In terms of personal strength, Harada Sonosuke is far from comparable to the "New Selected Three Masters" (Shiba Nagakura and Ichi Saito).
But no matter what, he is also one of the veterans of the newly selected group.
In fact, there are so many experiences in combat that few people from the new selection group can match it.
The morale of the entire army was boosted by himself and killing several people in one go!
Tadashi Matsuhara, deputy captain of the 10th team, shouted:
"Come on Captain!"
The next moment, Matsuhara Tadashi set an example and personally led more than ten team members to form a small "weed formation", pierced straight into the enemy group, and plowed out a blood arc.
Immediately afterwards, more and more soldiers were inspired by the help of Harada Zuonosuke and Matsuhara General, and they all moved forward bravely and fought for their own good!
Compared with the rebels, the defenders had a significant advantage, which was that they controlled the arsenal of Edo Castle.
Almost all arsenals in Edo... cannot even be said to be "almost", to be precise, all arsenals are concentrated in Edo Castle!
The importance of the arsenal is not to be described in detail.
The reason why the shogunate arranged all the major arsenals in Edo Castle was to prevent rebellion and mutiny.
No matter where you are, excellent weapons are not so easy to obtain.
Swords, which are cheap and easy to make, may be relatively easy to obtain.
You can easily buy a lot of cheap Wumingdao in pawn shops and tool shops in major cities and towns.
But "heavy weapons" such as spears, naginatas, bows and arrows, guns and cannons, armors and other "heavy weapons" are not so easy to get.
Among them, counting armor is the most rare and important.
Under the close monitoring of the "Nanji Sect", no matter how hard the "Yiqiao Sect" works, it is impossible to get enough armor.
From a certain perspective, "raising armor" is more difficult than "training dead soldiers".
Due to the limited productivity, armor is extremely difficult to make.
A set of excellent armor often takes weeks or even months to make.
Not only that, every time you make a set of armor, it consumes a lot of materials.
The flow of large quantities of materials is easy to track down.
If something goes wrong, the "Nan Ji School" will follow the clues and catch the handle.
There is no need to judge. The crime of "secretly making armor" alone is enough to make the "Yiqiao Sect" fall into an abyss that will never be restored!
In the era of cold weapons, "privately making armor" is a serious crime that is enough to sentence death!
For the "Ichiqiao Sect", if you want to get enough armor to arm the entire army in a short period of time, you can only capture the arsenal of Edo Castle!
Whichever party possesses the arsenal will have a large amount of armor, and then gains a significant advantage on the battlefield - this is enough to raise the strategic importance of the "arsenal" to the highest point!
The current battle explains the difference between "controlling the arsenal or not".
But the defenders were well-equipped, and everyone was wearing armor, helmets, arm armor, leg armor, and chain mail.
In contrast, the rebels... only a small number of them have armor.
Not to mention weapons, most people only hold an ordinary Wuming Knife.
The equipment gap between the two sides is so big that it feels like a sky.
However, the rebels were not useless.
Although their equipment is not good, they have advantages that the defenders cannot reach.
One is the number of people. Their troops are twice as powerful as the defenders.
The second is that he is full of fighting spirit! He is not afraid of death!
What is a "dead soldier"?
The brave warrior is the dead warrior!
These two thousand dead soldiers are secret legions accumulated bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit in recent years, and their members are very complex.
Some people were orphans who had no support before and didn't even have a name.
Some people were just ordinary farmers.
Some people were once the lower-level warriors who lost their families.
They are either hungry and cold and are about to die on the streets; they may experience major changes in their families and are unable to treat their parents, wives and children who are dying; or they suffer great grievances and no one can stand up for them.
It was the "Yiqiao Sect" who adopted them, gave them a place to live and food and clothing.
It was the "Yiqiao Sect" who extended a helping hand to them.
It was the "Yiqiao Sect" who gave them the opportunity to stand up and be a human being.
It is precisely because of the favor of the "Yiqiao Sect" that they are today!
They cannot repay this great kindness.
The only thing they have is this life!
Due to lack of education and frequent brainwashing by the "Yiqiao Sect", only two words are remembered in their limited brain capacity: "loyalty and righteousness" and "repaying kindness".
In fact, they only have a vague understanding of "why attack Edo Castle".
They didn't understand what this move meant, nor did they know what would happen after killing Aoden and Tokugawa Ieshima.
They only recognize one thing: I want to repay my kindness! I want to use this life to repay the kindness of the "Yiqiao Sect"!
It is true that the centripetal force of the newly selected group is very strong, and countless soldiers regard Qingdeng as their idol.
However, "respect and worship" cannot be compared with "repaying kindness to death".
There are many people in the new selection group who respect Qingdeng, but few are truly willing to die for Qingdeng.
This has nothing to do with morale or training, it is purely due to human nature.
Furthermore, the soldiers of the newly selected group have not yet fully recovered from fatigue.
The "Second Sekihara Joint Battle" and "Running to Kanto" were the first, and the "Faqi Alliance" was defeated later. The high-intensity war had already made them exhausted.
They had just finished a fierce battle and had not had time to take a breath, but they were about to fight again... To be honest, they all felt extremely difficult and already had a lot of war-weariness.
One side shouted "Resist the chaos and conquer the bandits" and "sweep away the traitors."
The other party shouted "The enemy is in Edo Castle" and "attack the rebellion of the jujube".
One party has the advantage at the material level.
On the other hand, it has the advantage in terms of spirit.
The two sides with distinct contrasts fought to the death, causing the land of Akasaka Mimen to be stained with layers of blood.
Aoden had expected in advance that the "Yiqiao Sect" would use Akasaka Mimen as the main attack direction, so he deployed the main force here in advance.
In fact, this kind of thing is not difficult to predict.
The other zodiac gates that "Thirty-six See" are intact. In the absence of siege equipment, it is extremely difficult to break through these tall and exquisitely designed city gates, but the only one of the Akasaka zodiac gates is empty and wide.
In this case, fools know where to focus on the offensive direction.
Therefore, Qingdeng only deployed the minimum number of troops in other imperial gates that were attached to the "Thirty-Six Sees" to serve as a warning.
Although the battle has just begun, the scene is extremely bloody and terrifying.
Knife slashed at the opponent in front of him.
Pieces of remains of limbs fell to the ground.
The newly selected team members here were besieged and were killed by random knives before they could launch a counterattack.
The dead man there followed the example of Zuo Nosuke Harada and plunged into the chaos, but he didn't know whether it was because of his lack of strength or bad luck. Before he could use his skills, he let someone chop his head off.
The 7th and 10th teams were not good at fighting in the field. The strong fatigue and lingering war-weariness really made their movements dull.
But even so, their strong discipline is still there!
As long as the discipline is still there, the combat power will exist!
But seeing that they have evidence of advancing and retreating, they flexibly changed their queues and formations according to the battlefield situation, resolved crises again and again, and blocked one attack after another.
To be continued...