Seogwipo Port on the southern tip of Jeju Island, which was originally a small fishing village, has become a thriving town with a population of 10,000 thanks to the vigorous construction of the Donghae Patrol Office over the past three years.

In this new town, there are about 1,000 local aborigines, about 3,000 officers and soldiers and their families from the Donghai Patrol Prefecture, about 2,000 fishermen who emigrated from Shandong and other places, and 3 or 4,000 exiled families who were forcibly relocated, scholars from Henan and Shandong, powerful families from Liaodong, and some exiled prisoners who committed crimes.

Jeju Island is an island caused by a volcanic eruption, so the deeper you go into the middle of the island, the higher the terrain becomes. Most of the island is natural pasture, so it was once a sea horse farm used for grazing horses in the Yuan Dynasty.

After the death of the Yuan Dynasty, although the area was subsumed into Korea, the poor shipbuilding technology of the DPRK made the development of Jeju Island not much better than that of the Yuan Dynasty, except for the establishment of two counties in the north of the island, and the rest of the island was basically in a laissez-faire state.

When Jeju Island was reclaimed by the Ming Dynasty, it was used as a base for monitoring Korea and Japan, and as a transit port for northern territories such as Vladivostok, Sakhalin, Temple Street, and the Kuril Islands, as well as a processing port for fishing in the East China Sea.

Therefore, when a Ming merchant or fishing boat arrives anywhere on Jeju Island, he can hear the familiar local sound, which is no different from returning to China. But three miles northwest of the bustling port of Seogwipo, thousands of soldiers are training in a clearing near a forest, while others are divided into teams to cut down trees, transport them, process them, and build new barracks.

In a log longhouse in the northeast of this barracks, Lu Xiangsheng was convening the officers above the company level of this army to discuss the combat records of the Japanese army sent by Ye Yuxuan, Li Chenfang and others, and their impressions and evaluations of the Japanese military and civilians.

As the commander of the first step corps of Jeju Prefecture in an experimental nature, Lu Xiangsheng is still very satisfied with the quality of the officers and men of this newly built army. The ordinary soldiers of this unit are veterans of at least one war, and with the exception of a very small number of officers, most of the officers are graduates of the Army Military Academy. For Lu Xiangsheng, who served as an instructor at the Army Military Academy, commanding this unit is like giving orders to his own students, and there is no strangeness at all.

Since the first mission of this army was to fight across the sea, in order to be able to reduce the logistical burden, the establishment of the army at all levels was also reduced to a certain extent, which made the proportion of non-commissioned officers in the army close to half.

For example, the infantry battalion has been reduced from 750 to 550 people, and the entire infantry regiment consists of two infantry battalions, a cavalry battalion, and an artillery company with six guns. Theoretically, this unit should also be equipped with 10 exclusive transport ships of more than 400 tons, but due to the lack of capacity, they can only be equipped with 3 exclusive transport ships.

Except for Major Qi Zuguang, who was born in the Sihai Battalion, there have always been doubts about the equipping of ships, but the officers, including Lu Xiangsheng and others, did not think that this was a big problem.

The short voyage from Tanggu, Tianjin, in mid-August to Seogwipo port on Jeju Island, was a short voyage that exhausted more than half of the soldiers who went to sea for the first time, and according to those from the Sihai battalion, the voyage was relatively peaceful.

After arriving at Seogwipo Port on Jeju Island, the first loading and unloading materials disembarked immediately taught Roh Elephant-sung and others the difference between the loading and unloading of materials on a military-exclusive ship and a hired ship. As an exclusive ship under the direct management of the troops, they know which materials need to be landed first, so that the ashore troops can quickly form combat capabilities, and which materials are dangerous goods that cannot be piled up indiscriminately, and for those hired ships, they don't care about these at all.

Just in order to separate and sort out the materials and equipment ashore, the first regiment wasted three days. Lu Xiangsheng could only be glad that the fleet did not sail to Japan all the time, otherwise the time for them to go ashore to sort out supplies would be enough for the enemy to organize manpower to drive them out to sea.

Lu Xiangsheng, who was educated, asked for an exclusive transport ship like the East China Sea Patrol Office, and appointed Qi Zuguang as a liaison officer to manage the transport fleet to ensure effective communication between the infantry regiment and the transport fleet.

After nearly half a month in Seogwipo, the officers and men of the First Infantry Corps have finally fully recovered, and the young non-commissioned officers who have just graduated from the military academy have a desire to make meritorious contributions, and they are naturally unwilling to continue to stay in Seogwipo to eat seafood and bask in the sun.

Since the situation on the Japanese archipelago was not clear enough, Lu Xiangsheng could only drain the energy of these young people with training, logging, and building barracks, and could not tell them the exact time and target of the troops.

However, with the combat records and letters he received from Ye Yuxuan, Lu Xiangsheng finally began to mobilize before the battle and introduce to his subordinates what kind of enemies they were going to deal with.

When Adjutant Zhou Heng finished reading all the documents and letters, Lu Xiangsheng asked his subordinates: "This is a transfer from the Patrol Mansion, about the combat records of Li Chenfang, Li Wulang and others in the Battle of Osaka City, as well as their evaluation and review of the war in this city. What do you think after listening to this? ”

Zhou Yuji, the commander of the 1st Infantry Battalion, replied immediately: "According to these materials, the military composition of the shogunate is somewhat similar to the military system of our guard. The hereditary samurai family is similar to the military household in our country, but their annual salary system is better than that of the military household in our country, and the status of the samurai is much higher than that of the military household in our country. Therefore, in battle, the will to fight is higher than that of the children of military families who are forcibly conscripted.

However, although these samurai had a certain will to fight, their combat skills and military organization had become weak in the long period of peace, and it was difficult to compare with the Japanese army that invaded Korea decades earlier.

And according to their report, Japan did not have a reliable standing army system, and the army of samurai was subordinate only to the sovereign to which they were loyal. Once the samurai who is the core of the army is eliminated, the soldiers attached to the samurai will rarely submit to the dictates of the other samurai, and will simply choose to flee.

Therefore, if we engage the shogunate army, we should first strike at the other party's commander, first destroy the opponent's command system, and then launch a full-scale attack to disperse the soldiers who have lost their organization..."

Other officers agreed with Zhou's opinion, and Chen Weiguo of the 2nd Infantry Battalion added: "From the detailed map of Osaka Castle sent back by Major Li Chenfang, we can see that Japan's fortress-style castles are much better defended than China's castles.

Although the walls of Osaka Castle are not as tall as those of the capital, the progressive defense facilities and the inner and outer walls built based on the terrain make it impossible for even the new artillery to be able to do anything if it were to be attacked head-on.

Major Li and the others relied on the help of the citizens of Osaka to take the city by luck in the chaotic state of the opponent's defenselessness and the lack of command of the army in the city.

I believe that when the other feudal kingdoms receive the details of the fall of Osaka Castle, they will not repeat the mistakes made by the defenders of Osaka Castle. With the strength of our infantry regiment, even with the help of the fallen army in the southwest of Japan, it would be impossible to fight all the way from the west to Edo Castle.

Therefore, if we land in Japan, we must avoid siege warfare as much as possible, and lure the armies of these Japanese vassal states into the field for a decisive battle..."

Regarding the field tactics proposed by Chen Weiguo, the officers present did not have any fear, but were a little eager to try. It's not that they like to fight in the field, but in the description of Li Chenfang and others, the height of the Japanese is generally about 1.4-1.5 meters, and there are only a few people who exceed 1.6 meters.

These non-meat-eating Japanese are described as thin and poor, and even among the samurai there are many who lack stamina and explosiveness. In addition to the Japanese soldiers armed with spears, the samurai who fought hand-to-hand combat with the soldiers of the coastal defense battalion* were often quickly dispersed by muskets equipped with bayonets, and the bayonet phalanxes that could be arranged in close formations were obviously more powerful than those that needed space to swing*.

Such Japanese samurai were not at all opponents of the same level as those Jurchen warriors in Liaodong who wore double armor and were tall and hard-fighting. This newly formed infantry regiment may still be a little weak about fighting with the Houjin army in the field, after all, the Jurchens have real field battles there.

However, a Japanese army that was driven out of the island by the Liaodong Ming army decades ago was recently defeated by Li Chenfang with a servant army, which made the officers present suddenly underestimate the combat ability of the shogunate army.

Even Lu Xiangsheng, although he did not approve of Chongzhen's war against Japan, thought that it was a waste of money and labor. But for the impression of the Japanese, that is, a group of Japanese robbers who dared to go to the coast of Daming to plunder civilians, once the Ming Dynasty became serious, these Japanese wouldn't even be able to go home.

Of course, because Chongzhen was cautious about this Japanese expedition, whether it was to rob Tianxiuni first, or to collude with Tokugawa Tadanaga, Choshu, Satsuma, Kumamoto and other forces that had fallen to the curtain, plus the forces of Korea, the Netherlands, Britain, Portugal, Spain and other countries, it took three or four years to plan.

Chongzhen's attitude naturally affected the preparations of officers including Lu Xiangsheng, although they looked down on the combat effectiveness of the Japanese, but they did not dare to be a little sloppy in combat preparations, after all, no one wanted to show that they were more wise than the emperor.

Lu Xiangsheng inspected a cadre in the room, and finally stopped his eyes on Cao Dagong, who had not yet spoken, so he asked him, "Isn't there anything more to Major Cao about this?" ”

Cao Dagong thought for a while and said: "The artillery company supports the choice of field warfare, but the humble post also hopes that the commander will consider not disassembling the artillery and using it, which is not only difficult to arrange the transportation of artillery and ammunition, but also easy to cause confusion between artillery and musket medicine." It is even more unfavorable for unified command firing, and it is difficult to bring into full play the maximum power of artillery. ”

Lu Xiangsheng nodded at him and said, "I understand what you mean." I hope that when you return to Japan, you will be able to convey the summary of the meeting to the troops, so as to ensure that the soldiers have a preliminary impression of the enemy they will be dealing with before landing in Japan. In my estimation, the day of the army should be near..."