Although the Four-Nation Coalition sounds quite powerful, it is a joint force of the four Western powers of Britain, France, the United States and the Netherlands, but in the final analysis, it is just a group of armed groups that have been improvised for the sake of profit.

Therefore, although the four-nation alliance has also established a unified command system and elected a commander-in-chief, it can still hold together when it encounters danger, and once it faces a conflict of interests, its internal command will be chaotic, because everyone wants to reap the greatest benefits.

For example, in the previous battle, when attacking the port of Xiaguan, because the main goal was only one, everyone could still use it in one place, but once they landed and there was a situation where they had to divide their troops and plunder, everyone's minds immediately changed, and they were no longer as united as they were at the beginning.

In addition, the combat strength of the various units within the Four-Nation Alliance is also different, and in terms of marines, the strongest in numbers and combat effectiveness is, of course, the British army, followed by the French army, then the American army, and the Dutch.

In terms of fleet, because the United States has been operating in Japan for many years, the number of warships is the largest, that is, the United States is the strongest, and the number of British warships is not as good as the United States, but it is the first in terms of soldiers and technical equipment, so Britain and the United States are almost neck and neck in terms of warships, followed by France, and finally the Netherlands is still at the bottom.

As the so-called size of the voice depends on the size of the strength, due to the difference in internal strength of the Four-Nation Alliance, it is the British and the United States that really have the final say, and more than eighty percent of the troops of the Four-Nation Coalition are British and American personnel, and the remaining less than twenty percent are played by the French and the Dutch, so no matter what tactics there are, it is the commanders of the British and Americans to discuss. The French and Dutch are at best soy sauce ornaments, only obedient to orders, but have little say.

Other words. Bringing the French and the Dutch is mainly to see that they have enough transport ships, and their army is also a bit useful, clearly trying to use the French and the Dutch, and the French and the Dutch also know their own situation, so they never fight or grab, just want to have a good fight. Mix up the identity of the victor in order to reap some benefits.

It is precisely because the French and the Dutch are the least powerful that the British and the Americans take the lion's share of the benefits. The French and Dutch could only eat leftovers.

For example, the British army and the American army participated in the raid of Shimonoseki Port before, and the French and Dutch could only watch and be in charge of guarding on the side. And wait for the port of Shimonoseki to be knocked down. When the attack on Nagafu Town continued, British and American troops were also dispatched, and the French and Dutch were assigned the duty of guarding the port of Shimonoseki.

The French and Dutch did not have regular marines, and their so-called marines were in fact sailors, or improvised adventurers. Because of this, although the two countries have barely gathered a Marine Corps of about 2,000 people, the combat effectiveness of these people is comparable to that of professional soldiers in Britain and the United States. It's too far away.

You know, in 1862. Japan is still an unexplored place for the West, where the strongest are the Americans, followed by the British. Although the Dutch were the first to exert themselves in Japan, they were limited by their own national strength, mainly commercial and trade exchanges, and their military strength was not strong. Not to mention the French, the main forces are all dragged in India, that is, Vietnam, and there is no regular army here in Japan.

In short, whether it is a financial obsession or a paralysis or carelessness, the four nations coalition forces defended Shimonoseki Port this time, all of them were French and Dutch, and they were all irregulars filled by sailors, and the real elite troops were all sent out to fight the governor's mansion.

Of course, as far as the commander-in-chief Augustus himself is concerned, he doesn't like this, because in his opinion, the port of Shimonoseki is still very important, but as mentioned earlier, this is a temporary armed group, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a group to grab, there is no centripetal force and cohesion at all, and he, the commander-in-chief, is also nominal, and at most he can command the British army, and the Americans can't control it.

Therefore, when the Americans proposed to lead troops to attack the governor's mansion, was Augustus willing to carry forward his style and let his own people guard the port? Obviously, even if he wanted to, his men were not happy, and if he insisted on going his own way, it was estimated that the British under his command would really not obey orders.

This is definitely not something that cannot be done, after all, although the British army is a professional army, most of those who are willing to leave their hometown and venture to the East are retired professional soldiers, and it is clear that they are here to make a fortune.

This is the same as Li Yongji's original time and space China, how many of those who export labor overseas are for ideals? Isn't it all about the high salary?

Therefore, the British army in Japan is only nominally under the command of the British government, but in fact it is a semi-independent mercenary group, with a high degree of freedom, and everyone can get together, mainly to see if there is any benefit, so if Augustus, the commander-in-chief, blatantly hinders his subordinates from getting rich, then the people's hearts will be scattered, and once the people's hearts are scattered, it is really not good to lead troops.

In other words, the troops led by Genrui Kusaka and Shinsaku Takasugi attacked on a rainy night and were only a temporary conscription composed of French and Dutch sailors, and both the will to fight and the combat skills were far from the British and American soldiers, and of course, slightly inferior to the Japanese.

Therefore, when the Japanese defenders of Shimonoseki split into two routes, taking advantage of the night and heavy rain, and attacked the defenders resting in the port town of Shimonoseki and several warships docked at the pier at the same time, they were not hindered in any way, so they rushed in smoothly, and then directly began a hand-to-hand combat sneak attack.

To be able to go so smoothly, the night is secondary, mainly because the rain is too heavy. The sound of the rain drowned out the footsteps of the Japanese, and in the midst of the rain, the French and Dutch sentinels were also lazy and careless, and were easily killed by the ninjas who sneaked past the Japanese army.

After killing the sentry post, the regular samurai were used as arrows, and the odd army, which was mainly composed of other common people and ronin, followed closely and rushed into Shimonoseki Town in one go.

After that, they divided into small groups, that is, with two samurai as the core, six Strange Soldiers as the auxiliary, to form an eight-person attack team, and then dispersed one by one. Rushed directly into Shimonoseki Town, and went door to door to raid the houses where the coalition forces were located.

Actually, if it's a normal situation. These French and Dutch sailors were supposed to return to the ship for the night, which was the safest and safest, but because of the heavy rain, they did not feel as comfortable on the ship as they did on land, and they also had to guard the docks of Shimonoseki Port and collect food and water and other supplies for the ship. Therefore, these people did not return to the ship, but entered Shimonoseki Town and forcibly requisitioned the local people's houses to escape the wind and rain.

That's right. After robbing the local people of Shimonoseki Port before, these coalition forces actually used these residents as labor to serve the coalition forces, so that. The best houses naturally became resting places for the soldiers. The Japanese were all driven to live in several places.

Originally, this method was not bad, separating the Japanese from the coalition forces, and the security could be guaranteed, but in the event of a surprise attack, it was impossible to use the local residents as a shield.

The attack of the Choshu army was quite smooth, and only the first wave killed and wounded a large number of coalition defenders, and caused a lot of confusion. Because most of these French and Dutch people are either drinking or sleeping. There is no defense against a surprise attack.

This chaotic fighting, no, it should be said to be a chaotic massacre, lasted for more than an hour, not only were most of the coalition officers and soldiers on the shore killed and captured, but even the two ships docked at the pier were captured by the Japanese raiding detachment, and then they used the ship's guns to fire at the coalition ships a little farther away.

The firelight, the sound of fighting, the sound of cannons, such a big movement, finally made the fleet garrison who was anchored at sea react, if it was a normal situation, when the commander was on the ship, it would be a little better, but now the biggest problem is that most of the fleet commanders went ashore because of the rain, and basically everyone went to rest in the houses of Shimonoseki Town, and now they are suddenly attacked by a surprise attack, and they happen to be rounded.

It is precisely because the commander is not there, and life and death are uncertain, that the powerful fleet on the sea does not dare to act rashly, otherwise, with the artillery fire of those two small boats, the large forces on the sea will not be enough to see.

It was also the luck of the Japanese army, when they raided, Augustus and his party happened to be in the town office, and this place was familiar to the Japanese army, and it was also a key target, so when the attack began, at least 300 people went straight to the town office.

Therefore, when Augustus and the others heard the shouts of killing and wanted to come out to regroup the troops, they happened to encounter this death squad of about 300 people, and after resisting for a long time, they were surrounded and killed by this group of madman-like death squads.

It was precisely because the command structure was eliminated in advance that not only the rest of the people were fighting on their own, but even the fleet at sea had no idea, so they watched the port burn.

Eventually, when the fleet at sea discovered that the two ships on the dock had opened fire on them, they not only did not return fire, but left the berth and headed away from the harbor to avoid the chaos.

In this way, when two and a half hours passed and the rain stopped for a while, the army led by Genrui Kusaka and Shinsaku Takasugi finally stopped fighting, because at this time, they had no strength to kill, after all, it was a high-intensity fight.

However, it didn't matter if they ran out of strength, because the coalition soldiers were dead or surrendered and could no longer threaten them, so they had a perfect victory this time.

However, everyone's cheers had just sounded, and suddenly there was a rumbling sound of cannons on the sea, and it turned out that the remaining officers and men of the fleet had already reacted and began to fire cannons on the port side.

However, it was only a ship that fired the cannon, that is to say, it was only their solitary action, or tentative action, and once everyone reacted, I am afraid that the continuous shells will come over.

This is understandable, after all, the senior officers are all on the shore, and the personnel left behind on the battleship are not easy to do casually, even if they know that there is a lot of bad luck, not many people dare to fire guns casually.

However, this is a combined fleet after all, and the senior officers of the United States have not gone ashore, and the main force of the United States is not on the shore, so the Americans have the least scruples, so it was a US warship that fired first, and the other British, French, and Dutch warships did not move at all.

Since it was still raining, even if it was not raining, the shells fired by the Americans were solid.

The reason is simple, most of the guns on American battleships are still front-loading guns, the so-called flowering. Burst. Explode. bomb, it's just an extra extended fuse, and this thing is very unreliable. In the case of rainy days, as long as it is moderate rain, it is generally not allowed to fire flowering shells. And now the rain is not big, but it is not small, so I use solid bullets.

The number of artillery pieces was small, and the fire was solid, and it was not easy to aim on rainy days, so the results were naturally not large, but this frightened the Japanese army led by Genrui Kusaka. I thought they were going to open fire and bomb without hesitation.

Fortunately, before the attack, Takasugi Jinsaku had predicted this situation in advance. Arrangements were made in advance, so that when everyone heard the sound of artillery fire and found that the shells had landed in Minatomachi, they didn't need to be reminded. Consciously and quickly execute the captives on the spot. Then quickly retreat.

At the same time, Takasugi Shinsaku, who had robbed two ships on the dock, also reacted quickly, knowing that the two ships could not be taken away, so they directly dropped a large amount of time-delay explosives in the arsenals of the two ships, and then quickly retreated, and as soon as they left, the two ships behind suddenly burst into two fierce flames. The two battleships were directly blown into two parts, and they quickly sank in the sound of explosions.

That's it. The Japanese raid was like this torrential rain, coming and going suddenly, leaving nothing but blood and flames.

Soon, the two troops reunited at the starting point, and when the bloodied Kusaka Genrui saw the same dirty Takasugi Shinsaku, he laughed directly, and then took out a fan in the rain and danced and sang in front of everyone.

Seeing this, everyone also laughed, their expressions were very excited, after all, this was a big victory, and their losses were quite small.

After dancing a small dance, Kusaka Genrui walked to Takasugi Shinsaku who was panting and sat down, laughed, and patted him on the shoulder: "Takasugi-kun, this is a big victory, you should be happy, why are you still so calm?" ”

"It's a big win, it's just a sneak attack." Takasugi Jinsaku said lightly, "What I'm worried about is that if we leave like this, those Westerners will inevitably become angry and angry, and they will definitely kill the people left behind to vent their anger...... Alas, I'm afraid those people will suffer. ”

"Let's look away, Takasugi-kun." Kusaka Genrui continued to pat him on the shoulder nonchalantly, "This is war, and there is no way to lose some losses." Besides, when we left, we also reminded them that what made them leave quickly was that they were reluctant to leave that little belongings, so they refused to leave, and who was to blame? ”

Indeed, when Takasugi Jinsaku found that the Shimonoseki Fort could not be defended and formulated a plan for active retreat, he really asked the common people to follow, but only a small part of them went, and most people still had illusions about Westerners, and they were reluctant to belong, so they chose to stay, but they were not only plundered, but also arrested as coolies, and now they may be used as the object of anger.

However, this cannot be blamed entirely on the local people, in fact, there were often foreigners here in the past, so the local people are not strangers to foreigners.

In the impression of these people in Shimonoseki Port, foreigners are not terrible guys, they are nothing other than a little weird, and even many people are quite good, they speak kindly, and they love to help people, much better than many samurai masters.

Besides, before the war began, the foreigners did not do anything evil to the Japanese people in Shimonoseki, but the town of Kusaka Genrui was pursued, and forced people to collect a large amount of taxes from house to house, and many taxes were actually collected five years in advance, which is similar to the Ming robbery.

Therefore, before the start of the war, the Japanese people in Shimonoseki were more fearful than respectful of samurai masters like Kusaka Genrui, so they were naturally not willing to listen to them and leave here.

In other words, it is that Kusaka Genrui has never won the loyal support of the local people, so everyone does not believe him. Takasugi Jinsaku saw this, but he couldn't help it, after all, there was no money and no soldiers, so he acquiesced to Kusaka Genrui's approach.

"Forget it, don't talk about that." Takasugi shook his head and continued, "However, the war is not over yet, and it is not yet time to celebrate. ”

"Haha, you're right, according to your plan, it's really not time to celebrate." Kusaka Genrui smiled, "But you also saw that everyone has been fighting for so long, and they are all tired, so it is easier to recover by letting everyone make a fuss, don't you say?" ”

Hearing him say this, Takasugi Shinsaku looked at the soldiers who were sitting or standing, covered in blood and mud, nodded, and said nothing more.

Indeed, according to Takasugi Shinsaku's plan, this raid was only the beginning, and if it went well, then the next thing was to hurry up and turn around and force the march in the direction of the Changfu, and make an ambush on the side of the road in advance, so that the main force attacking the Nagafu could also be killed, or at least inflicted heavy damage.

The reason is very simple, Takasugi Jinsaku thinks that the coalition forces in front of him have committed the taboo of dividing troops, this is a rare opportunity, and they must hurt the other party at one time, so they will stop further interference, otherwise, they have learned a lesson but not hurt to the bones, I am afraid they will not stop interfering, but will be more careful, in that case, a cautious and careful coalition army is very terrible, at least it is difficult for them to play such a sneak attack again, even if it is not good.

You must know that the strength of the Four-Nation Alliance is far stronger than the army of the Choshu Domain, especially in terms of weapons and equipment. In the face of Westerners' firearms, their bravery is basically useless, this kind of hand-to-hand combat opportunity is not something that can be encountered every day, and since the other party has suffered a loss, the next time they encounter a similar situation, they will definitely avoid it in advance.

When the time comes, they have a powerful fleet that can attack any place at any time, while they can only be beaten passively and exhausted.

In other words, as long as the people of the Shikoku Combined Army were careful not to go deep into the interior, and only relied on the strength of the fleet to fight around the territory of the Choshu Domain, and so on to destroy all the prosperous areas along the coast and all the prosperous places into ruins, then in the end the Choshu Domain would inevitably go bankrupt financially, and they would be defeated without fighting.

Therefore, the current Choshu Domain is in a rather embarrassing situation, he cannot be defeated, he can only win, and it must be a big victory without much loss to himself, only in this way can he dispel the covetousness of others.

Otherwise, not to mention being defeated by the coalition forces, even if it is a victory, if the loss is too great, it is still a defeat, because the four-nation alliance army is just one of the hungry wolves coveting the Changzhou Domain, and behind them, there are more murderous Chinese, that is, once they fight too hard with the coalition army, the military loss is too great, I am afraid that the cheaper side is the Chinese or the victory of the sea boat.

However, before that, Takasugi Jinsaku didn't have any good options, just pretended to be calm, but when he heard that the coalition forces had actually divided their troops, and found out that there was a rainstorm recently, he quickly formulated a plan for an internal raid, that is, to concentrate superior forces and use sneak attacks and ambushes to break them one by one.

Just now, their surprise attack was quite perfect, the enemy didn't expect that he hadn't gone far, and he dared to take the initiative, coupled with the night and heavy rain, the result was a success, completely annihilating the group of defenders on the port.

However, this is not enough, because their main forces are still there, and the fleet is still there!

For those warships, there is nothing he can do with them, but for those who have come ashore, Takasugi Shinsaku does not want to let them go like this, but hopes to annihilate them all here and completely hurt them, only in this way can it be possible to promote peace by fighting.

In other words, after this battle, they should continue to go to the next battlefield, but seeing that everyone was so tired, it was obviously impossible to force the army, so Takasugi Shinsaku also acquiesced to Kusaka Genrui's approach and let them cheer here.

It was at this time that Takasugi Jinsaku also discovered the strengths of Kusaka Genrui, and he found that his friend was not good at anything else, but the atmosphere was still very good, and he did have the demeanor of being a general.

After resting for an hour, that is, two hours, Kusaka Genrui took the initiative to gather his subordinates and gave a speech, mainly boasting about the previous results and the significance of this victory.

Not to mention, Kusaka Genrui did this, not only boosted morale again, although everyone was still tired, but they still listened to Kusaka Genrui's words, and they should make persistent efforts to continue to deal a deeper and more ruthless blow to those hateful foreign ghosts.

After stirring up the atmosphere, Kusaka Genrui didn't make arrangements, and took the lead in the front, and the others automatically followed.

Anyway, these people don't have any baggage, and the food is rice balls that they carry with them, and the weapons are bushido or muskets that they carry with them, which is a state that can be left at any time.

In this way, everyone took advantage of the excitement of victory, and in this rainy night, regardless of the pain and fatigue, walked forward and began their second ambush battle. (To be continued......)