As a vanguard to defend against Toyotomi's army, the mountain castle was built very solidly. However, the difference in military strength is also obvious. The so-called attack with five times the strength is now as high as ten times. The psychological pressure on the defenders is of course very great. Although the general offensive of the Toyotomi Army was originally scheduled for noon, since Hideyoshi's main force arrived after noon, the actual start time of the general offensive was around 3 p.m.
The Hojo army led by the castle lord Matsuda Yasunaga, and Hojo Ujikatsu, Mamiya Yasutoshi, Asakura Kagecheng and others also tried their best to defend, but Daizaki Demaru was captured first, and finally Nishinomaru was also captured, with the result that only Around dusk the whole city was captured.
The city that the Hojo clan spent several years building was taken away in just half a day. This news was undoubtedly shocking to the Hojo clan. This meant that the people who inherited Oda Nobunaga's policy of separating soldiers and peasants Toyotomi Hideyoshi's army was far superior in combat effectiveness to the Hojo clan's traditional military system of "elite samurai leading a large number of peasant soldiers".
If Gao Jingjing is here, he may not be surprised by this kind of battle situation, but he may be worried about the current military system of the Ming Dynasty, because the military system of the Ming Dynasty is actually very similar to the model of the Hojo family, which is nothing more than generals. The servants are like warriors, and the guardsmen are like peasant soldiers.
Fortunately, in the original Korean War, the Ming Dynasty first dispatched direct descendants of the Li family army, and the proportion of servants was high enough. In the later period, the direct descendants of General Xuan were also dispatched, and the main force of the army was also servants. This allowed the Ming army to win with a weak force. Japanese army. As for Li Jiajun's injuries, that's another topic.
The Toyotomi army's idea was to defeat them one by one, so on March 29, another army was attacking Nirayama Castle at the same time.
According to the arrangement of the Hojo family, the line of Ashigara Castle-Yanaka Castle-Nariyama Castle (韭, 通韭, 魭 of leeks.) formed the Hojo family's western defense line, and Hideyoshi's plan was to capture two of them at the same time.
The people responsible for the Toyotomi army's attack on Nirayama Castle were Oda Nobuo, Hosokawa Tadayaki, Kamaojigo, Hachisuka Kasei, Fukushima Masanori and others, leading a total of 44,000 troops.
However, compared with the mountain city that was captured in about two hours, Jiu Shan City was not so easy to capture. In the original history, the final surrender of Kaicheng here was on June 24, and the cage battle actually lasted for three months. The men who defended Nirayama Castle were the Hojo Clan's men. Their disadvantage was actually huge. They only had 3,600 people in total, which was even fewer than the guards at Yamanaka Castle.
In later generations, many people believed that Shanzhong City was breached in less than half a day, while Jiushan City persisted for three months because the fortifications of Jiushan City were relatively strong. However, if we say that the fortress is strong, or that the city's structure is clever, in fact, the mountain city is not inferior to Jiu Shan Castle at all.
In fact, the real problem is that the difference in awareness between the attackers caused this situation. Because, as for Hideyoshi, the Yamanaka Castle must be captured, because the main force of his own team is dispatched here. If he cannot take it or delays, it will be ugly, so this team The team gathered a large number of Beijing-made cannons that he had smuggled from the Ming Dynasty;
In contrast, Jiushan City does not necessarily need to be captured immediately. It's good to capture it, but even if you can't capture it, it doesn't matter the overall situation. To a large extent, it's even better to capture it slowly - you can't be better than Lord Guan Bai, right?
Therefore, with the momentum of conquering the mountain castle in one go, Hideyoshi's army deployed at Hakone Mountain on April 1 and arrived at Hakone Yumoto on the third day. After three days of repairs, Hideyoshi's main force marched towards Odawara and began to adopt a posture of surrounding Odawara.
As everyone expected, Odawara Castle was protected by a large castle wall and moat. Even if Hideyoshi mobilized an army of more than 200,000 people, it could not be captured easily. This giant city has an ultra-wide moat, tall walls made of stone bricks, and a solid and complex structure. Although Hideyoshi has many cannons, he lacks heavy artillery. Of course, he can attack a small city with one force, but he can attack such a huge city. It's not very convenient.
Of course, in addition to this, he also has another trouble. The Sea Trade Alliance has quietly lowered the export volume of saltpeter. As a result, Japan has an almost unlimited supply of sulfur, but there is no supporting saltpeter, resulting in basically no gunpowder output. Go, even close to a shutdown recently.
To be fair, the walls of Odawara Castle, which are more than a foot high, are nothing compared to the real majestic castle of the Ming Dynasty, but in Japan, they are indeed bug-like existences, and the castles and towns are tightly wrapped. There are nine exits leading to the outside of the city on the outer wall. You can only go through these nine exits if you want to enter or exit the city. Moreover, each entrance was guarded by a member of the Hojo family or important ministers who had followed the Hojo family for several generations. The defense was very tight. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi arrived and inspected it in person, he had to admit that the city could not be captured in a short time.
Hideyoshi re-examined and believed that this battle would inevitably turn into a protracted siege, so he built a new city specifically for the capture of Odawara Castle. This new town is Ishigakiyama Castle, which is world-famous as the "One-Night Castle" and is often called Ishigakiyama One-Night Castle.
However, the story of "One Night Castle" is actually not true. Hideyoshi started building Ishigakiyama Castle on April 6th. Although it is called the "One-Night City", future generations will be affected by the impression of a city built in a short time. In fact, this city took a long time to build, and the fortifications were all completed on June 26. day. So it is actually not a "one-night city", but an eighty-day city (Note: According to "Jia Zhong's Diary").
During this period, the always lecherous Toyotomi Hideyoshi even brought his concubine Yododen from Osaka Castle to Ishigakiyama Castle, and also recruited many Noh performers to perform Noh plays. While doing so, he continued to besiege Odawara Castle and wage a protracted war.
For the Odawara strategy, Hideyoshi not only mobilized 220,000 troops, but also ordered the navy to attack the Izu Navy stronghold on the Izu Peninsula. In addition, he deployed naval forces to Sagami Bay to surround Odawara Castle from the sea.
In contrast, the Hojo Army counted all the soldiers scattered in the branch cities within the territory, and there were only about 56,000 soldiers. Among them, like the mountain city that has been captured just now, there are four or even five thousand guards in each city, and even the smallest branch city has at least seven hundred people.
On the one hand, Hideyoshi surrounded Odawara Castle, and on the other hand, he defeated each of the branch castles within the general.
Most of the small cities were surrounded for less than a day before they surrendered. However, the five cities of Matsuida Castle, Nirayama Castle, Hatagata Castle, Iwatsuke Castle, and Ninja Castle have withstood for a relatively long time and have not yet fallen.
With Gao Pragmatic's intervention, the historical episode occurred at this moment, specifically in Ninja City.
In fact, Ninja City is not a real city. It is a natural fortress made up of many small islands scattered in swamps and lakes.
There are bridges connecting small islands, but there are no bridges between some islands and can only be reached through other small islands. This forms the complex topography of the city. The topography of Ninja City means that even if the city is besieged, it does not need to worry about food and water sources, because the lakes and swamps are covered with large areas of lotus flowers. Now you can eat lotus roots at this time of the year, and the fish resources in the lakes are also extremely abundant. This is enough to ensure the city is self-sufficient.
However, Ninja City also has big problems. The most critical problem is the serious shortage of human resources, so the military strength is also extremely weak. When Ninja City was undergoing a cage fortification, the nearby people took refuge in the city. But even so, the total number of people in the several island fortresses was only more than 3,700, less than 4,000, and about 80% of them joined the battle. Of course, most of them are mainly for city defense assistance. It is hard to say whether they can be considered as regular participation in the war.
After excluding the local people, the actual strength of Ninja Castle is about 80 samurai and about 400 ordinary soldiers. The Toyotomi army that initially attacked Ninja Castle had more than 20,000 troops, and later peaked at more than 40,000. The general of the army was Ishida Mitsunari, who has been mentioned many times before in this book.
Although Ishida Mitsunari was deeply trusted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his troops crushed the soldiers of Ninja Castle, during the attack, the army led by Ishida Mitsunari was never able to break through any of the frontline defenses of Ninja Castle.
In fact, it's not that Ishida Mitsunari doesn't understand command, or that the soldiers are afraid of the enemy. It's really that the general in charge of guarding Ninja City is too brave. As long as Ishida Mitsunari attacks, the general in Ninja City will always be at the forefront. Coupled with the help of a group of older but experienced samurai, Ishida Mitsunari attacked left and right, but all failed.
Ishida Mitsunari led the army to attack for seven days, but all failed. After Toyotomi Hideyoshi learned about it, he ordered Ishida Mitsunari to use water attacks.
This order stunned Ishida Mitsunari, because Ninja Castle was originally a fortress city formed by the union of islands in the lake. This terrain already determined that water attacks would have no effect, but Toyotomi Hideyoshi insisted on using water attacks, and said that he On the day of the water attack, he will lead other generals to watch the battle.
The characteristic of the obedience faction is that they do not have much strength and rely entirely on the power given by the family leader. Therefore, it is impossible for Ishida Mitsunari to disobey Toyotomi Hideyoshi's orders. In desperation, Ishida Mitsunari had to find people to build the embankment. Seven days later, the 28-kilometer-long, 9-meter-high, and 7-meter-wide embankment was officially completed.
But there is no doubt that among the people who came to build the embankment, there were people from the Ninja City defenders who sneaked in. They tampered with some key positions during the embankment construction project. At this time, the Toyotomi army was unable to attack Ninja Castle due to rising water levels.
The defenders of Ninja City even took the opportunity to have fun. The general of Ninja Castle even held a banquet in the city, which made the Toyotomi army watching from the distant hills couldn't help but be shocked and angry, and then sighed again and again.
The rising water level also impacted the dam. Since it had loopholes in itself, the dam naturally burst. Because Ishida Mitsunari was prepared when building the dam, the casualties of the army he led were not serious, but in any case, its morale was extremely low.
The question is, why did the battle-hardened Toyotomi Hideyoshi force Ishida Mitsunari to use water attack on Ninja Castle?
The answer is actually not that difficult: because there was a pinnacle event in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's half-life expedition, called "Flooding Takamatsu Castle" [Note: There is not much historical controversy about this matter, so I won't explain it. It's not clear but there is Interested friends can just search Baidu directly].
Since Flooding Takamatsu was Toyotomi Hideyoshi's previous masterpiece, it is understandable that he wanted to replicate a glorious victory in the final battle to pacify the world. Perhaps Toyotomi Hideyoshi thought that once this approach was successful, it would be a great success in the future. The legendary "echoing from beginning to end".
But at this moment, Ishida Mitsunari's fortune suddenly changed, and the Toyotomi Army's careful investigation revealed that the castle's castle representative, the acting lord Narita Taiki, died of illness!
According to Ishida Mitsunari's understanding, Narita Taiki is the most determined militant in Ninja City, and because he is the uncle of the lord Narita clan, he has a unique position in Ninja City. He can be said to be the backbone of Ninja City. So, once Taiji Narita dies, won't the fall of Ninja Castle be just around the corner?
Wait, something seems to be missing here - why did Ninja City have a castle during such an important war? In other words, where did the lord of the city, Mr. Narita, go?
The thing is this: after the Odawara conquest order was issued, as soon as the news of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's troops was sent to Odawara Castle, the Hojo family ordered the lord of Ninja Castle, the Narita clan, to lead half of the troops to rush to Odawara Castle, so the Narita clan led half of the Ninja castle. The defenders had already gone to Odawara Castle to assist in the battle. This was the reason why the number of troops in Ninja Castle was only a few hundred. Originally, they had more than a thousand troops.
The elder of the Narita clan went on an expedition to assist his lord. According to tradition, his son would usually be appointed as the castle representative. However, the problem was that he had no sons and only three daughters, so he had to hand over the job of Jodai to his uncle Taiji Narita.
With Narita Taiki's status and appeal in Ninja City, he certainly has the ability to do a good job in this castle, but it is a pity that he has died of illness again. According to the intelligence received by Ishida Mitsunari here, Narita Nagauchi, the son of Narita Taiki, is a coward. Although he is very tall, he is not brave and burly. He is just tall and fat. He can't even climb up on a horse.
Moreover, Narita Nagauchi has a very cowardly character. It is said that when he walked in the countryside, even though he was dressed as a samurai, even the villagers dared to ask him to help with farm work - this was almost unimaginable and weird in Japan where classes were solidified, which led to The people of Ninja City not only dared to call him "His Royal Highness Adou" not only in private, but also in front of him.
Ishida Mitsunari would naturally not take such a person seriously, so regardless of the morale blow caused by the breach of the embankment, he once again ordered the generals to attack.
Who knows, this attack still failed. The reason for the failure was that the general of Ninja Castle once again attacked decisively and defeated the front army of the Toyotomi Army with elite troops, and the rear army immediately collapsed on its own.
Although Ishida Mitsunari was furious, there was nothing he could do - the people under his command were from various alliances, and almost all of them were daimyo. If Toyotomi Hideyoshi came to take charge in person, he would be able to command, but it is a pity that Ishida Mitsunari cannot. ah! He is only thirty years old this year and has no direct military exploits before. Those famous names are all similar to the "Generals" of the Ming Dynasty. Who is willing to listen to him?
Besides, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's previous order also gave them an excuse, and they all clamored for Ishida Mitsunari to continue building the dam - building the dam can sharpen foreign workers and preserve their strength, which is naturally harder than running to fight with the mysterious general of Ninja Castle. Fight ten thousand times better.
However, just when Ishida's head was as big as a bucket, there was also someone in Odawara Castle who was anxious.
This person is the Narita clan leader, the lord of Ninja Castle, who has just learned that his uncle Taiji Narita has died of illness. The reason why he is so anxious is that, in addition to the fact that Ninja Castle itself is in danger in his opinion, the only other person left is the man who has been the leader so far. The safety of the extremely mysterious general is also in danger.
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Thanks to book friend "Cao Mianzi" for your reward and support, thank you!
Thanks to book friends "Laoxi from Altay", "Cao Mianzi", "Zhou Yanyy", and "KIKI Kai" for their monthly ticket support, thank you!
PS: It implies that the general of Ninja City has reached this point, should you guess who it is? Hey hey hey...
