Chapter 315: The Fall of Honmaru

In order to recover the disadvantage caused by the Honda army, Sakai Ieji and Ii Naomasa, who were superior in numbers, led their troops into the hinterland of Hibara, intending to defeat Tadayuki Kishida, who had only 3,000 men, and Hidecho Kajiri, who had only 4,000 men.

The "Akabei" led by Naomasa Ii is claimed to be the orthodox successor of the Takeda cavalry, and Hideho did not dare to slack off on the most powerful cavalry unit of the Tokugawa family, and he immediately ordered Nasu Shikiyoshi, one of the "eight ministers of Yamato", who had Hachimanbei, to switch positions with Hidecho Kawajiri. Although there were only 1,500 men in the Hachiman Formation, an elite unit known for its iron cannons, it was able to exert a powerful firepower equivalent to 5,000 ordinary iron artillery units through the skillful use of "early entry" and "three-stage strikes".

After learning that he was going to deal with the "red ghost" Ii Naomasa, Nasu Shikichi placed the pre-prepared rejection horse in front of the position, and combined the three-story rejection horse with the improvised Hori-earthen fortifications to reproduce the defense system of the Oda army during the Battle of Shinohara, meaning that the Oda Tokugawa coalition defeated Takeda Akabi in the same time, and completely erased the current Ii Akabi from Japan.

But after all, he was at a disadvantage in terms of troops, and Hideho still had doubts about whether Nasu Zikichi could resist Ii Naomasa, so he decided that after the Ii army and the Nasu army clashed, Hidecho Kawajiri, who was on the outside of the crane wing, immediately attacked Ii Naomasa from the rear of the flank, and by cutting off the retreat of Ii's army, Nasu's Hachimanbei could destroy Ii Akabi as much as possible, so as to wipe out the most threatening force on the southern side.

Considering that Hidenaga Kawajiri was facing the 5,000 troops of Tadamasa Torii, Hideho ordered Kyogoku Takaji to prepare to deal with the burden of both Torii and Naito's forces. Of course, this is just preparation, and Hideho mainly wants Mori Hidemoto, who is on the mountainside, to go down the mountain as soon as possible to participate in the battle, so as to reduce the burden on Kyogoku Takaji, and the top priority is to deal with the Yoshikawa Hiroka.

After receiving Hidebo's orders, Mori Hidemoto finally made up his mind to attack Yoshikawa Hirokabu on the mountain. Yoshikawa Hiroya may have expected this, and he did not plan to face off against Mori Hidemoto, but chose to withdraw from the main battlefield of Hinohara through the southern slope of Kohinoyama. After that, it advanced to the Tokugawa position.

After all, they were all Maori clans, and Mori Hidemoto did not pursue the retreating Yoshikawa army. With only 1,000 men stationed on the Hara Yoshikawa position to monitor the surrounding movements, and the remaining 7,000 men were led by him to Yamashita to support Kyogoku Takaji, the balance of victory began to tip in Hideho's favor.

The start of the battle of Hinohara caused huge psychological pressure on the two armies on the battlefield. In addition to the 13,000 men of Kobayakawa Hideaki, the 37,000 army, including Otani Yoshitsugu and Shimazu Yoshihiro, were all pinned down by the Uesugi family in Wakamatsu in northern Sichuan, and Shima Kiyoko and Aoki Toshiki, who were retainers of the Hideho family. Seeing that they were anxious in their eyes, they repeatedly urged the army to launch a fierce attack on Wakamatsumi Maru, hoping to solve the Uesugi family as soon as possible and then go south to support Hideho.

Fortunately, the gap that was previously blown open by the big barrel. Having expanded to ten men wide through the efforts of Shimazu Yoshihiro and Kuroda Nagamasa, the Uesugi army, under the leadership of Mitsunaga Sebe, relied on the tea room Rinkaku built during the Gamo clan period, and struggled to support the situation, trying their best to block the Toyotomi army entering the city in a radius of 50 meters. And then buy as much time as possible for Uesugi Keikatsu's actions.

Uesugi Keikatsu understood that once the tsuchikaku was breached, Honmaru's defense would enter a white-knuckle battle, with no numerical superiority and low morale. The remaining Uesugi army was no match for the ferocious Toyotomi army. Therefore, if you want to give yourself a chance, the only way at present is not to hold on to the city, but to lead the remnants to break through.

Although he knew that Kobayakawa Hideaki had withdrawn from the siege and headed south, Uesugi Keikatsu was still unsure of what difficulties he would face in breaking through Ninomaru, who had the weakest defense. After the breach of Tokuka, the Uesugi army was exhausted by the oncoming Toyotomi army, thus losing the opportunity to probe the enemy outside the castle, but the reduction of the siege force led Uesugi Keikatsu to speculate that Tokugawa Ieyasu had arrived in Wakamatsu and was preparing to go to war with Hideho. Even so, the Toyotomi army besieging Wakamatsu was still four times the size of Uesugi's army, and without the help of foreign aid, it was best to break through Ninomaru, which was garrisoned by Tanaka Yoshimasa's army, which had only 3,000 men and had an agreement with the Tokugawa family.

According to Uesugi Keikatsu's concept, once he broke through Ninomaru, he led the army eastward to the area of Miharu and Nihonmatsu, which had not yet been affected by the battle, and although there were only a few hundred troops, there was plenty of food and grass, so that the Uesugi army could have a chance to breathe, and after discovering the movement of the Tokugawa army, he would join forces with him and attack Hideho together.

This strategy of temporarily avoiding the edge did minimize the losses, but Naoe Kanesuke disagreed: "The lord also guessed that the army of the inner province had arrived in Wakamatsu, and according to the prior discussion, the Tokugawa army sent a maximum of 75,000 troops, while the army of the right province reached 1340,000. If the family ignores the Tokugawa family to avoid the edge temporarily, the result can only be a crushing defeat of the Tokugawa army under the attack of the Toyotomi army in the north and south, and even if it retreats to the ends of the earth at that time, the right government will not let go of the lord, and the chance of the family to turn the tables can be said to be non-existent;

On the other hand, if the Toyotomi army attacked the Toyotomi army in the south, as agreed with the Tokugawa army in advance, even if it could not play a key role, it would be able to contain a large number of troops like in Wakamatsu, share the pressure for the inner government, and enable it to fight a decisive battle with the right government with the smallest possible disadvantage, so that the Tokugawa army's chances of victory would increase, and once the Tokugawa army won, the rabble that attacked the house would definitely disarm and surrender, and in this way, the battle of Wakamatsu, which was related to the world's belonging, would end in the victory of the house. My lord, which plan do you think is more appropriate? ”

Indeed, as Naoe Kanesui said, even if he could escape for a while by retreating to Miharu Castle, if Tokugawa Ieyasu was destroyed, the Uesugi army would not be able to escape the doom, so it was better to work together with the Tokugawa army to resist Hideho, and even if there were heavy casualties, they could get a chance of victory. After much deliberation, Uesugi Keikatsu decided to abandon his journey to Miharu Castle and instead head south into southern Sichuan to support Tokugawa Ieyasu.

As expected, upon learning that Uesugi Keikatsu was preparing to break out of Ninomaru, Tanaka Yoshimasa, who was in charge of the guards, was defeated on the grounds that it was "difficult to resist", and withdrew Ninomaru after symbolically killing and wounding dozens of people. The color department of Kochobu, who was responsible for encircling the gap, was transformed into a palace army, blocking the endless Toyotomi pursuers with a determination to die; Kitade Maru was the only branch pill that was not conquered by the Toyotomi army, and the defender Nakajo Kumori led his troops into the Honmaru castle tower in order to attract firepower, and took advantage of the condescending terrain to shoot at the Toyotomi army in the castle. These two forces totaled 3,000 men, and their fighting bought valuable time for the main force of the Uesugi army to break through the siege. With a loud bang on the castle tower, nineteen people including Nakajo Kumori detonated the gunpowder, and the more than 100 Toyotomi troops who surrounded them perished.

At this point, Wakamatsu Castle was completely lost, and Uesugi Keikatsu led the remaining more than 6,000 people to break through from the south gate of Ninomaru with difficulty, and Shima Kiyoko and Hineno Hiro, who were stationed on the Tsuruhara Plateau, of course would not let the Uesugi army go south.