Japan, the tenth year of Wenzheng, the fifteenth day of the first month.

The port of Oarai Town in the Mito Domain is heavily guarded today. On the wharf and in the port town, all the Mito clan troops with rifles are standing guard. All the shops in the town are closed, and no one is allowed to step out of their homes.

Ten British warships, led by the ironclad battleship "Revenge", and ten galleons towed by steamboats, rolled up snow-white waves and slowly sailed into the port of Oarai, which borders the Pacific Ocean. Since there are no natural bays or coastal islands to shelter from the wind, it is difficult to protect the ships in the port during the monsoon. However, because there are no bays or islands to use in the port of Oarai, the waterway is very wide. So much so that the twenty visiting British ships could enter the port in formation, and the scene was extremely spectacular.

At this time, Tokugawa Saiaki, the heir of the Mito Domain and the Tokugawa Shogunate's naval officer, was standing on the pier of Oarai Town Port with Enomoto Enbei, the aviation staff officer of the Shogunate Naval Office, looking at the sky with his arms crossed and his neck raised. Around them, there was also a group of Mito feudal clansmen in charge of coastal defense, all of whom were looking up at the sky, shouting and shouting as they watched.

"This, is this a hot air balloon? Why are there still two propellers spinning? ”

"No, no, no...... That's not a hot air balloon, it's an airship! ”

"Fly, airship? Is it the Ming airship that attacked Peshawar? ”

"How did the Ming country airship fly to Mito? Could it be, could it be that the invasion has already begun? ”

"So, what do we do now? What should we use to hit the airship in the sky? With a rifle? Bow and arrow? Still is...... Too knife? ”

Hearing someone around him say that he was going to cut the airship with a knife, Enbei Enomoto was amused by the "poof". Tokugawa Saiaki's face was a little ugly, after all, it was his subordinates who were talking nonsense, and he looked back and saw that the person who was talking nonsense was his henchman in the Mito Domain, a young feudal priest named Yasushima with a sword.

Tokugawa Qizhao said calmly: "Yasujima, what are you talking nonsense? ”

Dressed in a traditional samurai costume and with a katana that can be used for slashing, anti-ship, and air defense in his waist, Anjima quickly stood upright, then bowed again, and explained: "Lord Hon, of course Your Majesty knows that the sword is difficult to use for air defense...... However, as a samurai, no matter what weapon he used, even whether he had a weapon or not, he should fight to the death against the enemy who invaded Japan and the Mito Domain! ”

Tokugawa Qizhao nodded: "So, if the ten airships in the sky are really the invading Ming airships, how should we effectively defend them?" ”

"This ......," Yasujima thought for a moment, "Lord Ryō, Your Majesty thinks that as long as I and the Mito samurai all pick up swords and muskets, we will first be careful to lurk, and then wait for Mingkou to get off the airship, and then attack together to kill all the enemies who come to attack!" Your Excellency, please give your order! We and other Mito samurai all have the heart to serve the country and die! ”

"Please give me the order!" The other Mito clansmen also cheered along.

Although this method of Andao is not feasible at all - if the airship airborne troops of the Ming Dynasty really came, of course they would be caught off guard by the Mito Domain, how could they give the Mito Domain a chance to summon the feudal clan and organize an ambush? But Tokugawa Saiaki was still very satisfied, at least Yasushima did not say that he would immediately protect the feudal lord and Saiaki to escape (which was actually correct), and he looked back at Enbei Enomoto triumphantly.

Enbei hurriedly complimented: "Lord Eng, the loyalty of your samurai of the Mito Domain is indeed well deserved, and the lower officials admire it. Then he deliberately lowered his voice and said, "But their loyalty is useless today, because the ten airships in the sky are not the airships of the Ming Kingdom, but the airships sold to the Japanese Empire by the British Empire!" ”

"Our Imperial Japanese airship?"

"The shogunate is also going to form an airship team?"

"This is great, we have an airship team in Japan, so we are not afraid of Mingkou's airship!"

Hearing that it was Japan's own airship that flew in, all the Mito feudal lords were in a feeling of thanks, but their face of loyalty had to be maintained, otherwise their navy lord would order them to cut their bellies......

Tokugawa Saiaki looked at these Mito feudal lords with expectant eyes and said, "According to the order of Lord Gongkata, the airship soldiers of the Shogunate Naval Air Force will be secretly recruited from the Shogunate and Mito Domain!"

In addition, the establishment of the Shogunate's airship team is a secret, and you cannot tell anyone that the airship that arrived in Mito today belongs to Japan! ”

"Hay!"

All the Mito feudal lords were Qi Zhao's henchmen, and of course they knew what their master meant by his master's words—his master Qi Zhao wanted them all to join the Shogunate Navy's airship team. Qi Zhao is the navy, and the airship team is the navy, and Qi Zhao, the boss of the navy, takes care of it, not to mention that the future is immeasurable, there is always a future of one or two hundred stones of rice. With so much rice, it's time to eat openly!

At this time, ten airships in the sky had already flown over the heads of Tokugawa Saiaki and others, and flew to a field covered with ice and snow to the north of Oarai Town, and began to slowly fall.

Tokugawa Saiaki, Enomoto Enbei, and the Mito clan warriors who followed them all set their eyes on these advanced weapons from England, and their eyes gleamed with hope.

......

When the British-made "advanced aircraft" flew to the port of Daarai Town, Mito Domain, Japan, the "Aerospace Division" Zhuge Weidao on the side of the Ming Dynasty was following the Great Military Division Zhuge for a long time, and Zhuge Weiyi, who was about to serve as the secretary of the Admiralty, and Zhuge Weiyong, the chief of staff of the Navy, ate rice balls together in the palace of Zheng Jiacheng!

Although the financial resources and influence of the Zheng family are not as good as those of the Zhuge family, because King Zhuge Wuzhong once took refuge in Zheng Chenggong and established his own military battalion under the funding of Zheng Chenggong, the Zhuge family has always held the Zheng family high. Even in the era when King Zhuge Wuzhong monopolized power, the position of the nominal prime minister of the Ming Empire, Zuo Cheng, was also held by the three brothers Zheng Jing, Zheng Cong, and Zheng Ming in turn. After King Wuzhong, the military advisors of the Zhuge family have always adhered to the rules passed down by their ancestors, and have always maintained the first and third position in the name of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, after the end of the reign of King Wuzhong, the Ming Empire has been transformed into a modern country in the initial stage of industrialization, and the land is average, the people's wisdom is just beginning, the various systems are relatively sound, and the era of feudal warlords has ended. The so-called "strength" is not in the private soldiers, let alone the Ming army controlled by the eight great families (according to the arrangement of King Wuzhong, there are many children of the eight families and the nobles who serve as officials in the army, but there is no formed army in the complete control of a certain family), but the strong financial resources and the number of parliamentarians at all levels of the Ming Dynasty councils under control.

Therefore, for more than 100 years, the power struggle within the Ming Dynasty has been limited to the financial field and the political council, and no matter whether it wins or loses, it has also maintained decency.

In an attic in the back garden of Zheng Jiacheng's palace, four Zhuge military advisors dressed in Zhuge Liang, three Zheng family "officials", as well as Yu De's uncle, and Yu Quan, a seventy-five or sixteen-year-old Yu old man, as well as Lin Zexu, a scholar of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Zheng Guoxian, who had just returned from the Peshawar battlefield, all sat down separately, while tasting authentic old Beijing seafood dumplings - that is, small rice balls that are not trapped are boiled with all kinds of seafood and vegetables...... Sure enough, it is very Beijing!

However, people who have just finished the New Year don't seem to have much appetite, so they eat a few rice balls casually and start chatting about world events.

"What? Join the coalition against Turkey? Aren't we allies with Britain? Hearing Zhuge Weijiu's proposal to join the anti-Turkish alliance, Zheng Guozhong was a little confused, "Aren't we going to oppose the British Empire?" ”

"Lord Wang," Zhuge Weidao is now a military advisor, so he naturally has the right to speak, so he is not polite, and directly took over Zheng Guozhong's question, "What we oppose is not the British Empire, but colonialism!" ”