The main force of the Japanese army evacuated to the northeast, while the Kuroda army prepared to go southwest after disposing of the wounded and supplies.
Which direction is southwest? Okpo is the Okpo where Yi Sun-shin fought the Okpo naval battle.
Why not just go to Sichuan? Of course, they were worried that there would be a "misunderstanding" with the Ming army, which was directly under Gao Pragmatic, and that they would be attacked preemptively by the Ming army.
But theoretically speaking, going to Yupu will still attract the attention of the Ming army. After all, Yupu is also the Ming army that helped North Korea "recover". Therefore, Kuroda Rushui sent a messenger and sent a letter of surrender to Sichuan, claiming that the Kuroda army was unwilling to continue fighting because of a quarrel with the two generals on the left and right of the Japanese army, and hoped to withdraw to Japan in accordance with the original request of the Ming court. "The world does not look westward."
Although the Japanese army had almost no precedent of begging for surrender before, the only army that surrendered to North Korea was because of its anti-war mentality, which made the North Korean side look around and test it for a while before accepting it. However, the Ming army was no better than North Korea has a strong sense of being a great power, so even though it was the first time for Japanese troops to beg for surrender, the generals at all levels did not have much doubt and quickly brought the messenger to Sichuan City.
When Gao Pragmatic heard that it was Kuroda's army begging for surrender, his first reaction was that Kuroda was pretending to surrender, most of which were fraudulent. But when I thought about it again, especially considering the behavior of the Japanese army, I felt that it couldn't be a fraud, maybe it was the truth.
Just think about the current situation. If the Japanese army is cheating, what is the purpose of this cheat? Most of the Japanese troops are already on the way to evacuate. This has been determined by the Sentinel Cavalry. The direction and method of their withdrawal have even been predicted by Gao Jingshi. Of course, it is expected, because the previously captured chieftain messenger was originally arranged by Gao Jingshi. , the purpose is to let the Japanese army "understand the movements of the Ming army."
Now that the Japanese troops have indeed withdrawn, they are led by Gao Pragmatic. As the leader, how difficult is it for Gao Pragmatic to guess their target route? Taking the northeast direction instead of the due east direction is nothing more than to avoid a stalemate with Liu Wei's tribe in Mashan, which would delay their early return to Busan.
However, under this situation, the Kuroda Army did not follow, but went to Okpo. **What’s the use of thousands of people going to Yupu? Now even Busan is about to become an isolated city, not to mention Okpo, which can no longer be isolated.
Besides, this small town is not a place that can be defended. In terms of scale, unless the Japanese army massacres the city first, it will be difficult for this small town to even station the less than 10,000 Kuroda troops. When the Japanese army landed from Okpo earlier, there was no room for them in the city. Many soldiers were stationed in Outside the city.
[Note: However, the Japanese army is very accustomed to this kind of garrisoning method, because the construction and layout of Japanese cities are different from those of China and North Korea. Their popular castle town model. A town can be understood as a commercial district, which is often not within the "city" but is formed based on the city. The role of the "city" itself lies more in military and political affairs. ]
The Kuroda army is alone and its number is less than ten thousand. What can they do in Okpo? Could it be that Gao Pingshi was waiting for the Japanese army to attack and evacuated the defenders in Sichuan City, and then the Kuroda army came over to pick up the peaches? This is purely a dream.
Since the Japanese sneak attack plan failed and has now withdrawn, there will no longer be any large army that can threaten Sichuan. It is impossible for Gao Pragmatic to evacuate the Sichuan defenders when there is a Japanese army in Yupu.
As for now, not to mention, the Ming army in Lianhua Mountain has retreated and merged with the Ming army in the city, which is completely beyond the power of the Kuroda army.
Gao pragmatically called several brothers and nephews to discuss the matter with them. Everyone discussed for a while and basically agreed that the Japanese army had indeed given up fighting. The only problem now was whether to agree to their withdrawal to the mainland.
Gao Wuzheng objected to this. He believed that the Kuroda Army should be eliminated for two reasons. Firstly, Kuroda Rushui was the initiator of the sneak attack on Sichuan. This kind of attempt to disturb Tai Sui must be severely punished; secondly, Kuroda's army currently has less than 10,000 soldiers. Although the Ming army in Sichuan is mainly composed of chieftains, But after being strengthened by three thousand fine cavalry, it is fully capable of destroying the Kuroda army.
Simply put, Gao Wuzheng's attitude is that you deserve to die, and if I can kill you, then you should die.
Gao Qi objected to this. He believed that the Kuroda Army's request to surrender would have three major benefits for the Ming Army:
First, the Kuroda Army will become the first organized Japanese army to beg for surrender to the Ming Dynasty (Kuroda Nagamasa’s Third Army), and its surrender will greatly shake the determination of other Japanese armies to fight to the death.
Secondly, as a very influential figure in the Japanese military, Kuroda Yoshizu was also an important assistant to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. He gave up fighting and led the Kuroda army back to Japan, which was also of great significance and far-reaching influence.
Thirdly, if the Kuroda Army successfully withdraws to Japan, it will also dilute the strength of the Japanese Army in Busan, which will also help to completely eliminate the Japanese Army in Busan.
Gao Wuruo did not express his position at first, but after listening to Gao Qi's analysis, he said: "The first two are reasonable, but I think the last one does not need to be calculated like this. If the Kuroda Army returns to Busan, it will indeed not dilute Busan. The Japanese army is strong, but the Japanese army in Busan is now nothing more than a trapped beast.
Since they are trapped beasts, our heavenly soldiers only need to surround them without attacking them. If they run out of food and grass, sooner or later they will be defeated. In other words, having more Kuroda troops in Busan will make them eat up their food faster and speed up their surrender. "
Gao Qi thought for a while and said: "But if our army cannot besiege for a long time, even if the court doesn't say anything, we still have to eat. How to calculate the cost? And if we attack, the cost of firearms will also be staggering. In case of an accident If we cannot rely solely on artillery bombardment, then post-war rewards, pensions, etc. will have to be added to the calculation, and the cost will be even greater."
Gao Wuruo shook his head and said: "Leave aside firearms for now, how can we only rely on food from the South? North Korea is the landlord, and I am a guest army. How can I understand that the guest army brings its own dry food thousands of miles to help the army?"
In my opinion, now that the Jeolla and Chungcheong provinces have been restored, they should supply our army first, rather than entering the Korean treasury first. If the food is sufficient, it will be used. If the food is insufficient, it will be recorded in the accounts. At first, the food from the south will be used to support it, and North Korea will make up for it in the future. "
The "southern grain" Gao Wuruo mentioned here refers to the grain sent from southern Xinjiang. This highly pragmatic personal expedition was inevitably troubled by food problems just like in the Renchen year, so a new set of transportation methods was specially developed.
This method is not complicated at all. Basically, the imperial court funds the purchase of rice from southern Xinjiang, but does not send it to the capital or other places in the Ming Dynasty. Instead, it is transported directly to the Korean battlefield. The specific method of transportation is decided by the Jinglue Yamen. Another point is that the imperial court does not care about transportation issues, and Nanjiang is responsible for "door-to-door delivery".
Of course, in order to avoid impeachment, Gao Jingshi directly disclosed the purchase price in his essay, which not only detailed the price of rice, but also calculated the transportation costs. The price was extremely shocking: it was actually a little cheaper than buying rice from Huguang. .
But this is not the key point. The key point is that Gao Pragmatic also played the most amazing trick: "The imperial court does not care about whether it is floating or not. This is the responsibility of Southern Xinjiang."
This move was considered king in the Ming Dynasty, and those who were originally dissatisfied had nothing to say - What, it can't be wiped out? So isn't this transaction a bargain? Yes, yes, you are very powerful in Nanning, and you are not afraid of losing money if you have a fortune of hundreds of millions. If you are happy to do this work, you can do it, and we will not join in the fun.
In fact, the so-called drifting, that is, the loss during shipping, is sometimes uncontrollable in this era. But in fact, as long as the navigation technology is better and the ship's performance is better, this loss can be reduced, at least in this era. Within the Beijing-China two-ocean system, the so-called "drifting" is completely within the acceptable range.
With the transportation capabilities of the Beijing-China fleet and his understanding of the sea conditions around Daming, even if he unfortunately encounters a hurricane, the direct losses are usually controllable. In fact, bad luck will only cause a delay in time. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic not only dares to Do this without losing money.
You must know that under the influence of the Little Ice Age, the price of grain in the Ming Dynasty has been slowly rising, and because much of the domestic transportation in the Ming Dynasty has to take overland routes, this directly raises the cost, resulting in a wide gap in grain prices across regions.
For example, food in Huguang is relatively cheap, but once it is delivered to Suzhou and Hangzhou, the price will nearly double, and then it will nearly double again if it is sent to the capital. This resulted in the price of grain in the capital being almost 2.5 times that in Huguang - of course, this was not all due to transportation costs, but also included the profits of resale traders.
However, the situation is different when grain is purchased from southern Xinjiang and delivered directly to North Korea. Although the countries in southern Xinjiang have their own rulers in name, the actual power is completely in the hands of Jinghua, causing Jinghua to become a "monopolistic transnational trading group."
This means that it does not have to worry about multiple resale transactions that will raise prices, and it can directly collect and supply the goods. Apart from itself, there is no other middleman to make the difference.
In this way, coupled with the minimal impact of the Little Ice Age in Southern Xinjiang, the increase in cultivated land area and productivity brought about by the naturalized household registration system, etc., Southern Xinjiang now has very sufficient food production capacity. Not only does it have no internal famine problem, it is also fully capable For external transportation, the price is naturally much lower than within the Ming Dynasty.
However, Gao Wuruo's proposal was a bit harsh. He first said that with the Jeolla and Chungcheong roads, the Ming army should directly obtain grain supplies from these two Korean granaries. He also said that if there was any shortage, it would be made up in accounts later. It is true that these two roads are Korean granaries, but the war The damage was severe during the year, and output dropped significantly compared with normal times.
To put it simply, if all the food was used to feed the Ming army, the local Koreans would starve to death. Gao Wuruo actually knew about this situation, so he actually wanted the North Korean court to owe Jinghua money.
Wait a minute, even if North Korea can't provide that much food, shouldn't this be money owed to Ming Dynasty? How did it become money owed to Jinghua?
Of course there is a reason: Ming Dynasty’s current transshipment model is similar to service outsourcing. If Ming Dynasty is no longer responsible for food supply in the future, then the party A that issues outsourcing tasks will naturally become North Korea. Therefore, once North Korea cannot supply, South Korea will still be needed. If it is imported from Xinjiang, it will naturally become North Korea's credit payment to Beijing.
Unfortunately, Gao pragmatically dismissed this idea. This is not because Gao Pragmatic's consciousness is much higher than Gao Wuruo's, but in Gao Pragmatic's eyes, how long the North Korean court can last is itself a question. If North Korea successfully annexes, then this account will continue to be recorded in Li Huan's mind. On the head, or transferred to Daming's head?
If it were recorded on Li He's head, even if the North Korean royal family had a lot of savings after so many years of turmoil, it might not be able to afford such a huge debt at the level of military pay.
And if it is the fault of Ming Dynasty, since the matter of inclusion was obviously promoted by his high pragmatism, will anyone impeach him in the future and say that he deliberately set up a debt trap for the Ming Dynasty?
Since the Ming Dynasty still paid for all the trouble in the end, then obviously it's good as it is now. Why would he, who is pragmatic and pragmatic, put his own reputation into it?
Of course, Gao Wuruo was right about one thing. Jeolla and Chungcheong provinces could not provide less military rations to the Ming army in addition to the minimum guarantee of North Korea's own food. Instead of these grains being swallowed up by North Korea's Yangban, it would be better to reduce the financial pressure on the Ming Dynasty - after all, he was the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
As for whether southern Xinjiang's grain exports will lose a market as a result... there is no need to worry about this, because the Ming Dynasty can completely digest it.
The Ming Dynasty is now characterized by the rapid development of handicrafts and industries, the increasing production capacity of various types, and the abundance of various materials. However, the food problem is becoming increasingly serious due to climate reasons.
Under this situation, although the food output in Southern Xinjiang is also steadily increasing, the Ming Dynasty around him is like a huge sponge. No matter how much water is put in the small faucet in Southern Xinjiang, the Ming Dynasty will take it all and absorb it. It has to be clean, and there is no problem of market scarcity or scarcity at all.
The current situation is this: There are many good fields in southern Xinjiang that can be further developed, but the population is insufficient (especially the highly productive Han people). The good fields in the Ming Dynasty have long been divided up, but the population has remained stable due to the relative stability in the country. is rising. Especially the land in the north is now completely unable to support the population in the north, so the two sides are actually very complementary.
Therefore, Jinghua now has an ongoing business, which is to sell grain from southern Xinjiang to the north of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time take in the refugees caused by the disaster in the north - of course, there are also refugees in the south, but there are relatively fewer.
Now Gao Wuzheng and Gao Qi have different views. Gao Wuruo has made some suggestions but has not completely taken sides. The matter has reached the stage where Gao Pragmatic makes a decision.
However, Gao Pragmatic did not make a "decision" immediately. Instead, he said: "Did you forget something?"
The three of them were startled and looked at each other, but they couldn't remember what they had forgotten.
Gao pragmatic pointed at Yupu and Sichuan and said: "The Kuroda Army wants to return to Japan, but they didn't say how they will go back. Are you acquiescing that they can swim back?"
The three of them were startled again, and their expressions were a little horrified, but Gao Qi quickly asked: "Maybe Kuroda Rushui means to ask us to help send them back?"
"If you really want to help, you should say it clearly at this time. If he didn't say this, it means..." Gao Pingshi narrowed his eyes slightly and said calmly: "I'm afraid the Japanese navy has quietly left Busan Port and headed for Sichuan Or Okpo is coming.”
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