The first year of Yuanzhi, the end of June (the end of July 1864).
Choshu Domain.
"No, we absolutely can't swallow this breath!" A rough-looking man patted the table in front of him, very angry, "Almost all of our people were eaten by those wolves! We absolutely can't swallow this breath.
!”
After the Ikedaya Incident on June 5, when the Choshu Domain's radical anti-barbarian forces were almost wiped out by the entire army, the Shinsengumi became famous nationwide as a violent organization directly affiliated with the shogunate.
People call the Shinsengumi "Misei wolves" and "man-eating Mibu wolves".
But this is absolutely a great shame and humiliation for the only remaining anti-barbarian leader in the Choshu Domain.
Sitting in the room, Takasugi Shinsaku and Katsura Kogoro looked at each other darkly, and smiled in unison.
The man who slapped the table angrily was called Kurushima Matabei, one of the few remaining leaders of the anti-barbarian elements.
"We must swallow this breath, there is no other way!" A man who looked quite stable looked at Kurushima Matabei, "We are already in the wrong, why should we go to Beijing to ask for an explanation?"
This man's name is Shufu Masanosuke, and he can be regarded as a fellow traveler of Takasugi Shinsaku and Katsura Kogoro.
Kurushima Matabei gritted his teeth: "We can't just admit defeat in such humiliation!"
After saying that, Kamijima Matabei left the table angrily.
Takasugi Shinsaku sighed.
He felt that things would not end that easily.
...
Three days later.
These days, although the conservative faction headed by Takasugi Shinsaku, Katsura Kogoro and Shubu Masanosuke tried their best to calm down the emotions within the domain, they could not twist their arms.
The Choshu Domain has never been a stable and powerful domain.
Just like when they bombarded foreign merchant ships in Shimonoseki, this time the Choshu clan was determined to raise troops.
Led by three family elders, several ministers of the Choshu Domain, in the name of "reporting the grievances of the feudal lord to His Majesty the Emperor," directly raised their troops and rushed towards Kyoto in a mighty manner.
Takasugi Shinsaku is so stupid. You just took away the army I built and killed them?
However, because these remaining radicals had been planning for a long time, they directly sent people to keep an eye on a few important ministers of the conservative faction, and led their troops towards Kyoto without hesitation.
Shinsaku Takasugi tried his best to escape from the guards of his spy, and was ready to catch up with March and stop their plan.
However, the radicals had long colluded with the feudal lord. Before Takasugi Shinsaku could catch up with the marching troops, he was arrested and thrown into prison. He was also charged with "escaping from the feudal clan".
Katsura Kogoro was also extremely anxious.
Although in the process of splitting and establishing a new government, it is a necessary step to rebel and overthrow the shogunate, but it is obviously not the time now, and he also collected intelligence in Kyoto when he was in Kyoto a while ago.
The vassal soldiers, plus the Shinsengumi, and the troops brought by Tokugawa Iemo, there were more than 10,000 people in total.
Maki Izumi, Kusaka Genzui, and the more than a thousand soldiers brought by Kurushima Matabei will definitely end in a disastrous defeat.
Katsura Kogoro secretly wrote a letter to Ryoma, hoping that Ryoma could ask Samura, who was still in Kyoto, to think of a solution.
But before the letter could be sent from Choshu to Nagasaki, Izumi Maki had already reached Kyoto.
In mid-July, soldiers of the Choshu domain launched an attack directly on Kamimomon, one of the gates of Kyoto.
However, the Choshu Domain was a land of right and wrong, and the imperial court and the shogunate could not help but intervene. As early as when Maki Izumi and Kusaka Genzui raised their troops, the shogunate issued combat orders.
When the soldiers of the Choshu clan attacked Kamimikamon, the soldiers of the Aizu clan and the Kuwana clan came out directly from Kyoto.
However, the Choshu clan relied on the large number of guns purchased through Guishan Society to suppress the soldiers of the two clans.
But then, the soldiers of the Aizu Domain who were guarding another gate of Kyoto arrived and launched a surprise attack on the Choshu Domain from the side, and the situation took a turn for the worse.
The Changshu Domain, which was flanked by the San Francisco Domain, fell directly into a crisis.
Several generals leading troops immediately gave orders and began to retreat.
But with Aizu and Kuwana in the front and Satsuma in the back, it was impossible to withdraw from them all.
Finally, several generals decided to abandon part of the army and allowed most of them to escape.
The soldiers of the Choshu Domain who were left behind in Kyoto and abandoned immediately activated their backup plan.
Everyone took out the gunpowder and fire bombs they had packed in advance, and started setting fires like crazy in Kyoto.
Because of the fuel of gunpowder, the fire spread very quickly, and because the main army wanted to catch up with the Choshu clan, it failed to extinguish the flames in Kyoto in time.
The result is——
The entire Kyoto was spread into a sea of raging fire.
Viewed from outside the city, the entire Kyoto looks like a huge brazier with billowing smoke rising.
It has been extremely difficult to put out this fire.
Early the next morning, after learning the news, Zuocun rushed from Mibu Village to Kyoto. After arriving in Kyoto, the fire still did not weaken.
"How... could this happen?" His pupils were filled with firelight, unbelievable.
Without hesitation, Zuo Cun entered the city directly and joined the fire-fighting team.
Three days later, Samura, whose whole body was scorched black, his face was also blackened, and his hair was only as long as his shoulder blades, was sitting on the ground in a corner of Kyoto, breathing heavily.
In the past three days, whether it was ordinary people, soldiers from various vassals, or ronin stranded in various places in Kyoto, as well as some retainers and servants of princes and nobles, they all participated in putting out the fire.
The fire in Kyoto was finally extinguished.
But it was not because of active fire fighting, but because there was nothing to burn that the fire was extinguished.
"Ahem!" He coughed twice because of the smoke, "I wonder what's going on in Luslan..."
The fire started from the west, but it mainly burned the streets in the north and south.
Luslan's medical clinic is on a street in the south and is one of the places where the fire is most intense.
Zuo Cun's face was all black and blackened.
He walked down the street with a heavy heart.
The houses on both sides of the road have disappeared, leaving only crumbling ruins.
Burnt corpses that looked like human beings could be seen everywhere, and it was impossible to identify who they were.
The bustling Kyoto turned into a scorching hell in just three days.
It is conservatively estimated that 30,000 houses were burned down, and at least 50,000 people died in the fire and smoke. The number of missing people is incalculable, not to mention the economic losses.
Zuo Cun followed his memory and finally found a familiar location.
But what appeared in front of Zuocun was just a pile of ruins.
His heart sank.
"...No, it won't happen." He knelt beside the ruins, his tears falling on the ground, making a small pit in the black ground.