If someone asks who is the most trusted "diplomat" under Toyotomi Hideyoshi, then the answer is yes: Toyotomi Hideyoshi. This time an envoy was sent to Misaki Castle. Toyotomi Hideyoshi specially sent someone back to the capital to invite Toyotomi Hideyoshi and ordered him to go to Misaki Castle to meet Luo Yuan in person.
Who is Toyotomi Hidecho? He is the younger brother of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and his nicknames are Koichiro and Kotake. One characteristic of him is that he has always followed his elder brother Hideyoshi's surname: Kinoshita was originally Kinoshita. After Hideyoshi changed the Miao character to Hashiba, he changed his name to Hideuchi Hashiba. In the 12th year of Tensho (1584), he changed his name because Hideyoshi was given the surname Toyotomi by the emperor. For Toyotomi Hidecho.
In the 13th year of Tensho (1585), he took over Koriyama Castle in the Yamato Kingdom and became a daimyo worth 1.1 million koku. In the 15th year of Tianzheng (1587), he was appointed as the Great Nagon, so he was called Yamato Nagon. If we simply evaluate his life, he is the right-hand man of his brother Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He is very active in both civil and military fields, and he also made great contributions to Hideyoshi's unification of the world.
Whether in the current generation or in later generations, Xiuchang's evaluation of Xiuchang is generally very high. For example, when Xiuchang passed away, there was a comment that "the one who cultivates internal rituals is Zongyi, and the only one who practices upright and public welfare etiquette is the prime minister (referring to Xiuchang)." Later generations said that he was "the most talented but least known professional staff member in Japan at that time."
Hideyoshi held a very important position in the Toyotomi regime, and Hideyoshi relied heavily on and trusted Hideyoshi in both official and private affairs. Xiu Zhang was very helpful to his brother, and the two of them cooperated well, so Xiu Zhang was promoted to a very high level. Generally speaking, it is more pertinent that brothers have a good relationship.
However, this time Hideyoshi had no choice but to let his younger brother take action in person, and even felt guilty and worried to a certain extent. The reason is that after the Kyushu expedition at the end of the fifteenth year of Tianzheng, Xiuchang began to fall ill and could only attend some formal activities that were not very tiring, such as the joy gathering mentioned before. In addition, they mostly pray for recovery from illnesses and accept visits from all parties. Therefore, he was unable to participate in the Odawara Conquest and the Oshu Conquest in the original history, and eventually died of illness for more than three years.
Of course, Xiuchang is not perfect. His shortcoming is that he is greedy for money. For example, during the Kyushu expedition, Hidenchou transported part of the military provisions back to his own territory for sale ("Kawakaku Taikoki"); in December of the 16th year of Tensho, Kii Zaga's acting official brought timber to Osaka for sale. As a result, the money received was swallowed up by Hidetaka's acting official ("Tamonin Diary"). This incident made his elder brother Hideyoshi very angry, and Hideyoshi did not let Hideyoshi go to see him during the New Year.
According to the original history, when Hidecho died, his family had 56,000 pieces of gold, and a room of nearly 13 square meters was filled with silver ("Tawenin Diary"). However, his great achievements can still outweigh his small shortcomings, and there has never been any discord between other brothers.
At this time, Hideyoshi was already seriously ill. Toyotomi Hideyoshi specially sent Kato Yoshiaki to pick him up with the armed transport ship purchased by Kyoka. He landed at Nirayama Castle in the east of Suruga Bay and only took a short land route to reach Odawara Castle. To the west is Shihuan Mountain City.
Hideyoshi personally held a grand cleansing banquet for him, and then the two brothers met privately. Hideyoshi gave him some advice and allowed him full authority to negotiate with the Beiyang Sea Trade Alliance in Misaki Castle.
However, Hidecho rested outside Odawara Castle for a few more days. He first sent someone to contact Misaki Castle. After the "road paving" was completed, he fell ill and set off, arriving outside Misaki Castle four days later.
Although he was seriously ill, since he entered the Miura Peninsula, he had carefully observed the Sea Trade Alliance's management of the Misaki Castle defense. Hidecho, who had spent his life as a soldier, discovered that in addition to the main city, Misaki Castle also had two land-based city defense systems in the north.
The first one was near Mount Ohkusu in the southeast of Kamakura. The Maritime Trade Alliance built two "cities" along the mountains and the sea, blocking the Miura Peninsula back to back. One city faced Sagami Bay to the west, and the other faced Edo Bay to the east.
It is said that these two places are cities, but in fact they are only cities in the eyes of the Japanese. In fact, in the eyes of Jinghua, they are just medium-sized fortresses, built at the angles of each other in the mountainous area in the middle of the peninsula.
Huang Zhiting first proposed the construction of this line of defense. Since the Guandong Squadron brought professionals from Jinghua Infrastructure, it did not take much effort to build two medium-sized bastions. In terms of manpower, it did not cost much because the Japanese labor was cheap. What really costs money is the iron rods (weakened version of steel bars) and cement that Jinghua sent to Misaki Castle from the mainland of Ming Dynasty.
Xiuchang continued to move south and saw the second line of defense near Youhu (place name). This is the closest and narrowest area to Misaki Castle from the south, with a width of only more than five miles (2.7 kilometers) from east to west. The Sea Trade Alliance perfectly demonstrated its strength and adopted very "Tang Kingdom" style methods on this line of defense. A "Great Wall" was built.
This "Great Wall" is actually a Qi Jiguang-style fort wall, with a fort every two hundred meters. There are three fixed gun bases on the fort, which are divided into three directions: front, left front, and right front. In fact, this setting is similar to the firepower setting of the bastion, that is, it can fire directly ahead in the distance, and form cross fire when approaching the city wall.
In addition, fire ports are designed on the top of the walls of the "Great Wall", which are the battlements used by musketeers. In this way, you can not only form a powerful fire suppression from a high position, but also implement traditional city defense strategies, such as dumping rolling logs, stones, fire oil and gold juice, etc. It can be said that as long as there are people defending the city, there is basically no risk.
The Maritime Trade Alliance had only leased Misaki Castle for more than three months, but the construction of the Great Wall had almost been completed. Such financial resources shocked Toyotomi Hidenaga. Although the height of the city wall does not seem to be as high as the legendary "Great Wall of Tang Dynasty" (the average height of the Great Wall is 7.8 meters, with some parts as high as 14 meters), it is still more than two feet high.
For the Japanese, this is completely the standard of a giant city—the height of the walls of Odawara Castle does not exceed this!
This time Toyotomi Hidenaga gasped and finally understood why his brother was so cautious. The Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance is indeed extremely wealthy. With their terrifying strength, I am afraid they can build an Odawara Ken in a year. city.
With indescribable worries, Toyotomi Hidenaga passed the Aburaku Pass with the release of the Kyoka Marine Corps and officially entered the theoretical outer city of Misaki Castle. Not long after, he arrived at the castle town of Misaki - in fact, this was Ming. Misaki Castle through human eyes.
In Japan in the 16th century, most of the Warring States daimyo cooperated with the unification of their territories. With the implementation of the policy of separation of soldiers and peasants, the samurai groups and merchants and industrialists directly under the lords were forced to gather under the castle walls, forming so-called castle towns. It developed into the political, economic and transportation center of the territory.
For example, the Imagawa clan's Sunfu, the Ouchi clan's Yamaguchi, the Takeda clan's Kofu, the Oda clan's Azuchi, and the Toyotomi clan's Osaka are all famous castle towns.
The reason why it is different from China is that in the past, Japan only regarded the lord's residence as a city. Due to limited economic strength and perennial wars, the Japanese daimyo only had the strength to build their own fortress-style residences and did not take into account the overall situation. "City" - city A city is originally a city and a market.
The castle town of Misaki Castle originally did not have a serious city defense system, but now that Kyoka is here, it is obvious that it cannot tolerate the strange situation of the market without defense measures, so the construction of the castle town of Misaki Castle is also in progress.
Perhaps because the castle town's defense facilities are not as urgent as the two defense lines to the north, they have not been completed yet and are still being constructed in sections. The completed part is less than two miles long.
However, it was this castle town wall that was less than two miles long that shocked Hideucha again: this section of the wall should be at least three feet high! A three-foot-high city wall is unheard of in Japan. Even Azuchi Castle built by Lord Nobunaga, the city defense is not so strong and exaggerated.
In fact, the three-foot-high city wall was not bad even in the Ming Dynasty. Although this 9-meter-high city wall is still a bit childish compared to the real majestic city of the Ming Dynasty, such as the 14-meter-high Datong City Wall, it is not first-rate or second-rate. In Japan, it can be said to be a super model. .
At least in the eyes of Toyotomi Hidenaga at this time, after the reconstruction of Misaki Castle is completed, even Odawara Castle will have to give up its title of "Japan's No. 1 Fortress".
Toyotomi Hidenchou, who was good at building castles, insisted on seeing the city wall despite being seriously ill. Although he was riding in an ox cart, he still insisted on seeing the city wall. Then he discovered that this wall - or rather the entire city defense system of Misaki Castle except for the extremely tall wall. In addition, many Japanese-style designs are also referenced, such as slits, fan slopes, split levels, etc.
Of course, with Xiuchang's vision, it can be seen that even if the moat has not been excavated (there is indeed a design, but Jinghua does not have the manpower to start construction of three city defense systems at the same time), but from the height of the city wall and the giant tube of Jinghua of the Sea Trade Alliance (he is Judging from the range of the No. 2 cannon, it would not be surprising if the future moat was even one mile wide. As for designs such as slits, fan slopes, and staggered levels, Xiuchang is even more clear.
The so-called slit refers to the iron cannon (musket) perforation on the city wall. These perforations were cut into rocks and were funnel-shaped as a whole, small on the outside and large on the inside. The outer area to be shot was less than 10 × 10 centimeters. There is a trapezoidal slope inside the perforation, about 40 cm long, 50 cm wide, and a height difference of about 25 cm. Soldiers can lie prone and rest their elbows to shoot stably. The inner wall is smooth, and the ergonomics are very good. The distance between the perforations is about 2.5 meters, and multiple soldiers can take turns shooting from one perforation.
Hide Naga discovered that the Misaki Castle of the Maritime Trade Alliance designed perforations for different weapons. These perforations are different. The perforations for iron cannons are square, and the perforations for bows and arrows are rectangular. The size is equivalent to two perforations for iron cannons. Convenient for aiming and firing of bows and arrows.
Strangely, the construction of the main castle tower of Misaki Castle has not yet started (the Japanese usually build the castle tower first, which is the castle where the castle lord lives). However, according to Hide Naga's understanding, under the defense of such a large castle town, after the castle tower is built, other There will definitely be multiple shooting platforms that extend about half a meter from the city wall to attack enemies that attack the city and are located in the blind spots at the base of the wall.
The fan slope is also a very Japanese design. Similar to many Japanese castles, the walls of Misaki Castle Town are steeply sloped and arc-shaped. Especially the vertical junction of the walls has a larger arc and is obviously elongated, allowing the enemy to climb farther. The higher it goes, the closer it is to vertical. The city wall at the fan slope is made of larger monolithic stones, which are polished smooth and have small gaps between the stones, making it very difficult to climb.
Finally, there is the split level. The city wall of Misaki Castle is not square, but uses a staggered design based on the slope of the bastion to create defense depth, increase the firepower strike surface, and disperse the enemy's power.
Facing a linear city wall, enemy forces can push forward in a straight line, and supporting firepower can cover the entire city wall. Sloping intersections and staggered walls can divide enemy forces into multiple sections, and supporting firepower will also be blocked by staggered layers.
The staggered city wall forms an L-shaped position, which changes the frontal contact with the enemy into a combined frontal and side contact with the enemy. Cross firepower is formed to attack the enemy from the front and the side. The firepower effect is far better than that of the straight-shaped city wall.
When striking at the root of the wall and attacking an enemy in the blind spot from the front, the defenders of the straight-line city wall will have to lean out a large part of their body to complete the attack, while the staggered city wall can be protected directly with side fire. At the same time, the staggered length is about 20 to 50 meters, which is just within the effective range of iron cannon or bow and arrow.
These are very Japanese city designs. Perhaps because there are many people, little land, and small maneuvering space, Japanese military thinking has always emphasized frontal resistance, so tactical details must be meticulous. This Japanese military concept was even reflected in the battlefields of World War II. For example, it was recorded in "Notes of the Battle of Matsuyama" that the machine gun perforations of the Japanese army's Matsuyama bunker group were small on the outside and large on the inside. The firing area was extremely small, and the firepower density was extremely high. The slit design is very similar.
In Japan's Southwest War during the Meiji period, rebel samurai relied on complex terrain to launch hand-to-hand charges against Meiji government troops. During the Battle of Matsuyama, the Japanese army also used cold weapons to launch surprise attacks on the Chinese army, relying on vegetation cover. The assumptions are similar.
In the Battle of Matsuyama, the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of Okinawa, the Japanese army relied on solid bunkers to achieve a relatively low casualty ratio, which may also be seen in the Japanese-style urban defense design.
In fact, the design of Misaki Castle itself was explained by Gao Pragmatic himself. The reason why Jinghua Infrastructure sent so many people over was to let them test it out.
As for the reason, it was because Gao Pangshi knew that during the Battle of Korea in original history, the Ming army had been miserably trapped by the Japanese-style city defenses built by the Japanese army in Korea many times. At that time, many memorials reported to the country by senior Ming army generals mentioned words such as "Japanese cities are difficult to attack", and a large number of casualties were caused by repeated attacks on "Japanese cities" - in fact, the Ming Dynasty Military casualties in field battles were relatively small (this may be because most of the Ming army's aiding troops to Korea were elite field troops. Perhaps if the guardsmen were replaced, the performance and battle damage data would have to be replaced with each other).
In Toyotomi Hideucha's eyes, Misaki Castle's three-line defense system can be described as a "combination of Tang and Japan". Once completed, it will be absolutely indestructible. In fact, he didn't know that the city defense of Misaki Castle was probably more of a combination of east and west.
A Marine platoon leader who had been following him since he entered the first line of defense saw the Japanese imperial court's Dai Nayan silently looking at the unrepaired city wall. He was secretly happy in his heart. He raised his chin slightly and reminded: "Your Highness Great Nayan, it's already getting late, Commander Luo is still waiting for you."
"Ah, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Toyotomi Hidenaga was awakened by him, and even with a hint of humility in his kindness, he nodded at him: "Your Highness, please lead the way, please excuse me."
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