillery team, and if the defenders wavered, they rushed into the lodging field in one go.

Although Ii Chibei began to abandon training after Naomasa's death, he still trained himself in horseback riding and martial arts. But the cost of iron cannon shooting training is too expensive.

The Hikone clan is already running out of money just to raise these horses, where can they spend the money on * and buckshot. Even some samurai who want to go into the mountains to hunt with iron cannons have to be criticized by the elders, let alone train and shoot with iron cannons.

On the other hand, on the side of the Osaka Army, although the Kataoka detachment belongs to the cannon fodder unit, Li Chenfang has always been very generous in terms of weapon supply. For the current Ming soldiers, it is unthinkable to reduce training because it is expensive. Even the guns of the Ming Army are sent to the squad level for management, not hidden in the arsenal.

Therefore, when the Kataoka detachment returned to Osaka from Hyogo, the soldiers of the entire unit were already quite proficient in iron cannon shooting. When the Kataoka detachment was reorganized into a regular wing, the soldiers' daily iron cannon shooting training was stipulated to be no less than 10 rounds.

Although only one-third of the iron artillery stationed at the Hirakata lodge was equipped with iron cannons, everyone was skilled in loading and firing iron cannons. When the defenders realized that the Red Reserve had abandoned the cavalry charge and had chosen to dismount and attack with iron cannons, they immediately began to calm down.

Although there were 300 iron cannons outside, and the defenders only had 100, the defenders were confident that they were only firing at each other through the wooden fence.

Things turned out just as the defenders had predicted. Lacking training in iron artillery, Ii Chibei made a lot of jokes when he was reloading his ammunition, and when they began to attack, the defenders were already reloading and waiting for them to come forward.

The 300 Red Iron Gunners formed a three-line horizontal line, originally intending to use the skill of three-row rotation. But the march in unison, which had never been trained, coupled with the fact that it was under the enemy's guns, made the formation of the three rows soon unrecognizable.

When these Chibei iron gunners were scrambled to a distance of more than 100 paces from the defenders, someone finally fired a shot out of nervousness, which was like a signal, and soon triggered a continuous fire from the first platoon of Chibei.

The smoke from the inferior * suddenly enveloped the Akabi Iron Gunners, and it was almost difficult for everyone to see the situation of the enemy troops on the opposite side, but this smoke only increased the courage of the Akabei Soldiers, so that the Iron Gunners of the second row crossed the first row and fired a second shot at the edge of the smoke.

The soldiers of the Osaka Army, who were guarding the lodging ground, were also surprised, and the iron gunners on the opposite side began to fire their guns from a long distance, and the bullets flew somewhere. Then they saw a cloud of smoke slowly approaching them. And the smoke is always filled with gunshots, adding a greater range to the smoke.

After listening to the three rounds of guns, the soldiers of the Osaka Army followed some disorderly shooting, and it seemed that there was no one in command in the smoke at all, everyone just loaded and fired and completed the task.

After listening to six rounds of firing, the commander of the Osaka Army began to give the order to shoot after the stray bullets on the opposite side were able to injure the soldiers on his side, and the Red Iron Gunner was only sixty paces away from the front line of the Osaka Army.

The false sense of security that the smoke brought to the Red Iron Gunners was quickly shattered by the sound of bullets flying around them, the sound of bullets hitting **, and the screams of wounded soldiers.

When someone in the smoke accidentally ignited the * on his body, the soldiers near the explosion finally collapsed, and many people began to turn around and flee. At this time, the Osaka Army had only fired two rounds.

After repelling the attack of the main force of the Akabi from the west, the cavalry of the Akabi who had launched a feint attack to the north of the jukuba also quickly retreated. Although this anticlimactic attack, the losses on both sides were not large.

However, no matter how much Kimata Morian reprimanded, the retired members of the Red Reserve refused to organize another attack. They claimed to Kimata Moriyasu that they were cavalry and were not suitable for siege warfare, and that they should wait for the Ashigaru team behind them to come up and put them in charge of the assault on the lodging field.

Kimata Shouan has nothing to do with these Akabi Uncles, and to be honest, if it weren't for his father's face, these Akabi members wouldn't be too lazy to talk nonsense with him. Even Naotaka Ii is polite to this red reserve. After all, they are the pillars of the Hikone Domain, and they are also the killer weapon that the Hikone Domain uses to deter Gyeonggi.

The Osaka army waited until dark for the second attack of the Red Reserve, but they saw a large group of men and horses coming from the north with torches, so they quietly left the camp at night.

In the early morning of the next day, Li Chenfang received a report from the shogunate army from the direction of Kyoto, and the news that Ii Chibei was also among them made the former shogunate ministers in Osaka Castle realize that Ii Naotaka might be the commander of this army, which immediately made them a little afraid.

By noon, the ships monitoring Hyogo had also returned to Osaka to report that Abe's army had finally crossed Hyogo, and according to their footsteps, it was expected to reach the Tenma area north of Osaka by tomorrow afternoon or evening.

In the afternoon, detailed information about the two units was sent to Li Chenfang again. The Abe Shoji Army numbered about 7,000 men, while the Kyoto Shogunate Army had 15,000 men, led by the shogunate's chief retainer Naotaka Ii, and it is said that there was a backup led by Tokugawa Yoshinao, but it is not clear how many troops there were.

Ii Naotaka also sent 1,500 men and asked Inagaki Shigetsuna to lead a team to regain Nara, so the army heading south should be about 13,500 men, and the main force should be the 3,000 Akabe of the Hikone Domain, which is expected to stop at the Moriguchi area 5 kilometers northeast of Osaka today.

Between Mamoguchi and Osaka Castle is the terrain of the Flat River, and apart from two small rivers and a few lakes and wetlands, there is basically no terrain that can be defended.

After confirming that there were many cavalry in the opposing army, Li Chenfang immediately realized that this terrain was very suitable for the opposing cavalry to gallop. Although he now has nearly 13,000 people in his hands, which is comparable to the opponent's strength, he has no cavalry in his hands.

The most troublesome thing is that Abe's army will also arrive tomorrow, and the two armies together have a numerical advantage. Although most of the people in the city suggested defending to the death, Li Chenfang was worried that if he didn't fight, he would let the other party lose the city, and he was afraid that it would greatly hurt the morale of his side.