Outside Ninja Castle, the pre-battle evaluation of the Toyotomi Army was being held, but the entire evaluation room was filled with suffocating silence. Everyone, including Ishida Mimoto himself, had livid faces and said nothing.
This suffocation comes from the Monomiban Head Army report just received: Toyotomi Hidekatsu's troops were ambushed in a storm, losing eighteen large barrels, thirteen large barrels, and almost all 10,000 kilograms of gunpowder. At the same time, 347 people were killed or seriously injured, and 326 were slightly injured. There were also some losses in food, grass, clothing, etc.
Although Mononomiban's words were very tactful, most of the people present here are veterans of the war, including Ishida Mitsunari. Although it was his first time to personally lead troops, he also had rich experience following Toyotomi Hideyoshi, "How to listen to "Information about the defeated army" It's not that he doesn't understand.
In their judgment, it was basically tacitly understood that Hidekatsubu had some of the gunpowder soaked by the storm, so they urgently dried it after setting up camp. During the drying process, they were attacked by elite soldiers sent by Ninja City with fire arrows, which ignited and exploded many objects. Gunpowder is scattered everywhere.
The giant barrels may be the main target of the Ninja City sneak attack team. They were blown up one by one, and some large barrels were also blown up by the way. (At this time, the quality of Japanese muskets was pretty good, but the level of artillery was very poor. The No. 3 gun was considered big in Japan. ), and because they were unprepared for the sneak attack, and the sneak attack team in Ninja City should all be elite, the casualties were not small.
However, Toyotomi Hidekatsu's reaction could not be considered slow. Even when his troops were almost defeated in one fell swoop, he judged that the opponent's troops were weak. He mounted his horse in the rain and clashed with each other in the formation, and finally launched a counterattack. Not only They forced the attack team back and even killed sixty or seventy people.
However, Toyotomi Hidekatsu himself was also injured. His mount was stabbed to death by a female general, and he fell off the horse on the spot and almost died. Afterwards, a military medical officer examined him and found that Lord Guan Bai's adopted son had four broken ribs, a fractured left forearm, more than a dozen bruises all over his body, and his face was almost disfigured.
Although he himself was seriously injured, he immediately ordered the pursuit to continue after being rescued. This time he sent more than a thousand people to pursue him. Judging from the comparison of the forces at the time, there was no problem with his order. After all, the sneak attack team in Ninja City only had about two hundred people in total, and they lost sixty or seventy people on the spot. According to usual practice, some of them would probably get separated or die of serious injuries. In the end, Those who can continue to fight are at most in their early 100s.
A pursuit with ten times the force is a sure-win situation no matter how you look at it. Who knew that even this kind of "guaranteed win" would lead to an accident.
The pursuers pursued them for more than ten miles, and when they were about to catch up, they were "ambushed" again - encountering an "iron artillery reserve" of more than a thousand people.
This "iron artillery reserve" that came from nowhere is not only well-trained, but the key is that the equipment is simply too sophisticated. They are equipped with all long-range iron cannons, and the reloading speed is ridiculously fast. The pursuers of Toyotomi's army didn't think much at first, they just wanted to break up the trouble in one go. Who would have thought that as soon as they met, they were directly defeated by the opponent's ferocious and abnormal firepower. As an example, a shrine general and two ashigaru generals who charged in front of the battle were killed on the spot. Their thick armors were all pierced by the opponent's iron cannon bullets.
The final result was that even if the more than a thousand pursuing troops were not pursued by the mysterious enemy army, by the time they ran back to Toyotomi Hidekatsu's team, they had already suffered more than half of their losses. This news made Toyotomi Hidekatsu, who had just received simple treatment, so angry that he fainted. The so-called reversal of the situation naturally became a luxury.
Since the sneak attack team was led by a female general, it must have been led by Kafihime from Ninja Castle. Although Ishida Mitsunari's army can be considered to be full of big guys, no matter who they are, they have all been defeated in Ninja City before.
Therefore, to be fair, Toyotomi Hidekatsu was attacked by Kabihime's army under such unfavorable circumstances, and he was still able to find a way to counterattack. This is already an outstanding performance. Although the final loss was indeed huge, we can't really blame Guan Bai's adopted son for his incompetence. It can only be said that time is fate. No one wanted to add insult to injury, and even made up their minds to send a letter to Guan Bai to protect Toyotomi Hidekatsu.
However, there are different opinions among the Ishida army regarding the mysterious and powerful iron cannon reserve.
Some people believe that this army was mostly sent by Date Masamune to rescue Ninja Castle. The reason is that Date Masamune has not yet gone to Odawara Castle to express his surrender to Lord Sekihaku, and he does have an army of no less than a thousand people under his command. The iron artillery team.
Some people think that Odawara Castle may have discovered the support army sent by Lord Sekipaku, so they sent reinforcements through unknown means. This support army finally joined forces with Ninja Castle to give Toyotomi Hidekatsu a "poor bandit" "Don't chase" experience class.
But at this moment, Masayuki Sanada, who was known for his wise generals, suddenly expressed a different view. He put forward a new guess that this army was not a Japanese army at all, but a private company of the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance that was supposed to be stationed in Misaki Castle. military.
In fact, he was not the only one who thought this way. As the leader of the Adherent Faction, Ishida Mitsunari knew the strength of the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance far better than anyone else. He also had such suspicions at the time, but he just didn't dare to say it - by the way, I thought not understand.
He couldn't understand why the Sea Trade Alliance would directly intervene in Japan's domestic war.
The Maritime Trade Alliance rented Misaki Castle from the Hojo family, and Ishida Mitsunari already knew this news. Not only did he know, he even thought he understood the reason why the Sea Trade Alliance did this, which was what the Sea Trade Alliance himself said was to have trade bases in the east and west of Japan.
Ishida Mitsunari believes in this reason, because once Qingshui City and Misaki Castle become the trading bases of the Sea Trade Alliance, then Qingshui City can radiate to Kyushu, Shikoku, and Sanin Sanyang, and Misaki Castle can radiate to Kanto, Tohoku and other places, which is equivalent to being able to reach nearby areas. With Japan's two wings conducting trade, the overall trade efficiency will be greatly improved.
As for the core of Japan, the Gyeonggi and central regions, Ishida Mitsunari has always believed that the Sea Trade Alliance did not want to set up a stronghold, but they were worried that Lord Guan Bai would be difficult to talk to, so they had to settle on two ends first, and then go back to talk to Lord Guan Bai - this It is for the sake of good appearance and convenience for "bargaining" with Lord Guan Bai.
In other words, Ishida Mitsunari was very sure that the Maritime Trade Alliance did not covet Japan's territory and only wanted to make money. But today's news can't help but make Ishida Mitsunari doubt his own judgment - if it's just to make money, Ninja City is not a seaport city, how can the Sea Trade Alliance come to rescue Ninja City when they are full? What's more, they are fighting against Lord Guan Bai!
Ishida Mitsunari suddenly had a thought: Could it be that the Maritime Trade Alliance is planning to rule Japan if there is a chance in the future?
When this thought came up, he couldn't help but trembled. He suddenly thought: Lord Nobunaga was so unscrupulous back then, and he never thought about replacing the emperor. He just wanted to imitate some powerful officials in the history of the Tang Dynasty and depose and establish him. , promoted the crown prince to succeed to the throne. Not to mention the lord Toyotomi Sekihaku, he was not born well enough. Because of his bloodline, he could not even be a general to conquer the barbarians. He had no choice but to establish the public ritual of Toyotomi Sekihaku, let alone to replace the emperor.
But if the Sea Trade Alliance has the idea of invading Japan, who can guarantee that the Ming Dynasty is not behind it to annex Japan? The Tang Dynasty regarded itself as the emperor. If they invaded Japan, would Japan have any reason to retain the emperor?
As Japan's true top civil servant, Ishida Mitsunari and Gao Pragmatic have different understandings of the emperor system. In fact, because Gao Pragmatic is not Japanese, he is a little embarrassed about the "eternal line" of Japanese emperors. He has always been worried that "if the emperor system is abolished in the future, Japan will rebel." However, Ishida Mitsunari does not see it that way at all.
In fact, this is also a manifestation of Gao's pragmatism, "he is a man but not a god". He actually has a superficial research on Japanese history, but he has never really summarized some "Japanese characteristics".
If he counts, he will find that there are not many emperors who are actually political participants: Tenchi, Hirofumi, Tenmu, Shomu, Xiaoken, Kanmu, Saga, Nimei, Uta, Daigo, Murakami, Shirakawa, Toba, Go Shirakawa, Go Toba, Go Daigo, Meiji, Showa, a total of eighteen.
Among the eighteen powerful emperors, Hirofumi was defeated; Shomu was deceived by the Fujiwara four sons into destroying the Nagaya Oman clan, the pillar of the royal family, and the royal family's power has been in decline since then; Kanbu Saga spent all the royal family's purse; Uta and Fujiwara saw each other. After a lifetime, he failed in the end; Daigo was deceived by Fujiwara Tokihei and exiled Sugawara Michizane; Murakami's last strength depended on the lack of support for the Fujiwara family; Goshirakawa played the entire court as a rim for the samurai family; Gotoba wanted to After resisting for a while, he was exiled to Yinqi Island; Hou Daigo worked hard all his life and managed to win half of the country, but then it shrank rapidly and was gone sixty years later.
The situation in Meiji and Showa was actually very special. To a certain extent, it could only be regarded as having "very huge influence", but not actual political power.
In this way, there are only a few emperors in Japanese history who have truly wielded powerful power: Tenchi, Tenmu, Kanmu, Saga, Murakami (for a short time in the later period), Shirakawa (as the emperor instead of the emperor), Toba (same as above) ), there are only seven in total.
As of the time of Gao Pangshi's time travel, there were 126 emperors in total, excluding the first 28 former emperors, there were a total of 98 emperors. It can be seen that as many as 80% of emperors have no involvement in politics at all, while only 7% of emperors have sufficient political power.
In fact, Japan was mountainous and its fields were scattered, which led to the prevalence of the manor economy in the agricultural era, with lords everywhere, a high degree of feudal autonomy, and a low degree of centralization. During the Warring States Period, the old system was greatly overturned, and several outstanding military and political geniuses emerged. However, it was still impossible to unify Japan by force and achieve centralization.
If Gao pragmatically carefully examines the several "changes of dynasties" in Japan, he should find that the Kamakura shogunate only asked the court to recognize the shogunate's control over Kanto and Ou before the Jokyu Rebellion. It was only after the Jokyu Rebellion that the shogunate extended its hands to the court's inherent territory. Set up the Northern and Southern Six Boluo Dynasties in Kyoto to manage the affairs of the Western Kingdom.
Rokupola itself has considerable autonomy, and is more like a subsidiary than a branch. Moreover, Rokupola's rule over the Western Kingdom is not solid. The imperial court and Kinai local tyrants are constantly doing things under the nose of Rokupola. .
In just one hundred years, the Kamakura shogunate was riddled with holes. The main force of the 20,000 shogunate was unable to defeat Chihaya Castle with more than 1,000 people in three months. The core foreign relative Ashikaga Takaji who went to reinforce turned around and killed Rokubora in seconds. The 20,000 main force actually just dispersed. This fully exposed the nature of the loose alliance of the shogunate, which would fall apart at the slightest headwind.
The Muromachi shogunate was even more speechless. It can be said that Ashikaga Takaji (Takashi) did not have the qualities that a founding monarch should have at all. His ability to lead the samurai to open the country basically relied on his direct lineage from the Minamoto clan.
Yoshino Minami was still alive and well, but his younger brother and younger brother were killed first, causing a fight to the death. After his younger brother killed his younger brother, Takauji, his younger brother and the eldest son of the concubine began to fight to the death, and they only managed to win half of the country until they died. It was not until his grandson Ashikaga Yoshimitsu coaxed and deceived that the whole of Japan was nominally unified. Thirty-four years had passed since Takauji left for the west.
The Muromachi shogunate also adopted the model of dividing the Western Kingdom and the Eastern Kingdom. In the Eastern Kingdom, there was the Kamakura Duke's office. The independence of the Kamakura Duke's office was even worse than that of Rokuboro. At most, Rokuboro did some things that were both positive and negative. With a small move, Kamakura Lord dared to directly rebel and seize the shogunate position, so he started the Eternal Rebellion.
After the Ekei Rebellion, the shogunate's influence on Kanto gradually declined, and Ou's influence in the Kanto region gradually declined. Needless to say, in the tenth year of Ekei's reign, the Southern Mutsu nobles besieged Inamura Lord, and Ashikaga Mitsurugi committed suicide.
Twenty years later, the Onin Rebellion broke out. A group of daimyo with intertwined interests formed two gangs and fought in Kyoto. They took the emperor from the palace to the shogun's Flower Palace, and then put the emperor and the shogun under house arrest to watch the daimyo fight each other. This beating lasted for ten years.
After that, the Ashikaga Shogun family was completely ignored by the Hosokawa family, who was in charge, and then the Hosokawa family was completely ignored by the retainers Miyoshi family, and the Miyoshi family was completely ignored by the retainers Matsunaga family. Matsunagahide felt that the general Ashikaga Yoshiteru was not honest enough, so he took two younger brothers from the Miyoshi family to kill the general, which was the infamous Eiroku rebellion. This kind of bizarre event is probably only shared by Scorpion Baba in world history.
The century-old chaos of the Warring States Period wiped out the virtues of many high-ranking celebrities, and countless talented country tycoons came into their homes. Counterfeiters like Ashikaga Takauji, who relied on their family status to blend into society, could no longer make contributions.
However, among this group of truly capable and capable players in troubled times, a figure who could completely unify Japan was still not born. The Oda Nobunaga Group reaches as far as Harima Sanuki in the west and Kai Shinano in the east, and it is already regarded as a world leader. The Oda Group is also not monolithic, and its reliability is very worrying. Each of the six legions has its own territory and personal troops. Therefore, once Nobunaga himself died violently, the Oda family immediately fell apart. Hashiba Hideyoshi became the leader because of internal fighting. Nobunaga's "successor".
It can be seen that there is no soil for the development of strong imperial power in this environment and system. The symbolic significance of the emperor itself is far greater than the actual significance. Even the Shogun and Shogun only had symbolic significance for a long time.
Later, Tokugawa Ieyasu promulgated the "Prohibition and Regulation of Public Affairs", which legalized the fact that the entire imperial court, including the emperor, was a mascot.
Although there was no "Regulations on Prohibition and Incorporation of Public Households" at this time, Ishida Mitsunari was "a family member who knows his own affairs." He was not like Gao Pragmatic, who had not yet figured out the reason, and believed that the emperor's system could not be abolished - the two previous The reason why the shogunate and the current "Toyotomi Gongyi" were unable to depose the emperor was ultimately because their direct lineage was not strong enough and had to use the name of the emperor to "hijack the emperor to order the princes". It was not at all how sacred and inviolable the emperor system was.
Ishida Mitsunari waited for a long time, but no one spoke first. He couldn't help himself, coughed slightly, and said: "The matter has come to this, it is useless to talk more. In my opinion, this defeat is not a crime of war."
After setting the tone, he paused and continued: "However, if the Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance interferes in this matter, it will be of great importance. I have decided to go to Odawara City in person to meet Guan Bai. Your Highnesses, please give me your full support. Shu Dazang Daisuke conquers Ninja City, Sancheng is grateful, please."
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