.One Hundred and Seventy-Five, First Battle of the Jiafu (5)

One Hundred and Seventy-Five, First Battle of the Jiafu (5)

On the same night when Feili and Mitsui Ryuki's small team arrived at the Kafei Basin and successfully surrendered 900 former guards of the Naseril Empire, the city of Kafu, which had not yet received the news, was still shrouded in a sad atmosphere.

As a simple plain city located in the middle of a vast plain and surrounded by no dangers, Kofu City at this time is more like a large warehouse storing annual local grain levies than a military fortress. In addition to one side, the remaining three sides were not even dug, the height of the exterior wall was less than one meter. The wall with rammed earth texture has been disrepaired for a long time, and there are obvious cracks in some parts... In the real war, such a shoddy city was as fragile as paper toys.

Under the dim twilight, after another inspection of the city wall, Jia Fei Dai official Yukawa Xiushui walked down the city with a gloomy face.

Turning back to the bright red sunset, he followed with several close-fitting bodies through the outer curvatures filled with refugee people and livestock carts, as well as the inner curvatures composed of rows of warriors' houses and granaries, and then entered a narrow alley full of moss and earthy smell. He also counted the green spots on the walls and walked through for about two hundred steps, and then arrived at the highest point in Kofu City, which was his official residence.

Honmaru in this small town does not have the tall Tenshou Pavilion, and the residence of the dynasty official is just an ordinary house. However, due to the hundreds of years of peace and military defence, there are some people who like elegance among the dynasty officials. Therefore, a rather elegant courtyard is carefully opened in the official residence. It is facing the daily living room, with rockery and flowing water and weeping willows and green lotus. It is already a rare place surrounded by mountains.

Youchuan Xiushui has always loved this courtyard very much. In the summer when the south wind is getting gradually, he often sits next to the cool breeze courtyard with a few confidants, looking at the layers of ripples in the green pond, and admiring the cute little ducks floating on the water; although it is now autumn, the water of the pond is dry and the plants are gradually withering, the flying red maple and the blooming autumn chrysanthemums are still worth watching...

However, the battle is in danger now, and no matter how good the scenery is, I am afraid I will not be interested in enjoying it. So as soon as I took off my shoes, he ordered his servants to summon his staff and subordinates, arrange maps and sand tables, and prepare for an emergency military discussion here.

After a while, accompanied by a burst of rapid footsteps, the people who had already gathered in this official residence for news soon gathered in this room after hearing the news. Then they changed their shoes without saying a word, lowered their heads according to the etiquette of the Wu family, walked to the center of the room, and knelt down, quietly waiting for the acting official to speak.

"...Since this afternoon, bandits have gradually gathered from all over the place, setting up camps on the other side of Buwuchuan. There are now more than 1,500 to 2,000 people, and they are collecting wood everywhere to build ladders and crashing into cars, as if they are trying to attack the city."

Yukawa Hidemi waved his pickup (a baton wrapped with many paper tapes on the top), and gestured to the temporary clay sand table. In such a short few days, this middle-aged official, who had always been well-maintained, had already had thick dark circles.

"... Although I have ordered the ferry to be blocked, the ferry boats are sunk, the city gates are closed, and the city is evacuated and the city is in the city to escape temporarily. However, it is now when the water is dry in autumn, the water level of the Kawa Wuchuan is shallowering, and it is very easy for ordinary people to cross the river. If the bandits attack in large numbers, it is difficult to stop the enemy by just shallow water. You still need to work together to fight to the death to resist the invading enemy..."

"...Brother, I think this battle is very easy. Jiafu City has abundant food, a lot of weapons, and water sources are available. The enemy is just a bunch of bandits who are robbing families. They are not versatile and have no support, and the weapons in their hands are also very crude. If we can't hold on to the city, we will be laughing at it."

The person who spoke so confidently was the younger brother of Yukawa Hidee, the acting official, Hiromi Yukawa. A young and handsome man dressed quite brightly: a white red skull covered with a set of pure white samurai armor with gold-edged edges, and a snow-white silk arrow bag and a gold-inlaid sword tied around his waist. Whenever he opened his mouth, his slender eyebrows would rise high and look quite proud.

In fact, because Yukawa Hidee learned Kendo in a famous martial arts hall in Edo, she also obtained the true teachings of a "contemporary military strategy master" who is profession to write military fantasy novels. She thought she was very talented and surrounded by a group of flatterers who were proficient in flattery all day long, so she often acted arrogantly on weekdays... But as his brother, Yukawa Hidemiya was quite good at how much ability this younger brother, who was like an embroidered pillow, was quite clear about how much he had. Naturally, he would not spoil him and talk nonsense about major events, which would disrupt the audio-visual and make wrong judgments.

Therefore, Yukawa Hidemiya only looked up at her brother who was full of energy, sighed with a little disappointment, and continued to introduce the military status of the city that everyone was most interested in. "...Yes, the city earned 50,000 stones of autumn this year, plus the original grain and some of the annual tributes transported from the west of Shinno country, the total amount was 100,000 stones of grain stored, and the city had only seven or eight hundred soldiers and civilians, enough to eat for several years. As for the ordnance ammunition, there were also twenty bronze field artillery pieces, two thousand new foreign guns, and six hundred barrels of gunpowder and lead blocks each..."

Seeing everyone's expressions that seemed very excited about this, Yukawa Hideshui couldn't help but sigh again, pouring cold water on these guys who couldn't see the situation clearly, "...but the problem is that no one can use these firearms."

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Located in the inland basin, Kofu Castle is deep in the hinterland of the Shogunate Tenge, and is located in remote mountainous areas, far away from commercial roads and coastlines. Since the establishment of the Edo Shogunate, it has not been a military center. The reason why so much material is stored is just a role similar to a national strategic reserve warehouse. In peacetime, food can be released as needed to provide disaster relief, and in wartime, it can be turned into a military station and a logistics center.

Therefore, the shogunate's acting officers stationed in Kofu Castle are nominally samurai, but in fact they are working as civil servants. The requirements for accounting skills are far higher than martial arts. The officials at all levels below are in similar situations. Even though some people remember to exercise the "samurai profession", they usually practice some archery, equestrian and kendo that strengthen the body, and they basically know nothing about the maintenance and use of firearms... And the Aike official does not have the right to use stock weapons to play birds for their subordinates - that is all high-priced imported goods exchanged for real money and silver. On average, a bullet is worth dozens of cents. How can it be wasted like this?

Before the outbreak of this civil war, a small team of new army stationed in Jiafu City, but was all taken to the battlefield half a year ago and there was no news since then. It is estimated that they were either killed in battle or broken up.

Therefore, there is not even a truly qualified gunner in the city of Kofu. If you want to dismantle these cannons that have been packed into parts, carry them out of the warehouse to unpack and reassemble them, then pull them to the top of the city to be placed and debugged, and you also have to dig and pour out the cannon positions (there is no such setting on the original old city wall)... It will definitely not be completed in a few days - but the enemy will definitely not be stupid enough to give Kofu so much time to prepare for the battle.

Therefore, after the acting official suddenly mentioned this relationship, everyone present was slightly stunned at first, and then they were all embarrassed and amazing.

Before the ministers could react from this blow, Yukawa Hideshui pointed out the next unfavorable factor, "... Then, our army's strength was also seriously insufficient. I had just sent someone to count it. There were only 20 soldiers in the city who came to take office with me, but more than 100 young men were mobilized, and the rest were all old, weak, women and children... The nephews who were supposed to serve in the city, who heard that there were bandits rampant in Jiafei, and they left the city's defense without hesitation and ran home."

——Because it is located in a remote location, backward productivity and economic level, the relevant authorities are not very concerned about it. Therefore, Jiafucheng has been adopting a very backward feudal military service system, that is, there is basically no standing army, but instead let the wealthy families around Jiafucheng select young and strong children and nephews, bring their own armor, swords, bows and horses and rations, and take turns to work in the city to serve... It can also be said to be the "elite who brings their own dry food."

The only force that the official Jia Fei who was airborne from the central government could truly command effectively was the only one who brought the sergeants and guards he took office. Most of the power of the official ranks was allocated to the internal divisions by these local tyrants.

After the Osaka merchant group came to power, in order to stabilize the regime and denounce the old sage samurai warriors, on the one hand, they secretly distributed many weapons to the "filthy" and "non-human" untouchables in various places, and encouraged them to rely on violent means to seize and occupy land, as the new chaebol regime to clean up the evil dogs and sharp blades of the old forces of the Wu family; on the other hand, they vigorously supported merchants in various places in the castle town town, allowing them to squeeze out the old samurai warriors and seize various positions in the local government offices, so as to eliminate the political influence of the old forces.

In such internal and external attacks, the relationship between the government and the landlords and tyrants naturally deteriorated greatly. If it were a prosperous city with developed industry and commerce and strong chaebol forces, then the already declining landlords and tyrants and old warriors basically had little resistance.

However, in the Kafai Basin, where transportation is difficult, the land is barren, the business is underdeveloped, and there are no armed untouchable groups living, the few wealthy merchants in Kofu Castle and the few airborne troops sent by the shogunate could not suppress the hundreds of deep-rooted local tyrants in the country, and could only compromise with them in turn... but they still could not gain their loyalty.

——When the chaos broke out, they took their own family and looked for their mothers. Without even saying hello, they carried their weapons and ran back to their own circumference, leaving behind a city of almost unguarded Jiafu, which made the poor deputies so angry that they almost had a cerebral hemorrhage.

What's even more terrifying is that they took advantage of the chaos to ride away the only few horses in the city... So the defenders just wanted to run away.

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However, by observing with a telescope at the top of the city wall and sending people to catch prisoners and torture them, Yukawa Hidemi has learned that these "declined righteous men" who are wearing the Royal Royal chrysanthemum flag are actually a group of smoky mobs. From the military appearance to the equipment, they are all too bad. Except for a very small number of leaders wearing samurai swords and short muskets, most "trumpeters" use a sharpened wooden pole or bamboo pole as weapons, and their clothes are torn, their faces are pale and thin, and they are even worse than beggars.

What's even more sad is that such a bunch of mobs who are not even as good as beggars have to be divided into more than a dozen gangs, conflicts with each other and constant fire. They can never introduce a leader who can convince the public. There are also many "self-employed" who don't know who they are in charge of. They blindly flowed. According to the situation, they followed the team of people to pick up some scraps, and whoever had oil and water would run to whom they could make do with it.

It is precisely because of the poor combat effectiveness and organizational level of these "reverse sects" and the disorderly command system, the local tyrants in the Jiafei Basin can easily repel opponents with their own earthen encirclements and use their own earthen encirclements to organize defenses and retreat opponents with absolute numerical advantages. Only some dilapidated towns and villages that no one cares about were affected... Since they discovered that these bandits were joining forces to attack the Jiafu City, Hinahiro Yukawa suspected that some local tyrants guarding the earthen encirclements were informing them and inciting them to attack the empty Jiafu City, which was hoarding abundant materials and defending the empty water.

In fact, long before these ronin samurai who were originally active near Kyoto entered Kafai through the portal to cause damage, the local tyrants had already shown signs of extremely serious instability.

——After all, Edo Castle has been burned to white land by a fire, and the court and the emperor denounced them as traitors. Then even General Tokugawa Ie Naruto announced his resignation in Kyoto. Therefore, the righteousness and legality of the Edo shogunate authorities in ruling this country have completely disappeared... Fortunately, before these bad news like bolt from the blue came, all the autumn grains that should be paid this year were already in the warehouse, otherwise Yukawa Hidemizu would not know if they could be collected as much as possible.

Thinking more seriously, if the evil bandits who sneaked into Jiafei were not such as such a group of vicious bandits who could not deal with, even if they had a relationship with them, they would not be able to sell them to the court. Yukawa Hideshui would probably do more than do the local tyrants. If the regular army of the powerful vassal of the overthrow or the newly formed troops led by the imperial court officials came here, those anti-bone boys would probably simply cooperate with each other and contribute Kafu City as an advancement level. Instead of huddling in their own villages like now, watching the victory or defeat on both sides.

Of course, there are not completely no local forces that are willing to support the government...

"... Master Qingde, the abbot of Lingquan Temple outside the city, heard the bandits attempting to attack the city, and mobilized all the monks and believers of the temple to gather thirty monks and soldiers to build a brigade on the bank of Bu Wuchuan to guard the ferry. Well, he was really loyal and righteous... He just sent a little novice monk here, hoping that we would provide two cannons, twenty foreign guns, and supporting ammunition. Do you think you should give it or not?"

After a messenger (messenger) rushed over from the corridor and handed a small note, Yukawa Hidemizu introduced it to everyone in a plain tone, and the officials present looked disapproving.

——This Lingquan Temple is located on the river beach between Jiafu City and Buwuchuan, which is the only way for bandits to attack the city. Unless they intend to turn against each other, they can’t even hide. Taking the initiative to defend the ferry is to save their lives, so how can they talk about loyalty and righteousness?

In addition, even if Lingquan Temple wants to spend money to buy peace or sell Kofu, it will definitely not work. A while ago, there have been sensational news in Kinki. It is said that in order to successfully destroy the Buddha, the court has brazenly colluded with Western magicians. In fact, he defeated Buddha Shakyamuni in the Buddhist holy land of Nara, causing all the monks in the world to lose their magic power. This hatred is simply incompatible

If one day His Majesty the Buddha recovers and sees that the monk who believes in him dares to hook up with the Buddha's enemies and accomplices... Master Qingde's old bald donkey is afraid that even 10,000 deaths will be a small number.

Of course, we cannot expect these monks who have lost their magic power to fight to the end. It is estimated that they are just pretending to be a little bit, and generally speaking, they will shout and scatter.

In view of the above common understanding, the acting official made a decision quickly.

"...Oh, I admire the abbot for being so loyal and righteous in times of crisis. But the thieves are imminent invasion, and even if they are given foreign guns and heavy artillery, they will not have time to learn to use them. So I should give them thirty bamboo guns with iron gun tips - even if unfortunately they fall into the hands of the enemy, they will not be of much use in the siege battle..."

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Given the extremely poor military strength in Kofu City, Okuo Yukawa and his subordinates discussed from dusk to late at night, they did not come up with any good defense strategies. They just followed the original plan and recruited young and strong refugees who fled from the castle town, and mixed up with the remaining few veterans - actually private bodyguards and thugs - and arranged them to defend the enemy at the top of the castle.

It was already the moonlit night, and everyone felt hungry because they missed supper. The dean ordered the servant to put some tea and fruit snacks in the courtyard and used them to satisfy their hunger. If it were a normal time, the dean Yukawa Dean might even invite the song he brought from Edo Yoshihara Flower Street to perform a song for everyone. But now no one is in the mood to invite a guise to drink wine, but just drink tea and eat pastries silently.

Suddenly, a loud "boom" sound came from outside, cutting through the silence in the night, and the bureaucrats present were stunned. Then they all raised their ears intently, even stretched their necks and tiptoed, and looked at the place where the sound came.

Then, there were a few dull sounds of "boom boom", and a red light appeared on the other side of the Buwuchuan outside the city. Everyone was surprised for a moment - Could it be that these thieves actually planned to cross the river and attack overnight? Or did they explode the camp at night?

After a while, a night sentry who was running over excitedly answered their doubts.
Chapter completed!