Chapter 107, Chong? The End of the Five Years (Medium)

When strife broke out on the land of the Central Plains, the Japanese archipelago, which was across the sea, was also caught in the flames of war.

In the summer of Kanei's 9th year, the newly rising overlord of the Western Kingdom, the Mori family of the Choshu domain, who had just converted to Christianity a few years earlier, uprooted the last few strongholds of the shogunate on the island of Kyushu in a new round of Kyushu raids launched by the "Apologetic Holy War". Subsequently, the feudal lord Mori Shu finally publicly put forward the slogan of the fall of the curtain and mobilized the daimyo of the western country "Kirijitan" to form a Christian coalition army, and began the journey of "Shangluo" with a cross flag.

However, the shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu, who was in to prepare for the battle, was not in a good situation - the 5,000 new shogunate army that had been trained at great expense by importing Western firearms, hiring Dutch consultants, and spending a lot of money to train was easily annihilated by the sudden arrival of the 21st century time-traveling army, resulting in a great decline in the strength of the shogunate army. Moreover, Tokugawa Iemitsu's most trusted minister, Masayuki Hoshina (the future ancestor of the Aizu Domain), was also not in the battle formation, so that General Tokugawa Iemitsu lost his arm before the decisive battle, and the morale of the entire army in the shogunate camp was even weaker and the fighting spirit was depressed.

As a result, when the Shogunate gradually wiped out the feudal states loyal to the shogunate along the way, and finally invaded in a big way, the resistance of the shogunate army was quite weak, and the two joint battles organized at Himeji Castle and Yodogawa were defeated by the Maori army, which was already equipped with modern firearms. And the shogunate navy, which is still using the Ataka ship and the Kohaya boat, is not the opponent of the Maori navy, which is already equipped with Western sailing ships.

At the beginning of October, General Tokugawa Iemitsu saw that the battlefield was falling apart and that his own situation was gone, so he simply ordered the burning of Kyoto, and coerced Emperor Akimasa and the rest of the imperial family to flee to Edo, leaving only the shogunate elder Matsudaira Nobutsuna, who led 4,000 banners of samurai and 10,000 miscellaneous soldiers to hold Osaka Castle, using this famous fortified castle to try his best to hold back the footsteps of the fallen shogunate and buy time for the Edo shogunate's salary and recruitment in the Kanto region.

On October 10, Mori Hide's army entered Kyoto, which had been burned to the ground. At this point, the battle of the Mori family of the Choshu domain was initially declared a success. However, the war in the region was far from over—it didn't take long for the Choshu domain to be proud of it, and it was found that their seemingly successful Kamiraku this time did not mean that the dust of the war in the Kiki region had settled: it was completely different from what was imagined in advance, after the Shogunate army captured Kyoto, there was no rumor in various parts of the Kinai, but it was the popular uprising and the flames of war that caused the Mori family to step into the quagmire of the "people's war......

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In 1632, the fifth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, December of the ninth year of Kanei, Japan,, Osaka Castle

Cannon rumbles and black smoke rises; The drums and horns sounded in unison, and the sound of killing shook the sky; Corpses were strewn all over the field, and rivers of blood flowed like rivers.

Smoke blackened the clear sky, and blood stained the snow.

Seventeen years have passed since the Battle of Osaka Summer, which led to the collapse of the Toyotomi family, and this huge city, which Toyotomi Hideyoshi had built with all the financial resources of the whole of Japan, was once again transformed into a bloody battlefield that burned the plains and killed the world.

This protracted battle of Osaka has been going on for the third month.

Although after a series of battles, the Shogunate had uprooted the outlying strongholds of Osaka Castle one by one, and set fire to the castle towns in Osaka to the ground. But the tall and majestic Osaka Castle was still unfortunate, as if to laugh at the futility of the fallen army.

As we all know, the so-called siege of the city since ancient times means that the people in the city want to go out, but the people outside the city want to come in.

Accompanied by the roar of conch and taiko drums and the shouts of chaos, a colorful and squirming crowd of people, carrying hastily made rough ladders, hitting wood, holding bows and arrows, bamboo guns and a few ancient "iron cannons" (Japanese-style muskets), once again ran out of the messy and simple camp outside the city, like a tsunami to the city wall of Osaka Castle, its momentum is so great that it can make people feel that the earth is shaking.

But before the crowd had even rushed to the moat, it had already been defeated in disgrace - I saw a flash of fire at the head of the city, and a dozen swarthy bronze cannons made a series of loud noises, throwing out many round projectiles the size of watermelons, and plunged straight into this dense crowd of people.

Thus, the siege party, which had been rushing forward with great momentum a moment ago, quickly changed from high tide to low tide in the blink of an eye, and disappeared from the foot of the castle at a much faster speed than when attacking. It's just that on the land around Osaka Castle, dozens of mutilated corpses are left scattered and scattered, as well as a few abandoned and seriously wounded people who are humming and chirping, showing how "heavy" the sacrifice they have paid.

Next, as if in response, the artillery positions of the fallen shogunate army also opened fire on Osaka Castle, and countless bright orange-red flames spit out from the dark muzzles of the guns, accompanied by a series of sharp whistling sounds, and the heavy solid bullets were sent out of the muzzles by powerful kinetic energy, and smashed fiercely into the towering giant city in the distance...... As the shells were discharged, the smoke of gunpowder slowly flowed on the ground, almost obscuring the entire position.

Unfortunately, despite the magnificence of the bombardment, due to the range and topography, most of the shells did not hit Osaka Castle at all, but fell into the mud or moat outside the castle, splashing a series of high columns of water. The few shells that hit Osaka Castle only smashed the solid stone wall foundation, leaving a few shallow marks, and the damage caused was insignificant.

Facing the pungent smoke of gunpowder, the general of the Osaka front of the Fallen Shogunate Army, the famous "Choshu Veteran" Shousui Nobuyoshi, was standing on the artillery position of the Fallen Shogun Army at this time, holding a katana, looking tired at the failure of the Fallen Shogunate Army's second siege of the city, and from time to time he lowered his head and coughed twice.

Since the outbreak of this endless offensive and defensive battle in Osaka, he could not remember the first time that the shogunate army had been beaten back by the trapped beasts, but he felt that his chest seemed to be stuffed with clumps of cotton, and he was so aggrieved that he couldn't even breathe.

- How long will it take to uproot the last stronghold of the shogunate army in Kinai?

In fact, in the early days of the Battle of Osaka, the Shogunate was advancing quite rapidly with the high spirit of the military flag that had just been planted in Kyoto. Commanding the Choshu New Army, which was personally trained by the famous general of the Ming Dynasty in the past, Huangshi, with skilled combat skills and sharp guns, it only took less than a week to destroy the outer fortresses of Osaka, and even broke into the castle town of Osaka for a time. It's overwhelming.

However, just when victory in the battle of Osaka was in sight, the front in Kyoto was once again in crisis.

Faced with an endless flood of enemies, the commander of the Shogunate Army, the self-proclaimed Choshu feudal lord Mori Hidemasa, was forced to transfer the elite troops under Nobuyoshi to suppress the rebellions and popular uprisings in Kinai at this critical moment...... As a result, with the sharp weakening of the siege forces, the shogunate army trapped in Osaka was given a chance to breathe, and after recovering from the initial defeat, they began to adjust their deployment and tactics, and attacked and defended each other with the shogunate army, so that the war has been delayed until now......

But Mamoru Nobuyoshi also knew very well that the feudal lord was completely to blame for this, because Mori Shu was under much more pressure than himself in Kyoto:

“…… Alas, the hegemony of my Maori family, which had risen to prominence because of Christianity, is now in a dilemma because of Christianity! ”

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Unlike any of the princes and daimyo of the Warring States Period, the Choshu Domain, which had been fooled and lame by Huangshi and other travelers, gradually converted to Christianity a few years ago, and officially became the "Kishitan Daimyō" (a nickname for Christians in medieval Japan), and the merchants and people of the Choshu Domain followed suit one after another...... Next, the lords and daimyo who had surrendered to the Choshu Domain were also baptized and converted in order to curry favor with the Maori family. In this way, the Maori army became a Christian coalition.

This religious overtone was a great boost to the Maori family in the Kyushu strategy, and the local Japanese Christians, encouraged by the missionaries, enthusiastically participated in the "holy war", making the Choshu army invincible on the island of Kyushu. But for other religions, it was a catastrophe: in the course of the Christian "holy war" march, countless temples and shrines were converted into churches, ordinary people converted to religion in order to survive and pay less poll tax, monks and priests became priests, shrine nuns became nuns, and samurai who believed in Buddhism either seppuku or fled to and Shikoku.

As a result, by the end of the Kyushu raids of the Maori "Crusaders", the entire island of Kyushu had been formally reduced to Christian territory.

The problem is that such a simple and crude strategy of exterminating Buddhism can be carried out in remote places like Kyushu, but the closer you get to Kyoto, the deeper you go into the heart of traditional Japanese civilization, the stronger Buddhism grows, and the backlash against Christianity grows. As a result, the Christian-defeated army under the banner of the cross was met with desperate resistance from traditional Buddhist forces in the region, and from then on fell into the quagmire of a national war......

How powerful is Buddhism in Japan? Theoretically, in traditional Japanese society, every Japanese person should be considered a Buddhist!

Because in Japan, even in modern society, funerals and cemeteries are still exclusively owned by Buddhist temples, so no matter what people believe in during their lifetime, they have to spend a lot of money after death to give themselves a legal name and force them to become Buddhists, otherwise the Buddha will refuse to accept this unruly soul, causing it to wander in the world and become a lonely ghost...... To put it simply, whatever you believe in life, you have to believe in Buddhism after death!

As for ancient Japan, the power of Buddhist temples was even more powerful. Many Buddhist temples have large vast fields, well-equipped monks and soldiers, and prosperous business markets, as early as the Heian period, they have been no different from the princes of one side, and the image in the eyes of the common people is much better than that of the ministers and samurai.

——Compared with the ancient Japanese warrior monk corps with complete infantry and artillery, the stick monks of China's Shaolin Temple are like children......

On the other hand, as the samurai, royal family and ministers of the upper echelons of power, they often sent their youngest sons, who had no inheritance rights, to become monks in monasteries to learn knowledge from high monks in order to find a way out for themselves. In addition, when the samurai and ministers retired in old age, there was also a custom of leaving home and waiting for death - that is, a considerable number of famous large monasteries often served as both a school for the children of high-ranking cadres and a retirement home for high-level retired officials.

As a result, after thousands of years, the influence of Buddhism in the entire Japanese society has long been deep-rooted, whether it is in the emperor's court or in the samurai shogunate, all kinds of monks are indispensable. Monks of all ranks have become an important part of the state apparatus. As for in the lower strata of society, it is almost every? There are believers in the cities and villages, and there are temples almost everywhere in the mountains.

Especially in the region with Kyoto as the center, there are many Buddhist temples, the sound of Sanskrit is bursting, and the local people believe in Buddhism at least ninety percent (while also worshipping many other miscellaneous gods), among which the truly devout Buddhists can also account for more than thirty percent - among them, the armed forces are the largest, the most territory, and the most well-known Buddhist force in later generations, which is naturally the Honganji Ichijo sect in the Warring States period of Japan. And the power of other temples in is not inferior. In particular, the Buddhist temples in the two sacred sites of Nara and Mt. Hiei have a long history and are often inextricably linked to the imperial family, and many princes and emperors have been ordained there since ancient times, and they have had a great ability to interfere in Japanese politics as early as the Heian period.

Because of such a large and deep presence in the DPRK and in the opposition, even the successive generations of Japanese rulers who controlled the state apparatus generally did not hesitate to deal with the Buddhist community. Fortunately, there are many sects within Buddhism in Japan, each with its own doctrine and program, and there are very strong differences and antagonisms among them, and there is usually no clear subordinate relationship between monasteries, so it has been difficult to form a joint force, so it has not been able to seize power and turn Japan into an "earthly Buddhist country".

- During the Warring States period, the Honganji Ichijo sect tried so hard and once challenged the samurai society, but ultimately failed.

In short, the Buddhists in Japan were scattered and unable to pose a strong challenge to state power, but if anyone dared to oppose the entire Buddhist community, the result would be a nightmare, not much more difficult than the opposition to Christianity in medieval Europe.

In the midst of many troubled times in Japan's ancient history, it was not a big deal if a local warlord was designated as an "enemy of the court" by the imperial court, and he could become a loyal vassal if he won a battle. But if you are unfortunate enough to be labeled as an "enemy of the Buddha", then you will be like maggots attached to the bones, and you will be tossed by waves of Buddhist uprisings. For example, Oda Nobunaga, the famous "Sixth Heavenly Demon King", made the full-scale uprising set off by the Honganji Ichijo sect miserable, and finally was made into a hell barbecue dish by a fire......

- Oda Nobunaga is still not devout enough about Buddhism, and his subordinates are still basically Buddhists, and they are still so anxious about what happened recently. Then, when the Saikoku and Kyushu authentic Cheshitan daimyo entered Kyoto, the attitude of the Buddhist community can be imagined!

In fact, before sending troops, the Maori family had already considered the strength of Buddhism in Kyoto, so they ordered the army to be restrained and temporarily forbidden the destruction of Buddhist temples, but were prepared to implement a "moderate policy" on religious issues, following the example of Ottoman Turkey, imposing heavy taxes on pagans while allowing them to maintain their faith, and distributing land according to population for Christians, as well as various preferential measures. At the same time, the funerary grave industry, which was originally monopolized by Buddhist temples, was also divided into the churches, and was no longer monopolized by Buddhism - like in the West, Japanese churches also have cemeteries attached to them.

But the problem is that even such a "moderate" policy is simply unacceptable to the above-eyed Japanese monks - in the historic region, these Buddhist monastic monastic groups have always been an important part of the Japanese ruling class, and they belong to the existence of human beings, not much different from those monks who serve the living Buddha on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau! Where can they be treated in such a discriminatory manner?

In addition, many monks who fled from Kyushu and Western China were crying about the atrocities of "Chezhi Dan" to demolish temples and destroy Buddhas, which aroused the evil feelings of the Buddhist community towards these Christians, thinking that they were all enemies of the Buddha who did not share the heavens with themselves - you know, Japanese monks are not as cautious and indisputable as Chinese monks, but real rebel professionals! How many years have I fought with the samurai!

As early as the end of the Heian period, Emperor Go-Shirakawa had mobilized monks from Nara and Mt. Hiei to fight against the army of Taira Kiyomori, and then from the Kamakura Shogunate to the Ashikaga Shogunate, the monks and soldiers had always been an important armed force that determined the future and fate of Japan, and it was not until the end of the Edo period that the power of Buddhist temples finally declined...... In the 17th century, shortly after the end of the Warring States period, it was clear that the Japanese Buddhist community was still very strong.

In this way, when the Mori army invaded Kyoto, it turned out to be a foot in the fire pit, or a big explosion was activated - although the Shogunate army with the cross flag won a complete victory on the battlefield, under the overall hostility of the Buddhist community, the vast majority of the imperial court ministers and the entire Japanese imperial family refused to cooperate with the Mori family, preferring to follow the Tokugawa family to retreat to Edo, so that the Shogunate army was never able to get the name of righteousness.

What's even worse is that several leaders of the Buddhist circles in Japan's two major Buddhist holy sites, Mt. Hiei and Nara, of course, including the Honganji Ichijo sect, which has the most experience in military struggle, also openly declared that the Maori family, who believed in Western Buddhism, was the enemy of Buddhism in all temples in the world, and called on monks and believers from all over the world to fight to the end, setting off a vigorous national religious war in!

As a result, the entire Shogunate Army suddenly sat on wax - with the outbreak of contradictions between the Buddhist forces and the Western Kishibutan Army, not only a few small feudal clans in Kinai that originally had a wandering attitude, but under the interference and influence of various Buddhist temples, they had to fight with the Shogunate Army to the end. Even in the camp of the Shogunate Army, there were many samurai forces that were not firm enough to waver in their attitudes and began to work without help, which made the battle situation more and more difficult.

Although the rebels organized by the Buddhist temples in were all unorganized and undisciplined rabble, there was not even a commander-in-chief who was responsible for coordinating the various people, and the armament and equipment were extremely rudimentary, not to mention foreign guns and artillery, not even a few pine cannons. But in the face of tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of mobs and rioters who have been incited, even just holding stones and sticks is enough to make people's scalps tingle.

All of a sudden, the Shogunate was almost a rat crossing the street in, and its baggage was often plundered, and small groups of troops were frequently ambushed. In the face of the surging upheaval, although the feudal lord quickly transferred back the most effective modern new army from the Osaka front to use it to crusade against Buddhist temples and suppress the Buddhist rebellion, he was still overwhelmed and overstretched, and he couldn't take care of the other if he could take care of one end...... Several times he was beaten to the brink.

As for the battle on the Osaka front, it suddenly came to a stalemate-although Mamoru Nobuyoshi later received a lot of reinforcements, with a total of 30,000 troops at one time, and he still firmly controlled the sea, and the supply of food and arms was endless. But the problem is that the rabble of soldiers and horses under his command and the "jihad" groups formed by fanatical Christians are completely incomparable in combat effectiveness and discipline as before.

In addition, although Osaka was a port, Osaka Castle was still a short distance from the coastline, and the guns of the battleships could not directly bombard the castle. On the land, the camp was constantly attacked by monks and warriors, making it difficult for the army to concentrate on attacking the city.

To make matters worse, now that the weather is in winter, the snow is beginning to fall heavily in, the ground is becoming muddy, and the siege is becoming more and more difficult...... When thousands of dead bodies lay down in front of and behind the city of Osaka, but there was no progress, morale began to fall more and more each time. At the beginning, the false fire that was not fatal gradually subsided, allowing them to basically recover the slippery nature of bullying the soft and fearing the hard in their bones.

In the last few sieges, the soldiers and horses of all units have become more and more hypothetical in their stories, and they are purely pretending...... It seems that this battle is going to drag on until next year!

Looking at the towering castle in front of him that he had not been able to attack for a long time, the "Elder of Changzhou" Shousui Nobuyoshi sighed gloomily, turned around and rode away from the forward position, and then passed through the camp of the besieging soldiers and horses, and returned to his own camp. At this time, tens of thousands of soldiers of the Fallen Curtain Army, who had been busy outside Osaka for a long time, had already set up stoves and lit fires, and the air was filled with the smell of rice and miso soup. Some of them who had already eaten were lying on tarpaulins or straw mats in twos and threes, seizing the time to rest.

Among them, the camps of the regular armies of the various feudal clans in the fallen camp, regardless of their size, are somewhat serious. The hastily built camps of the Christian "jihadists" were completely disorganized, like mushrooms or dog pee moss after a rainy day. Those who are particular about it also surround the tabernacle with cloth that they have stolen from nowhere; If you don't pay attention to it, cut down some branches, dismantle a few door panels, and build a shack; There are even some lazy people who casually spread a mat or even a pile of straw on the ground next to the fire, and they are not afraid of the cold, so they just wrap a blanket and sleep directly...... And then in their haphazard camps, there were still piles of food, money, chickens and ducks looted from nowhere, without the slightest precautionary measures.

But this is also normal. After all, they are not trained professional soldiers in the first place, and a lack of relevant professional experience is inevitable.

Although today's siege has ended, sporadic gunfire and shouts still sound from time to time on the periphery of the battlefield - under the instigation of the shogunate and the Buddhist sangha, the vicinity of the Osaka battlefield is filled with many large and small ronin gangs and Buddhist temple monks, who are wandering around, from time to time sneaking up on the small and lone troops of the fallen shogunate. And the Fallen Curtain Army naturally unceremoniously launched a bloody slaughter against them with color.

Due to the huge differences in equipment, discipline, and troops, as well as the lack of the most basic coordination and tacit understanding between them, these few dozen or dozens of people each, just relying on the bloody fighting stragglers, it is not difficult for the fallen army to exterminate them. However, those "hard nails" with more people and strong strongholds are not so easy to deal with......

Thinking so, Shou Sui Shinyoshi asked the attendants beside him, "...... Did the Shitennoji Temple in the south of the city be captured? ”