While Saigo Takamori was taking a merchant ship to Tokyo to donate the samurai edition to the Ming Emperor, the battle against Tokugawa Shigenaki had reached its final moment.
Nearly 50,000 Tokugawa troops who retreated from Nagoya were blocked in the mountains between Tsu and Nara. One thing is for sure, Tokugawa Shigenaki was not a brainless person. He commanded the troops to enter the mountains and not only avoided being attacked by the navy's heavy artillery.
Artillery bombardment can also maximize the use of mountainous terrain advantages to disintegrate the Ming army's firepower advantage and give full play to the Tokugawa army's military advantage.
It can be said that Tokugawa Shigeru's plan is perfect.
However, times have changed!
Sometimes the plan seems perfect, but due to the changes of the times, the so-called plan may become a joke.
Almost as soon as Tokugawa Shigenaki commanded the army and tried to evacuate from the plains to the mountains, they were discovered by airships in the sky.
Airship troop.
As early as last year, Ming Dynasty had already mobilized sixteen airships. These airships were not many, but they were the only air power in East Asia in this era.
It can be said that Ming Dynasty spent a lot of money for Japan.
These airship troops hovering in the sky are proof of this.
"As long as we enter the mountainous area, we can compete with the Ming people and strive for decent peace terms."
Tokugawa Shige Cheng never thought about the chances of winning in a war with the Ming Dynasty. He was just unwilling to be a "chicken".
Since you don’t want to be a “chicken”, then find a way to give it a try!
As long as he can win a beautiful battle, he can force Daming to negotiate with him!
If Tokugawa Shigejou had heard what Emperor Zhu Da said, he would definitely not have thought this way - what does it mean that an empire cannot be challenged.
The essence is that in the face of failure, the empire will not only not give in, but will redouble its investment to preserve the dignity of the empire and let the world see that the empire will not tolerate any challengers or disruptors of order.
If he tried to use victory to force Ming to sit at the negotiating table, then his wishful thinking must have been wrong from the beginning.
In the face of defeat, not only would Ming be unable to hold peace talks with him, but it would also mobilize more troops to completely wipe them out of the world.
Because only in this way can Xiao Xiao be intimidated, and only in this way can others be in awe of the empire.
After all, the existence of the empire itself requires awe from the outside world. Compared with others, the dignity of the empire is undoubtedly the most important thing.
But he obviously didn't have the chance to understand this truth.
Just when Tokugawa Shigenaki was thinking like this, someone in the marching column looked up to the sky.
"What it is?"
The people in the marching column looked up at the sky with some confusion.
Although airships had entered the war in Europe a few years ago, most Japanese people were extremely unfamiliar with them. Perhaps some of them had heard of airships, but had never seen them.
In this way, these Tokugawa troops carrying old-fashioned rifles and pushing bronze muzzle-loading guns followed the direction of the sound and looked toward the northeast. More than a dozen white shadows appeared in the sky. If you didn't look carefully, even
Maybe think of it as Yunnan.
Is it... is it an airship?
It looks a bit like white clouds.
Just when Tokugawa Shigeaki thought about the flying machine invented by Ming Dynasty that he had heard about, he saw countless black spots falling from those "white clouds".
"Chirp..."
The whistling sound of the bomb's tail fin compressing the air finally reminded Tokugawa Shigeru of Western descriptions of airships.
"It's an airship!"
While shouting, Tokugawa Shigeaki jumped off the tall Western horse and rolled into a pit on the side of the road.
From the very beginning, Tokugawa Shigenaki's march was destined to be a journey of death.
Sixteen airships started from the front of the Tokugawa army's marching column to carry out carpet bombing - a term coined by the Ming Dynasty's aerial troops, the bombs covered the ground like a carpet.
The dozens of tons of bombs dropped by the airship were not ordinary bombs, but cluster bombs. Those small bombs dropped from wooden boxes fell from the sky like raindrops. After exploding in the valley, millions of
The fragments roared in the air, like a sickle cutting grass, knocking down the Tokugawa army who had not yet reacted.
Lying in a pit on the roadside, Tokugawa Shigeaki only heard bursts of continuous explosions like a volley of guns. In the violent explosions, many people were swallowed up by the smoke of the explosions. They were not blown up into the sky.
, that is, blown into pieces.
He saw that his retainer, Lao Zhong, had fallen from his horse to the ground at some point and was lying in the grass on the roadside. The fragments of the bomb had interrupted his arteries and blood spurted from his neck like mist. He was covering his neck with his hands.
His neck was twitching all over his body, and it didn't take long for him to stop twitching.
"Boom! Boom!"
In the continuous explosions, a gunpowder barrel on an ammunition truck was also detonated. For a moment, flames shot into the sky, and debris scattered. There were continuous explosions like firecrackers in the flames, and the bullet warheads roared from the ammunition in the explosion.
The car flew around.
In this lightning-like bombing, the entire valley pass was completely turned into a slaughterhouse. The aerial bombing continued to drop cluster bombs. After the bomb box exploded in the air, countless column-shaped small missiles were thrown out.
Bomb, this kind of bomb weighs only 1 kilogram, has a killing radius of more than 20 meters, and can produce a large number of fragments when it explodes. According to the experience of the Ming Dynasty army during the Franco-Prussian War, this kind of bomb can effectively kill the enemy's effective forces. This
In order to prevent the Tokugawa army from escaping, and of course to destroy this army as much as possible, the aerial troops used this kind of weapon called "extremely inhumane" in Europe. Thousands of small bombs will be exposed.
The Tokugawa troops in the wilderness were bombarded with blood and flesh flying everywhere.
The battlefield completely turned into a slaughterhouse.
The carpet bombing ended quickly, like a storm, coming and going quickly. After a round of bombing, the airships lowered their altitude while circling and flying over them again, looking into the sky.
Suddenly, a red muzzle flash flashed from the side of the airship, and a dense rain of bullets fell from the sky like raindrops.
Groups of Tokugawa troops who were fleeing to the trees on the roadside to avoid the bombing were knocked to the ground by the 30mm Gatling cannon on the airship. The shells tore their bodies apart, and then exploded in the flesh and blood.
Flying shrapnel and blood mist flew around, and the shrapnel broke people's flesh, bones, and arteries. The blood of the people whose arteries were broken gushed out like a fountain, and beautiful red blood flowers bloomed in the wind.
Blood flowers were flying in the air.
When the bodies of those who were hit by the shells were torn in two, only half of their bodies were left. People were still screaming and crying.
If there is a hell, this must be it.
Almost half an hour later, the long bombing ended. The long and narrow valley had turned red. There were red piles of corpses and red corpse fragments everywhere. The trees in the valley were burning, and some of them were burning.
On the treetops, there were also hanging minced meat, severed limbs, and internal organs such as intestines and lungs. The air was filled with the choking sulfur smell and was filled with a peculiar smell of corpses, a bit like the smell of feces.
But at this time, no one cared about such a smell. There were still many soldiers squirming, struggling, moaning, and crying among the masses of flesh and blood. Some uninjured soldiers automatically dragged these wounded soldiers out.
, help with bandaging and first aid.
Looking at the far away airship, Tokugawa Shigeaki patted the dust on his body, stood up from the pit, and looked around. What he saw were stumps and broken arms everywhere, as well as people struggling in the sea of blood.
"This, this is the airship..."
At this moment, a frightened scream suddenly came from the distance.
"Monster, monster..."
What came was none other than the Ming Dynasty's armored forces. They were not many in number. They were just one armored battalion. There were only twenty-three "Tiger" armored vehicles. They were heading down the valley at full speed with the roar of their engines.
The Tokugawa army came and killed them.
They came towards the Tokugawa army like tigers. As soon as they met, the machine guns on the armored vehicles rang out. Amidst the rapid sound of machine gun fire, those Japanese soldiers who were lucky enough to escape the bombing were overthrown before they even had the chance to escape.
On the ground.
Although many Japanese fired back with rifles, the bullets hit the steel plate of the armored vehicle, only knocking off a layer of paint.
Those Japanese soldiers who tried to fight back were also beaten with blood and flesh by the machine guns on the armored vehicles. In this valley that was originally like a slaughterhouse, there were splashes of blood and flesh everywhere, limbs smashed by machine guns and shredded meat from bombings.
Together, the whole valley turns red.
The red blood gathered into a stream, flowing there like a stream.
For those Tokugawa troops who survived, other than watching the "Tiger armored vehicles" crushing them in horror, there was simply no way to stop the advance of these armored vehicles.
Some desperate people even raised their samurai swords and slashed at the armored vehicles, before being knocked to the ground. Their bodies were crushed into pulp by the solid rubber wheels.
Watching the approaching armored vehicles, Tokugawa Shigeaki's eyes were full of despair. This despair was not because he saw loyal and brave warriors falling under the guns of the armored vehicles, but because he saw the power, this kind of despair.
The force is irresistible.
Is this... the power of Ming Dynasty?
This kind of power is really not something that humans can resist! Oh, it’s true.
If you can't resist, then so be it.
Just when this thought came to his mind, he felt as if something had hit him in the chest. At that moment, he felt a little hot inside his body, and then all his strength seemed to be emptied out by something.
