After hearing Tachibana Soshige's assertion, Shimazu Michihisa was obviously a little unconvinced, and he looked at Tachibana Muneshige suspiciously. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info "What do you say, can you be sure?" ”

As a general in this situation, he naturally understands how bad the current situation is. The army under the command of Tachibana Soshige is actually a combination of the vassal armies of various wealthy lords, and it cannot be counted as a whole, but each has its own thoughts, although in the past few months, Zhonghua Soshige has been trying to pinch his troops, but because of the limited time, the results are still not enough.

If everything goes well, this pattern is nothing, but these days of retreat and attrition, the various feudal armies have suffered huge losses, in this case, everyone's hearts are a little fluctuating, not only the Shimazu Michihisa family, others also want to retreat, but they are not as high as Shimazu Michihisa, so they dare not say it in front of Tachibana Soshige.

Tachibana Somao just smiled slightly, "Who is Naotaka Ii, I know better than you, how dare this kind of junior mess around in front of me!" ”

Then, he turned around and left with a few of his entourage.

Then he mounted his horse directly, and then led his entourage out of the city, and came to his own army outside the city. Then he immediately summoned several of his subordinates to himself. Soon the generals gathered around him, anxiously asking him about his current situation, eager to get the next steps from him.

Unlike before, Tachibana Somao is now dignified.

He waved his hand to silence his generals, and then picked up a telescope to observe the situation on the front line, at this time the shogunate army had pressed in front of them, and a large army under the black pressure looked imposing, almost impossible to see.

Although he said it very lightly in front of Shimazu Michihisa, he also knew in his heart how bad the situation was now, and it was only in order to stabilize the hearts of his subordinates that he was as calm as before.

In his opinion, now that the situation of the shogunate has collapsed to this point, it should be held to the death of Kanto, but they instead weakened the forces of Kanto, and instead sent a large army to attack Kinki, which had to make him secretly sigh that the current shogunate is really empty.

He was by Zhou Pu's side before, and he had already known the plan of the Great Han, and Jing Yi Naotaka came out with the army, which had already made the Great Han's strategy successful, and then the Kanto region would face a comprehensive attack on the land and sea of the Han army, and his first task was to keep dragging the army of Jing Yi Naotaka so that they could not return to the aid of the Kanto, which would make it more convenient for the Han to directly attack the shogunate.

However, although the shogunate made a wrong decision, he still has to face the pressure of the enemy army now. At the moment, we can't be careless.

"Ladies and gentlemen, now that the shogunate army has pressed in front of our army, it is true that this is the most difficult time for our army!" Tachibana Soshige lowered his binoculars, then turned his head to look at his generals. "Nara Castle is just a small city, and it cannot contain our army, so our army must not retreat again, otherwise it will only be surrounded and destroyed by the enemy. Our army can only fight against the city, trying to repel the enemy army! ”

As soon as he said this, the generals looked at each other, but no one spoke again.

This is indeed true, although Nara is a castle, but the defense of the castle is very rudimentary, and it cannot accommodate the entire army.

"I have already sent an envoy to Kyoto before, and Lord Zhou has already led a large army to Nara, as long as our army continues to hold out for a while, Lord Zhou will come to reinforce us." After clarifying the current grim situation, Tachibana Soshigeru turned to his generals, "As long as we hold on for a few more days!" ”

When they learned that the envoys of the Celestial Empire had come with a large army, everyone seemed to be a lot more relaxed.

During this time, after all the battles, the Han army left an indelible impression on them, and also gave them invincible confidence, as long as the envoys of the Celestial Empire rushed over, everyone believed that they would be able to stop the shogunate army.

"I've made great achievements all the way to the battle, and the court has a steady stream of rewards, and there will definitely be bigger rewards in the future, but if I wait for a rout here, it will be a waste of all my efforts! Do you want all your efforts to be in vain? Tachibana Somao glanced around at several generals and injected them with a sharp look.

"Okay, the situation is urgent right now, everyone, come and meet you again at the celebration banquet!" After saying this, Tachibana Somao waved his hand and asked them to leave, "I am here to personally command, and I will live and die with you!" ”

After mobilizing the morale of his generals, he called them back to their respective formations, and he remounted his horse and prepared to patrol the area to assist his men in defending against the enemy.

At this time, the formation of the shogunate army under the castle was also completed, their army was mixed but not chaotic, and the clothing was also very uniform, the armor was bright, and the layers were clearly displayed in front of the eyes of Tachibana Muneshige and others.

Then, there was a sudden commotion in front of the shogunate army, and the line, which had been as tight as the castle wall, began to move, and a large group of shogunate soldiers with spears pressed down on Tachibana Muneshige in a tight line.

And beside these spear-wielding soldiers was a group of soldiers with iron cannons, they were equally numerous, and the formation was tighter, and it seemed that they were ready to bombard their own formation.

It seems that the enemy army has run out of patience and wants to attack directly.

Tachibana Soshige unhurriedly observed the opponent's formation, estimating the distance between the two military formations. He then ordered his musketeers to line up as well.

These well-trained musketeers formed several formations according to the training of the Han army, and then raised their muskets and aimed them at the opponent's military formation.

"Fire, give priority to their musketeers!"

When Tachibana felt that the enemy had come to a distance of sufficient precision to strike, he finally ordered the musketeers to open fire.

With the officers' loud commands, the musketeers in the front row began to fire.

As if they had been beaten head-on with an iron fist, the shogunate army in front of them suddenly stopped, and then many people in the front row fell directly to the ground.

And after the first severe blow, the shogunate army also lined up to meet it, and the shogunate army muskets in the front row

These musketeers were all musketeers in the armies of the previous Kyushu clans and the Maori clan, and during this time they received training from the Han army, and their tactics and archery skills have improved a lot, and the muskets they used were all firearms of the Han army, so the shooting accuracy was much stronger than the muskets they used before.

Although they could not aim accurately, under their deliberate control, the bullets still attacked the musketeers in front of the formation as much as possible, even if they had the deliberate cover of the other shogunate troops, the losses were still great.

After being bombarded by the other side first, the shogunate army, which hastily regrouped its position, quickly launched a counterattack on this side, but the quality of their guns was far inferior to that of the army on this side, so only a few bullets could hit the enemy at this distance, and it did not pose much of a threat.

And they were well aware of this situation, so they continued to let the army formation advance in the continuous iron artillery bombardment, wanting to shorten the distance between the two armies and change this confrontation where the consumption was not proportional.

Although they paid a lot of casualties, they still achieved their goal little by little, pushing to a place only a few dozen paces away from the enemy's formation, and at this time, their numerical superiority was able to be brought into play, and a large number of musketeers fired continuously, while covering their own troops to continue to press, while trying to cause casualties to the other side.

Seeing this, Tachibana Muneshige immediately ordered the musketeers to recycle and scatter to the rear of the pikemen's formation.

"If only there were some field artillery." He thought with regret.

During these years, the combat skills and combat ability of the Han army gave him many shocks, but what impressed him the most was their sharp artillery fire, especially those mounted on the gun carriage, which could move around easily and flexibly, providing a strong firepower guarantee for his side.

Now that the shogunate army's position is so close, if it can be bombarded with field artillery, I am afraid that it will be able to directly repel this wave of offensive.

However, this meaningless exclamation did not last long, Tachibana Muneshige carefully observed the frontal formation again, and then immediately mounted his horse and turned to the left flank with his own personal retinue, and these musketeers who had retreated from the frontal battlefield also divided into a part and reloaded while moving with him to the left flank.

Although there was a lot of pressure on the front, from his point of view, the shogunate army did not use all its strength, but seemed to be attracting their own attention, and it seemed that their purpose was not to seek a frontal breakthrough of their own army's military formation, Tachibana Muneshige, after carefully observing the movement of the opposing army's rear, thought that they were seeking to break through from their left flank.

Just as he felt the left flank, another commotion rang out from behind the side of the shogunate, and this time they were even louder than before, and the billowing smoke drifted all the way to this side.

Tachibana Soshige immediately heard the sound of dense horses' hooves, and then slightly changed color, and he immediately urged the officers on this side to defend carefully, and at the same time began to shrink the line, making the army more dense.

And under their sight, hundreds, maybe thousands of horses galloped towards this side, although the Japanese horses were not high, and the load capacity was limited, but when so many cavalry launched a charge, it was still like an earthquake, shaking the earth slightly. And these cavalrymen all carried long iron spears in their hands, and their sharp blades gleamed in the sunlight.

In the rear of the cavalry, a large group of shogunate troops also quickly followed them and rushed towards this side, and the pace was so fast that they could not even bother to maintain their position, it seemed that they wanted to let the cavalry break through this side of the line first, and then let the infantry completely crush this enemy army.

This momentum made the defenders change color, but the experienced officers immediately stabilized the line and urged the soldiers to step up their formation, they all knew that in the face of the charge of the cavalry cluster, if they retreated rashly, they would definitely not be able to outrun, and running would only make them die faster! And if one of their flanks were broken by the enemy, the cavalry and the large army that followed would surely continue to penetrate until the whole army's line was shaken, and then they would have suffered a crushing defeat.

Under the supervision of the commander Tachibana Soshige and the urging of the officers, these soldiers who were already a little panicked finally stabilized their positions, they formed several squares, and then raised the spears in their hands to face the front, while the soldiers in front directly crouched down, raised their spears diagonally upward, and the handle of the guns was directly inserted into the ground, facing the rushing enemy.

At this time, the musketeers who had been brought in reinforcements also arrived at the battlefield, and they formed several small phalanxes behind the line of pikemen, and then began to reload and wait to meet the enemy.

Under the gaze of Tachibana Soshige, this group of cavalry rushing over got closer and closer, and finally directly hit the front of the oncoming pikemen, the horses in the front row were pierced by the spears, and when the blood burst out, the cavalry on the horses were also thrown into the air heavily, but the spears in their hands had already penetrated into the opponent's army, and several spears even skewered into the bodies of several people, and the screams were endless.

The cavalrymen quickly fell heavily into the pikemen's formation, some of them were killed immediately, while others were immediately pierced by the spears in a coma.

No one paid attention to the first group of dead and wounded, and the cavalry that followed continued to charge forward, all of them having received orders from the Elder to break through the enemy positions at all costs and bring victory and hope to the shogunate.

As the cavalry recklessly charged, the pikemen began to retreat, and the originally tight line began to loosen up considerably, and by this time, the infantry that had followed the shogunate army had already rushed forward, with long naginatas in their hands, howling and attacking this side.

"Bang!"

The musketeers, who had already been reloaded, began to fire at several gaps in the front, and the continuous bombardment of muskets caused the enemy to suffer a large number of casualties in a short period of time, and also re-stabilized the position of their own army.

Then, a group of soldiers armed with swords launched a counterattack on the opposite side, and then began a melee with the enemy troops who had already attacked the front line. These troops were the pro-forces that Tachibana Muneshige brought directly from the Yanagawa Domain, and they were also the cronies he had trained for decades, and he initially placed them on the left flank to prevent the enemy from launching a surprise attack on the flank.

In the Warring States Period, although the main force of the battlefield was spears and iron cannons, the sword still played a role in hand-to-hand combat, and at that time, the katana sword that was popular on the battlefield was generally two to three feet, and was used in close-range white combat, but Tachibana Michiyuki was a maverick, preferring to let his subordinates use three-foot to five-foot long knives, and invented the Tachibana family's unpopular swordsmanship combat method "Shadow Stream".

The long knife is quite inconvenient on the battlefield, because in the normal state of hand-to-hand combat, the long knife may be killed by a counterattack if it is not swung well, and when the enemy encounters an artillery attack or a big mess, the long knife can play a major role in dealing a major blow to the enemy.

As the adopted son of Tachibana Michiyuki, Tachibana Muneshige is also very familiar with this, and he sees that after the initial reception, the enemy cavalry has been consumed a lot, but the foothold is not yet stable, so he wants to take advantage of this opportunity to strangle the opponent.

Under the alternating blows of muskets and swords, the enemy's positions began to panic, and the casualties became heavier and larger, and the cavalry, which was originally an assault spear, also fell into the enemy's formation after a large number of casualties, losing the initial impact power, and also made them be divided by small strands, like the waves left on the shore after the tide receded.

"Assault of the whole army!" Seeing that the time was right, Tachibana Soshige immediately pressed the military formations around him to the opposite side.

A large number of people rushed to the front line, and then the weapons in their hands met the enemy, and there was the resonance and roar of blades everywhere, Tachibana Muneshige rode directly to the front with his personal entourage, although there were cold guns and arrows everywhere, but he shouted around fearlessly, letting his subordinates desperately resist the enemy.

Under the personal supervision of Tachibana Muneshige, the enemy troops who rushed into the main army began to be unable to support it, and they gradually retreated, while Tachibana Muneshige raised his head and observed the movement of the enemy forces behind them.

If it were him, he would now continue to send troops to attack the left flank that had been shaken, and he must take advantage of this opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the enemy, at least using the numerical advantage of his own army to consume the enemy, but as far as he could see, the enemy army did not continue to launch a large-scale assault except for a few troops rushing over intermittently, but showed signs of retreat.

"Naotaka Ii is still too cautious." He sighed in his heart.

It seems that Naotaka Ii was a little surprised by his ability to resist, and was afraid that if he forcibly continued to send troops to attack, his army would be shaken, so he chose to be cautious at the last moment and continue to consume his army.

However, it is also easy to understand that as the elder of the shogunate, he has the hope of the entire shogunate at this time, and he definitely does not dare to take too many risks, he can't afford to lose.

At this time, with the full counterattack of Tachibana Soshige, the shogunate army also began to retreat, and finally the entire left flank returned to silence, and by this time, the vast majority of the soldiers on the two sides who had initially engaged the enemy had already left the world, leaving a large number of corpses on the entire field.

Tachibana Soshige didn't have time to lament the impermanence of life and death on the battlefield, he picked up the water bladder and poured a sip of water directly, and then rode his horse towards the main formation.

At this time, the central battlefield had been fighting for a long time, but this was not the main direction of attack, so after the flank attack failed, they gradually retreated, and when they were out of sight, Tachibana knew that at least today he had blocked the enemy's attack - albeit at great cost.

And that night, he finally got the exact news of Zhou Pu - now Zhou Pu has led the entire army to a place only twenty miles away from Nara, and he can arrive in Nara tomorrow.

Finally reached the end, and he was finally relieved. (To be continued.) )