As the sky dawned, Tokugawa Iemitsu couldn't wait to climb up to the castle tower, and looked out to the sea, where a small man presented the Nanban monoculars, and he looked over to see the castle town billowed with smoke and dust, and it looked like there were countless people galloping.

Outside the castle town, he saw a patch of green clothes, which should be all enemies, judging by the number, there should be about 10,000 people.

This made Tokugawa Iemitsu feel a little relieved, Edo Castle was the main castle run by his family for three generations, and it was extremely well guarded, and it was almost impossible for more than 10,000 people to break through.

As long as it drags on for a few more days, the typhoon season will come, and at that time, more than 10,000 people will not be able to last at all, and they may have to repeat the history of kamikaze's defeat of the Yuan army.

"There's someone on the top floor looking this way, isn't that the so-called shogun?"

Jiang'an himself is not on the battlefield, he is a civilian official, so he handed over the matter of commanding operations on the battlefield to those professionals, like Zhou Ying, who has already gone through many major battles, and first trained in the teaching regiment for half a year, and then transferred to the second brigade, serving as the deputy of the second brigade and the head of the first regiment, he is also the commander-in-chief of the army for this attack, including the marines under Yu Dahai, who are also temporarily assigned to him to manage.

"Probably, Deputy Zhou Lu, how do you need us to cooperate?" Yu Dahai was not interested in the shogun, what he was interested in was to launch an attack immediately and finish the work early.

"The city is not very easy to attack, but it doesn't matter, let's copy the Luzon attack battle." Zhou Ying sighed: "It's a pity." If they could land by night like we did, they wouldn't have to die for him. ”

Yu Dahai also knew that Du Zhishan died in Luzon, and he is also the highest-ranking general who sacrificed in the Tiger Guard system today. However, the defense of the Japanese was compared to that of the Spaniards. Although the city is not inferior to it, the number and range of artillery are inferior. Therefore, Yu Dahai dared to drive three battleships to the shore. But you don't have to worry about the artillery of the fort in the city.

"On a hot airboat?" Yu Dahai asked.

"Well, let's burn Edo Castle. Ha ha. Zhou Ying said with a smile: "But the Japanese people will not let us attack the city so easily, maybe they will come out to invite the battle, in short, please Yu Bureau Deputy to provide us with artillery support." ”

Yu Dahai nodded, didn't say anything, turned around and walked towards the dock.

"This guy is arrogant."

One person muttered beside Zhou Ying, just like any era, the army has always looked at the navy unpleasantly. And the Navy is also reluctant to deal with the Army. Yu Dahai is obviously a little dissatisfied with Zhou Ying as the commander-in-chief, in terms of the level of the two, it is the same, and even Yu Dahai's status as a "deputy bureau" is half a level higher than that of the "brigade deputy".

"Haha, so you guys have to work a little bit more later, don't let those boys from the Marine Corps steal the limelight." Zhou Ying smiled again: "Let me tell you, Meng Guangren has made Luo Juzao quite faceless. Robbed them of their first credit, we can't lose to Meng Guangren! ”

With his decision, the attack began.

The defense of Edo Castle was still much inferior to that of the Royal City of Manila, and the problems that arose when the Imperial City of Manila was attacked in the first place. After the fact, the Tiger Guard Staff Committee conducted a review, the most important of which was that the Tiger Guard also used field artillery when attacking the city, which was tantamount to invalidating the firepower advantage that the Tiger Guard had always had, and as a result, he had to rely on flesh and blood to charge, so that he sacrificed a senior general like Du Zhishan.

Therefore, this time they came here not only with hot air balloons, but also with heavy artillery.

Six fifteen-pound guns, weighing 2,000 catties, were pushed along with the gun wagons to a place nearly four miles away from Edo Castle, where the artillery fire of Edo Castle could also be hit, but the accuracy was not good.

At the same time, the forty-five-pound main guns on the battleship were also aimed at Edo Castle. It had an effective range of five miles, and although it was hard to compliment its accuracy, and each battleship only had two of these heavy guns, it was at least a good choice for intimidating the enemy.

On June 22, the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the sky was clear and the sea was breezy. At 6:12 a.m., with a bang, the assault on Edo Castle began.

The entire Edo Castle is surrounded by two moats, including 20 watchtowers and 36 gates. In the era of cold weapons, it was a fortified city that was difficult to attack with 10,000 people, but now the tiger guard has completely turned into a hot-weapon soldier and seized the surrounding defensive positions by night, and the entire Edo Castle is just a shelled egg for the tiger guard.

After judging that the range of his artillery far exceeded that of his opponent, the artillery was pushed only three miles from Edo Castle, so that the Tiger Guard's eight-pound field gun could also come in handy. Concentrated artillery for full bombardment, this is the army tactical concept that Yu Guozhen instilled in the Tiger Guard Army from the beginning, therefore, a total of forty artillery pieces were concentrated to bombard the Tiananmen Gate of Edo Castle, and the earth-shattering cannon sound rang out, plunging the entire Edo Castle into chaos.

Not only that, the hot air boats were dispatched immediately, and the second brigade had only two hot air boats, but after improvement, its carrying capacity was increased from the original 2,000 catties to 4,000 catties, which meant that its absolute load was doubled.

"What is that, there are still people up there, the people of the Ming Kingdom can fly, could it be that the gods and Buddhas abandoned us?" Seeing this scene, a military general said in a panic.

Tokugawa Iemitsu glanced at the man, but it was too late, and the man's words caused all the generals in the castle tower to panic.

The Japanese people are superstitious, so there are shrines everywhere, and their Shinto religion is a mixture of Buddhism and primitive totem worship, and the gods they believe in range from gods and Buddhas to stones to male and female living vessels. Therefore, being abandoned by the gods and Buddhas is a taboo for the Japanese people. Tokugawa Iemitsu was annoyed and was about to scold, when someone suddenly said, "This is not a god or Buddha, but a large Kong Ming lantern!" ”

It was Abe's Mid-Autumn Festival who spoke.

"What the Mid-Autumn Festival said is that this is just a large Kong Ming lantern!" Tokugawa Iemitsu immediately said: "There is nothing to fear, the Ming people just use it to reconnoiter the situation in the city, but unfortunately, it flies a little higher, otherwise our marksman can shoot it down!" ”

This is definitely bragging, the so-called magic marksman of the Wa Kingdom often cannot shoot people within thirty paces, let alone shoot a hot air boat that can't even hit a musket in the air. However, with the words of Abe Chukai and Tokugawa Iemitsu, the originally frightened people finally calmed down, and Tokugawa Iemitsu took this opportunity to assign men one by one to prepare to resist the attack.

No matter how many artillery pieces and the monster in the sky were, the only way to settle the battle was to rely on the infantry, that is, the samurai and ashigaru, and Tokugawa Iemitsu was convinced of this.

After all the generals in his hands were sent out, he slowly turned around and looked at Abe Zhongqiu, the only one left among the important ministers: "It seems that the Ming people did catch me off guard, but fortunately, you were cautious and reminded me to leave enough troops to protect Edo." ”

"Your Majesty was just to guard against the feudal lords of the Eastern Kingdom, and I didn't expect the people of the Ming Kingdom to be so insidious." Abe Zhongqiu sighed: "Moreover, they will use Kong Ming lanterns as ordnance - it can only be said that the wisdom of the people of the Ming Kingdom is as unfathomable as the sea, and such a country, even if it is temporarily depressed, will immediately give birth to amazing and brilliant characters to lead them to revival." ”

"You mean that Nanhai Bo?"

"Don't you think that in the past few years, Nanhaibo's name has been mentioned more and more frequently, and what he has made is ...... For example, this glass, originally only the Nanban people had this technology, but now the Ming people can not only produce it, but also sell it to our country. The mansions of the feudal lords, including the homes of high-ranking samurai and wealthy merchants, did not use glass windows instead of the paper windows of the past? ”

"I really want to meet this great Earl of the Ming Kingdom, if he is willing to serve me, I can treat him as the lord of a country." Tokugawa Iemitsu still has the leisure to talk about this at this time. After seeing the opponent's military situation, he was not very worried, because there were more than 10,000 soldiers in the city, and in addition, he could recruit men from the castle town to serve as ashigaru, and he firmly believed that the other party would not be able to break through Edo Castle in a short time.

Even if he breached the outer ditches and walls, he still had a castle tower to hold onto, and it would be the least to last for ten days and a half months. Then as soon as the Qin Wang's vassals arrived, even Matsudaira Iezuna's army turned back and completely eliminated Nanhai Bo's troops in Tamna.

If enough craftsmen could be captured, perhaps a new boom in the Tokugawa shogunate was just around the corner......

But the kerosene pouring down from the sky made him realize that something was wrong, that the airship in the air could not only reconnoitre, but also bomb, if it was not oil that was thrown in, but ......

"Oh no, that's the oil used to start the fire!"

Abe's Mid-Autumn Festival reacted first than Tokugawa Iemitsu, and he shouted loudly.

But what's the use of shouting, the whole of Edo Castle, like other cities in the Japanese country, is mostly made of wooden planks!

With the fall of the palm thunder, two fires suddenly rose in the Edo Castle Town, and the fire was extremely large and spread rapidly!

At this time, the artillery outside was still bombarding, and the city could not organize an effective fire extinguishing at all!

Tokugawa Iemitsu stood on top of the castle tower, looking at the majestic flames, his face was first pale, then iron-blue, and then, showing a strange bright red!

"The fire of Osaka Castle at the beginning, the fire of Honnoji Temple earlier, and the fire of Hieiyama Castle earlier are probably like this, but now it's Edo's turn." He said in a low voice: "Mid-Autumn Festival, our Tokugawa family has really been abandoned by the gods and Buddhas!" ”

Abe Chukkai trembled, and like Tokugawa Iemitsu, when he saw the fire, he realized that it was impossible to hold Edo Castle, and even in the entire Wa Kingdom, there was no city that could be held under such a fire attack!

Even if those stone walls would not be set on fire, all wooden buildings would not be spared such an attack!

"Shogun, it's still too late, Your Majesty swears to protect you from Edo, go back to Gangzaki, go back to Mikawa, recruit the feudal lords who are still loyal to our Tokugawa family, reorganize your armaments, and start a decisive battle with the Ming people!" He stepped forward and grabbed Tokugawa Iemitsu's arm: "General, leave immediately!" ”

"I'll go, but...... Can we really defeat the Ming people? Tokugawa Iemitsu sighed, and the bright red on his face became even more obvious.

I don't know if it's because of his excitement or because the fire in the castle town is getting bigger. (To be continued)