Chapter 105 Matsumae Castle under artillery fire (1)
At noon, as the last few lightly injured warriors fled toward the northeast on horseback, the entire battle came to an end. Zhao Xin, Liu Sheng and others entered the village of the Shachuan people.
At this time, the more than 20 Ainu men and women who were killed by the samurai last night had been found and dumped in the grass behind a wooden house. More than a dozen family members were standing there crying.
More than thirty short and stallion horses were tied under one roof. Seeing these short and fat local horses with short and thick legs, Liu Sheng couldn't help but asked curiously: "Why are their horses so short?"
Yes, considering the height of people like Zhao Xin and Liu Sheng, these are more like a group of donkeys than horses.
Zhao Xin shook his head. He was really not interested in these captured ponies, so he would just leave them to the natives.
(Japanese horses are actually a type of Mongolian horses introduced from the Korean Peninsula, and the shoulder height of Mongolian horses is basically one meter, two or three meters. For example, Minami Kyushu, the main producing area of Japanese horses, is basically one meter tall at the shoulders.
A small pony of two. As for the southern horse in the northernmost part of Honshu, it is the tallest among Japanese horses, with a shoulder height of no more than 1.5 meters.)
The rescued Tuka and others were lying dying in a large room, and several Ainu elders were using herbs to heal their injuries.
Zhao Xin took a look at Tuka's condition and felt that his heartbeat and breathing were very weak, and that he was running a fever. He took out a bottle of white medicine that he always carried with him, and under the surprised eyes of the Ainu people around him, he took out the contents.
The red safety nut was fed into Tuka's mouth.
He also saw that several Ainu elders who were applying medicine to Tuka and others did not even cleanse the wounds, but were just about to paste the mashed herbs on the wounds, and he quickly stopped them.
Zhao Xin was unable to communicate with the natives who did not understand the island's dialect, so he directly ordered a few soldiers to find some water and asked them to find some relatively clean cloths to clean Tuka's wounds.
At this time, two Ainu women came into the house, kneeling beside Tuka and watching anxiously.
Zhao Xin looked at the two short women and tried to ask without hope: "Do you understand the island dialect?"
As a result, one of the young girls turned to Zhao Xin and nodded. This made Zhao Xin overjoyed and asked hurriedly: "Can you understand what I said?"
"Yes." The young girl nodded again and whispered.
Looking at the tears on the girl's face, Zhao Xin realized something and asked: "Tuka and you...?"
The girl said: "He is my brother." After speaking, she pointed to the anxious-looking woman beside her: "She is my brother's woman."
Zhao Xin said "Oh" and then said to Tuka's sister: "Your brother's wound has been infected. Just applying herbal medicine is useless."
The girl cried when she heard this and said, "What should I do?"
Zhao Xin explained: "You must first wipe off his wound and the surrounding blood, and then I will give him medicine."
The girl looked up at the tall man in front of her and asked, "Will my brother die?"
Zhao Xin smiled and said: "I led my men to beat those warriors away just to save you, isn't it? I am your brother's friend. Don't worry, if I say I can save you, I will."
The girl turned to the dozen injured people in the room and asked, "What about them?"
Zhao Xin squatted down so that he was at eye level with the other party, and then said: "If you go and call some more people, the blood on their bodies will also be wiped off."
Looking at the gentle and sincere smile on Zhao Xin's face, the girl couldn't help but have some trust in the tall man in front of her. She then whispered to her sister-in-law for a while.
Tuka's woman looked at Zhao Xin, got up and took Tuka's sister outside. After a while, two women and more than 20 tribal women entered the house with basins and began to scrub the injured.
Taking advantage of this gap, Zhao Xin went out for a walk. When he came back, he already had a large medicine box in his hand.
After Tuka's wound was almost cleaned, he immediately said to Liu Sheng and others around him: "You guys hold him down together, and I'm going to apply iodine to disinfect his wound."
Liu Sheng and others nodded, stepped forward and held down Tuka's arms and legs respectively.
Tuka's sister shouted anxiously: "What are you going to do?"
Zhao Xin explained: "I'm going to give your brother medicine, but it will be very painful. Don't panic."
After saying that, he rolled up his sleeves, took out the tweezers and cotton wool from the medicine box, poured iodine on it and began to debridement. The pungent alcohol made the unconscious Tuka start to scream in pain again. Liu Sheng and the other two people held on tightly.
Let him move around.
Zhao Xin's debridement was done very quickly. After all the wounds on Tuka's body were wiped with iodine, he quickly took out the white powder and sprinkled it on all the wounds. Then he took out the gauze from the medicine box and joined Liu Sheng and others.
Bandage it up.
A group of women watched Zhao Xin's full set of operations intently, not daring to express their anger. Only when Tuka was wrapped up like a big rice dumpling did Zhao Xin straighten up and let out a sigh of relief.
That's it, because he was afraid that these natives would be allergic to antibiotics, he only dared to use Baiyao.
Wiping the sweat from his head, Zhao Xin handed two rolls of gauze to Tuka's sister: "Are you ready? You can bandage the rest."
With the help of a group of women, more than an hour later, all the injured had been treated.
Zhao Xin went out and called Hu Ji and asked about the captured weapons and the number of dead warriors. Then he asked Hu Ji to leave the captured spears and samurai swords to the local indigenous people.
He left a few bottles of white powder with the labels removed for Tuka's sister, told her some taboos on using the medicine, and then prepared to evacuate with the soldiers.
"Are you leaving?" Tuka's sister asked.
"We will be back in a few days. Don't worry." Looking at the little girl in front of him, Zhao Xin smiled and patted her head.
"If we leave, will they be retaliated against?" Zhao Liang walked to Zhao Xin and asked.
"If we just leave, of course we will. So we are going to Songqian City." Zhao Xin said calmly. "We must control Shachuan here, and we must also control the plains to the east. Unless we completely defeat the Songqian family, this matter
I can’t finish it.”
At this time, Matsumae Castle was just a small Hirayama Castle with only a small castle tower. In the middle of the 19th century, in order to prevent attacks by foreign ships, the shogunate expanded it into three three-story castles.
A large fortress with a castle tower, fifteen gates and 25 cannons.
In the end, the foreign warships did not arrive, but they were defeated by the old shogunate army led by Hijikata Toshizo.
However, although the Matsumae family's castle was not large at this time, the size of the castle town was larger than many places in Honshu. Since the Matsumae clan's source of income was entirely from trade, the population living in the castle town at this time was nearly 10,000.
On the southern port of Matsumae Castle, from west to east, there are densely packed shops and various seafood markets; on the southwest and southeast sides are rows of longhouses; on the hills on the east and north sides, several temples are vaguely visible
.
Because of the humid climate in the subarctic zone, the spring breeze does not blow here until April and May every year. So when the Thor was anchored five kilometers south of Matsumae City, Zhao Xin and others used drones to inspect Matsumae.
When I walked into the city, I saw countless evening cherry blossoms blooming inside and outside the city, which was so beautiful. Hundreds of town residents walked out of their homes and wandered around the beautiful scenery to stop and watch.
At this time, a breeze blew by, and the cherry blossoms scattered all over the sky, fluttering to the ground, leaving a pink color all over the ground.
"..."
Zhao Xin, Liu Sheng, Deng Fei, Zhao Liang and Ding Guofeng looked at the scenery on the screen and were speechless when they thought about the purpose of coming here.
"Let's..." Finally, Zhao Liang opened his mouth with difficulty and fell silent again. No one who sees such a scenery would want to be a person who kills the scenery.
"Old Deng, calculate a few more times, aim, and try not to hit the castle town." Zhao Xin's determination will not change.
At this time, in the meeting hall of Ninomaru in the castle, the lord of Matsumae Domain, Matsumae Michhiromasa, and his ministers were meeting to discuss countermeasures. The great famine in the Kanto and Ou regions had begun to spread here.
"We can't let them do this, those Ezo people will fight tooth and nail with this domain." An elder of the Uyizaki family said angrily.
"But if we don't do this, the 'Ryohama Group' will reduce the supply of rice in the feudal city." Another head of the Shiraishi family said in embarrassment.
What they call the "Ryohama Group" is a chamber of commerce composed of merchants from Omi. These merchants are closely connected with the important ministers of the Matsumae Domain. They not only help raise all kinds of materials needed by the Matsumae Domain, but also provide services to the feudal clan.
The important ministers solved the economic troubles.
What they are discussing is what people from the "Ryohama Group" directly proposed yesterday, which is to reduce the amount of rice distributed to the Ainu from seven liters per meter to three liters per meter, a reduction of more than half.
As soon as this condition came out, all the retainers of the Matsumae family, who relied on the Ainu people in their territory to work, exploded. You black-hearted businessmen want to hide behind and make a fortune, leaving us retainers
Facing the wrath of the Ainu!
No, since you "Liangbin Group" are going to be in the first year of junior high school, we have to be in the fifteenth year. Increase taxes on these businessmen!
The feudal lord, Matsumae Michhiro, felt extremely depressed as he listened to the quarrels of the people below. In this season when the wind is beautiful and the cherry blossoms are falling and the snow is falling, he should sit under the tree, drink wine and recite haiku. I really miss the Edo mansion.
Life.
At this time, he vaguely heard a dull thunder coming from the distant sea, followed by a roar in the air, getting closer and faster, and the faster the roar, the clearer it became.
Matsumae Michhiro couldn't help but get up and took two steps towards the door, trying to figure out what the roar was.
The retainers who were arguing in the meeting hall saw the head of the family stand up suddenly and were about to ask, but the increasingly clear whistling sound attracted their attention. So everyone stopped arguing and turned to look outside...
…
"Boom!" A huge column of smoke rose up inside Ninomaru. The projectiles flying everywhere not only killed the samurai standing guard, but also withered countless cherry blossoms and camellias around them.
Michihiro Matsumae was knocked to the ground by the sudden blast of air and was in a state of panic. Several guards struggled to crawl over and were about to help him up when the second roar came again.
Under the astonished gazes of everyone in the meeting hall, a double oar on the west side of Matsumae Castle suddenly exploded, and a column of fire mixed with smoke and dust rose up. Then a strong wind blew, which made the surrounding survivors feel suffocated.