After defeating the Japanese sailors attacking from the port of Uraga, the five warships of the task force did not stop, and arrived at the port of Edo at about 6 p.m. that day.

There was no need to bother with the port of Edo, because the port had already been occupied by the expeditionary force, so the five warships simply lined up and anchored in the harbor in turn, and then aimed their guns at Edo Castle not far away.

Edo Castle and Edo Port are not the same thing, strictly speaking, Edo Port is just a port-type castle town under Edo Castle, and Edo Castle is the castle in the center. However, Edo Castle and Edo Port are not far apart, and the distance between them is no more than five kilometers in a straight line.

The distance of five kilometers was indeed a safe area beyond the reach of naval guns in the Edo period, but the situation was different when facing the five Yuanzi-class warships of the task force.

As mentioned above, the five Yuanzi-class cruisers of the task force are all equipped with Hua 3 guns, which are breezed rifled guns with brakes. Smoke. Fire. medicine, so that the caliber reached 120 mm, and the firing range reached 6600 meters, so that the distance of five kilometers is still within the effective firing range for the task force.

Although it will affect the accuracy if the distance is too long, the target of Edojo Castle is too large, and even if you don't use the gun aiming equipment, you can aim and shoot very accurately, and you will not miss it.

In addition, each ship has 30 guns, and the total number of five ships is 150 guns, plus a gun with a maximum of 6 rounds a minute, and an average rate of fire of 3 rounds.

Of course, aiming at Edo Castle and not at Castle Town, this is also the reason why the task force has combat experience, and this experience is naturally the burning of Kagoshima.

The construction of cities in Japan is different from that in China, and it is not all residential areas that are enclosed in them. Instead, only a castle centered purely on military purposes was built in the center, and then a group of unwalled residential areas were built around the castle, and this residential area was called the castle town.

In other words, ordinary people lived in castle towns, which were also the commercial center of the city, while shoguns, feudal lords, and samurai who accompanied them all lived in castles, and there was usually a separation zone between the castle and castle towns, which served both defensive and economic functions.

That is, if once the turtle retreats on the defensive. The castle town is usually undefended, generally speaking, everyone is attacking the central city, and the central city will naturally surrender to the castle town.

In other words, when they first attacked Kagoshima, the main reason why they didn't get much benefit was that Tang Hailong and others had no experience and didn't know much about the situation in Japan. Moreover, at that time, Tang Hailong launched an attack in the early morning, and first took the port to open the knife, in order to naturally destroy the enemy warships in the port.

Most of the ports are castle towns, and most of the buildings in castle towns are made of wood. And they are connected to each other, so as soon as the fire burns, it goes on and on.

Of course, because the fire was too strong, if not happened to be a storm at that time. I am afraid that the main castle of the center will not survive the disaster, but no matter what, the castle town was burned. If you keep the central city, you will actually lose more than you gain.

Why don't the gains outweigh the losses? The reason is simple: after the reform of Shimazu Saibin, the most valuable factories in the castle town, such as the ironworks, shipyards, arsenals, horse farms, glass factories and other Western-style factories, are collectively called the Jisangkan business.

In order to build these things, the Shimazu family not only did not have much savings, but also owed a lot of debts, so they could not find much money in the castle lord's mansion, and in the end, they found 50,000 taels of silver, which also proved the poverty of the Satsuma Domain.

In another history book of time and space, the Shimazu Domain slowly caught up after a long period of development, but in the early stage, the reform of the Satsuma Domain was actually the same as the Westernization Movement of the Qing Dynasty, mainly focusing on the military industry, and the money-making livelihood industry was relatively lagging behind, so it owed a lot of debts.

What many people don't know is that the Satsuma Domain was able to recover later, thanks to the victory in the Shogun Movement, the power of Japan was obtained, and the entire Japanese government paid for it, otherwise, if it continued like this, the finances of the Satsuma Domain would collapse sooner or later.

That is to say, Tang Hailong's headless and faceless shelling smashed the most valuable thing in Kagoshima, which not only greatly damaged Kagoshima's vitality, made the so-called "Jishikan business" fall short, and let Kagoshima return to the pre-liberation period overnight, but at the same time, he did not reap any benefits.

After occupying Osaka, Tang Hailong and others summoned many Japanese traitors, collected a lot of Japanese intelligence, and had some understanding of the situation in Japan. After knowing that the castle town was basically non-resisting, when attacking in the future, it was basically not to carry out large-scale destruction of the castle town, but to attack the castle directly.

The same is true of Edo Castle, although Edo Castle is the main castle of the shogun, but it also follows the pattern of combining castles and castle towns, and once Edo is attacked, castle towns are not resisting as usual, which means that as long as you can take Edo Castle, the castle towns under Edo Castle will automatically surrender.

After all the artillery of the task force was ready, Tang Hailong did not delay any longer and ordered to open fire directly.

With Tang Hailong's order, the five Yuanzi-class battleships opened fire one after another, shelling Edo Castle with an average rate of fire that was neither fast nor slow.

The five ships have one hundred and fifty guns, each of which is a 120 mm caliber big guy, and the shells are all high-breaking shells. Pull. As soon as the letter hit the walls of Edo Castle, it exploded with a bang, and it was simply shaking the heavens and the earth, and it was not at all something that human beings could resist.

Although the castle defense of Edo Castle is good, after all, it is an old building more than 200 years ago, and the building materials are old-fashioned masonry and clay, which are not comparable to reinforced concrete at all, and in the face of 120 mm caliber high-explosive bombs, although it cannot be said to be paper paste, it is not about the same.

Of course, due to the distance, not all of the shells attacked the castle walls, and many of them fell into Edo Castle, but instead of being lucky, they were even more destructive, often blowing up the defenders inside on their backs.

You must know that although Edo Castle is large in size and has a triple structure that presents a circular staircase, there are many defenders inside, so the population density is relatively large.

In the face of so many heavy artillery bombardments, there must have been heavy casualties, and even if many people were not directly killed and injured, the impact of the shell explosion alone could have shocked people to death.

It's still just with high. Burst. Play. If it is with condensation. Solid. Steam. Oil. The bullet is even more powerful, and I'm afraid it can really burn down the entire Edo Castle.

Tang Hailong doesn't look at the elegance of the vassals, and the scholars pretend to be calm, but in his bones, he actually likes this kind of scene where I can only bully others, but others can't do anything to me.

Therefore, after seeing the fire and smoke of Edo Castle in the distance, the excited Tang Hailong simply gave an order, asking to leave only one base number of shells, and all the other shells to be fired out for me!

To know. A Yuanzi-class battleship usually carries enough shells because of its displacement of more than two thousand tons and its large carrying capacity.

Normally, a battleship will bring 5 base shells to each gun, and one base number of shells is 100 rounds, which means that a Yuanzi-class battleship will generally carry 15,000 shells.

However, since it was an expedition to Japan, the battleships of the task force carried a little more shells, and each ship carried 10 base shells. A total of 30,000 shells, in addition to a large number of conventional shells, there are also a lot of burning. Burn. Play.

Earlier shelling of Kagoshima resulted in more than 3,000 shells. Among them burned. Burn. There were 372 rounds of ammunition. However, the price of ordinary shells is not expensive, and an ordinary high-explosive shell is only 20 taels of silver, although it is not a small amount. But it is much cheaper than the so-called incendiary bomb of 500 taels of silver per round.

It is precisely because I listened to Li Hongzhang's words that I knew that I was burning. Burn. The bullet is too expensive, plus burning. Burn. Bullets are too evil. It is difficult to extinguish, and if it is not done, it will be a fire in the whole city, so this time all the high-explosive bombs that Tang Hailong asked to be launched were high-explosive.

In other words, leaving only one base number of shells means that a ship has 3,000 shells for backup, but a ship has a total of 30,000 shells, which means that Tang Hailong requires each ship to fire 27,000 shells.

Twenty-seven thousand for one ship, and 135,000 shells for five ships!

With 135,000 rounds high. Burst. Cannon. Playing an old-fashioned Edo castle is an inhumane abuse in this era.

The firing speed of the Hua 3 naval guns can reach up to six shells a minute, and the average speed is three shells a minute, that is to say, if the average speed is followed, five ships with 150 guns can fire 27,000 shells in an hour, so that as long as the continuous shelling is five hours, 135,000 shells can be fired, and 9 base shells can be fired.

Of course, that was only theoretically, and in practice it was impossible to shoot that many shells in five hours.

The reason is very simple, the Hua 3 type naval guns on the Yuanzi-class battleships are all manpower-loaded guns, not automatic guns, so if it is a continuous high-intensity battle, it will generally exhaust people after an hour, and they must rest and rest.

Just like the last time we hit Kagoshima, five ships rumbled all morning, but they only fired more than 3,000 shells, not even 10,000. That's not to say that the artillery was not powerful, it was purely that it did not fire with all its strength at that time, but it retained a lot of spare power, naturally just in case.

But this time it was different, this time the task force first defeated the Japanese fleet, and then approached the port of Edo, protected by the army, and they also knew that the Battle of Edo was likely to be the last battle of their expeditionary force in Japan, so naturally they didn't want to stay.

As the saying goes, what kind of generals there are, there are what kind of soldiers, this Tang Hailong is a war maniac, and his subordinates are also the kind that can't stop as soon as they lose their temperament.

In the past, these gunners had to save ammunition and retain spare power, and they never really fired full firepower, that is to say, they never really played the performance of the Hua 3 naval gun, this time it was okay, I heard the commander say that the artillery shells of 9 bases were fired with all their might, that is, the quota of 900 rounds for one gun, so what are you worried about? It's open, boom!

In this way, Edo Castle was lively, and the explosions in the entire city were rumbling and continuous, and at night, the light of the explosions was non-stop, and the fire caused by the explosions made the entire Edo Castle a city that never sleeps.

The bombardment lasted for an hour and a half before it stopped, and the reason was, of course, that the ship's loaders were too tired to continue fighting.

However, in just one and a half hours, more than 60,000 shells were fired, and in terms of rate of fire, the average rate of fire reached 4.4 shells per minute per gun.

But that was enough, 60,000 shells hit Edo Castle, and it had already blown Edo Castle to pieces. Originally a beautiful city in the world, it was blown up into a broken city shrouded in smoke and fire.

In fact, at this point, Edo Castle's city defense has lost its main role, and there are loopholes everywhere, and if you are willing to take advantage of the situation, it is estimated that it will be easy to take it.

It's a pity that Shi Dakai didn't want to risk his own people, after all, although that kind of shelling was very fierce, he didn't dare to say that he could kill all the people inside with just one burst of shelling, therefore. Shi Dakai didn't want to fill in with his life when he had a big advantage, so not only did he not let the expeditionary force attack, but he also did not agree with Sheng Haizhou's attack plan.

The reason is simple, he knows that the task force is only resting for the time being, and when people have rested enough, the shelling will continue.

Through the communication of Guò radio, Shi Dakai understood what Tang Hailong meant, he wanted to use naval artillery to completely bomb Edo Castle into ruins!

Although nominally Shi Dakai is the supreme commander of the entire expeditionary force. The task force actually has to be under Shi Dakai's control, but Tang Hailong belongs to the navy after all, so Shi Dakai respects Tang Hailong's will many times.

Now that Tang Hailong wants to play, doing so can indeed reduce the casualties of our army. The purpose was to deter the enemy's courage, so he agreed.

Anyway, no matter how many shells there are, someone will pay for them, and there will be more than 50,000 shells on the supply ship behind, after going to the Americas in the future. It is said that there is no need to worry about shells and supplies, so Shi Dakai is no longer restrained, and he also wants to see what full fire coverage looks like.

Okay. It doesn't matter if you don't look at it, the one-and-a-half-hour bombing not only stunned Katsuhaizhou and other Japanese friendly troops, no, it was the Japanese superiors who were dumbfounded, and even he, the commander of the expeditionary force, was shocked.

"Lord Shi." Hearing that Shi Dakai not only did not send troops himself, but also refused the request of his own headquarters to send troops, Sheng Haizhou was very puzzled, "Edo Castle has been beaten like this, presumably the morale has been lost, as long as one charge can be taken, why don't you let us fight?" ”

"Quite simply, it's too much to lose." Shi Dakai said, "It's night now, and the line of sight is unknown, even if they are bombed badly, there is no guarantee that all of them have lost morale."

What if they hide well in advance and the loss is not great? What if they suddenly give us a powerful attack when we charge? When the time comes, won't our besieging forces suffer great losses? We only have such a small number of people, and we can't afford to lose. If you can blow up the city with cannonballs, why fill it with human lives? ”

"Flat?" Katsu Haizhou frowned, "What do you mean by Lord Shi, you are going to blow up Edo with cannonballs?" That is, to shoot again? ”

"Yes." Shi Dakai looked at his pocket watch, "Now it's just that they are temporarily resting, resting, and waiting for the artillery to recover their breath, it is estimated that they will continue to fire and bombard." However, I look at the next shelling, they will not maintain such a high intensity, after all, it is too laborious, and nine times out of ten they will reduce the speed of the shelling to save the body in turn. So, if there are no accidents, I'm afraid they will keep firing and fight all night. ”

"Fight all night?" Katsu Kaishu's eyes widened, "Do you have to fire continuous artillery at Edo Castle all night?" ”

"Yes, at least that's what I got the message." Shi Dakai put away his pocket watch and looked at Sheng Haizhou, "It's already eight o'clock in the evening, I think there is nothing to do tonight, you are still like me, only part of the alert troops are left, and everyone else should hurry back to sleep."

When we have slept and they have finished blowing up, we will attack Edo Castle again tomorrow morning. At that time, hehe, they were tossed by the shelling all night, even if they were not killed, their mental head would not work, and we would be more sure if we attacked again, right? ”

"But, but this ......"

"But what?" Shi Dakai looked at Sheng Haizhou.

"But it's too bad." Katsu Haizhou pointed to Edo Castle, which was still blazing in the distance, "If you send it like this, the entire Edo Castle will be finished, and even the general may not be safe." In my opinion, it is better to attack now, with such a strong artillery bombardment, they should not be able to stop us. ”

"I can understand your feelings." Shi Dakai nodded, "After all, Edo City should be regarded as your second capital, and it's normal that you don't want this city to be destroyed." However, I would like to remind you that when the city is gone, it can be rebuilt, and when the people are gone, there is nothing. ”

Speaking of this, Shi Dakai looked at Sheng Haizhou meaningfully: "Conquering Edo, it's nothing to us, but it's for you." This is just the beginning. If you want to go further in the future, you must have a group of loyal men under your command, especially a strong and obedient army.

In other words, the 5,000 men under your command now are the foundation of your life, and if you lose too much in this battle, you may not be able to grasp the power of Japan in the future. Wouldn't it end up being a wedding dress for someone else? ”

Hearing Shi Dakai say this, Sheng Haizhou opened his mouth, and wanted to say that he didn't care about that, what he cared about was the rise of Japan. However, he thought that in the future, he really wanted to find a way to lead Japan to follow his ideas, and in doing so, he had to grasp the power of Japan, and in terms of the act itself, this was actually no different from fighting for power and profit, so he no longer defended it.

Seeing that Sheng Haizhou was silent and stopped talking, Shi Dakai smiled lightly at the corner of his mouth. I won't say anything more.

Sure enough, just as Shi Dakai said to Sheng Haizhou, after an hour of silence, the cannon of the task force rang out again. A new round of ravages on Edo Castle began.

It's just that this time the rate of shelling seems to be slower than the last one, as Shi Dakai said, this is to save the body. It was intended to fire artillery all the time, not only to blow up the buildings of Edo Castle with artillery bombardment, but also to use continuous artillery bombardment to consume the mental will of the Edo defenders.

"Sakamoto-kun. See? In the night, Katsukaishu pointed to the place of Edo Castle in the distance, and pointed to the city that was constantly ravaged by artillery fire, "This is the war of the new era, and this is why I am doing this!" ”

"Yes, I understand, Teacher." Later, Sakamoto Ryoma had a stern face, and his eyes stared at the Edo Castle that was constantly being bombarded by artillery fire without blinking, "In the face of such a force, it is impossible for us to rest on our laurels, only by founding the country, comprehensively opening the country, and keeping up with their pace of progress, can we have a glimmer of life." ”

"yes, it's a pity they don't understand." Sheng Haizhou put his hands behind his back and shook his head, "Those guys don't understand." Those brainless fools! They don't know that what they are doing is actually dragging Japan into the abyss! ”

"Teacher." Ryoma Sakamoto opened his mouth, "Actually, they are also a group of passionate and loyal people, and what they do is also for the good of Japan, but they take a different path from us." ”

"Hmph." Sheng Haizhou gritted his teeth, "Ryoma, you don't have to intercede for them. The Rebels don't deserve sympathy. Hmph, what is loyal to the monarch and patriotic, what is respected by the emperor, it's all bullshit! ”

Speaking of this, Katsu Haizhou suddenly turned around and stared at Sakamoto Ryoma: "Have you seen it, this is the price of being tough on the outside world!" What Japan needs today is not to be tough, but to bow its proud head and humbly learn from behind the strong! What we need is forbearance, not resistance! This is especially true when China has risen one step ahead of us! ”

"But ......"

"Listen to me." Katsu Haizhou waved his hand, "Ryoma, you are one of my most valued students, and you should also understand that if Japan wants to rise, it must follow the path of the West, and it must carry out comprehensive reforms."

Originally, I thought I could take my time so that there would be less bleeding. But now it seems that we were wrong, and we couldn't be more wrong!

You know, we don't have time to take our time, because we're all enemies not just internally, but also externally! People outside will not wait for us to take our time, in this era of global unification, if you go slower and fall behind, you will be beaten.

Unfortunately, we have fallen behind in all aspects, if we continue to walk slowly, a situation like today's will have to be faced sooner or later, even if it is not Chinese, it may be British, French or some other country, do you understand? ”

"That's why you're going to raise troops?" Sakamoto Ryoma looked back at Edo Castle, which was constantly exploding, "That's why you want to use the excuse of the so-called crusade against rebellion to seize the big government?" ”

"Yes." Katsu Haizhou turned around and continued to look in the direction of Edo Castle, "Since others can't do it well, then I'll do it." In today's situation, we can only choose to bow our heads to the Chinese and show favor to the Chinese. If those fools are allowed to go to war with the Chinese in the name of the shogunate, then Japan will be finished, you know. ”

"But teacher, have you ever thought about it?" Sakamoto Ryoma said, "Now China can not have the slightest wind of benevolence and righteousness, but is aggressive everywhere, if we bow to them and pay tribute, what if they still don't let us go?" ”

"Then lower your head a little more." Sheng Haizhou's face was expressionless, "In the face of a strong enemy that is temporarily irresistible, the best weapon is humility and obedience. As long as we are humble enough and obedient enough so that the other side does not swallow Japan entirely, even if it is a vassal country, then we still have a chance. Of course, we are not without a bottom line, as long as they do not completely dismember Japan and continue to preserve the traditions of our imperial state, then let them toss. ”

Hearing Katsu Haizhou say this, Sakamoto Ryoma's lips moved, but he still shook his head and didn't say anything. (To be continued......)