The battle on the beach near Kitakyushu did not last long, and the thousands of samurai who landed sporadically across the strait were gradually on the verge of despair under the sweep of the seven or eight hundred elites deployed on the shore with absolute superiority in equipment and training, and the pursuit battle in the strait finally ended near night.

This heavy defeat during the day began to make many of the generals who approached feel intimidated, and Tokugawa Iemitsu finally decided that although it seemed that the night might greatly weaken the opponent's advantage, he did not choose to act rashly at night, but first sent sporadic water ghosts to reconnoiter the situation in the Kitakyushu area before deciding on the next move.

At the time of the military meeting, there was also a disagreement among the large armies gathered in the Shimonoseki area, and some people felt that they should retreat to various places and defend themselves when the opponent seemed to have absolute sea power. In the face of an enemy with absolute superiority in combat effectiveness, it is obviously unwise to attack riskily. Some people advocate that defense should be carried out on the spot, and in the course of defense, we should strive to resist the landing attack of an arrogant opponent. There are also those who feel that a temporary setback should not shake the determination to fight. If the army launches a landing at night, then the enemy on the defense should have little to do.

Unable to form a unified opinion, Tokugawa Iemitsu had no choice but to order those who were not optimistic about the future of the war to lead the army to retreat. And those who felt that they should attack prepared for a landing attack, and the rest stayed to defend. In particular, the headquarters of the Samurai of Banner remained for defense. This attitude expressed Tokugawa Iemitsu's views on the war to a certain extent, but it also minimized the staging. Although the number of troops was reduced from more than 100,000 to 70,000 or 80,000, at least 30,000 troops were still left behind after the attack was put into the attack.

What made Tokugawa Iemitsu dare to do this was not only the judgment of the strength of the two sides, but also the judgment of the number of ships of the great power coming from the west at sea during the daytime confrontation, if those people used their main forces in other directions when their forces were already limited. Then the opportunity to win in the Kyushu area may come. As for the possibility that the main forces of the enemy army pose a threat?

Many people, including Tokugawa Iemitsu, believe that Toei is now a large country with a population of 20 million and fully militarized and mobilized, and that it is by no means a threat that can be fully posed by the other side with a hundred ships and about 10,000 troops. Even if the opponent's elite level is one attack on ten, in the face of the hundreds of thousands of defensive forces mobilized in various places, they will be unable to fight because the casualties and losses are too high. This view is not only held by Tokugawa Iemitsu himself, but also by many other generals.

In this way, after the forces on the water had suffered a considerable blow, in order to prepare enough landing ships, the large army gathered in the vicinity of Shimonoseki waited for a whole day, and when the sky began to end again, nearly 30,000 decent standing forces of small boats that could be carried by thousands of manpower were put into the night attack.

It was only a moment later that the sound of cannons and explosions rose into the air, illuminating the nearby waters one by one, and many of the shogunate generals who decided to attack were terrified, as if the landing team would soon face defeat again.

In fact, the night finally brought decent cover, and most of the boats that landed across the sea this time were small boats with a displacement of only a few tons and had sufficient manpower, and the width of the entire strait did not seem to be much wider than that of the eastern part of the Yangtze River, so because of the lack of ships and ammunition, in the end, there were less than 200 small boats and even 5 or 6,000 officers and soldiers of the shogunate army who were preparing to land with the small boats into the sea at night.

Of course, perhaps because the width of the strait is not too wide, and the wind and waves do not seem to be particularly large, there are still many people who have escaped back to the shore by means of swimming, and the real loss of people in the strait is probably only about 3,000 people.

After thorough investigation and questioning of those who had fled to the shore, many people, including Tokugawa Iemitsu, were able to find out the situation and learned that although there were many twists and turns in the landing operation, the overall situation was quite smooth.

The 25,000 shogunate troops who had finally landed did not immediately choose to attack in depth as soon as they came ashore, but first assembled in the night, and then cautiously advanced along the avenue as it approached dawn and the ships in the strait could wait for threatening fire at any time, with scouting sentries and strikers in front and the main force behind.

The advance of the shogunate army after the sky was completely brightened was only about a dozen miles or so, and the whole team was about to carry out a temporary formation and rest, when a series of two-pound bombs began to fall from the sky, and the whole team had to evacuate as much as possible to expand and hide.

At this time, at least two groups of about 1,500 troops had been assembled, and 64 200-pound body-barreled light guns fired hundreds of shells in just a few minutes, causing nearly 1,000 casualties. Although the scale of the casualties was not severe, it forced the shogunate army to consider how to retreat and defend rather than attack. Because in the eyes of many, this kind of firepower does not seem to be at all like the firepower of an opponent who is obviously inferior to his own side.

The bombardment stopped for a while, but when it came out again, it lasted longer, and the casualties of the entire army reached about 10%, which made many of the shogunate officers and soldiers who had been full of confidence before also begin to realize what kind of opponent they were about to face. However, perhaps because the Battle of Sekigahara had not passed for too long, many officers and generals who led the team still had some experience, so that the retreat of the army of more than 20,000 people did not turn into a complete rout.

In order to prevent the repulsed enemy from escaping to the opposite shore by taking advantage of the fact that the strait was not too wide, the two assembled battalion battle groups did not continue the fierce attack under such circumstances, but always maintained a steady advance, suppressing the remnants of the enemy, who were more than 20,000 troops, not too far from the coast, and launched a confrontation.

It was probably at night that the enemy who had landed more than 20,000 people was about to launch a decent counterattack, but in the darkness of the night began to encounter a more dense pair, and it was clear that more and more troops were gathering around Kitakyushu.

(End of chapter)