Although Tadanaga Asano and Shigean Ueda led an army that far exceeded the enemy forces on the other side, their mood was much heavier than that of Lu Xiangsheng on the other side.

Although the shogunate had to hand over the defense of the Chugoku region to Asano Nagasaki, the shogunate did not really trust Asano Nagasaki to do so. It is true that the shogunate does not have time to take care of the Chinese region now, and hopes that Asano Nagasaki will be able to stop the Kyushu-Choshu coalition from advancing eastward before the armies of Abe Shoji and Ii Naotaka can quell the Osaka rebels.

However, the shogunate also did not want to give Asano Nagasaki too much power, so not only did Ikeda share his power, but also did not give Asano Nagasaki very clear command authority.

The armies sent by the princes of the Chinese region, whether they were two or three hundred or thousands, were in principle equal in rank. And some of the princes, although they did not send many troops, were from the background of the feudal clan, and they were not in the middle of fighting for power for themselves in front of Asano Nagasaki.

Neither Asano nor Ikeda were willing to entangle with these minor princes, so they placed them on the right flank. Even the two leading highnesses did not want to offend the princes too much, and Asano Tadanaga and Ueda Shigeyasu naturally could not force them to obey their orders.

The right flank under the command of Tadanaga Asano and Shigean Ueda consisted of 19 princes' troops, and after a fierce quarrel, they finally reached a compromise with the princes. The three smallest princely armies, totaling 1,100 men, were placed on the hills to the north, while the remaining nearly 29,000 men were divided into five teams to take turns attacking tomorrow.

There is only so much that Tadanaga Asano and Shigean Ueda can do. The rest of the battle can only be counted on these princes to be able to exert the combat effectiveness of their subordinates normally.

In order to force the conscripted peasants to fight as much as possible, Asano Tadanaga and Ueda Shigeyasu asked the princes to keep the distance between their soldiers as small as possible until they were shoulder to shoulder. This makes it difficult for the soldiers to flee the battlefield and allows them to keep moving forward under the pressure of the rear troops.

When the sun rose high on the second day, Lu Xiangsheng and his subordinates saw that groups of soldiers began to emerge from the opposite camp. Led by a saber warrior, a group of soldiers with spears in their hands converged in front of the camp in a large phalanx about a kilometer long, five to seven columns deep.

Lu Xiangsheng watched for a long time before putting down the binoculars and asking the subordinates around him, "After seeing the military appearance on the other side, how do you feel?" ”

Chen Weiguo, the commander of the Second Infantry Battalion, said with some contempt: "Although there are many people, the discipline is really not very good, just waiting for them to line up and attack, it will be half an hour later." If there is only such a phalanx on the opposite side, we can take the initiative..."

Lu Xiangsheng listened to the opinions of several subordinates, most of which were similar to Chen Weiguo's statements, which made him quite relieved, at least these subordinates were not afraid of the number of the other party.

However, some people said worriedly: "The mood of the soldiers of the infantry regiment and the second battalion of coastal defense is quite stable, but the armies of the Maori family and the princes of Kyushu seem to be a little inappropriate. ”

Lu Xiangsheng said without thinking: "According to the No. 2 plan drawn up last night, the armies of Maori and the princes of Kyushu are divided on the two flanks of our army, the infantry regiment is responsible for the left side of the artillery position, and the fifth wing is responsible for the right side of the artillery position, each responsible for the 450-meter position, and it is divided into three lines to meet the battle. ”

A young staff officer observed the troops on the opposite side for a long time, and finally mustered up the courage to say to Lu Xiangsheng: "Colonel, there are no projection troops in the enemy ranks on the opposite side, and their discipline and organization do not look very good.

The subordinate thought that once the soldiers on the opposite side lost their formation, it would be difficult for them to receive any more effective orders. Perhaps we can send a small number of elite shooters to run in front of them and shoot to disrupt their whole rhythm and buy some more time for Battalion Commander Zhou and their roundabout troops. ”

Although Lu Xiangsheng was not very willing to obey the commands of others, he was still relatively open-minded in front of his subordinates. He thought this suggestion was good, so he ordered his staff officer Chen Shougui to personally select some bold and careful archers to cross the river to demoralize the enemy on the opposite side.

Chen Shougui picked out a total of 78 skilled veteran archers, and when the opponent's first phalanx crossed the Ishiuchi River, he led them across the Hachimangawa River, and scattered on a nearly one-kilometer front with five to eight people as a group, and fired at the enemy's first phalanx.

In the beginning, these veteran shooters did not dare to get too close, and shot at a distance of less than 80 meters. Although the bullets had lost their accuracy at this distance, the tight formation on the opposite side helped them, and almost every shot hit an enemy soldier.

Although for an array of nearly 1,000 people, the loss of 60 or 70 soldiers will basically not cause any loss of combat power. But in fact, in an army that has not been rigorously trained, these fallen soldiers are extremely serious to the morale of their surrounding comrades.

At the point where the phalanx was fired, the nearby soldiers immediately stopped, while the other arrays that were not fired at continued to move forward, which made the phalanx, which was still a little shaped, suddenly turn into a zigzag pattern.

The samurai in the phalanx had to stop the whole team and start regrouping in place. Chen Shougui and other stragglers who retreated reloaded their guns with ammunition, and when the other party tried to advance again, they stepped forward and fired another round.

This time, the warriors in the phalanx finally couldn't stand it anymore, and many people ran out of the phalanx one after another, trying to expel Chen Shougui and other stragglers. But the soldiers in the phalanx did not know the intentions of these warriors, they just followed the custom.

The large phalanx of five or six thousand people, which was still somewhat well-organized, quickly turned into a chaotic sea of people and rushed towards the Ming army's position on the west bank of the Hachiman River.

The battle line in the middle of the Ming army looked quite thin because there were only three rows of horizontal formations, but the entire front exceeded the width of the line laid out by Tadanaga Asano and Shigean Ueda.

The 30-meter-wide Hachimangawa River became a natural trench for the Ming army, and the Ming musketeers standing on the river bank formed a continuous barrage of shooting through the conversion of three lines of formation, killing piles of Hiroshima coalition troops on the road to cross the river.

What's even more tragic is that because of the continuous follow-up of the rear soldiers, the soldiers in the front row can't do it if they want to retreat and escape from this hell in the river, and they can only move and become the target of the Ming army's shooting.

After the first phalanx on the right flank of the Hiroshima coalition finally fled from the guns of the Ming army, the river beach east of the Hachimangawa River was littered with corpses, and less than half of the soldiers who had fled back to the east of the Ishiuchi River were less than half of the soldiers who had fled back to the east of the Ishiuchi River.

Such heavy casualties immediately frightened the other units on the right flank of the Hiroshima coalition forces. Even under the constant threats and lures of Asano Tadanaga and Ueda Shigeyasu, the second phalanx troops, which were supposed to attack, refused to cross the Ishiuchi River.

It was not until the good news came from his left flank that the left wing troops under the command of Asano Nagasaki had gained the upper hand in the battle and broke through a section of the river downstream, which caused the allied forces of the right flank princes to move again.

However, at this time, it was nearly 2 hours before the start of the war, and the second phalanx of 6,000 men advanced cautiously. Although Chen Shougui still led stragglers forward to riot, the Hiroshima coalition army, which had already prepared this time, only sent a few small troops to drive forward, and the large phalanx still moved forward slowly.

It was also at this time that a battle suddenly broke out on the hills north of the middle land, and the partial division led by Zhou Yuji finally rounded to their destination. The Hiroshima coalition forces, which were not on high alert, were soon driven down from the hills by the Ming army.

The second phalanx, which was attacking the Ming army head-on, suddenly stopped in place, and the warriors in the phalanx were worried that the Ming army would attack them from the side.

Ueda Shigean immediately crossed the river with 3,000 men and marched towards the northern hills, but when Lu Xiangsheng saw this, he ordered a fence to be lifted to the north of the artillery position, revealing three artillery pieces to intercept Ueda Shigean's troops.

Ueda Shigean obviously did not expect that the Ming army still hid such a killer weapon, and the 3,000 men he led were quickly intercepted in half by artillery, and after losing the numerical advantage, Ueda Shigean's headquarters was quickly repelled by Zhou Yuji.

The second phalanx of the Hiroshima coalition also retreated after the defeat of Ueda Shigeyasu. Tadanaga Asano finally relented, killing several soldiers who had retreated without permission, and finally forced the second and fourth teams to attack.

He ordered Ueda Shigeyasu to lead the other half of the third team to attack or block the Ming army on the hills. He gathered the fifth team of men and decided to attack the Ming army's position from the flank while the frontal troops were attracting the Ming army's firepower, attacking the junction between the left flank and the middle road on the opposite side.

However, when Asano Tadanaga led the right flank of the Hiroshima coalition army to go all out, Lu Xiangsheng no longer cared about whether the artillery in the north was in place, he ordered all the fences in front of the artillery position to be opened, and ordered the eight artillery pieces in the position to fire at the troops on the Ishiuchi River line.

The right flank of the Hiroshima coalition was suddenly blinded, and the troops that had passed through the Ishiuchi River were close together, not knowing where to flee.

The straight trajectory of the cannon, in these dense columns, a dozen or twenty people lost their lives or part of their limbs in one shot, and it looked like an open-air slaughterhouse.

In the face of the cannonballs that made a whistling sound, neither the samurai nor the ashigaru showed any bravery or timidity, because they had lost the ability to think.

The last thing that crushed the right flank of the Hiroshima coalition was probably artillery fire from the hills to the north. * cannons with a faster rate of fire, in such a battlefield, are no different from the Grim Reaper harvesting lives.

In fact, when the battle damage was counted after the war, the number of soldiers who died under the artillery was probably less than the number of people who died as a result of the trampling of the Hiroshima coalition forces, and even less than the number of people who were shot by the Ming army with muskets. But the kind of oppressive force that the cluster artillery brings to the enemy when it fires is far from being matched by other weapons.

The right flank of the Hiroshima coalition was like a mudslide, first breaking up Tadao Ikeda's troops, which were at odds with the Mori family, and then rushing to the left flank under the command of Asano Nagasaki.

Asano Nagasaki, who had already crossed the river with a small half of his troops and defeated the Kyushu coalition led by Kumamoto and Satsuma, did not expect that he would be scattered by the defeated army on his own side when victory was within reach.

Under the counterattack of the Kyushu-Choshu coalition that came to his senses, Asano Nagasaki finally failed to stabilize the situation, causing the total collapse of his army. Although under the cover of his retainers, he successfully escaped into Hiroshima Castle.

However, looking at the hundreds of defeated troops who fled back to the city and the panicked citizens of Hiroshima, Asano Nagasaki finally chose Kaesong to surrender to the Kyushu coalition forces after thinking about it for a night.

This battle not only removed the obstacles to the allied army's advance into the Chugoku region, but also caused the princes who were watching from the Shikoku region to begin to move closer to the allied forces, and the shogunate's authority in the western country could no longer be maintained.

Satsuma and other princes, who originally had some opinions about the Ming Kingdom, quickly changed their attitude after this battle and began to show favor to Ye Yuxuan and Toyotomi Chiyo. The allied forces of the Tokyo Kyosophers and the Western Princes also shifted from the focus of the war with the shogunate to the post-war distribution of victories and the post-war system of the Western Kingdom.