Chapter 381 Zheng Chenggong Exterminates the Changzhou Domain
The words are divided into two parts.
Since the Fuso people decided how the war started, they no longer had the right to decide how the war ended.
At first, I persuaded them with good words to hand over Ezo, who had illicitly liaised with the Manchus, to the Ming Dynasty, and then punished the Satsuma clan, which had annexed Ryukyu, to annihilation. But they refused to listen and insisted on beating them.
At this time, the price that Ming asked for again was obviously not the price he asked for at the beginning, so he had to ask for more as punishment.
With Zhang Mingzhen's great victory in the Northeast, the shogunate began to lose control. Zheng Chenggong had just opened his business in Kitakyushu. How could he be willing to stop now and let Zhang Mingzhen steal all the limelight?
Zheng Chenggong had more troops than Zhang Mingzhen, his supply route was shorter than Zhang Mingzhen's, and the battlefield was closer to the Central Plains. He had to achieve at least double the results to be worthy of his huge investment.
On the fifth day of April, just two days after Zhang Mingzhen killed Hoshino Masaru outside Akita City, Zheng Chenggong had already launched a landing operation on Kyushu at Hakata Port in Kitakyushu.
Of course, when Zheng Chenggong launched an all-out attack, he did not know that Zhang Mingzhen had already achieved such a great victory. The two places were thousands of miles apart, and the news had to be relayed in Vladivostok. The transmission of military information was still very slow.
Three days before the Hakata landing battle, Zheng Chenggong had actually arrived in Fuso. The reason why he did not launch a direct landing at the beginning was because he needed to capture Tsushima Island, which was blocked between Hakata and Busan.
On Tsushima Island, when the Mongolian Yuan invaded Fuso, they resisted it for a long time. Later generations of Fuso people also used that battle as material to release the final masterpiece of the PS4 era, "Ghost of Tsushima".
It is a pity that Zheng Chenggong directly used the sailing battleship with 80 heavy guns to bombard him. Tsushima Island was bombarded and occupied by the Ming army in just three days.
This kind of small island lacks depth. The main cities, ports and densely populated areas are not deep enough inland, so they are all within the range of naval guns.
The Ming army even skipped the step of deploying siege artillery positions ashore. They fired artillery directly on the sea to break through the city and swarmed in.
While seizing Tsushima Island, there is no need to seize the Hirado Goto Islands in another corner of northern Kyushu. Because before the war started, that place was the Zheng family's sphere of influence.
Zheng Chenggong's younger brother, Tagawa Nanaemon, was there, and Zheng Chenggong's mother, the Tagawa family, was the daughter of a local wealthy family.
Therefore, as soon as the war started, many islands between Kyushu and North Korea fell completely into Zheng Chenggong's hands within a few days.
On the fifth day of April, after the successful landing at Hakata Port, a relatively large-scale fierce battle gradually began.
Hakata Port was the Fukuoka of later generations, so the first person to bear the brunt was Mitsuyuki Kuroda, the lord of the Fukuoka domain.
Mitsuyuki Kuroda was actually quite depressed, because there were at least three great feudal lords on Kyushu Island who did not deal well with the shogunate, and had accumulated grudges during the establishment of the Tokugawa family's rule. However, Mitsuyuki Kuroda's Fukuoka Domain was one of them.
Alien.
An important reason why the Ming Dynasty attacked Kyushu this time was that the Satsuma Domain annexed the Ming Dynasty's vassal state of Ryukyu.
After Kuroda Mitsuyuki was bombarded by the Ming army at Hakata Port, he assessed the situation and sent an envoy to negotiate with the Ming army. He said: If you want to cause trouble for the Satsuma clan, just go to Southern Kyushu and land. Why come to Kitakyushu?
If the Ming army is willing to go directly to attack Minami Kyushu, then the Fukuoka clan can definitely pretend to be cowardly and avoid the war. There is also a certain probability that the shogunate will turn a blind eye. By then, it may only be the Higo clan, Kumamoto clan and Honshu Island.
Choshu Domain will send troops to rescue——
Historically, during the fall of the Meiji era two hundred years later, among the four feudal clans that were the main force in the fall, the Satsuma clan was the first, followed by the Choshu clan, and the Kumamoto clan. It can be said that the several feudal clans in the southwest of Fuso were all different from the shogunate.
To deal with.
If the Ming Dynasty had specifically targeted those feudal lords who could not deal with the shogunate, maybe the war would not have escalated. At that time, only these feudal lords would sign up for the group to keep themselves warm, and others would watch the show. Wouldn't it be nice?
However, faced with Kuroda Mitsuyuki's explanation, Zheng Chenggong directly refused.
What the Ming Dynasty wants is the entire Kyushu Island. If the true analysis only deals with the "already guilty" daimyo, how can it swallow the entire island?
It’s impossible for the Ming Dynasty to take over Satsuma Domain, Kumamoto Domain and Higo Domain, but leave Fukuoka Domain as the territory of Fuso? Of course, we have to fish in troubled waters and fish a little more.
So Zheng Chenggong said: Although the Fukuoka Domain was not the one directly guilty of the crime, from the Ming Dynasty's perspective, the Fuso Domains were one.
When the Ming Dynasty wanted to attack Kyushu, the shortest route was from Busan via Tsushima to Hakata Landing, which was just over 200 miles. If they went directly from Ningbo to Southern Kyushu, it would be 1,500 miles.
For the sake of the safety of the logistics supply line, who would give up a 200-mile route instead of walking 1,500 miles?
To blame, we can only blame the poor location of Fukuoka Domain, which happened to be on the transportation thoroughfare between the Korean Peninsula and Kyushu!
In the peaceful trade era, Fukuoka did not miss the dividends from foreign trade. Now in wartime, it is completely reasonable for the bad luck to spit out a little bit for a while.
Of course, there are some things that are hard to say clearly. After all, Ming Dynasty is still a country of etiquette and faith.
Therefore, when Zheng Chenggong responded, in addition to rejecting the other party's conditions, he also re-opened his own conditions.
He said that if Fukuoka Domain could agree to this condition, Ming Dynasty would still not have to fight him.
The specific conditions are: Fukuoka Domain must give the Ming Dynasty a share equivalent to half a year's tax and grain according to the height of the stone in its territory. It will provide military rations for the Ming Dynasty to punish other truly guilty people and those who want to reinforce the Satsuma Domain.
The Fukuoka feudal lord's military power was 550,000 dan, and he publicly offered 300,000 dan of military rations to Zheng Chenggong, and Zheng Chenggong let him go.
After this condition was returned to Kuroda Mitsuki, he certainly could not accept it.
Not to mention whether he can get so much food now, even if he wants to sell it, others will not sell it to him. And after doing so, he will be a full-blooded traitor. How can he gain a foothold in Fuso in the future?
?
Kuroda Mitsuyuki had no choice but to resist.
However, he still used diplomatic means to delay for a few days. While telling the Ming Dynasty that he needed time to raise military supplies for Zheng Chenggong, he secretly made an urgent request for Higo Domain, Kumamoto Domain, Satsuma Domain, Choshu Domain to reinforce him.
Because he was helping the Satsuma clan fight against trouble. If the Satsuma clan didn't come, he would lead the way for the Ming army!
What Mitsuyuki Kuroda did was not considered to be deceiving the Satsuma Domain, and it was really possible for him to do so.
If the Satsuma clan really doesn't come, everyone in the world will know who is wrong. When the time comes, he "chooses to lead the way for the Ming Dynasty because the Satsuma clan doesn't come." That's also what the Satsuma people forced him to do. It's not that he wanted to be a traitor, he was behind someone else's back.
If you betray someone by stabbing him with a knife, you can compare yourself to Li Ling.
Several other feudal clans also knew that death was inevitable, especially the Satsuma clan, which would surely perish if they did not resist, so they quickly sent reinforcements.
The lord of the Satsuma Domain, Shimazu Mitsuhisa, sent out almost all of Minami Kyushu's troops and mobilized farmers and soldiers frantically.
In name, he only has a stone height of 800,000 dan. In theory, even if all the money is used to raise soldiers, he can only support 40,000 soldiers, and that does not include the cost of weapons, so in fact, it is good to have 20,000 soldiers.
But this time, all the savings from previous years were used, and all the weapons reserves were used, and fifty to sixty thousand cannon fodder was brought in.
The lord of the Kumamoto clan, Hosokawa Tsunatori, and the lord of the Choshu clan, Tsunahiro Mori, were not so exhausted. Together, they each pulled about 20,000 troops——
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This number is absolutely reasonable. Don’t believe those who blindly underestimate the Fuso people and say that “the Fuso National War is just a village fight.” After all, Fuso at this time is a country with a population of 24 million. On the island of Kyushu
There were more than three million people there at that time.
Taking into account that the Choshu Domain is located on the westernmost peninsula of Honshu, and the population of the Choshu Domain, Zheng Chenggong is equivalent to fighting an offensive war with a regime of four million people this time, and he also has to worry about the reinforcements from the direct troops of the shogunate of Honshu.
…
Zheng Chenggong, of course, also knew that Kuroda Mitsuyuki was stalling for time——
Even if the other party didn't know it in the first two or three days after replying, when he discovered that the Choshu clan's troops secretly crossed the Shimonoseki Strait at night and arrived at Kyushu Island, no matter how slow he was, he would understand what was going on.
(Note: The Shimonoseki Strait is now the Kanmon Strait, and the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed there)
However, Zheng Chenggong did not expose the opponent immediately. He pretended not to know and allowed the Japanese army to gather more troops on the front line near Fukuoka.
Zheng Chenggong's idea is very simple: Kyushu Island has a complex terrain, and the Kumamoto region in the central part is especially crowded with volcanoes. If one vassal is attacked one by one, or even the Japanese army hides in the volcano as a guerrilla, the Ming army will definitely have a headache.
Since the Japanese army still doesn't know how powerful it is and is willing to gather all of them to Fukuoka Domain and the northern coastal plain, then of course they must be given this opportunity to show off.
Kuroda Mitsuyuki thought that Zheng Chenggong had been deceived into a trap by him, and was secretly proud.
Mouri Tsunahiro of the Choshu Domain also became more and more courageous. When his first batch of reinforcements crossed the Shimonoseki Strait, only a few thousand people came. He was afraid that if too many people crossed the Shimonoseki Strait at once, they would be intercepted by the Ming navy.
, there will be heavy losses.
Seeing that the first two batches of tentative ferry troops had landed safely, and there were no Ming warships to intercept them, he finally became more courageous and sent the third batch of 15,000 main troops in the dark on the ninth day of April.
A one-time voyage across the Shimonoseki Strait.
However, just when the last group of main forces set sail, something unexpected happened.
Zheng Chenggong's Ministry, which had been negotiating and coercing the Fukuoka Domain, suddenly detached dozens of light sailing frigates and inserted them into the Shimonoseki Strait channel overnight, allowing the Choshu Domain reinforcements to cross the river and attack.
The Japanese transport fleet was caught off guard and had to fight on the spot, using rockets, muskets, and aircraft to fire at the Ming frigates.
The warships and firepower of the Ming army were absolutely crushing, and the battle naturally turned into a one-sided massacre. Unfortunately, the Shimonoseki Strait was too narrow after all. Even if the Ming army killed all the Japanese troops on the sea at the first time,
Actually not much——
The general width of the Shimonoseki Strait is only between two and three kilometers. The narrowest point in the northeast corner is only more than 300 feet wide, which is not as wide as the Yangtze River.
But Zheng Chenggong was very familiar with the terrain and had done solid homework in advance. Since he had come to make a sneak attack, he certainly had backup plans.
The naval guns of the Ming army frigates were equipped with a large number of explosive bombs, as well as a few newly developed first-generation petroleum-based incendiary bombs. Although their performance was still unstable, they were enough to deal with the Fuso army in the 17th century.
After the Ming army destroyed the Japanese troops on the water, they launched an artillery bombardment directly at Shimonoseki Town, where tens of thousands of Japanese troops were stationed, and then sent Marines to directly follow the Japanese troops to cover up Shimonoseki Town.
Shimonoseki Town is the port area of Shimonoseki City in later generations. Although the strait is narrow and 15,000 people cannot enter the sea at the same time, the army still has to assemble in the port area before crossing the sea. The Tokugawa Shogunate issued the "One Country, One City Order"
Of course, the residence of the Choshu lord would not be located in a remote port area like Shimonoseki, so there were only some wooden water fortifications in the area, which could not be defended at all.
The Ming army fired bombs and incendiary bombs, and then the bayonet riflemen landed and advanced forcefully. The Japanese army was killed in chaos and was defeated. Those who wanted to resist were also dispersed by the chaotic friendly forces.
The Japanese soldiers who swam from the Shimonoseki Strait and escaped to the shore were all doing the Ming Dynasty a favor. They served as free vanguards for the Ming Dynasty in vain. In order to prevent the Japanese soldiers from disrupting their position, they had no choice but to attack whoever came forward.
He greeted them with iron cannons and rockets, and killed many of his own people in the dark.
Of course, in this kind of melee at night, the attacker's casualties cannot be avoided. But Zheng Chenggong has a trump card that has been hidden before in this battle. He has not used it before. In this night attack, he used it to resist damage.
Take the risk.
It turned out that the landing force that Zheng Chenggong was able to land on was the Korean rifle team affiliated with Li Yu, the commander-in-chief of Dongjiang Town in the Ming Dynasty. Five years ago, during the war to destroy the Qing Dynasty, Li Yu also led 20,000 Korean riflemen to participate in the final attack on Hauge.
One battle can be regarded as the result of years of fighting and training.
This time we were going to deal with the Japanese troops, and we had to land in Busan. If there were North Korean soldiers available, we would of course use them. The most dangerous tasks with high casualties were also done first by North Korean soldiers.
However, Li Yu himself didn't think there was any problem with this. The Koreans had a great feud with Fuso during the Imjin Japanese Rebellion more than half a century ago.
Later, the Tokugawa shogunate claimed that "the one who has a grudge against you is the Toyotomi shogunate. We have avenged you by overthrowing Toyotomi, and this matter can be turned over." In addition, North Korea faced a greater threat from the Manchus at that time.
This matter has just been revealed.
But now the Ming Dynasty once again asked North Korea to take revenge, and also provided an ironclad reason: the Fuso people did not change their ways and annexed Ryukyu, a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty. Since they dare to annex Ryukyu today and North Korea tomorrow, this traitor cannot stay.
The North Korean leader made sense when he heard that he really needed to be on guard against possible dangers. So he asked Li Yu to bring 20,000 North Korean riflemen to help Zheng Chenggong.
Before setting off, Zheng Chenggong also asked Zhu Shuren for some details. Zhu Shuren told him that in certain situations, he should just kill him, and he didn't have to worry about killing too many people.
He also specifically instructed Zheng Chenggong to make good use of his naval superiority. To attack Kyushu is to attack Kyushu. He must destroy the reinforcements sent by the Japanese army from Honshu Island in a timely manner. Therefore, the Shimonoseki Strait, the narrowest between Kyushu and Honshu, must of course be guarded.
The focus of the focus.
In addition, Zhu Shuren had some personal emotions, and he also hinted to Zheng Chenggong that once the enemy was wiped out at Maguan, he could kill more to establish his authority and frighten the enemy. Killing was for better peace, so that the enemy would not dare to resist anymore.
The regent had already told them this, so of course Zheng Chenggong and Li Yu would not hold back. Li Yu, a general from North Korea, just wanted to vent his personal grudges.
In the end, the 15,000 reinforcements of the Choshu Domain were almost annihilated in the town of Shimonoseki. The Korean soldiers were still on the border of the Choshu Domain and burned and killed them with Shimonoseki as the center. No chickens or dogs were left in the town of Shimonoseki.
Tens of thousands of people died around them.
In fact, no one knows why. Zhu Shuren gave such an order just because later generations Yin Teng Bowen liked to sign treaties in Shimonoseki. Then Zhu Shuren had a bad taste and punished the chickens and dogs without leaving them.
The lord of Choshu Domain, Tsunahiro Mori, personally led the troops that day. When the troops were destroyed, they were naturally killed, along with several other middle-level generals from the Mori family who helped lead the troops.
Who makes the Fusang people have such a strong hereditary tradition? The generals who come out to lead the army are all "one family" and rarely trust outsiders as temporary workers. Naturally, the family must be neat and tidy when they die.
After the main force of the Choshu Army was destroyed, Zheng Chenggong and Li Yu took advantage of the situation and burned and killed them fiercely in the Choshu Domain. Then they withdrew their troops back to Kyushu Island and continued the war in the direction of Hakata/Fukuoka.
This can be regarded as a warning to the vassals on Honshu Island and the Edo shogunate: for Kyushu's troubles, it is best to let the local people of Kyushu resolve their grievances with the Ming Dynasty. In the vassal towns on Honshu Island, those who dare to fish across the border and wade in the muddy waters will be punished.