Chapter 40: The Bloody Battle of Mt. Kurado Captures Tokugawa Ietsuna Alive

Last night, Wu Sangui mobilized troops on a large scale, and Tokugawa Ietsuna's scout agents had already sent the information back to Tokugawa Ietsuna's camp.

Tokugawa Ietsuna didn't expect that the army of the Yaogang people did not go south as he expected, and somehow found this Mt. Norikura where he was hiding. How did he know that his generals had been wounded and captured, and told them everything.

At this time, Tokugawa Ietsuna was very conflicted, and he didn't know whether to retreat or fight with the kiln people here. Tokugawa Ietsuna knew that if he fled now, the entire Norikuratake region would be scattered, and it would be very difficult to concentrate again. But if you don't run away, the terrifying cannon of the kiln gang people is really terrible. After thinking about it, where could he flee if he escaped, it was better to mobilize all the troops and take advantage of the opportunity of the Yaogang people to attack his camp, and fight with the Yaogang people. Maybe we can win out of chaos and achieve miraculous results.

Tokugawa Ietsuna was determined, and immediately sent someone to inform the troops in various places overnight and surrounded Mt. Norikura. Surround the Yaogang army from behind with heavy troops, and try to attack before the Yaogang people attack.

Tokugawa Ietsuna's idea was very good, but it was different when it was executed, some of the troops were ordered to go out overnight, and some waited until the morning when the kiln people started the battle. Despite this, the Japanese troops were far beyond the mental preparations of Wu Sangui and Mu Yi. Mu Yi, Zheng Zhilong, and Wu Sangui analyzed that Tokugawa Ietsuna was fully mobilized, and the number of people who could be mobilized in Honshu to participate in the war would not be less than one million, but a large part of his army would be in the south, and he did not expect Tokugawa Ietsuna to be able to gather so many troops at once.

The garrison at Mt. Norikura were all Tokugawa Ietsuna's own soldiers, many of whom were samurai, totaling more than 70,000 people. Outside, the soldiers of the Tokugawa family basically surrounded from behind the Yaogang army after the order, and some active daimyo brought them, and there were nearly 300,000 people on the periphery. He even cut off the connection between Wu Sangui and their army besieging Norikura and the Edo wharf.

Although Wu Sangui and Mu Yi both found out according to intelligence that the reaction speed of the Japanese was indeed very fast, they were not too worried, because they were confident that they would attack Mount Chenganyue in one fell swoop, in that case, the Japanese who surrounded them would immediately be in chaos, and at that time, it would be time to hunt everywhere.

In order to strengthen the intensity of the offensive. Wu Sangui ordered twenty tracked tractors with 130 cannons to participate in the attack of the artillery wagons towards Chenganyue. Although there are no cannons on the tracked tractor, the armor on the vehicle is not ordinary weapons, and the water-cooled heavy machine gun on the vehicle is very powerful.

At dawn, the two armies on and off the hill were ready to fight, and the front of the two armies was surprisingly quiet. Even the early bird felt a strong murderous aura, "chirping" and flying away, and the front of the formation seemed quieter.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang like a landslide and the ground cracked, and the artillery position of the kiln gang opened fire at Mt. Norikura at the same time. Twenty heavy guns, as well as numerous mortars, threw shells at the camp that Tokugawa Ietsuna had painstakingly built on Mt. Norikura.

Mt. Norikura was constantly beating as the shells exploded, and the wooden fortifications, tents, horses, soldiers, everything on the mountain was in pieces. Several batteries on the hill were also pushed to the front of the infantry guns, and they were destroyed one by name. As soon as the heavy artillery stopped, five artillery trucks and 20 tracked tractors drove towards the mountain with black smoke "booming", and Wu Sangui's cavalry followed closely and marched forward in formation.

The artillery carts and tractors in front easily ran over obstacles such as undestroyed fences and horses with tracks. The guns on the artillery trucks also fired at valuable targets when they found them, and the heavy machine guns on the vehicles also fired at all suspicious targets.

The Japanese soldiers on the mountain, where have they endured such a hellish shelling, and many of those who were not killed were shocked to death, and many of them were already deaf in their ears, and some had already collapsed, and they were scurrying around. Soon fell under the heavy machine guns of the kiln gangmen. A lot of people are desperately running up the hill. What was missing was the target of the muskets of the Guanning Iron Cavalry.

The gun wagons and tractors, all the way on the sticky flesh and blood, were halfway attacked, and saw the rest of the Japanese flock to the top of Mt. Norikura. The top of the mountain is full of people. Wu Sangui ordered a loudspeaker on a gun carriage to persuade the Japanese to surrender.

A surrendered Japanese shouted in Japanese through a loudspeaker as Wu Sangui had ordered: "Japanese soldiers, you have no way to escape. You have seen that anything that resists is useless. Now give you a moment to think about it, think about your family, your parents, your children, and your loved ones, and we give you a chance to go home and be reunited with them. As long as you surrender, we guarantee your life. ”

But no matter how the loudspeaker shouted, no Japanese came to surrender, in fact, Wu Sangui also understood that some people couldn't come by if they wanted to surrender.

There was no way, Wu Sangui didn't want the soldiers to go over to fight with them, so he ordered the light and heavy mortars and infantry artillery that followed behind to fire at the dense Japanese crowded on the hill.

Wu Sangui, who had been on the battlefield for a long time, put down the binoculars in his hand and turned his head, unwilling to look at this bloody scene.

The "boom" shells exploded, each shot could kill a piece of Japanese, and the Japanese who were not dead desperately rushed down the mountain, but how could the flesh and blood rush through the barrage composed of dozens of light and heavy machine guns. Mt. Norikura was already a mountain of flesh and blood, full of broken corpses of Japanese, and sticky black blood was flowing slowly down the hillside.

After the shelling stopped, the artillery trucks and tractors, moving on, there were not many Japanese left on the hill. Some of the cavalrymen carried their horses over the gun wagons and tractors, and with their sabers they cut down the remaining Japanese. At this time, they found that in a place where the corpses were piled up on the back hillside, the corpses could be seen moving. The cavalry rode over and saw that it was a cave. The entrance to the cave was crowded with Japanese with frightened eyes.

The cavalry surrounded the hole, and the Japanese were still crowding inside. A few cavalrymen drove them one by one, wielding their sabers. The Japanese who came over were still very obedient, holding their heads one by one, and looking behind them, there were people in front of them holding their heads and following them without anything.

What the cavalry didn't expect was that people came out, but endlessly, more than 5,000 people came out, and no one came out.

The cavalrymen dismounted, lit flashlights, and went into the cave. Upon entering, they found that the hole was huge, no wonder so many people could be squeezed in.

When they entered the cave, they saw large candles and oil lamps lit in front of them. There was a man sitting on a chair in the cave, and there were dozens of people standing in front of and behind him.

The cavalrymen surrounded them with guns, but these cavalrymen did not understand Japanese, they shouted in Chinese for them to surrender, and these Japanese also shouted something, and as a result, the hot kiln cavalry became impatient and greeted them with muskets. Dozens of people were killed, leaving only those sitting in the middle chairs. The cavalrymen knew that the man in the middle must be very important. However, the shotgun also injured the man in the middle with one leg.

The cavalry consulted with each other and decided to drag this guy out, because if they wanted to stay alive, it would be easier to heal the wounds outside.

Although this guy was not lightly injured, but the cavalry dragged him along the way, he still scolded, although the kiln cavalry did not understand, but knew that he was constantly scolding, so it was not polite to drag him.

When he got out of the cave, this guy was gone.

Wu Sangui on the mountain heard that a person was caught from the cave, Wu Sangui was excited for a while, thinking that maybe he had captured Tokugawa Ietsuna alive?

Immediately, he had the guy wash his face with water, and let several captives come and see him, and finally determined that this person was Tokugawa Ietsuna. Wu Sangui immediately ordered the military doctor to do his best to treat Tokugawa Ietsuna.

It turned out that as soon as the cannon sounded on the mountain, Tokugawa Ietsuna knew that it was over, indicating that the Japanese under the mountain did not initiate an action to contain the kiln people. The artillery fire was so fierce that many Japanese officers and soldiers broke through the guards and squeezed into the cave.

Tokugawa Ietsuna: They can't go out if they want to. Waiting until the kiln gang people blocked the hole entrance and got the soldiers out one by one, Tokugawa Ietsuna, who didn't want to die, wanted to talk to the kiln gang people about the conditions of surrender, but the kiln gang soldiers didn't understand what they said at all, and the impatient kiln gang soldiers shot at all. Fortunately, he was spared a life. Tokugawa Ietsuna, who was not killed, knew that the kiln people did not want to kill him, and he also began to behave heroically, constantly scolding.

In fact, the Tokugawa Ietsuna blamed the army outside the mountain, and they launched an attack, but it was too late. Just as the military doctor was treating Tokugawa Ietsuna, the sound of artillery rang out outside the mountain. The kiln cannon also began to fire.

It is not a simple matter to organize the army outside the mountain, and it is even more difficult to organize an attack. By the time they heard the sound of the kiln people launching an attack, it was too late to organize the people immediately. Although the artillery of the Yaogang people had stopped, the outer army still launched an attack on the Yaogang blocking position in order to solve the problem and save them. They knew that if they did not attack the general, who had lost their backbone, the Japanese would be finished, they would be worse off than dead, and they didn't even know if they could give them hope of life. The Japanese were very resolute in their offensive attempts.

Their artillery "thumped" over. However, the artillery of the kiln gang quickly smashed the shells into the dense pile of Japanese according to the guidance of the front.

However, there were too many Japanese who came to besiege them, and they had a very wide offensive surface, and there were no soldiers in sight. The artillery of the kiln was unable to block all the offensive routes. The Japanese are still pouring up like a tide, and the light and heavy machine guns of the kiln gang people are constantly harvesting and pouring up Japanese soldiers, rifles, muskets, and hand ** have all participated in the battle of harvesting the Japanese. But the Japanese in the back still kept coming.

Just when the guns of the kiln gang soldiers who were blocking the attack were all red, the main force of Norikuragake who participated in the attack came down, and they quickly replenished the mortar heavy machine guns to the blocking position, and the situation was different all of a sudden. The tide that came up quickly receded.

Wu Sangui saw the retreating Japanese, and knew that the Japanese would immediately scatter and flee after going down. Ordered the cavalry corps, quickly attacked, and killed behind the Japanese army. Attack the Japanese from behind. Take advantage of the chaos to eliminate as many Japanese as possible.

The Japanese charged countless people dead and wounded, but it didn't work, and they also knew that the battle on the side of Mt. Norikura was over, so they didn't know whether Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna had escaped or if the jade was shattered. But no matter what, there is no point in attacking Mt. Norikura again. These daimyo who led the troops are now thinking about where to retreat. If Tokugawa Ietsuna died, they should hurry up and return to their own place with their own troops, and if they want to die, they will die on their own land. If the Tokugawa family is not dead, he can't leave like this, otherwise the Tokugawa family will be relieved, and he will not be able to die well.

Just when some people were still hesitating, some people had already understood the situation and led the team to run first. It doesn't matter, at this time, someone leaves first, and immediately many people follow, and then the whole army flees wildly.

The Japanese who fled south met one of Wu Sangui's cavalry corps.

These arrogant Guanning iron horsemen, facing the flow of Japanese people, opened a horizontal team and collided with the Japanese flow like a big net.

Now the Guanning Iron Cavalry no longer use swords, he prefers to use musket shotguns, so that they can knock down a piece of the opponent's dense "Peng" on the horse, and after firing the bullets, they can run up on the horse and pick up the barrel of the gun can also be used as a stick, and they can smash their heads on the heads of the Japanese at once. Such a Japanese might as well be shot.

Wu Sangui reorganized this cavalry army with more than 30,000 people, and today they are killing on a large scale. collided with the Japanese once, and immediately broke the Japanese brigade into several scattered and fled. The cavalry commander understood that the opponent was now incapable of organizing a counterattack, and he immediately ordered the cavalry corps to divide up and chase after them in divisions.

Later, the two Japanese ran too scattered, and the division commanders ordered the regiment to disperse the pursuit. By the time it was dark, some divisions had dispersed to battalion units.

Battalions are equipped with radio stations.

Before dark, Wu Sangui asked the cavalry corps to notify the scattered units to withdraw immediately.

The complete victory on this day basically laid the foundation for Honshu Island. From now on, there will be no more large-scale battles on Honshu Island. What's even more gratifying is that the shogunate Tokugawa Ietsuna, the real powerful figure in Japan, was captured alive. Based on experience, Zheng Zhilong sent a telegram to Mu Yi: "Tokugawa Ietsuna did not commit suicide, which shows that this person is very afraid of death!" There is a possibility of persuading him to surrender. ”

Mu Yi wanted to let Tokugawa Ietsuna recover from his injuries first. The next step must be to encircle Kyoto as soon as possible, and it would be best if the Japanese emperor could be captured alive.

However, Mu Yi followed Wu Sangui's advice and sent cavalry to encircle and suppress the Japanese for several days. The cavalry of the Guanning Iron Cavalry went out every day and came back with a bloody body.

Coupled with the Japanese annihilated in Chenganyue, Wu Sangui made a preliminary estimate that he could probably kill three or four hundred thousand Japanese, and more than 6,000 people were captured. Guan Ningtie rode out, and no one wanted to bring the captives back.

Mu Yi was of course happy when he heard Wu Sangui say this, "Old Wu! It seems that with the addition of the Japanese we exterminated on the docks, we have killed more than 400,000 in Honshu! The rest of the Japanese are not expected to be able to fight much more than that! ”

"The number we eliminated is the bottom line of the estimate, because some brothers may come back to report more, and some less, so I will take the less." Wu Sangui said, "There is one thing, I see that the Japanese are now fleeing one by one, and it is estimated that it will be very difficult for them to assemble like this." I suggest that we don't have to push it flat either. As soon as I saw it, I went straight to Kyoto, and we quickly surrounded Kyoto by land and water. It's better to capture the emperor alive. That way the Japanese business will soon be over. ”

"Hmmm! That's what I mean. Mu Yi said, "Lao Zheng has nothing to do there, so let Lao Zheng command the navy to transfer the troops of the four countries of Kyushu and some more." However, the rest of the troops over there are more reclamation troops you brought, and I want to transfer the more than 3,000 marines over there and let them cooperate with Lao Zheng's side to land from the sea. ”

"Okay, you can also transfer the five artillery trucks here to them and cooperate with them to land from the sea!" Wu Sangui was very happy, "On our side, it is enough to have my cavalry and infantry. However, don't underestimate my fellow soldiers, who are veterans of the war. There is no ambiguity in the fighting. ”

"Alright, let's go both ways!" Mu Yi said.

Wu Sangui's army was invincible all the way, and all the towns it encountered were basically fleeing barely, and when they encountered those who did not know whether they were alive or dead and closed the city gates and resisted stubbornly, Wu Sangui ordered the artillery to blast the city walls, and the infantry entered the city to kill them, leaving no one behind.

To say that the happiest person is Zheng Zhilong, he heard that Mu Yi asked him to lead his troops to attack Kyoto, but Zheng Zhilong thought, why wait for Wu Sangui to kill him, Lao Tzu himself will enter Kyoto. There are 3,000 marines who came by boat, and tens of thousands of musket infantry, and Lao Tzu can't enter Kyoto, which makes Wu Sangui see a joke.

The ship of the Marine Corps arrived at Shikoku Island, and Zheng Zhilong also commanded two warships to meet it.

The Marine Corps commander came to Zheng Zhilong's ship in a small boat, and Zheng Zhilong asked him, "Can you fight without rest?" ”

"No problem, we'll be done on the boat!"

"Okay, we still have infantry on our side, immediately board these two big ships, and some infantry on wooden boats, we will go directly to Osaka Bay."

Zheng Zhilong finished speaking. The Marine Corps commander and Zheng Zhilong discussed the battle plan. Zheng Zhilong had already thought about these and told him his plan in detail.

The two quickly decided that the Marine Corps commander would command the attack on Osaka, and then lead his troops north along the Yodo River to target Kyoto. Zheng Zhilong led people into the Yodo River and went straight to Kyoto.

The situation in Osaka Bay is very familiar to the Yaogang Navy because of the last time I came.

The emperor in Kyoto was surrounded by people sent by the Tokugawa shogun to spy on him, but there were also his own staff, and some people who were dissatisfied with the shogunate's arbitrary power quietly supported the emperor. Of course, all this is very secret, and if the Tokugawa family knew that they would definitely die.

When the Ming army came to fight and there were wars burning everywhere, the emperor was very worried, and he also had some expectations, hoping that if the Ming army defeated the Tokugawa family, then he would come forward to negotiate peace with the Ming army, and maybe he would be able to regain his rights as the emperor. It wasn't until Kyushu was lost, Shikoku was lost, and then it was heard that the Ming army had landed in Edo, and then Tokugawa Ietsuna was defeated at Mt. Norikura. In a makeshift house in the burned Imperial Palace in Kyoto, the emperor began to frown.

One of the aides sighed and said, "If this continues, our Japan will be completely ruined!" ”

"Alas! Who's to say it isn't? The emperor sighed and said, "Even if we clean up the mess in the future, it will be difficult for us Japanese to recover in a hundred years!" ”

"I just don't know what the Ming army means this time. I heard that they told Tokugawa Ietsuna's secret envoy that they demanded that he surrender completely. I don't know, what to do if you surrender? Do you want money, things, or people? They can't kill us all, can they? ”

The words of the staff made the emperor shake, "Oops! It's possible! Didn't we attack the DPRK several times in the past just to destroy China through the DPRK? This time they have the upper hand, can they spare us? ”

"What's that good about?"

"Everyone! We don't care what happens to Tokugawa Ietsuna, we must block the attack of the Ming army. All the troops we can mobilize will immediately go north to fight a bloody battle with the Ming army. No matter how much the Ming army can fight, it can't kill 10 million of us! When the emperor said this, he was actually very frightened.

Someone said, "Emperor, our troops are all going north, what if they attack us in Kyoto?" ”

"No, they were able to defeat hundreds of thousands of Tokugawa Iezuna, which means that their main force is in Edo. As long as we hold them back, no army will be able to attack us. ”

Without the orders of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Ming people around Kyoto were still willing to listen to the emperor, and the army continued to march north, preparing to intercept Wu Sangui and them.

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New progress in "Memories of the Southern Song Dynasty": the Battle of Yashan, the defeat of the Yuan army, the counterattack of the Song army, and the landing in Fuzhou.