Since Wednesday Wei thwarted the Houjin attack in street battles outside Zunhua City, the General Staff of the Ming Army began to raise the combat in the city to a position equivalent to relying on the city wall to defend the operation, and conducted a careful and in-depth study of the street fighting in the city.

Although the General Staff always regarded the Ming army as the defensive side when studying street fighting, offense and defense were two sides of the same coin. The more thoroughly you study defensive tactics, the more you understand how to attack.

The Second Battalion of Haiphong under Li Chenfang's command naturally accepted some of the operational concepts of street fighting, and they also knew that the primary guarantee in street fighting was the organization, and the complete formation of the army, limited to the width of the street, it was difficult for the superiority of the army to be reflected in the street fighting;

The second is the concentration of firepower, due to the obstruction of various houses, so that the army must use a dense formation when marching through the streets, the attack of concentrated fire can not only kill and injure the enemy to the greatest extent, but also force confusion between the front and rear ranks of the enemy, so as to create conditions for victory for their own side.

Finally, there is the understanding of the terrain, which allows the aborigines to use the layout of the city more effectively to attack foreign enemy forces.

The 2nd Coastal Defense Battalion was an outsider in Osaka Castle, and its layout in the castle was obviously inferior to that of the shogunate officers and soldiers in Osaka Castle. Therefore, Li Chenfang did not dare to rashly command his subordinates to go deep into the city, but kept organizing those poor townspeople outside the city who wanted to get food, and threw them into the castle towns in Osaka City.

At the beginning of the dozen or so volunteers, Li Chenfang would spend energy to talk to these volunteers who entered the city, in order to win the centripetal force of these volunteer members. However, as more and more townspeople came to hear the news, and the shogunate officers and soldiers in the city were unusually silent, he didn't care about the composition of these volunteers.

Li Chenfang gave this task to Junichiro Noma and Jiro Sasaki, and he only appointed the head of each group of volunteers. Li Chenfang was stunned in the process and realized that these Japanese really had something special, once they surrendered to him, they would bow down to his orders and have no other thoughts at all, which saved him a lot of energy.

As for Junichiro Noma and Jiro Sasaki's arrangement of the whereabouts of these volunteers, it is indeed the key to all parts of the city, and those volunteers who were temporarily assembled, except for a few people, most of the teams obeyed the order and went to the area where they were arranged to control the city.

Therefore, only an hour after the capture of the gates, the Osaka East and West Offices had already been taken. In the castle town where tens of thousands of people live, the two commissioners add up to 30 riders and 50 people in the same heart, and the total number of people is only 80.

The two squads carried by Zheng Xiang and the volunteers who came one after another, quickly broke through the unsuspecting Nishidai Office, and the stubborn Nishimachi Shoji Shimada Naotoki was killed on the spot, and the remaining strength and concentricity of Nishijo chose to surrender.

As for the Higashi Shinkosho, which was far away from the south gate, although he received the news of the rebellion of the townspeople in advance, Mizuno Nobuko, who had just organized his subordinates, found out that it was not only civilians but also the iron artillery troops sent by the Great Nayan that surrounded the Higashi Shinko, and Mizuno Nobuko, who thought that the castle had been controlled by Tadanaga's troops, quickly chose to surrender.

With Mizuno Nobuko's lead, important places in the castle towns such as Ginza and Kankura surrendered one after another under Mizuno Shinko's orders. Located in Osaka's eastern ward, the official warehouse is the largest rice warehouse in the city, with a maximum storage capacity of 100,000 koku of rice.

Now that the new grain is on the market, and coupled with the hoarding policy of Sakai Shigesumi and the rice merchants in collusion, the rice stored in this official warehouse is almost 90% of the stock.

Zheng Xiang had no interest in the rice he couldn't take with him, and he quickly fulfilled his promise to let the townspeople who followed the volunteers receive food according to their numbers. In order to calm down the civilians in the city as soon as possible, Zheng Xiang also allowed the civilians in the city to come and collect food, but they had to join the volunteer team to maintain order in the town.

Although the townspeople in the castle are in a better economic situation than outside the castle, the largest number of craftsmen in the castle are also burdened by the long-lasting rise in food prices, and they are about to drain their pockets.

Zheng Xiang's grain policy was soon welcomed and supported by these craftsmen, and with the help of these craftsmen, some of the volunteers who began to break their promises after entering the city, and looted and set fire to the city, were quickly cleared, and the fires on several streets were also brought under control.

Due to the rapid expansion of the number of volunteers in the castle and the flying of the banner of His Royal Highness Tadacho, the families of the samurai living on the edge of each town, in order to avoid being harassed by the volunteers, had to ask Masaka through Mizuno Shinko for permission to form an escort team to protect themselves, and they were willing to swear not to intervene in the crusade of His Highness Tadacho against Shigesumi Sakai, the castle.

Zheng Xiang didn't mind the samurai's actions to defend themselves, as long as they didn't interfere with his plans to get the silver deposited in Ginza, so he readily agreed to Mizuno Shinko's request, but asked the families to send some men over the age of 15 as hostages, and let them go back when the war was over.

After Zheng Xiang opened the door to Ginza, more than 100 hostages were sent by these samurai families one after another. Zheng Xiang divided the hostages into two groups, one group assisted the granary supervisor in maintaining order and distributing the grain; The other group was sent to the south gate where Li Chenfang was.

However, Zheng Xiang took people into Ginza to inspect the circle and then hurriedly retreated, he solemnly let a team and two more trusted volunteers guard here, and he returned to the south gate with Mizuno Shinko, the head of Ginza and a few personal guards.

When Zheng Xiang returned, Li Chenfang was also worried about the new changes in the city. The soldiers who were monitoring the Sannomaru gate reported that there was some movement at all, but instead of an army attacking, groups of unarmored samurai poured out of Sannomaru, and then scattered into the alleys, and no one rushed to the south gate.

The south gate is his own retreat, Li Chenfang naturally can't give up the south gate and scatter the team to capture those scattered samurai, and he can't rashly attack the gate of Sannomaru and attract the attention of the main force of the officers and soldiers in the city.

With the efforts of Junichiro Noma and Jiro Sasaki, plus the hostages sent back by Zheng Xiang, the strength of Li Chenfang's command has skyrocketed. From the original four squadrons of more than 100 people, it has become four squadrons and eight volunteer squadrons of more than 1,200 people.

When he saw Zheng Xiang returning empty-handed with a few people, he couldn't help but pull him aside with some wonder and asked, "What's wrong?" Isn't there much silver in Ginza? ”

Zheng Xiang couldn't suppress his excitement and said to him: "No, it's too much to carry, just the unprocessed silver nuggets are almost 4,000 meshes, and there are more than 19,800 pieces of processed 43 coins of Ding silver... It adds up to about 18,000 kilograms, which is more than 580,000 taels according to our Ming weights and measures.

It would take 4 or 50 carts to transport it by cart alone, and now that it is still too bright, I have come to you to consult with you about how long you can hold out here, and I will not be able to transport the silver until evening. Also..."

Li Chenfang frowned and asked, "What else?" ”

Zheng Xiang looked left and right, and then lowered his voice and said, "In addition, according to this Ginza head account, the amount of gold and silver in the Honmaru vault may exceed our estimate of 120,000 taels of gold. ”

Li Chenfang was a little surprised, and Zheng Xiang couldn't wait to say excitedly: "In addition to the local land rent and commercial taxes, the vault in Osaka Castle also transports a part of the gold and silver taxes collected by the shogunate from the gold and silver mines in Shimane, Hyogo, Oita and other places every year.

In addition to the gold being transported to Kyoto to be processed into large and small judgments, and then sent to Edo and back to Osaka, silver was processed in Ginza, where it was then purchased in Osaka and shipped to Kyoto or Edo according to the needs of the shogunate.

Of the four hundred vaults claimed by the shogunate, one-tenth of them were in the castle..."

Li Chenfang was really taken aback, the so-called 400 vaults did not refer to all the treasury where gold was stored, but according to the Japanese custom, each vault would not reserve more than 10,000 taels of gold, silver, and copper coins.

The Japanese gold worth 400,000 taels, that is, the Chinese taels, 160,000 taels, which is a third higher than their original estimate of 120,000 taels of Chinese gold.

Seeing Zheng Xiang being carried away by wealth, Li Chenfang quickly came to his senses, and he couldn't help but say to Zheng Xiang: "First of all, it will be considered the vault in the Honmaru, even if how much silver can be shipped out of Ginza, it is not necessarily now..."

Li Chenfang then told Zheng Xiang about the strange actions of the shogunate officers and soldiers, and he was a little worried that these samurai scattered in various towns would recruit those righteous warriors to regain control of the situation in the city, so that they would have to consider retreating.

The reliable forces in their hands, plus those Toyotomi remnants, are only about 300 people. If they lose the support of the citizens of Osaka, they will have no other choice but to flee back to the ship.

Under Li Chenfang's warning, Zheng Xiang finally came to his senses, and the two discussed for a long time on the side, and decided that Zheng Xiang would take Sasaki Jiro and two volunteer squadrons to inspect the towns in the city. while correcting certain misdeeds of the brave; While suppressing the samurai who escaped from Sannomaru, and monitoring the jade stoma of the east gate leading to Sannomaru in the east of the castle town.

Li Chenfang continued to sit at the south gate, while Li Wulang led a squadron and two volunteer squadrons to the west gate of Sannomaru to monitor the movements of the officers and troops in Sannomaru.

After that, the situation in the city made Li Chenfang feel relieved, and the worst he guessed did not appear, and most of the samurai who scattered to the towns except for a few who called on the townspeople to come out to fight against the righteous warriors on the streets, most of the samurai returned directly to their homes to protect themselves.

Seeing that their homes were not being disturbed by the Volunteers, but were being protected, many samurai expressed their willingness to stay at home and not interfere in the battle between His Royal Highness Tadashi and the Shogun's favorite retainer Shigesumi Sakai.

Some of the more prestigious samurai were persuaded by Sasaki Jiro to maintain order in the samurai yashiki and prevent some young samurai from going out to attack the volunteers and oppose His Royal Highness Tadacho.

As dusk approached, news of the fall of the Minomaru West Gate finally reached the South Gate. Li Chenfang still had three squadrons in his hands, but the Volunteer Squadron expanded to 12 again.

At this time, not only the castle towns in the city had been firmly controlled by the volunteers, but the leaders of the towns outside the city who had been watching the development of the situation also ran to Li Chenfang one by one after seeing that His Royal Highness Tadashi had really opened a warehouse to release grain.

Whether it was for the safety of their team when they retreated, or for the merit of continuing to risk taking Osaka Castle, Li Chenfang had to decide to send the young heroes of each town to enter Sannomaru and attack Ninomaru and Honmaru.