"Put!"

"Bang bang bang-"

On the surface of the sea, with the roar of artillery, ships trying to sail out of the harbor into the sea were sunk by shells of gunfire, and their opponents were armed merchant ships many times larger than them.

This is not Annam, let alone Tianzhu, but Kobe and Osaka, Japan, which are close to the Ming Dynasty.

Seven months have passed since the seventh year of the Apocalypse, and in these seven months, Yan Siqi has not done nothing to enjoy happiness, but after the arrival of the soldiers and horses of the Eastern Army Governor's Mansion, he took Kyushu Island as soon as possible.

In other words, at this time, two of the main islands of Japan's four islands, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido have been captured by Yan Siqi.

Relying on his huge number of armed merchant ships and the Yanshan General cannon equipped on it, Yan Siqi chose the army to attack from the north and south.

He personally led the four battalions of the Gongwei Battalion to attack Kobe and Osaka on the main island, which were the ports with the largest trade throughput in the Tokugawa shogunate's own maritime trade.

What's more, behind Kobe and Osaka is Kyoto Castle, where Emperor Yamato and Gomizuo lived.

Taking Kyoto and capturing the emperor would be an important blow to the Tokugawa shogunate.

The four battalions of soldiers and horses landed in Kobe and Osaka under the leadership of Yan Siqi, while Zheng Zhilong in the south led the rest of the soldiers and horses to land in Yamaguchi and Hiroshima in the south of the main island and marched to the north.

Regarding Yan Siqi's military action, Tokugawa Iemitsu, the general of the Tokugawa shogunate, naturally took the act of blocking.

The destruction and surrender of the vassals such as Kyushu and Shikoku made many daimyo on the island see that Yan Siqi's ambitions were not limited to this.

Therefore, when Yan Siqi began to completely invade the main island, the daimyo on the main island formed an army of 150,000 and 300,000 people under the call of Tokugawa Iemitsu.

Since the sixth year of the Apocalypse, although the Tokugawa shogunate has been defeated one after another, one-third of the 150,000 troops still belong to them.

After having absolute military power, Tokugawa Iemitsu commanded an army of 150,000 troops to take Yamaguchi, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya and other places as defensive positions, trying to drag down Yan Siqi in a protracted war.

It is normal for him to arrange this way, because the population of Kyushu and Shikoku is only two million of the four islands in Japan at the moment.

In contrast, the island, with a population of more than 15 million, has given them great logistical support.

Due to the change of armor, clothes, and flags in the Gongwei battalion, although Tokugawa Iemitsu guessed that Yan Siqi had a figure of Daming behind him, he did not expect that Daming would end up in person.

Although Yan Siqi, who had a battalion of sailors and five battalions of infantry, had less than 20,000 troops, he was still attacking the Tokugawa shogunate, which was more than eight times as large as them, with sharp firearms.

One by one, troop transports landed on Osaka, and disembarked were groups of soldiers of the Gongwei Battalion dressed in crude armor.

After disembarking, they assembled the chariots on board, then threw a light quilt into the seawater, put the heavy quilt full of seawater on the improvised chariot, and then manually pushed the chariot to start the landing operation.

The soldiers lined up in vertical rows, using chariots as cover, two people pushed carts, and ten people bowed in the rear.

Such scenes spread all over the coastline of Osaka Port, and the scale was in the hundreds, and a battalion of more than 3,000 people landed on the coastline and pushed the chariots to march towards Osaka Castle.

Although he was severely taught a lesson by the Ming army in the Battle of Korea, the Tokugawa shogunate did not have many artillery pieces in the country after seizing power.

For example, in Osaka Castle, there are only eight artillery pieces that can shoot more than one mile, and the other so-called artillery pieces are nothing more than large arquebuses such as the guns carried by the Ming army.

At this time, Osaka Castle was destroyed by the war between the Tokugawa family and the Toyotomi family 14 years ago, and although it was renovated from the first year of the Apocalypse, only two of the three phases of construction have been completed so far.

However, due to the importance of Osaka's location and the need to consider threats from the sea, the Tokugawa family set the castle code of Osaka Castle in a different location and built it higher.

The west city wall, the north city wall, the east city wall, and the third city wall that the southern arch guard camp needs to attack are all made of stone, and the different thicknesses of the stone walls are more than ten zhang.

Although the scale of the city is not large, it is not inferior to some important towns of the Ming Dynasty in the city wall.

"Put!"

"Bang ......"

With the ignition of eight guns, three-pound stone projectiles were fired, and after covering a distance of half a mile, only three hit three chariots.

The seawater-soaked quilt withstood most of the momentum, but the back of the chariot's planks was still blown apart by the blow.

"Hold on and wait for the artillery!"

The person responsible for leading the army to land was a thirty-year-old general named Yang Tiansheng, who had participated in the Battle of Fuliao.

At this moment, he shouted loudly, picked up the whistle in his hand and began to blow, and the rhythmic whistle was constantly blown under his drive.

Gradually, the men of the Gongwei battalion no longer pursued the speed of the march, but stopped one after another, waiting for the follow-up sand boats to land on the shore with artillery.

Overlooking the broad coastline from the head of Osaka Castle, the Ming military chariots formed a three-layer fortification, and in the distant sea, a two-zhang long sand boat carrying a five-pound cannon and gun carriage was lowered, and four sailors were responsible for transporting the landing.

Such a scene was not just one place, but the more than sixty armed merchant ships that came to besiege Osaka Castle all laid down their sand boats.

These sand boats rowed to the shore under the operation of the sailors, and Yang Tiansheng on the shore hurriedly ordered when he saw this:

"The cannon whistle responds to the artillery, the cannon advances slowly, and the rifle man hears the whistle and then releases the gun to suppress the Japanese invaders!"

"Yes!" Butang, who was left and right of Yang Tiansheng, began to bow and shuttle through the ranks, and the generals issued orders one by one.

As the artillery landed on the coastline under the delivery of sand ships, more than 500 gunners began to go to support, and put the artillery on the gun carriage with great difficulty.

The gun carriages of the Ming army have been improved, and although the gun carriage is also made of iron, the wheels are wrapped by the Eucommia ulmoides glue obtained by the Armaments Institute using the Eucommia ulmoides tree and sulfur powder and other substances, forming a rubber tire similar to the existence.

In this way, the gun truck's tires have a stronger grip on the ground, and the rammed earth surface will not be damaged when marching on the beach and on land.

The artillery carriage carrying the artillery was dragged by the gunners, and when the sixty-two guns arrived at the chariot, Yang Tiansheng immediately ordered the artillery post to establish a position on the spot and fire at the head of Osaka Castle.

The sound of shovels continued to sound, the artillery carriage was fixed with sea sand, and after a quarter of an hour, the garrison of the artillery post also responded to Yang Tiansheng.

"The rear outpost left a protective artillery post, and the front three posts on the left and right marched from the beaches on both sides of the artillery!"

"Beep-"

With the sound of a wooden whistle, the chariot began to move, struggling to march on the beach towards Osaka Castle, giving up the middle position for the cannon sentry.

"Fixed firing loading, target at four o'clock in the afternoon, 35 degrees elevation angle test firing, ready ......"

"Put!"

As the gun guard blew the whistle, one gunner waved his flag while the other gunners lit the arquebus.

In the "snort" of the fire rope, the last sixty-two five-pound cannons let out a roar......

"Bang bang bang-"

Sixty-two guns were divided into six teams with ten guns as a team, and the fire continued to suppress the eight inferior Furlong guns at the head of Osaka Castle.

The shogunate gunners on the city wall set large arquebuses on the "gun carriage", and after watching the chariots of the Ming army advance to a hundred paces, they lit the arquebuses one after another.

The sound of "popping" iron cannons continued to sound, shooting at the chariots of the Ming army, shooting through the quilts that were constantly watered with seawater, and then weakly hitting the planks on the front of the chariots.

"Lord Name, the rebels' chariot has advanced eighty steps below the city, do we need to take the initiative?"

At the head of Osaka Castle, on a heavenly code, a man in Japanese armor turned to look at the man who was less than four feet six inches tall and was sitting in a chair and returned the news.

The man, who was less than four feet six inches tall, was dressed in Japanese armor, sat on a bamboo chair with half a fan in his hand, and sat behind a female wall to watch the battle.

His name was Matsudaira Tadaaki, and he was the adopted son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who once participated in the Battle of Sekigahara, the Battle of Osaka Winter, the Battle of Domeiji Temple, and the Battle of Yoita as part of the Tokugawa Army with his father, helping the Tokugawa family defeat the Toyotomi family after the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Because of his exploits on the battlefield, after the Tokugawa shogunate was established, Tokugawa Ieyasu gave him the reward of moving Setzu Osaka.

Originally, before the war, he had already moved to Yamato-gunyama Castle eight years ago, but the outbreak of the war and the continuous defeat of the army forced Tokugawa Iemitsu to hire him as a "veteran".

Before the war, Tokugawa Iemitsu handed him 20,000 troops to garrison Osaka Castle, relying on his familiarity with Osaka Castle, Matsudaira Tadaaki knew very well that even if the rebels' artillery was sharp, they would not be able to take Osaka Castle in a short time.

He was not worried about the firearms of the Ming army, but about the short-range soldiers of the shogunate and the rebels.

The rebels were mainly Ming people, which even fools could tell from their height of more than five feet.

Searching all over Japan, I couldn't find nearly 20,000 people who were more than five feet tall, let alone those who were five feet five or six inches tall at every turn.

The strength of the body is not a loss, not to mention that the Gongwei Battalion was well maintained by Zhu Youzhen, so in Matsudaira Tadaaki's opinion, the group of rebel soldiers who were all tendons and flesh and dressed in iron armor were no less than the existence of driving a Gundam to descend.

Most of the soldiers of the shogunate were only four feet five or six, and in the face of the rebel soldiers who were nearly seven or eight inches taller than them, Matsudaira Tadashi could not imagine what kind of short-handed combat would be.

Therefore, when faced with the suggestion that his subordinates wanted to go out of the city to fight, he immediately reprimanded:

"Idiot! We have 20,000 men, and we can defend Osaka Castle and wait for reinforcements from the Shogun. ”

"Will we be able to defeat these more than 3,000 reactionaries when we go out of the city? And there are far more than three thousand of them! ”

Matsudaira Tadaaki pointed to the sea with a half-fan, and all the retainers looked at it, and even saw the troop carriers that had been put down.

Obviously, the number of enemies exceeded their expectations......

"Hold on to Osaka Castle! For the sake of the Shogun! ”

Matsudaira Tadaaki said and pulled out the three-foot sword, which was comparable to his height, and the battle heated up as the Ming army's chariots advanced.

"Fixed-shot loading, elevation angle 44 degrees...... Put! ”

"Bang bang bang-"

The firearms of the Ming army had the advantage, and with the re-opening of the artillery whistle, for a time the entire beach was full of artillery fire, and the stone projectiles flew on the artillery around Osaka Castle, deliberately avoiding the front where the Ming army might attack.

In the face of the five-pound stone projectiles, even the proud shogunate gunners could not resist such a fierce attack, so they could only crouch behind the female wall, lie down and load ammunition, and wait for the cannon to stop and fire.

Some archers tried to suppress the Ming army by placing arrows on the Celestial Code, but when the chariots advanced, the Ming troops who landed later began to assemble cloud carts.

More than a dozen cloud carts were pushed towards Osaka Castle, which made Matsudaira Tadaaki, who was sitting on a bamboo chair, unable to sit still, and he stood up and leaned on the three-foot-high female wall to observe the battlefield.

The Ming army, which was the first to arrive under the city wall, did not attack the city directly, but used three-stage fire to suppress the city wall with a foot gun.

"What is this? Self-generated firebolts? The rebels will definitely not be able to come up with so many self-generated firearms, and it should be the support of the Ming Dynasty. ”

"Bastard ......" gritted his teeth, and Matsudaira Tadaaki was angry in his heart, but at the same time a little frightened.

The damage caused to Japan by the Korean War was too heavy, and more than half of Japan's 200,000-strong army defended more than half of the two Korean battles, and it was not until Tokugawa Ieyasu took power a few years later that he recovered.

If the Ming Dynasty comes out to attack Japan, judging from the current situation that Yan Siqi has occupied Kyushu and Shikoku, I am afraid that the Ming army will be able to directly land on the island.

Matsudaira Tadaaki still remembers the fear in the eyes of some of the daimyo who had returned from defeat in Korea and when they mentioned the Ming army.

The Battle of Nagashino, when all the daimyo thought that Japan had completed the impact of firearms instead of cold-weapon cavalry, and that cold-weapon cavalry would be drowned in the long river of history.

Soon after they landed in Korea, the Ming cavalry with hellish difficulty rushed in......

"Fight its four hooves and trample on my formation"

The short eight words may bring fear carved into the bone marrow.

It was precisely because he was afraid of the cavalry of the Ming army that Matsudaira Tadaaki was afraid that there would be cavalry like the Ming army in the rebels, so he defended the city.

At present, it seems that even if Osaka Castle is defended, the artillery and self-generated guns of the Ming army can still suppress nearly 20,000 soldiers defending the city.

"Return the number of self-made guns of the Ming army to the general, and the number of artillery is also returned, please send reinforcements as soon as possible."

"Hey—"

Matsudaira Tadaaki reacted and began to make quick arrangements, and his retainers also rushed away.

Soon, the Ming army Yunche and more than 3,000 reinforcements arrived, so that the number of the southern shogunate soldiers facing the Ming army reached nearly 5,000.

When the ladder of the cloud chariot was erected at the head of the city and the Ming army began to fight in the city, the Japanese who tried to defend the city with wooden rolling stones were often suppressed by the continuous rows of guns when they stood up.

Naturally, occasionally they were able to launch effective counterattacks and disrupt the rhythm of the Ming army, but when the Ming army on the ladder jumped up to the top of the city, they saw a very ugly shogunate soldier who was only chest high and very ugly.

The gourd hammer began to be wielded in the hands of the Ming army, and the sword players were the first to land at the head of the city, followed by the foot players began to slowly land at the head of the city.

Immediately afterwards, the Ming army that landed at the head of the city began to use the mandarin duck formation to restrain the Japanese invaders.

For a time, the 10,000 Japanese who were responsible for guarding the southern city were defeated in the face of hundreds of Ming troops who landed at the head of the city.

Matsudaira Tadaaki had no choice but to start an attack on the Ming army with his retainers, and the "Wa" that came like a tide actually gave the soldiers of the Gongwei battalion a sense of pleasure of ten thousand enemies.

However, as the battle stalemate, the thick clouds in the sky began to darken.

"It's going to rain, Mingjin retreats!"

Realizing that it was about to rain, Yang Tiansheng, who was in charge of the command, immediately commanded the army to collect the troops, and with the sound of the sound of gold, the Ming army at the head of the city began to retreat while fighting.

Since it is a cloud car, it is easier to retreat.

Taking advantage of the fact that the rain did not fall, the Ming army withdrew from the battlefield with a cloud cart and established a camp in Sanli, west of Osaka Castle.

When the Ming army camp was established, a drizzle began to fall, washing away the bloodstained Osaka Castle, and the corpses were burned by Matsudaira Tadaaki's order.

It's just that among those corpses, the corpses of the Ming army are pitiful, only a few dozen, while the corpses of the shogunate soldiers are as many as thousands.

"In just one hour of fighting, we have killed more than 1,200 people, and if we continue like this, we can only hold out for half a month at most."

In the Code of Heaven, a retainer spoke of his own casualties, while Matsudaira Tadaaki, who was seated, said:

"It's the rainy season, and the rebels' offensive won't last long, relying on Kyushu and Shikoku, they can only be defeated after all."

Matsudaira Tadashi understood that things were not that simple, but he still spoke to reassure everyone.

It's just that the low morale can't be mentioned in a few words, and after a discussion, everyone can only hope that this rainy season will be longer.

It is not only them who have such thoughts, but also the Annan Zheng and Ruan clans, who are thousands of miles away.

With the arrival of the rainy season, people in the coastal areas have been idle at home, and the whole of East Asia seems to be disturbed by the rainy season, except for Fujian......

"Since the summer in Fujian, there has been a major drought in southern Fujian, covering the wild and red soil, affecting millions of people."

"The people of southern Fujian fled to Quanzhou and Fuzhou, and fled south by boat, hundreds of thousands of ......"

"The governor of Fujian, Nanju Yi Shangshu, asked the imperial court to allocate 300,000 taels of disaster relief money and grain, so as to appease the rest of the people in southern Fujian......"

In the palace of King Qi on the address of Dading Palace, Zhu Youzhen, who had just returned from a safari with Zhu Youxiao, was sweating profusely and saw Dong Yingju, the household servant who accompanied the army.

Dong Yingju reported to Zhu Youzhen about the drought in Fujian this year, and Zhu Youzhen also took over the note from Nan Juyi, the governor of Fujian, and said after glancing at it:

"Fujian is already densely populated, and after several relocations, the people still have less than three acres of arable land in their hands."

"At present, southern Fujian is suffering from a severe drought, and Annam and the old port need people to relocate......"

Speaking of which, Zhu Youzhen started to play a note and said to Dong Yingju:

"If you reply to Nanjuyi, you will say that the people who have suffered from drought in Fujian are willing to relocate to Annan, and they will be given 20 acres of land and 12 stones of relief grain."

"If there are those who move to the old port, the treatment will remain unchanged......"

The relocation of the old port is ten acres per person, while Annan is twenty acres per person, but the relief grain in the old port was cut to six stones by Zhu Youzhen a few months ago, and the treatment is not as good as the current Annan.

Obviously, Zhu Youzhen wanted to force the Fujian victims to move to Annan, and Dong Yingju, who was pulled by Zhu Youzhen, was worried:

"The war in Annam is not over yet, and I am afraid that many people are reluctant to go."

"If you don't want to go to the old port, is it possible that you don't even want to go to the old port, just waiting to starve to death in the local area?" Zhu Youzhen responded.

The drought in Fujian is not recorded much in the history books, and in the final analysis, in the late Ming Dynasty, there were many Fujian party officials who did not act.

Even if Zhu Youzhen, if someone hadn't mentioned it, he wouldn't have remembered that Fujian is also one of the few southern provinces that also suffered from drought at the same time as the drought in the north.

This is not to say that he neglected Fujian, but that he has made great efforts to relocate the people of Fujian.

Of the more than 2 million people in the Ryukyu Province and the more than 3 million people in the Old Port, nearly half of them were emigrated from Fujian.

It's just that the population density of Fujian is indeed too high, which was the same from the early Ming Dynasty to the late Ming Dynasty, and even the late Qing Dynasty.

According to Zhu Youzhen's estimates, against the background of Fujian's more than 4 million people on paper, the actual number of ordinary people is probably not less than 10 million.

Coupled with the fact that the amount of cultivated land in Fujian is only more than 14 million, it is no wonder that Fujian has been in turmoil since the Xuande period.

Although the imperial court had relocated nearly three million people, the number of acres of land in Fujian was still not enough to cultivate the local population.

When the provinces were peaceful, the private grain operated normally, and Fujian merchants could also go to Huguang, Jiangxi, and Sichuan to buy grain.

However, this year, there is a severe drought in the three northern provinces, and in addition to the fact that there are many rivers and lakes in Beizhili in this era, and they can barely be self-sufficient, Shanxi and Shaanxi need to buy grain.

Coupled with the drought in eastern Sichuan, Sichuan, the three major grain-producing areas of the Ming Dynasty, the grain is now bought by the imperial court, and the price has reached more than 460 Wen.

The land of Fujian belongs to the provinces with fewer military tuntian blessings, so naturally when it encounters the current drought, it cannot buy grain as rich as Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.

If you want the people of Fujian to live and nourish, the only way is to relocate.

"Passing on my decree, from now on, except for the people of Shaanxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, and Hexi provinces who have suffered from a major drought, and officials can go to the court to request the imperial court to allocate relief grain, the people in the other provinces who have suffered from a severe drought will be registered by local officials, ask for food stamps from the household department, and the people will move to Annan, Jiugang, and ......."

"The migration policy, as I just said, will not change for the time being."

Zhu Youzhen was going to start a large-scale relocation of the people after the great drought, and over the years he supported the six major shipyards and built so many ships for the Huangdian and the Inspection Division, just to come in handy at this time.

Reducing population density is a means of solving land annexation in disguise.

Generally speaking, this means of reducing population density is war and killing, and what Zhu Youzhen wants to do is immigration.

He also figured out where the food for the displaced people would come from.

Since it has moved out, it is naturally impossible to transfer grain from Daming to Annan and the old port, not to mention the old port, it can be self-sufficient and supply Daming.

As far as Annan is concerned, the amount of food needed to move millions of people to Annam is an astronomical amount, and the people have no food in the first year, so they naturally need the support of the imperial court.

However, this support was not to buy grain from Guangdong and Zhejiang, but to start with the vassal states of the Ming Dynasty.

"The Ministry of Rites sent people to Siam, Gan Po Chi, Bo Ni, and Sulu to buy grain at a rate of 20 percent according to the local grain market price and ship it to Annam."

Speaking of this, Zhu Youzhen looked at Dong Yingju, glanced at the door of the palace again, and finally said:

"If the Ming Dynasty wants to go deep into the vassal country, it must bring them benefits, and only by benefiting and win-win can the clan ......and vassal be integrated."