Japan, the tenth year of Wenzheng, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
Mito Domain's Oarai Town Port is heavily guarded today. On the pier and in the port town, all the Mito clan troops carrying rifles were standing guard. All the shops in the town have their doors and windows closed, and no one is allowed to step out of their homes.
Ten British warships, led by the ironclad battleship "Revenge", and ten large sailing ships towed by steamers rolled up snow-white waves and slowly sailed into Oarai Town Port on the Pacific Ocean. Since there are no natural bays or coastal islands to provide shelter from the wind, it is difficult for Oarai-machi Port to protect ships in the harbor during the monsoon. However, because Oarai-machi Port has no bays or islands to use, its waterways are very wide. So much so that twenty visiting British ships were able to enter the harbor in formation, and the scene was extremely spectacular.
At this time, Tokugawa Saiaki, the heir to the Mito Domain and the commander of the Tokugawa Shogunate Navy, was standing on the pier of Oarai-machi Port with Enomoto Enbei, the aviation staff officer of the Shogunate Navy Office, with his arms folded and his neck raised, looking at the sky. Around the two of them, there was also a group of Mito feudal lords in charge of coastal defense. They were all looking up at the sky and shouting while looking at the sky.
"Is this a hot air balloon? Why are there two propellers spinning?"
"No, no, no...that's not a hot air balloon, that's an airship!"
"Fly, airship? Is it the Ming airship that unexpectedly attacked Peshawar?"
"How did the Ming Kingdom airship fly to Mito? Could it be that the invasion has already begun?"
"So, what should we do now? What should we use to fight the airships in the sky? Rifles? Bows and arrows? Or... tachi?"
When he heard someone around him saying that he wanted to use a tachi to cut down the airship, Enomoto Enbei made a "poof" sound and was amused. Tokugawa Saiaki's face was a bit ugly. After all, it was his subordinates who were talking nonsense. He turned around and saw that the person talking nonsense was his confidant in Mito Domain, a young feudal lord named Anshima Daito.
Tokugawa Saiaki said calmly: "Anshima, what are you talking about?"
Wearing a traditional samurai costume, Anjima also had a samurai sword in his waist that could be used for cutting people, anti-ships, and anti-aircraft. He quickly stood at attention, then bowed again and explained: "Sir, Of course I know that tachi is difficult to use for air defense...but as a samurai, I should fight to the death against the enemies who invade Japan and the Mito Domain at any time, no matter what weapon is used, or even whether there are weapons or not. !”
Tokugawa Qiaki nodded: "So, if the ten airships in the sky are really invading Ming airships, how should we carry out effective defense?"
"This..." Yasushima thought for a moment with his sword, "Sir, I think that as long as all the Mito samurai and I wait for everyone to pick up swords and guns, we should first lurk carefully and wait until Mingkou gets off the airship. , attack together, and kill all the invading enemies! Sir, please give the order! We Mito samurai are all willing to die in service to our country!"
"Please obey your orders!" The other Mito feudal lords also shouted together.
Although this method of securing the island is not feasible at all - if the Ming Dynasty's airship paratroopers really come, they will certainly catch the Mito Domain by surprise. How can they give the Mito Domain a chance to summon feudal lords and organize an ambush? But Tokugawa Saiaki was still very satisfied. At least Anshima didn't say that he would immediately protect the feudal lord and Saiaki and escape (in fact, this was correct). He looked back at Enomoto Enbei proudly.
Enomoto Enbei quickly complimented: "My Lord, the loyalty of your Mito Domain samurai is well-deserved, and I admire you greatly." Then he deliberately lowered his voice and said, "But their loyalty cannot be used today, because the sky The ten airships among them are not Ming Dynasty airships, but airships sold to me by the British Empire and the Japanese Empire!"
"Our Imperial Japanese airship?"
"The shogunate is also going to form an airship team?"
"This is great. We in Japan have an airship fleet, so we are no longer afraid of Minko's airships!"
Hearing that the airships flying in were all Japan's own airships, all the Mito feudal lords felt grateful, but they still had to maintain their loyalty, otherwise their naval officers would order them to be belly-pierced... ....
Tokugawa Noriaki looked at these Mito domain warriors with expectant eyes and said: "According to Lord Kōkata's order, the airship soldiers of the shogunate naval air force will be secretly recruited from the shogunate's direct counselors and Mito domain warriors!
In addition, the establishment of the airship fleet by the shogunate is a secret. You cannot tell others that the airship arriving at Mito today belongs to Japan! "
"Hai!"
All the Mito feudal lords were Qi Zhao's confidants, and of course they knew what their master meant - his master Qi Zhao wanted them all to join the airship fleet of the Shogunate Navy. Qi Zhao is the leader of the navy, and the airship team is from the navy, and Qi Zhao, the boss of the navy, takes care of them. Not to mention their bright future, they still have a future of one or two hundred stones and rice. With so much rice, we can eat more freely in the future!
At this time, the ten airships in the sky had flown over the heads of Tokugawa Saaki and others, flew to a piece of snow-covered farmland north of Oarai Town, and began to slowly fall.
Tokugawa Saiaki, Enomoto Enbei, and the Mito domain lords who followed them all turned their attention to these advanced weapons from England, with the fire of hope shining in their eyes.
...
When the "advanced aircraft" made in Britain flew to Oarai Town Port in Mito Domain, Japan, Zhuge Weidao, the "aerospace military advisor" of the Ming Dynasty, was following Zhuge Weijiu, the great military advisor, and Zhuge Weiyi, who was about to serve as the Minister of the Navy. , Chief of Naval Staff Zhuge Weiyong were eating glutinous rice balls together in Prince Zheng Jiacheng’s Mansion!
Although the financial resources and influence of the Zheng family are not as good as those of the Zhuge family, because King Zhuge Wuzhong once took refuge with Zheng Chenggong and also established his own military division camp with Zheng Chenggong's funding, the Zhuge family has always held the Zheng family in high esteem. rise. Even in the era when King Zhuge Wuzhong had monopoly power, the post of Prime Minister Zuo, the nominal prime minister of the Ming Empire, was held by turns among the three brothers Zheng Jing, Zheng Cong, and Zheng Ming. After King Wu Zhong, the military advisors of the Zhuge family have always abided by the rules passed down by their ancestors, and have always maintained their position as the first in strength and the third in name in the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, after the end of King Wu Zhong's rule, the Ming Empire had been transformed into a modern country in the primary stage of industrialization. The land was even, the people were intelligent, and all systems were relatively sound. The era of feudal warlords was over. The so-called "strength" is not the private soldiers, nor is it the Ming army controlled by the eight aristocratic families (according to the arrangement of King Wu Zhong, there are many children of the eight aristocratic families and their nobles serving as officials in the army, but none of them have matured. The organized army is under the complete control of a certain family), but it is the strong financial resources and the number of political officials who control the Ming Dynasty's political councils at all levels.
Therefore, for more than a hundred years, the power struggle within the Ming Dynasty has been limited to the financial field and the political council, and no matter the victory or defeat, dignity has been maintained.
In an attic in the back garden of Prince Zheng Jiacheng's Mansion, four Zhuge military advisors "dressed as Zhuge Liang" and three "officials" of the Zheng family, as well as Yu De's uncle, and Yu Quan, the seventy-five or six-year-old old man, were sitting there. , as well as Lin Zexu, Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Zheng Guoxian, who had just returned from the battlefield in Peshawar, all sat down separately, while tasting authentic old Beijing seafood glutinous rice balls - small glutinous rice balls without sinks and various seafood, Boil the vegetables together... It really has Beijing characteristics!
However, people who had just celebrated the New Year seemed to have little appetite. They ate a few glutinous rice balls and started chatting about world affairs.
"What? Join the alliance against Turkey? Then don't we become allies with Britain?" Zheng Guozhong was a little confused when he heard Zhuge Weijiu proposed joining the anti-Turkish alliance. "Aren't we going to oppose the British Empire?"
"Your Majesty," Zhuge Weidao is now a military advisor, so he naturally has a voice, so he is not polite and directly takes Zheng Guozhong's question and says, "What we oppose is not the British Empire, but colonialism!"
