At noon on April 27, the Toyotomi coalition launched an attack on the Shimazu and Kuroda coalition forces, but because the two armies were equal in strength and the Shimazu army had a superior number of iron artillery, the Toyotomi coalition army did not have the slightest advantage. On the contrary, Kuroda Rusui led his troops to attack the flank of Otomo Yoshitomi, and although they were repelled by Soka Town, Otomo's army still suffered nearly 1,000 casualties. Seeing that it was difficult to make progress, Kato Kiyomasa withdrew his troops in the evening, withdrew all his troops into Uto Castle, and sent a letter to Tachibana Muneshige asking for help.

Late that night, Kato Kiyomasa sat down with Otomo Yoshitomi, Konishi Yukei, and several daimyo who had come from Kitakyushu to support him, and discussed the battle plan for the next day.

Konishi Yukijing, as the representative of Utu Castle, questioned Kato Kiyomasa's initiative to attack during the day, he knew Kato Kiyomasa's temperament, and did not dare to confront him, but said very respectfully: "Utu Castle is close to the sea and water, and the city defense is strong, and it is an easy to defend and difficult to attack place that my brother personally supervised. At present, the strength of the two armies is equal, and instead of taking the initiative to attack, it is better to hold on to the city, and then launch a counterattack together after the arrival of the army stationed in Korea, and then we will definitely be able to achieve a great victory. ”

"Hayato is right," Yasuyuki Matsui, the Kizuki Castle Dai, agrees with Konishi's idea, "The current situation really does not allow our army to face the enemy head-on, and it seems more appropriate to wait for reinforcements from Cage Castle. ”

Hearing the two of them say this, Otomo Yoshitomi was immediately angry, and he asked at Konishi Xingjing: "Who knows when the naval army stationed in Korea will arrive, and we can't stop fighting if they don't arrive, this battle can be regarded as a duel between our local daimyo in Kyushu, and there is no need to deliberately let outsiders get involved." ”

Everyone can hear that Otomo Yoshitomo wants to make a break with the Shimazu family. The Otomo clan once dominated most of Kyushu, and now it is in such a field, which is inseparable from Satsuma's old enemies, the Shimazu family. In the Battle of Ogawa that year, 40,000 large friendly troops were defeated by thousands of soldiers of the Shimazu family. The prestige of the Otomo family was diminished, and the retainers were scattered. In the next few years, he was beaten by the Shimazu family and had no power to fight back, and his leadership was sharply reduced from the six countries of Toyo, Tsuki, and Hi to the country of Toyogo. Therefore, he had to ask for Hideyoshi's protection, and Otomo Yoshitomi was deeply impressed by this almost ruined hatred, and of course he wanted to take this opportunity to take revenge.

In fact, in addition to revenge, Otomo Yoshitomi has other selfish intentions when he says this - if you want to restore the former glory of the Otomo clan, this battle is the last chance, no matter who can win Hidebo and Ieyasu in the future, the world will be stable, and by then everything will be settled, and it will be very difficult for the Otomo clan to obtain the seal by virtue of war exploits.

Although Otomo Yoshitomi did not target anyone else when he said this, the speaker had no intention of listening, and Kato Kiyomasa and other Kyushu daimyos, who were newly crowned in the Hideyoshi era, suddenly became unhappy, and Kiyomasa directly asked: "Aren't we guys worthy of fighting side by side with our attendants?" ”

Otomo Yoshitomi is not a fool, he can still hear the meaning of Kato Kiyomasa's words, so he immediately bowed down to Kato Kiyomasa and Konishi Yukijing and others and apologized: "I have no such intention, the reason why I say this is because I don't want to miss the fighter plane because I am waiting for the army stationed in Korea, and no one can guarantee whether Rushui and others will come up with other ideas, which is the case with today's surprise attack...... Please do not worry about it. ”

"What the attendant said is not unreasonable," Kato Kiyomasa did not want to admit it, but still complained: "About seven days ago, I wrote to the chief acting officer of Renna, Ogasawara Bigo Mamoru Tadashi (son of Ogasawara Takakiyo), and although Bigo Mamoru replied to confirm it, there is no trace of the army to this day, which is really worrying. ”

"I heard before that North Korea has a large army of 20,000 and is well-equipped, if it can really rush to participate in the war, this Shimazu and Kuroda coalition army will be vulnerable at all!" Nakagawa and some other small daimyo couldn't help but sigh.

Although the movements of the army stationed in Korea were unknown, Tachibana Muneshige responded positively to Kato Kiyomasa's request for help, and led an army of 4,000 from Yanagawa Castle to gallop through the starry night, and finally arrived at Uto Castle at around 8 a.m.

Tachibana Soshige sits on the 130,000 stone of the Yanagi River after Chikugo, and has always been scrupled by Kuroda and Shimazu. When Hideho met with him in Osaka, Muneshige said that he wanted to lead an army to conquer Uesugi Keikatsu, but Hideho refused. Hideho bluntly said that Shimazu and Kuroda should not be underestimated, and they need to have a strong daimyo to be in charge, and they can travel all over Kyushu, only he and Kato Kiyomasa can take on this important task, so I hope he can stay on Kyushu Island and cooperate with Kato Kiyomasa to avoid the convergence of Shimazu and Kuroda and bring disaster to Kyushu.

After Kuroda raised his army, in order to quickly expand his strength, he chose to use the Hyuga Street in eastern Kyushu instead of the Satsuma Street, which was guarded by Tachibana Muneshige, thus avoiding a confrontation with him.

However, Tachibana Muneshige did not stand still, and upon learning of the defeat of Kuroda's army, he immediately led his army into Chikuzen's Kuroda clan's domain, and on April 26, he conquered Nakatsu Castle, the capital of the Kuroda clan, which was weak. Later, in addition to leaving a small number of troops to continue to clean up the Kuroda clan's castle, the army turned south and traveled to the area of Mt. Aso through Hita Street, at which time it received a request for help from Kato Kiyomasa, so on the one hand, he led his army to Kumamoto Castle and then south to Uto Castle, and on the other hand, he wrote a letter to Tachibana Chiyo in Miyanaga Village, south of the Yanagi River, asking her to lead her rapid-fire female iron artillery team back to defend the Yanagi River to avoid being taken advantage of by Nabeshima and others.

Although there is a feud between Tachibana Chiyo and Tachibana Soshige, but the enemy is current, and the husband and wife are a couple, or return to Liuhe Castle after a three-year absence, and at the beginning of the city, they were warmly supported by the ministers of the Tachibana family, and fortunately, until the war in Kyushu subsided, Liuhe Castle was not attacked by other forces.

Among the 4,000 troops of Tachibana Soshige, the most well-known is the 800 iron artillery team that has made perfect use of "early entry". Soshige's father-in-law, Michiyuki Tachibana, invented the method of mixing ammunition and projectiles with a single shot and then putting them into a special bamboo tube, and backing up many mixed bamboo tubes and hanging them on the shoulder with a string of straw ropes.

In the early morning of April 28, Shimazu Tadatsune and Kuroda Rusui stood in front of the army, and when they saw the Kurosita Banner and the Apricot Leaf Banner standing impressively in the Toyotomi army formation on the opposite side, they prevented the Tachibana army from rushing to join the battle.

Kuroda Rusui hurriedly glanced around, and sure enough, he found the unique Sun Moon God Torii military flag of Tachibana Soshige (the golden sun and silver moon are painted on the top and left and right, and then the center below is written "Amaterasu Emperor Daijingu", on the right is written "Hachiman Daishiro", on the left is written "Kasuga Daimyojin", and below is the apricot leaf pattern and the garden mori pattern are symmetrical left and right, and finally the two torii gates are symmetrical on the left and right. This flag is a military flag of Tachibana Muneshige's most personal belief style, just like Uesugi Kenshin's Biji flag, Kato Kiyomasa's Myoho-renge-kyo flag, and Honda Tadakatsu's Hachiman Great Bodhisattva flag) is fluttering in the wind along with the military flags of Kato, Otomo, and Konishi in the Toyotomi Army's main camp.

Kuroda Rushui immediately sighed: "Now that the enemy army has reached 17,000 people, and with the help of Liuhe's attendants, it may not be easy to win." ”