Chapter 1042 1038 [Deputy General of the Shogunate]

  Chapter 1042 1038【Deputy Shogun】

  Daimyo from all over the world live in Edo. Even if it happens to be their turn to return to the fief this year, their wives, children and accompanying officials will stay in Edo.

  So Edo was besieged, and the local area must send reinforcements.

   But the speed of the reinforcements is very slow, mainly because the road is difficult to walk. Japan does not have official roads spread all over the country. Even the land tax collected by the daimyo every year must first be transported by sea to Osaka and Edo, and then transported by sea from these two cities to the whole country.

   The first to act was the Mito Domain, one of the three imperial families.

  The Mito Domain is very close to Edo, and even when the feudal lord was in his fiefdom, he often came to Edo Castle for a walk. And because the feudal lord is also the Tokugawa clan, he is called the “Deputy Shogun of the Shogunate”.

  Those Edo samurai who failed to enter the city, after being defeated by the Datong Army, many fled to the Mito Domain.

  Tokugawa Mitsuki ordered these samurai to be collected, and issued an order to the Kanto clans, so that the troops of the Kanto daimyos would come to the Mito clan to gather first.

  When Han Shouxin took Kyoto, Tokugawa Mitsukaki had gathered more than 30,000 troops, and he was still recruiting ashigaru in the territory. They also recruited many civilians, claiming to be an army of 200,000, hoping to scare the Chinese army back.

   Tokugawa Mitsuki himself has never fought a war, but he is the most cultured daimyo in Japan.

“History of Japan”, “Etiquette Code”, and “Hitaland Country Chronicles” are all edited by Tokugawa Mikaki himself. He does not usually live in the castle, but lives in the mountains west of the city. He calls himself “Nishan Hermit” . With his encouragement, the style of writing in the Mito clan prospered, and Mito studies gradually formed.

  Zhu Shunshui, who served as a cabinet minister for Zhao Han, was the teacher of Mitsuki Tokugawa in another time and space.

  At this time, a war is about to be fought, and besides Tokugawa Mitsukuri, besides the retainers and samurai, there are also a large group of literati and advisers.

Ji Hongyuan, who is proficient in Cheng Zhu Neo Confucianism and Chinese history, often said: “According to the Edo samurai who came here, the Tang soldiers had sharp iron cannons, and they were well-organized even in street battles. Our army, in addition to suppressing peasant unrest, has two We haven’t fought a war in thirty years. This rescue of Edo should not be rushed. We must continue to gather troops in Mito, and only when we have more than 50,000 soldiers can we really go to the battlefield.”

Okabe Yizhi, who is also proficient in Confucian classics, retorted: “Edo has been besieged for more than a month, and soldiers are precious and fast. We must rush to the rescue. “Sun Tzu’s Art of War” says that this war is nothing more than the right time, place and people. The shogunate guarded The city of Edo occupies the most advantageous location. The Tang army came out of nowhere and invaded our Japanese land. Our army must be united as one. This is harmony. My brother said that the Tang soldiers had sharp firearms. After the reinforcements arrived in Edo, they could choose rainy days to attack. This is called the right time. I have the right location, the right people, and harmony, so how can there be any reason to be invincible?”

   “This statement is wonderful.” All the literati praised it one after another.

  Tokugawa Mitsuki asked his retainers again: “Do you think we should send troops immediately, or continue to wait for the remaining Kwantung Army?”

The vassal Ukai thought about it and said, “The governor of the family, Rong Bing, the armies in various places in the Kanto region acted on their own. Although the governor of the family was temporarily appointed as the general of the Kanto, he could not effectively command the entire army. Now there are rumors in the army. From the beginning, the samurai who fled from Edo described Tang soldiers as invincible heavenly soldiers. If you continue to gather troops and wait, the longer the delay, the lower the morale of the Kanto ministries, and the deeper their fear of Tang soldiers.”

   “Then hurry up!” Tokugawa Mikaki listened to the opinions of his retainers further away.

  The Japanese Kwantung Allied Forces rushed to aid Edo.

   There are tens of thousands of samurai from all walks of life, more than 8,000 ronin are temporarily recruited, and there are more than 30,000 ashigaru. As for civilian husbands, there are countless.

  As soon as the reinforcements passed by my grandson’s place, they were discovered by scouts from the Datong Army.

  My grandson Su, that is, later my grandson city. It is more than 40 miles east of Edo and is a waterborne commercial market town.

   “My lord, it’s getting late, let’s camp here.” Ukai Jianchuan suggested.

  Tokugawa Mitsuki nodded in agreement, and said: “Just now I discovered the cavalry of the Tang army. When I read the classics of the Tang Dynasty, I found that the Tang people used to attack at night since ancient times. You must be more prepared tonight!”

“That’s for sure,” Ukai Jian said, “but please rest assured, Lord Governor, this place is still more than 30 miles away from Edo. It will take a long time for the cavalry of the Tang people to rush back to report the news. If you want to send troops over, It’s a distance of sixty miles, so there’s no time for a night attack tonight. Tomorrow’s march, we need to be more prepared to avoid being ambushed by the Tang army.”

  Tokugawa Mitsukaki nodded: “That makes sense.”

  …

   “Boom boom boom!”

  Dozens of artillery bombarded Edo Castle.

  The daimyos in the city thought that the Datong Army was about to launch a general offensive, and hurriedly dispatched troops to defend.

  Amidst the sound of rumbling guns, 2000 cavalry and 2000 infantry boarded sea ships and landed in Ichikawa not far to the east. Then, the infantry sat on the captured small early boats, and the cavalry rode all the way along the river, and ran at full speed to surprise the Kwantung reinforcements.

  The Japanese Leading Party is responsible for identifying the way and turning south of Liushan.

  Because it was already dark, the cavalry also led their horses on foot. With a man in the title and a horse bound in hooves, trying not to make any noise, the four thousand Datong troops all moved forward in silence.

   When we arrived at the camp of the Kwantung Allied Forces, it was already past four o’clock in the morning, and even the enemy sentries were asleep.

  The camp of the Kwantung Allied Army is backed by a small hill. There are some wooden fences around the camp, and a lot of barbed wire is sprinkled to prevent sneak attacks.

   Several infantrymen of the Datong Army who approached first were accidentally pierced through their feet. Fortunately, there was a branch in his mouth, but he groaned in pain. The wounded soldiers retreated, and the rest of the soldiers came over to clear the obstacles. The caltrops were all strung together with wires.

  The next step was to destroy the wooden fence, and as soon as they pushed it to a section of the wall, they awakened the secret sentry of the Kwantung Allied Forces.

   “Tang Bing is coming, Tang Bing is coming!”

  As the secret sentry issued a warning, the Four Thousand Datong Army began to light torches and swarmed in from the overturned wooden fence.

   Mitsuki Tokugawa and his own banner set up a tent on the mountainside to rest. After Ukai Miden’s explanation, he also felt that there would be no night attack. Because it takes time for the Chinese cavalry to go back to report, and it also takes time to mobilize the night attack troops. It would be dawn long after they came all the way.

  So, Tokugawa Mikaki slept soundly, and was awakened in a dream at dawn.

   “What’s the matter?” Tokugawa Mitsuki hurriedly dressed and asked.

   Seeing that Chuan ran into the tent, he said in horror, “My lord, Tang soldiers attacked at night!”

  Tokugawa Mitsuki asked: “Didn’t you say that the enemy has no time to attack at night?”

   Seeing Chuan, Ukai complained bitterly: “Tang Jun is too fast.”

  Tokugawa Mitsuki asked again: “What’s the situation outside?”

  Ukai Jianchuan replied: “The camps in the west are all in chaos, and the army in the east is gathering.”

  Mitsukyou Tokugawa didn’t care about getting dressed, he stepped out of the tent and looked down the mountain. I saw the military camp on the east was on fire everywhere, and there were many torches moving east.

   Some of the torches moved very fast, and they were two thousand Datong cavalry.

  There is a small hill out of this place, and there is a flat river in all directions, which is very suitable for cavalry to gallop. Those cavalry were dedicated to killing and driving away the rout, and the task of setting fire to the camp was handed over to the infantry. The camp of tens of thousands of Kwantung coalition forces was half disrupted in a blink of an eye.

  Japanese samurai seldom eat meat, and Ashgaru has no condition to eat meat, and a lot of them suffer from night blindness.

  Unable to see clearly in the dark, and it was too late to put on armor, most Japanese soldiers grabbed their weapons and fled, and many even threw away their weapons.

  They couldn’t tell the direction, and subconsciously fled to places where there was no fire.

  The Datong cavalry deliberately slowed down their horses, and divided into several teams to drive away the enemy, just like driving a flock of sheep, so that all the Kwantung cavalry rushed eastward. Wherever the broken soldiers went, it was like a virus infection. A few daimyos were gathering troops, and they were also fled eastward by the broken soldiers.

  Seeing the terrified cries getting closer and closer, the Kwantung generals did not dare to attack the easternmost camps, and fled with the gathered banner warriors.

   “My lord, let’s go!” Ukai saw Chuan leading the horse.

   “Yes, withdraw the troops, first.” Tokugawa Mikaki was already at a loss, and climbed on the horseback with the support of Ukai Miden.

  This knowledgeable feudal lord is familiar with a subset of classics and history, thinking that fighting is nothing more than that.

  At this time, I realized why night raids always work. The black light was attacked by surprise, and the attacked party completely lost its organization. Tokugawa Mitsuki couldn’t contact the various ministries at all, he could only command his own banner warriors, and the tens of thousands of troops were useless!

  The small hill was not steep, Tokugawa Mikaki was in a hurry to escape, and even accelerated when going downhill.

  The war horse couldn’t see the mountain road clearly, and before running very far, the horse stumbled and knocked Tokugawa Mitsuki away.

“grown ups!”

“Governor House!”

  The vassals and warriors hurried to help, only to find that the guy had fallen unconscious.

   Ukai saw that he had no choice but to run away with Tokugawa Mitsuki on horseback. After a jolt, Tokugawa Mitsuki was jolted awake and asked confusedly, “Have you escaped?”

   “Not yet.” Ukai saw that Chuan reined in his horse and stopped, ordering a samurai to hand over his horse, and let Mitsuki Tokugawa ride alone, otherwise the two would run too slowly on one horse.

   Taking advantage of the time of changing horses, Tokugawa Mitsuki looked behind him and saw that the torches of the Chinese army were already chasing very close. There seemed to be shouts from all directions, and his tens of thousands of troops had completely collapsed.

  As for the literati and advisers who accompanied the army, they didn’t even have horses, so who knows where they died.

  The short legs of the Japanese pony continued to gallop with Tokugawa Mitsuki. A river suddenly appeared in front of me. It was the Tone River next to my grandson’s residence. It was this river that prospered in business, and the town of my grandson’s residence was born.

   “Where’s the boat?”

  Ukai Miden looked at the empty river and was furious.

   When they came to cross the river, they recruited many ships in my grandson’s residence, and tens of thousands of troops crossed the river in batches.

  The daimyo camped at the easternmost point tonight, since they were farthest from the night attack, they all ran away with almost no losses. The defeated soldiers fled to the Tone River, drove all the boats to the opposite bank, and did not leave a single sampan to Tokugawa Mitsuki.

   “North!” Tokugawa Mitsuki said.

   These unlucky ones could not cross the river, so they could only flee north along the river bank.

  Most of the banners under Tokugawa Mitsukyu have no horses. They escaped too slowly, and were killed and captured countless people halfway. It was inevitable that some people would betray their masters for glory and take the initiative to tell Mitsuki Tokugawa the direction of escape.

   Datong cavalry learned the news and immediately accelerated to catch up.

   A horse with long legs is much faster than a horse with short legs.

  The pursuers were getting closer and closer, Tokugawa Mitsuki complained endlessly. He is a man of culture, he is not as good at riding as other daimyos, and riding a horse at night is beyond the scope of his ability.

  His retainers and warriors suffered even more. In order to protect their master, they had to slow down their escape speed.

   It didn’t take long to escape to the north, and the pursuers were close at hand.

   Tokugawa Mikaki doesn’t want to run away anymore, he is a decent person. After reining in the horse, he pretended to be calm and got off the horse, and then began to tidy up his appearance, only to find that he was not wearing his coat and his hat was gone.

  When the Datong cavalry pursued them more than ten paces away, Tokugawa Mitsuki clapped his hands loudly: “Tokugawa Mitsuki, the lord of the Mito domain, is here. If you are bloodthirsty, take my life.”

   Nonsense, captives are rarer than heads, let alone “deputy generals of the shogunate”.

  Tokugawa Mitsukuri knew that he would not die, and would be used as a bargaining chip, so he was able to behave so calmly.

  (end of this chapter)