It was getting darker and darker, and soon, the cold darkness began to replace the golden twilight, and Naito's army slowly disappeared into the blurred night.

At this time, Ma Tongji had also led his team to arrive, and his purpose was to cut off the road connecting Nagasaki City and the outside of the city, so that the city would completely become an isolated city, so the march was very fast.

Along the way, he encountered only a few scattered enemy troops, which he easily defeated, and more civilians, all of whom were citizens of Nagasaki Castle and villagers from the surrounding countryside, who were driven out of Nagasaki Castle because of the shogunate's previous urgent dispersal order, and many more who chose to flee because they were hiding from the Han army.

Although the shogunate issued an evacuation order, it did not prepare food, nor did it provide protection or transportation capacity, nor even a destination for the dispersal, so these civilians who had no food or clothing soon could not walk, and they scattered their families and mouths in the countryside around Nagasaki Castle, and the voices of children and women could be heard almost for miles away, which was very miserable.

In order to maintain the efficiency of the battle, the Han officers and soldiers strictly forbade robbery and plunder during the battle, so although many civilians escaped with thin softness, no one took this opportunity to plunder the civilians, but because of the rumors of the shogunate and the people, as well as the Han army kept killing those shogunate troops who tried to resist, so these civilian women and children cried even more when they saw the Han army, and fled in panic, even the children who fell to the ground got up desperately and stumbled forward. It's like an evil spirit is following behind.

Ma Tongji rode his horse and followed his brigade of soldiers in a neat pace, occasionally walking around with binoculars. In the distance, there are burning cities and villages, and civilians, women and children, dressed in all kinds of clothes, who are scattered. There were dead bodies everywhere, some of them were killed by the Han army, some of them were killed by looting among the civilians, and there were even many children who had been trampled to death, and with the fiery red background, he felt as if he was standing at the gate of hell as the Buddha said.

However, despite looking so miserable, Ma Tongji's heart did not fluctuate, he just kept a straight face and looked at everything in front of him unmoved.

War, that's all it takes. After entering the army to lead the troops to fight, he had long held such an awareness. It is difficult for any person, after several years of fighting, to retain mercy for others. He only cares if his combat goal has been achieved, that's all.

In order to further increase the defensive pressure in Nagasaki City, he deliberately drove the civilians in the direction of Nagasaki, but he didn't care about running in other directions, and just marched all the way.

The senators next to him walked around in the twilight and compared it with the map in their hands to determine their current location.

Since the decision was made to attack Japan, collecting topographical information from all parts of Japan was a top priority, and when Zhou Pu came to Japan, several of his entourage were sent by the military to draw maps for the army to use as a reference for marching.

For various reasons, these people did not have a particularly wide range of activities, and they did not set foot in all of Kyushu, but they did their best to draw a map of Kyushu in various ways, especially the Nagasaki area, which is the most detailed.

Although these maps could not be perfect, they also added a lot of convenience to the planning and command of the Han army.

"How long will it take?" Ma Tongji asked the senator officer next to him.

"Back to the regiment, we are now not far from the outer post stations," replied the senator as he gestured in front of him with a map, "these post stations are all on the road out of Nagasaki, and as long as we occupy these strongholds, or at least cut off the passage of these roads, Nagasaki will be a dead city!" ”

"Good." Ma Tongji smiled, then waved the horsewhip with his right hand and urged the horse, "Hurry up the march, we will camp after we reach the destination, and then have dinner!" ”

His words provoked a burst of laughter, and everyone also quickened their pace with the group.

Because of the relationship between the two routes, his troops only have more than 1,000 people, but the vast red sea is enough to bring him great confidence. He could theoretically now be said to have penetrated deep into enemy territory, but he didn't care at all, and he didn't fear or cower at all.

Over the years, he has been fighting in the southwest, all kinds of poor mountains and rivers have been seen and climbed, often with a little troops into the enemy's territory, sometimes even lost, I don't know how many battles have been fought in this situation, where there will be any fear.

However, although he was very proud in his heart and believed that his troops were absolutely superior to the enemy, his years of experience also taught him that he could not take it lightly no matter what, so he always paid close attention to the surrounding situation on the march, so as not to be ambushed by the enemy.

And his subordinates, who have been fighting for many years, are all experienced, and they also watch everywhere in case they are attacked by the enemy.

"Tuanzheng, stop first, something seems to be wrong there!" After marching for a while, a senator officer suddenly reined in his horse, then stopped Ma Tongji and pointed ahead, "The regiment is looking!" ”

After receiving his reminder, Ma Tongji also picked up the telescope and looked into the distance.

On the opposite side is a small hill, next to it is the road they have to pass, the trees of this hill are very dense, because it is almost night now, only a little residual light is left in Gu Ying's sufficiency, so it is not particularly real.

In the trance, it seems that there are indeed some figures moving.

Because it is very vague, Ma Tongji cannot directly draw conclusions, but an instinctive intuition brought about by years of military experience tells him that there may really be some problems there. At least not just pass over there.

"That's really a soldier...... They all panicked. Ma Tongji couldn't help laughing at himself.

"Tuanzheng, there...... It seems a little strange. At this time, another senator also came to his side and said. It was on high ground, and it controlled the road below, and it was an ideal place to set up an ambush, and if I were an enemy, I would have set up an ambush there and take us by surprise. ”

"Want to give us an ambush all of a sudden?" Ma Tongji smiled again, "They don't want to think about it, they can deceive us with their little deeds?" The barbarians we met in the mountains were much better disguised than them, and we didn't drive them all over the ground when we started a battle? Anyway, whether it's all soldiers or real people, let's set off some fireworks for them first! ”

Then he waved his hand heavily.

The senators next to them also understood and immediately arranged their own arrangements. Soon, a small group of soldiers emerged from the marching column, and these men were in groups of three, next to a small cannon loaded on a small gun carriage.

The caliber of these cannons is very small, and because of the progress of precision machining of Han metal, the barrel is also very thin, so the size is small and the weight is small, and it can be moved by a horse, and it can even be dragged by several soldiers when necessary.

In the final analysis, this is bullying the surrounding enemies who do not have enough firepower, even with this kind of small cannon can suppress them.

Under the orders of the regimental commander, the artillerymen quickly prepared and, according to the estimated distance, adjusted the direction of the muzzle by means of a small gun carriage.

It was dark and there was no doubt that it would not be possible to make particularly precise ranging and adjustments, but there was no need to make precise adjustments in the first place, because the coverage of artillery fire was now more important than the power. If the enemy is ambushing in the middle of the forest, they must be very crowded and numerous, so it is necessary to cover as large an area as possible.

In order to achieve this goal, the gunner filled the cannon with small steel ball projectiles, and after a little while, these projectiles would be driven by gunpowder to bombard the opposite jungle with an overwhelming rain of bullets.

When the gunners were all ready, Ma Tongji walked to the front of the formation, and then carefully observed the terrain.

Then, with a heavy wave of his hand.

"Fire!" The artillery officers immediately gave the order.

The flash of light soon burst out of the muzzle of the cannon, and the flash of light was so intense that it seemed like a flash of lightning from the sky, piercing the night sky and dwarfing the torches of the soldiers beside them.

Almost at the same time as the cannon fired, countless projectiles were hurled into the distant woods with a sharp whistling sound, and then fell rapidly like a dense rain of bullets.

The dense rain of projectiles pierced the night sky without mercy, and also took a lot of blood and lives, under the bombardment of this rain of bullets, few of the shogunate soldiers who were originally ambushed under the trees and in the grass survived, almost everyone was shot, some were directly pierced through the vital point and died, while many more were in unbearable pain and had to get up from the ground, their screams and wails quickly merged with the screams of the projectiles, adding a bit of horror to this gloomy night.

What's even more terrifying is that because the temperature of the projectile is very high, and the weather is a little hot now, so soon the fire began to burn in the mountains and forests, and the fire spread among the trees, and soon turned this place into a fire field, and the fire forced the people inside to flee and struggle even more, and from a distance, black shadows fled in all directions in the fiery red background, just like the ghosts in purgatory dancing wildly.

"Looks like you're really planning to ambush us? These Japanese people also have some brains. It's a pity that if they run into us, they are unlucky. ”

However, Ma Tongji, who had fought for many years, had seen a lot of similar scenes, so he was not moved at all, but quietly held a telescope to observe the effect of the shelling, and ridiculed the enemy in his mouth to relieve the tension in his heart.

As the relentless shelling continued, the fire in the woods became bigger and bigger, more and more people chose to flee, they collided with each other in the woods, scattered and fled, and some even rushed towards the military formation of the Han army, and finally were eliminated one by one by the Han sergeants who had been prepared.

Naito Tadashige, who was supervising the formation in the rear, was so angry that his carefully planned ambush had been completely defeated before it had even begun, and his hands were shaking tightly to grip the telescope, almost as if he was about to crush it.

He originally wanted to take these Han soldiers by surprise through an ambush, and also make them unable to give full play to their firepower advantage in the melee, but he didn't expect that these Han soldiers were so cunning that they actually saw through his plan, and directly used artillery bombardment, bringing serious losses to these ambush troops.

There were not many people in ambush, but in order to bring more chaos to the Han army, they were all selected soldiers, led by samurai, and they didn't expect to suffer such a big blow before they could take the battle!

"Up! Kill all these dogs! ”

He couldn't bear it any longer, so he immediately ordered his troops to charge these Han soldiers, and at the same time asked people to send an order, telling Zeng I Guyou on the Nagasaki side to also launch an attack on the Han Dynasty, and flank them on both sides with superior forces, so as to make these Han troops have no return.

However, because the width of the front was not enough, in order to prevent the army from trampling on each other in the night, he could not let the whole army charge thousands of people at the same time, so he could only let more than 1,000 people in the front take the lead first, and then gradually reinforce later, and consume these Han troops little by little.

After receiving the order of the old man, the army in his formation immediately rushed forward, although it was impossible to completely maintain the formation in the dark night, but the scene of thousands of black shadows shouting and rushing forward still made people feel a palpitation.

"Heh, there are quite a lot of people."

Ma Tongji immediately used his binoculars to look in the direction where the shouts came, it was night, and everything was not very real, but he could still estimate the size of the enemy from the shouts and the dark shadows, and there were more than a thousand people.

And at this time, there was also the shouting of soldiers charging and the sound of chaotic footsteps from the direction of Nagasaki, Ma Tongji hurriedly turned around and found that there was indeed a group of people rushing over there.

It seems that they are banding together to eat their own group.

"It's a big fish! I'm afraid they've made a lot of money! However, even though he looked like he was in danger, he was not afraid, but shouted excitedly, "This battle is over, and the brothers have let me go!" ”

His shout also made the soldiers boil and let out a cheer.

However, after all, Ma Tongji has been leading troops to fight for many years, and he is arrogant on the outside, but he is not so arrogant in his heart, but a lot more nervous.

If it is in the daytime, he is not afraid of the enemy attacking in several ways, he is very confident in his subordinates, but it is difficult to say at night, after all, the night has too much impact on the firearms of the Han army. He wasn't afraid of losing, but if there were a lot of casualties as soon as he went to Kyushu, it would be an unbearable loss for him.

He looked around, his mind spinning, and began to think of a strategy.

Then, he quickly made up his mind.

"The whole army is concentrated! Centered on me! He picked up his saber and stabbed himself under his feet, "Array!" ”

Although the current lighting conditions are very poor, but after years of training and actual combat, his soldiers have already practiced strict formation habits, and under various conditions, the formation has long been extremely familiar, and soon several large formations were formed with Ma Tongji as the center, the pikemen were pushed outside, and the artillery was also surrounded and protected by them.

"Artillery preparation, bombardment of enemy troops coming from the direction of Nagasaki!" Ma Tongji continued to give the order, "First battalion, come with me!" Others, defend the enemy troops in place, pay attention to the protection of artillery! ”

Then he shouted and ordered several officers to have his first battalion follow him towards the hill which he had bombarded and which was still burning.

The artillery has to be retracted and re-released, and the movement speed is definitely not fast, so it is necessary to leave a large group of men and horses here to protect, but more than 1,000 people crowded together will definitely affect the play of the musket firepower very much, so Ma Tongji decided to divide half of the people to line up next to him.

In this way, he can use both sides as horns to fully exploit the firepower advantage of his troops, and the burning mountains and forests can finally let him lean against his back without worrying about being attacked from all sides, not to mention, the burning mountains and forests can provide enough bright light to facilitate his troops to use muskets to defend against the enemy.

With his orders, the formation soon changed, and some of the men began to move forward with him, but because of the night and the noise everywhere, the staggered formations inevitably caused confusion, and by this time the enemy had rushed very close to the front of the formation.

"Fire!" When the enemy came to a certain distance, the musketeers at the front of the array, under the orders of the officers, began to open fire, knocking down many enemies. However, because the barrage is not dense, it is not very powerful.

However, the shogunate soldiers who did not fall, as if they did not have any fear, continued to shout and pounced towards the Han army. Most of them held spears in their hands, and some held swords.

Their attitude of not caring about casualties made the Han army finally waver. And by this time, the steering and reloading of the artillery had finally been done. The pikemen in the front row immediately stepped back, giving way to the artillerymen's view.

These shogunate troops who rushed over saw the cold black light of the cannon muzzles in front of the Han army.

"Fire!" The artillery officer, with some nervousness, shouted loudly.

The ignited fuse soon caused an explosion in the narrow space inside the cannon, and the powerful thrust of the explosion, like the hand of a giant, forcibly threw the projectiles inside, and the screeching projectiles bombarded the enemy troops in dense manner.