Karatsu is considered to be a medium-sized feudal clan in Japan, but that is only in Japan. If you compare it with the Han Dynasty in Middle Earth, the 80,000 stone territory of the Tangjin Domain is only the size of a larger township, and in terms of wealth, it is even inferior to some villages in the south of the Yangtze River.

The 80,000-stone-high Karatsu Domain, with a combined population of less than 100,000, was actually only 50,000 or 60,000 according to Nabeshima.

In such a Tangjin, a thousand soldiers and two or three thousand peasant soldiers are already the limit of their force. When the Han army easily defeated their naval army and intercepted the soldiers and horses on the shore, the ensuing battle was no suspense. The small city of Karatsu was taken by a battalion of the vanguard of the Marine Forces of the Seventh Fleet.

It took less than an hour from sailing into the port of Karatsu to launching an attack, and then flying the nine-headed bird flag on the castle tower.

Before the Tarashawa Ken Gao Han army attacked the castle tower, he had already committed suicide by seppuku in the small castle tower on the watchtower. As the second feudal lord of Karatsu, the head of the Terasawa family, Terasawa Tentaka was full of despair. At that time, his father was also a famous military general, and when Japan conquered Korea, Tang Ze was an offensive base for attacking Korea.

In the Battle of Sekigahara, most of the Kyushu feudal clans sided with the Western Army, while their family sided with the Tokugawa family. Their father and son led thousands of men and horses to fight against the Western army, fighting to the death, and finally suffered seventy percent casualties, and finally defeated the opponent. After the war, he got the two counties of Guangyuan and Amakusa, and the stone was 240,000 stones.

But his father passed the position of family governor to him, and over the years, the Karatsu Domain was cut down by two counties due to the rebellion of Amakusa Hirohara, and now only 80,000 koku remain. Moreover, when the Han army attacked, he only defended it for less than a moment before the city fell.

has no face to see the former governor, so he can only apologize for his crime with death.

Strong and childless, more and more nostalgic. He could only commit suicide by seppuku to pay for his capital crime.

On Zheng Lian's flagship, Zheng Lian was entertaining Nabeshima and other Japanese feudal lords, and the banquet on the ship was not alcoholic because of the wartime, but there was good milk tea. Coupled with the squid fished out of the Karatsu Port, the live squid slices made are very good.

There are special chefs on the flagship, and the Seventh Fleet has been stationed in Japan for a long time, and the chefs here have also practiced very skilled fish knife skills, cutting live squid and serving them on a plate, like a beautiful work of art, people can't bear to put down chopsticks, but once they eat it, they can forget it.

The chef also used the tentacles left over from the sashimi. Deep-fried into delicious tempura and served with Karatsu's Karazu beef for a delicious meal.

Zheng Lian followed his brother Zheng Cai from Fujian to his cousin Zheng Zhilong in his early years, and he also mixed in Japan, especially in the areas of Hirado, Nagasaki, and Karatsu in Saikaido, which used to be the base camp of Han maritime merchants in Japan.

The flagship lowered the anchor, lowered the sails, and everyone sat on the deck. Blowing the sea breeze, eating sashimi, potato beef stew. Drinking milk tea.

Zheng Lian is very laid-back.

The four of them had no intention of eating, they had already seen the nine-headed bird flag on the black and white castle tower of Karatsu Castle on the hill by the sea.

It's hard to believe that it took less than an hour for the Han army to destroy a feudal town with 80,000 stones.

Zheng Lian's adjutant of the right military academy strode up.

"Report to the commander, the forward marines have reported that they have taken the city of Dangjin. The lord of the Karatsu domain, Kentaka Terasawa, committed suicide by seppuku in the castle tower. More than 100 samurai have seppuku together, the rest of the feudal clans have surrendered, the treasury of the feudal government has been controlled, and Karatsu Castle has been controlled by our army. ”

When Zheng Lian heard the news, he was very calm.

"It's a bit tough. Since he is dead, let his family be restrained. ”

Zheng Lian put down the milk tea cup and looked up at the Karatsu castle tower.

"The scenery on the pavilion must be good that day, a few of you, are you interested in accompanying a certain person to the Karatsu castle tower and watching the scenery of Karatsu?"

The fleet entered the port, and a large number of Han troops were still disembarking and landing.

Karatsu Castle has been breached, the feudal lord has committed suicide, and the feudal lord has been defeated and surrendered, but this is not the end but only the beginning. According to the emperor's intentions, this time the Han is not here to take a turn, but to swallow this Kyushu Island and digest it.

In order to ensure that the empire digests this land as quickly as possible, then some extraordinary means must be used.

One of the most effective means of domination of the Mongols was massacres, often selectively slaughtering cities to fear the conquered tribal states while maintaining the stability of their rear.

However, the Son of Heaven of the Han Dynasty did not intend to engage in massacre, not because he was merciful, but because the slaughter was too wasteful.

What was the most expensive in the seventeenth century? Liu Jun believes that it is neither gold nor silver, but the population. Only with the population can there be talents, and only with talents can the land be stabilized and the country can be strong.

Population is the cornerstone of everything.

The Ming Dynasty had an innumerable population, but instead of taking advantage of this demographic advantage, it made the population a burden and exacerbated its demise. However, for the emerging Han Empire, if the imperial decree is smooth and extremely efficient, population is the greatest resource. Whether it is the manufacturing industry or its upstream coal, steel, planting and processing, etc., a large number of people are needed. And for such a large empire, more roads need to be built, and the population is also needed. The frontiers that have been laid down need to be explored, and they still need population.

Population is tax, population is power.

For example, the Netherlands, although they rose rapidly, why did they decline quickly, because they only had a total population of about 2 million. No matter how many colonies they build, it is difficult to really control them, they have to use the assistance of local colonies, and even they themselves are doomed because the population is too small, they can only do some shipbuilding, trade, the real basic manufacturing, industry and commerce, plantation and other foundations, they are not self-sufficient, they are just a merchant, lack of real foundation.

Liu Jun has already set his sights on Japan's population and resources.

Liu Jun took a fancy to the land of Japan, and the population of Japan also took a fancy to it. However, he will not let the Japanese continue to stay on the original land, in that case, he can be subdued in a short time, but in the long run, it will be more troublesome to really digest and annex this place.

The simplest and most brutal way is to simply relocate all the Japanese from Japan. There are more than 20 million Han people in Japan who have moved in from outside, and more than 20 million people have moved in, and it is only one to one. It still does not have a comprehensive advantage, and it is not easy to move more than 20 million people.

But if it is a move out, the Han has a population of more than 200 million, and more than 20 million Japanese people have moved out, that is only one-tenth. Just divide them up and scatter them a little more. Then don't worry about it at all.

Historically, the Japanese used this trick in order to completely annex the Ryukyu Kingdom. Move the people of the Ryukyus to Japan, and then move the Japanese to the Ryukyus, and the Ryukyus will completely become the meat of Japan's mouth.

The Han troops who landed strictly adhered to military discipline. There was no burning, looting, and no massacre of prisoners.

They are all professional soldiers of the empire, they have been strictly trained, and no one dares to take military orders as a child's play, as for those mercenaries, they have not yet taken their turn to play, and Kyushu Island is not their target.

When Zheng Lian, Nabeshima Katsumao and others stepped into Karatsu Castle, there were still large black stains left on the streets of this small city, which were blood stains that had not been washed away. It is the blood of those who resist.

Whoever lays down his arms and surrenders will be spared death. Only those who refused to disarm were warned and killed on the spot.

Those who surrendered have been confiscated and held in several prisoner camps, and some soldiers have begun to register their identities and do screening, and fundamentally different identities, ages, genders, skills, etc., are subdivided into different prisoner camps, and finally they will all be escorted to ships. Sent to the mainland.

The houses, shops, warehouses, materials, and property in Karatsu Castle are also well preserved. There was no chaos, and there was no robbery while the fire was burning, and the small town was in good order, and there were Han troops everywhere.

Nabeshima and the others watched all this in amazement, Nabeshima is a person who has participated in many battles, both in the civil war in Japan. There were also wars of invasion of Korea, as well as counterinsurgency battles to suppress rebellions. But there is no battle like this.

Defeated the enemy and entered the city, but did not loot or kill.

Zheng Lian ascended to the Dangjin Castle Tower, where everything has been restored. The bodies of Seppuku Kintaka and the samurai who followed him were carried away.

Standing on the castle tower, you can take a panoramic view of Karatsu Port, at this time, Karatsu Port is full of warships of the Han Dynasty, and on the beach between the sea and the pine forest on the shore, teams of navies have landed.

Those marines will sweep all over Tangjin and bring all those farmers, fishermen, craftsmen, etc., and this will be the Tangjin County of the Han Dynasty, and it will no longer be the hometown of those people.

The battalions of the Marine Corps sent out had expected a battle.

To their surprise, under the guidance of some Japanese soldiers, they easily arrived at the villages of Karatsu, and then those soldiers shouted for the villagers to gather, and loudly announced to them that the Tokugawa shogunate had usurped the power of the Japanese king, and was doing a good job and committing chaos. The Son of Heaven of the Han Dynasty was requested by the Japanese people, and specially sent troops to the east to preside over justice for Japan, and now the Satsuma, Choshu, Saga, and Hirado feudal domains have raised their own troops to fight against the Son of Heaven of the Han Dynasty, thinking that they are the vanguard

said a lot, which means that the lord of Tangjin is afraid of the tiger, obsessed, and now the domain city is broken by the heavenly army, and he committed suicide by cutting his abdomen, and the emperor of the Han Dynasty told all the people of Tangjin to go to Tangjin City to meet the angels.

The Japanese people were sincerely frightened by this demand, but in the end, no one resisted, and no one fled. They honestly packed their clothes from home according to the order, brought dry food, and then followed back to Tangjin City.

Someone once said to Liu Jun that the ordinary people in Japan are the most stoic, and the land they make belongs to the lord, and the land income often has five gongs and five people, and some even reach the terrible taxation of three people and seven gongs. In addition to paying taxes, they also had to serve the feudal lords, build castle halls, and so on.

Many Japanese people have difficulty in food and clothing all year round. But on the other hand, there were many feudal states, and the number of parasitic samurai classes was huge, and there were more than 200 feudal domains and four or five hundred thousand samurai in the entire country of Japan, all of which were privileged classes and depended on the common people to support them.

In this era, many Japanese people are poor, insensitive, and ignorant, most of them are illiterate, and many have never traveled far in their lives.

They are accustomed to being submissive, and they are extremely obedient to the words of their lords.

The lord of the Fukuoka Domain, which is adjacent to Karatsu, was still in a hangover, and he took his men to hunt on Shikashima Island in Hakata Bay yesterday and had a good harvest.

So he drank a little more wine at night, and the Tang wine sold by the merchants of the Tang Kingdom was indeed powerful, much stronger than the Japanese shochu, and he didn't drink much, but he was very drunk.

His subordinates woke him up and reported to him that a Tang ship had appeared outside Hakata Bay.

However, now the fog is very strong, and I only know that the Tang ships are coming, and I don't know whether they are merchant ships or warships.

Kuroda Tadayuki rubbed his head, calmed down and thought about it, the merchant ships of the Tang Kingdom have not been here for a long time, although Fukuoka is very close to the Tang Concession, but recently, the merchant ships of the Tang Kingdom are no longer trading with Japan, but a large number of warships are coming to Japan.

Tang has always claimed to crusade against Japan, and the shogunate has been mediating. But so far, there has not been a single result. Kuroda Tadayuki always thought that the Tang State should not invade on a large scale, but it might be intimidated by force, forcing the shogunate to open up silver and copper exports, increase trade, and maybe even cut a few more islands as concessions.

He was a little unimpressed, he hadn't fought for so long, so he probably wouldn't really fight.

Suddenly, there was a thunderclap in Hakata Bay.

Kuroda Tadayuki's mind was stunned, and the wine had already woken up.

He was also a veteran, and immediately heard that it was not thunder, but the sound of artillery fire.

After the cannon fired, it never stopped, and it continued.

Hearing the scale of this cannon sound, Kuroda's brain broke out in a cold sweat, which meant that many cannons were firing, more than hundred, or even hundreds. With so many guns, it could be a fleet.

He hurried to the castle tower in the center of the city.

It is the highest point in Fukuoka Castle, and you can see Hakata Bay in the distance.

Ascending to the pavilion and looking into the distance, then he froze.

In the sea fog of Hakata Bay, a flame flashes from time to time.

It was the ship's artillery firing, and through the clairvoyant mirror, he saw countless fireballs flashing, which meant countless artillery.

A battleship emerged from the fog, a huge ship with three gun decks and more than a hundred guns.

The next moment, the second ship, no, was an innumerable number of battleships.

They're coming from the sea!

Kuroda saw more than 100 warships, these are the seventh and eighth fleets of the East China Sea Fleet, plus the Fifth Fleet of the Royal Task Force and the First and Second Fleets of the North Sea, the three major fleets have drawn out five subfleets, a total of more than 700 warships, of which the main warships have reached more than 50.

The fleet was accompanied by the marine units of these five fleets, totaling 50,000 men on land and sea.

Fukuoka is bordered by Karatsu to the west, Choshu to the east, Saga to the south, and Tsushima to the north.

This Fukuoka domain, which has a height of more than 500,000 stones, is one of the great domains of Kyushu, and the Han army has already targeted him, Karatsu is the first target, and Fukuoka is close behind. As long as Fukuoka is captured, there will be one less strong feudal domain in Kyushu, and at the same time, the Hirado, Saga, and Choshu feudal domains that will be subordinated to the Great Han will be connected.

"Immediately ask Edo for help, the Tang State and the Tang Kingdom will attack on a large scale, the warships will cover the sea, and the white tent will cover the sky, and there are countless of them!"

Kuroda felt a tingling in his heart, and he couldn't breathe.

He couldn't have imagined that Tang Guo would really attack when he said it, and he came directly towards the Fukuoka Domain. Originally, he thought that even if the Tang Kingdom wanted to conquer the shogunate, it should go directly to Edo.

Otherwise, you should also attack the Tokugawa family's tenryo throughout Japan. His Fukuoka Domain is just an external daimyo, neither a pro-clan nor a pedigree, let alone a Shogunate directly under the Tenling, why did you come at me, it's really a beep! (To be continued.) )