Not to mention the chaos at Ishinomaki Port, Sendai Castle (Aoba Castle), a hundred and thirty miles away, has been in a state of emergency since yesterday.
Since Matsushima Town's hasty escape back to Sendai Castle to report, Ninomaruchi has sent more than a dozen people into the residences of retainers in the castle town.
Because of the arrival of the Thor, the important ministers of the sect invited by Ishikawa Murafumi have not left Aoba City, and there is no need to search everywhere.
Therefore, in addition to those retainers who went to Edo Castle with Date Shigemura to attend the service, all the 1st clan, 1st family, quasi-family, 1st clan, Sukuro, and daifu clansmen living in the castle town of this domain were all summoned to the survey office in Ninomaru. The meeting hall urgently discusses countermeasures.
At the same time, Ishikawa Murafumi, the elder of the family, ordered that all high-ranking samurai (grand feudal warriors) be summoned into the city to strengthen their vigilance; they would immediately check the various weapons stored in the domain and the condition of the horses of each samurai family to ensure that they could go to war at any time.
But, there's a problem.
Counting from the end of the Osaka Summer Battle in 1615, it has been almost two hundred years since the world was at peace. To put it nicely, the military preparedness of the vassals has long been relaxed; to put it unpleasantly, it means that everything is rotten from top to bottom.
In the past two years, there has been a famine everywhere in the Ou area. The lower-level samurai have even sold their armor to buy food, let alone going into battle. Some samurai have become so destitute that they have even sold their horses. The most outrageous thing is that they have mortgaged their samurai swords. Change money, then wrap a piece of bamboo in tinfoil to pretend to be a samurai sword...
The ambition of the two generations of One-Eyed Dragon Masamune to compete with the Tokugawa family for the world has long since evaporated; all that is left are desperate efforts to make money and enjoyment.
It is said that the main armed force of the Date family is the cavalry composed of the Daihanshi (high-level samurai group), with as many as 3,600 people; these samurai are divided into ten groups, each group has 360 people.
As a result, Matsushima Town lost nearly one-tenth in one morning.
After hearing the news, Ishikawa Murafumi was so frightened that he was the one who gave the order to ambush at the seaside.
It is said that after Katayama Kanbei and five of his men were captured and taken back to the government office, they were immediately subjected to harsh interrogation. The few eyes that couldn't stand the torture decided to use all the information they knew about the situation.
As soon as the Matsushima Town Chief heard that the people on board the Thor had oriental faces and spoke fluent island dialect, he sent someone to report to Aoba Castle overnight.
Family leader Ishikawa Murafumi rashly and wrongly judged the situation. He changed the plan previously proposed by Endo Morinobu and secretly ordered the samurai sent to Matsushima Town to find an opportunity to capture the Thor's crew. So there was a scene where Zhao Xin bombarded Matsushima Town.
In view of Ishikawamura Fumi's serious mistake, the host of this meeting became the twelve-year-old Idamura Yoshi, but the person who actually made the decision was the twenty-year-old Datemura Tsune. .
The initial results of the inventory of weapons and equipment were very bad. The saltpeter stored in our store was seriously insufficient; evenly divided into each iron cannon, it was only enough to fire two rounds.
Except for the pitiful local saltpeter production in Echuchu and Hida regions, the island country does not produce saltpeter at all and relies entirely on imports; and the saltpeter import trade is firmly in the hands of the Tokugawa family.
Since we can't win, we can only solve the problem through negotiation. However, everyone agreed that Sendai clan officials must not appear in public. The shogunate strictly prohibited foreign vassals from communicating with foreign barbarians privately. Once discovered, this crime is more serious than the death of more than 200 samurai, and it is very likely that his seal will be reduced.
As for the Matsushima Town Executive, it was unfortunate that he took the blame for this incident. Because of the private provocation, he was ordered to return to his home in the castle town to reflect behind closed doors and not to go out. We would discuss how to deal with it after the head of the family, Date Shigemura, came back.
The retainer meeting finally decided to ask the old fox Endo Moribu to step in and direct the negotiation process behind the scenes. After all, he is over sixty, already semi-retired among retainers, and rarely shows up.
Early the next morning, the largest merchant house in Sendai Castle Town, "Murataya", sent a team consisting of a sedan and more than twenty followers, and left under the pretext of going to Ishinomaki Port to see the goods.
After the group arrived at Matsushima Town, they found that the Thor had already left; in order to prevent their identity from being revealed, they had no choice but to go to Ishinomaki Port to show off and then return.
At noon, the team finally arrived at Ishinomaki Port.
As soon as I entered the town, I saw the notice posted by the government office that the big ship was actually here.
Endo Morinobu, who was sitting in a sedan, had just arrived at the branch of "Murataya" in Ishinomaki Port. He immediately wrote a handwritten letter and ordered someone to secretly invite the mayor.
After receiving the secret letter, Machi put on a disguise and brought Shibata Kakuzo, the tax collector, and the winery owner Katsuyama Denzo to meet with Endo Moronobu, and reported in detail the meeting with everyone on the Thor in the morning.
After listening to the situation report, Endo Morinobu was not in a hurry to express his position. He just said that he would wait until the other side fired cannons in the afternoon.
...
In the first Opium War of later generations, the British army divided its forces and went north to attack Zhoushan, Zhejiang. The Zhoushan defenders launched a large-scale artillery battle with the British fleet. After the Qing army fired hundreds of artillery shells, they found that only one hit the enemy ship. In the end, the Zhoushan garrison was completely defeated under the gunfire of British warships.
In the education and knowledge Zhao Xin received from childhood, he always believed that the Qing army's artillery was too poor, so it could not hit British warships.
But when he saw half of the conference table covered with the "Ground Artillery Grenade Launch Table", ballistic calculation data, shooting various elements, calibration various elements and other calculation results, Zhao Xin finally understood that the person who failed mathematics was Can't play with cannons!
Zhao Xin's mathematics level was just passable; while Wang Yuanfang and Liu Sheng had almost forgotten the little calculation knowledge they had mastered by rote memorization; except for Deng Fei.
Since Deng Fei learned about Zhao Xin's "cannon on board" plan, he began to use his free time to review and recall the investigation and calculation skills he had learned. He thought clearly that since he had a cannon, this knowledge would be used sooner or later.
At the same time, before Zhao Xin bought the artillery, he had intentionally or unintentionally prepared a lot of auxiliary equipment for artillery.
For example, drones; industrial-grade laser rangefinders with a range of up to 20 kilometers; compasses, and a second-hand military reconnaissance computer purchased from the Internet. In addition to the above, the most important thing was the two steering wheels he had previously asked Daniel to help buy (special ranging equipment for artillery, which can measure the target azimuth angle so that the artillery can aim at the target).
So with all these preparations, Zhao Xin had the confidence to say the bombardment of Ishinomaki Port and Sendai Castle.
Otherwise, Ishinomaki Port is fine, and at worst the ship will be driven into the harbor to confront Todoroki; as for Sendai Castle, forget it, unless the Thor is driven onto land. (The direct range of D30 is 950 meters)
The previous shot at Matsushima Town was purely a stroke of luck.
Zhao Xin finally understood that before establishing a systematic mathematical calculation level and corresponding talent training, no one could handle the bombardment of dozens or even hundreds of cannons, especially in naval battles.
At noon that day after the ultimatum was issued, a drone rose from the Thor and came to the sky above Ishinomaki Port.
In Ishinomaki Port, which had been notified by the government, almost all the owners and sailors of the cargo ships evacuated. Only a few people who had not left yet spotted the strange black bird floating in the sky and jumped down in fright. The cargo ship hurriedly ran towards the town.
After the townspeople heard that the barbarian ships were going to fire cannons into the harbor this afternoon, they no longer dared to stay at home. Almost everyone in Ishinomaki Port knew the news that Matsushima Town was bombed yesterday.
As a result, thousands of people arrived at a small hill one mile north of Ishinomaki Port with their hurriedly packed belongings. Endo Morinobu and his entourage, following everyone from the "Murata House", also came here.
At this time, the best observation position on the hill has been occupied by the execution office and a large number of samurai masters. Many townspeople had no choice but to climb onto the rocks and trees on the hills and peek out to watch.
Endo Morinobu was wearing a large bamboo hat and was supported by two of his men. He found a position in the crowd where he could see the harbor and waited patiently.
At three o'clock in the morning, amid the exclamations of thousands of people on the hill, a gray-white speedboat about ten feet long sailed into Ishinomaki Port at lightning speed.
After the ship stopped, several people came out of the cabin and together they threw several large white wooden boxes stacked on the deck into the sea.
Then, the clipper quickly turned around and sailed towards the big ship in the distance. Everyone on the hill was talking a lot.
"How could this ship be so fast!" Endo Morinobu was secretly shocked as he watched the speeding ship go away. Judging from the speed of the ship in front of me, the Navy's Guan Ship simply couldn't catch up.
During the Edo period, the fastest ship was the Kanbune, with an average speed of eight knots.
Speaking of which, the purpose of shutting down a ship is to quickly catch up with other ships, get close to them, control them, and then collect money from them! The name Kanfune refers to the "checkpoint" on the sea.
(In the "Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary", in the translation of Guan Ship, there is an explanation that directly points to: Japanese pirate ship.)
"What are they doing?"
"Why didn't the wooden box float away?"
"There should be heavy objects tied under the wooden box, so it won't float away." Someone behind Endo Morinobu said with certainty.
At the end of the second quarter, three long blasts suddenly came from the distant sea. The hills suddenly became silent, and everyone looked in the direction of the Thor.
Following Zhao Xin's order in the cockpit, Deng Fei and Wang Yuanfang, who heard Zhao Xin's order from the loudspeaker, suddenly pulled the rope hanging on the firing machine.
"Boom~~! Boom~~!" Two loud noises sounded almost at the same time, and the grenade roared towards Ishinomaki Port two kilometers away.
People on the hill heard a loud thunder-like sound coming from the sea in the distance. Many people's faces suddenly turned pale. Some people knelt on the ground and recited scriptures to pray for the Buddha's blessing.
Immediately afterwards, there was a roar in the air. Just as everyone was about to raise their heads to distinguish carefully, they heard two consecutive loud noises in the port, and two huge water columns mixed with smoke and dust rose into the sky.
Just after a few breaths, two more loud noises were heard from the sea in the distance, accompanied by the same roar across the sky, followed by a huge explosion and a huge water column spraying from the sea in the port.
Those with good eyesight in the crowd saw countless sawdust flying into the air along with the water column, and then falling to the sea.
When the smoke cleared from the sea, someone exclaimed: "Those wooden boxes are gone!"
Endo Morinobu lifted up his bamboo hat and looked towards the port, and found that some wood chips could be faintly seen floating on the sea where the wooden box was.
There was silence on the hill where thousands of people were. Everyone was frightened.
Endo Morinobu's legs softened and he sat on the ground.
