The first charge of the Shimazu Army at the South Gate only reached 200 steps away from the fortress. As soon as it entered the range of the muskets, the charge team was hit by artillery and collapsed.
The Shimadzu Army in the east was originally a diversionary attack. Under the cover of the houses in the city, they rushed to a place 100 steps away from the fort. With the help of the houses, the iron gunners of the Shimadzu Army and the musketeers of the Zhonghua Company began to shoot at each other and charged at the south gate. After the main force collapsed, the Shimazu army in the east had no choice but to retreat.
Within ten minutes, the first official battle between the Shimadzu army and the Chinese company's army ended. Only three Chinese people were slightly injured by stray bullets; the Japanese pirates were killed by rockets, and more than ten people were killed by cannons, and more than thirty people were killed. Injuried.
The Japanese casualties were not large, but the shock to the soul was not small. The best of the Shimazu Army had lost a lot in the Battle of Sekigahara in Korea and Sekigahara in more than ten years. Some of the current soldiers have never experienced a war and have no experience at all. Knowing the actual situation of firearms combat, he was defeated by a cannon attack.
When the cannon roared, Hirata Masumune jumped up in Mie Castle, his face changed drastically.
"What is this? Is it...impossible? Where did the Chinese merchants get the cannons?" In the pre-war intelligence, it was only said that the people at the Chinese Merchant House had muskets, but it was never known that they had cannons. Shimazu family retainer Kayama After Yuuki went to Taiwan as a mission, he once reported that there were dense cannons around Taiwan Port, so it was not surprising that the Shimadzu army had cannons from the Chunghwa Company, but when the cannons were secretly placed at the Chunghwa Merchant House in Ryukyu, the Satsuma Domain had no idea. Know.
At that moment, he sent Kono Odori with 100 sailors as reinforcements to the south gate, and transferred most of the troops from the city's assist direction. With the Hirata family retainer Yorita Heihachi as the main general, a formal square formation was established. Generally speaking, , At this time, most of the Japanese army used "bei" as a basic tactical unit, which was a mixed group of multiple arms. Currently, the main force of 900 Shimadzu Army Hirata Department in the south gate of the Chunghwa Commercial Building is based on "bei". The iron artillery team is in The archers were in the front, the gunners were in the rear, and the flag troops were in the last place. Hirata Masumune himself ran outside the south gate in person to supervise the formation in front of the flag troops.
An hour later, Hirata launched a second charge with all the main force.
As soon as the Shimazu Army's charge began, they were successively bombarded by Chinese rockets and artillery. In the end, the Chinese Commercial Building only fired a total of four cannons on the southeast corner, the southwest corner watchtower and the south gate tower. The firepower density was not enough. The lethality of solid artillery shells was also limited. Driven by captains at all levels, the Ashigaru rushed into the range 200 steps away from the target. The iron gunners and archers began to fire, suppressing the musketeers on the wall of the Chinese Merchant Building.
The musketeers of the China Company have reached the level of conditioned reflexes in operating flintlock muskets and can fire two bullets per minute; while the iron gunners of the Shimadzu Army have not been using flintlock muskets for a long time and can only fire one round per minute, but the Shimadzu Army's iron gunners More than 300 iron gunners and more than 100 archers were concentrated in the direction of the south gate. Relying on their numerical advantage, they gradually suppressed the firepower on the wall. The Chinese gunners also suffered organized and focused fire from the Japanese iron gunners. The artillery fire It was also forced to stop.
Hirata Masumune took a breath, but felt vaguely uneasy in his heart: The behavior of this Chinese company and business office was so unexpected that there was no guarantee that there would be no hidden consequences.
The Shimazu army has entered within 50 steps of the wall. On the south wall, the Chinese musketeers' shooting is very sporadic.
The gun crew members behind the Shimazu Army archers began to speed up, surpass the front team, and approached the wall, preparing to use ladders to forcibly climb the city.
At this moment, a lot of broken bricks suddenly fell down from the lower part of the south wall, about half a person's height, and six small windows one foot square appeared every 10 steps or so on the wall.
There are a total of fourteen 30-pound cannons, two 3-pound small field guns, and two bomb-launching cannons in the commercial building. Except for the eight cannons on the watchtower and gate tower, the other six 30-pound cannons are all It was equipped with an artillery carriage. Now the six cannons were filled with shotgun shells, and the muzzles of the guns protruded from the six newly opened gun windows. Chen Zhongji acted as the artillery commander. With an order, the six cannons fired almost simultaneously.
"Boom----" there was a loud sound of artillery, and the shotgun shells, weighing a total of about 200 kilograms, were full of iron sand and iron flakes, mixed with gunpowder smoke, and covered the open space within a hundred steps near the south gate.
Large swaths of members of the Shimadzu Army Gun Team who rushed at the front were swept to the ground by shotguns, and many members of the Iron Artillery Team and Archer Team were also beaten into a hornet's nest.
The Shimadzu Army's disaster was not over yet. There were two dull "bang bang" noises in the commercial building, and two huge black objects rose into the sky from inside the commercial building. The parabolic trajectory that could be clearly distinguished by the human eye fell on the ground. In the center of the iron gunners and archers, there was a flash of fire, bursts of thunder, smoke, flying debris, and a huge impact mixed with sand and gravel. Even Hirata Shinsou, who was 500 steps away from the scene, could feel the heat wave on his face.
This is the first application of the sky-blasting cannon invented by China Company under the leadership of Yin Feng in actual combat.
Two thin iron shells weighing 40 kilograms each were fired with a mortar and landed among the Shimadzu soldiers. The simultaneous explosion of 80 kilograms of black gunpowder was extremely powerful. The members of the iron artillery team and the archery team suddenly disappeared. In the gunpowder smoke, many people's mutilated limbs were flying in the air. Hirata saw his subordinates being shrouded in thick gunpowder smoke in the rear formation. After a while, the gunpowder smoke dispersed slightly, but he saw corpses strewn across the field, wounded soldiers everywhere, and a scene of howling ghosts and wolves. The sound; the frightened Shimazu soldiers were either stunned on the spot, or shivering in a ball, or turned around and ran away. The Hirata family retainer Yorita Heihachi who rushed at the front was beaten into a bloody mess by shotguns. thing, more than a dozen team captains at all levels who were directing the battle were killed on the spot.
Taking this opportunity, the guardsmen who had just been suppressed by the iron artillery team stood up and fired their guns down below as quickly as possible. The cannons on the city gate tower and watchtower also began to fire shot shells, escaping the attack just now. The Shimadzu soldiers who were bombarded by artillery fire once again fell one after another.
Hirata Masumune, who had been stunned for about a minute, was awakened by the sound of the cannon. He jumped up and grabbed the equally stunned attendants beside him, and shouted loudly: "Retreat, retreat, quickly give the order to retreat,"
Before the Chinese launched the second artillery bombardment, the remaining Shimadzu troops had already crawled back to the starting point of the attack. They were still attacked by exploding shells on the way. A large number of people fell to the ground, and a few unlucky guys fell to the ground. They were too close to the flower bombs and were shocked to death by the shock wave. Even if they escaped to Hirata's main formation, the long-range thunderbolt rockets could still attack them. Therefore, Hirata Masumune ignored the wounded on the battlefield who were still wailing and hurriedly carried them with him. The remaining troops hid in Sanchong City.
In the shotgun attack, more than 100 people were killed at the same time because the Shimadzu gunners were less than 30 steps away from the muzzle. In the second attack on the business building, they were unprepared for the Chinese artillery. Of the 900 Shimadzu troops, 300 were killed and more than 200 were injured. Hirata's Shimazu troops had lost more than half and basically lost their offensive capabilities.
The Shimadzu Army's tactical unit "Bei", like other daimyo armies at the same time, is a military organization composed of a mixture of established arms and branches. It has its own independent combat, command, logistics and other units. Therefore, in terms of tactics, The flexibility in use and adaptation to the battlefield environment, compared to the battalions of the Ming Dynasty and the European phalanx, allows commanders to have higher flexibility and selectivity in use. This is where Japan's "preparation" is relatively excellent, but it is also Due to the mixed nature of "preparation", in large-scale battles, its use in large formations has exposed its limitations; when the mixed formation of "preparation" cannot be broken, various arms cannot be used intensively and uniformly. Deployment, even if the mixed formation is broken and used in a centralized manner, the centralized single military branch will suffer from great chaos due to factors such as command coordination and training among different equipment. It is simply a nightmare for the battlefield commander.
Although the proportion of weapons and equipment in the Shimazu Army is quite high compared to the level of the Ming Dynasty army, and the weapons are well-trained and well-trained, the general firearms ratio reaches more than 26%. After deducting non-combat service personnel, a basic combat unit of the Japanese army The proportion of firearms can be as high as about 40%, which is quite high. During the same period, only the northern frontier army trained by Qi Jiguang in the north of China's Ming Dynasty had this high proportion. After that, it got worse and worse, but Japan Although the proportion of firearms is astonishing, they are all composed of iron cannons equipped with muskets. In addition, they are not equipped with large-caliber long and short artillery support. This has a great impact on the density of firearm projection, lethality and even battlefield deterrence. Therefore, the Shimazu army's attack firepower and impact power were obviously insufficient in large-scale field battles and sieges of forts.
The Central China Company's escort team used artillery in such a centralized and unified manner, which was completely beyond the expectations of Hirata Masumune of the Shimadzu Army; the use of blooming artillery shells was unheard of and unimaginable by the Shimadzu Army. After this disastrous defeat, The remaining soldiers of the Hirata Department huddled in places such as Mie Castle and Obama, staying in seclusion. They had neither the ability nor the courage to attack the Chinese Merchant House again.
For several days after that, a small group of soldiers from the Chinese Company's special battalion continued to sneak attacks on Shimadzu's personnel who were out collecting food. The victory of the Chinese Merchant House inspired the courage of Yaraza Mori Castle guard Xie Yuanshui. He took the initiative to contact the Chunghwa Merchant Store and also sent The Japanese attacked the Shimazu Army's food transport team.
Many residents of Naha Port who had fled to the mountains when the Shimadzu Army arrived also came back one after another. They regarded the Chunghwa Commercial House as their savior and took the initiative to help the Chunghwa Commercial House reinforce the fortifications and dig the moat.
…
It only took the Sea Spirit four days with favorable winds to arrive at Taipei Jilong Port. The day it arrived happened to be the day when Chen Zhongji defeated the attack of Hiratabe Shimazu's army in Ryukyu.
As soon as the Sea Spirit sent off its passengers, a group of sailors rushed onto the deck and carried various equipment and equipment onto the ship. A whole group of 150 heavily armed escort soldiers were also gearing up on the shore where the ship was docked.
Yin Feng personally supervised the formation, and the work of loading cargo and "people" began as soon as it docked at the port, without wasting any time.
This time, the soldiers who supported the Chinese Commercial House in Naha Port were elites selected from the entire army. Yin Feng specially appointed Yan Siqi as the sentinel commander, because more than 40 of the 150 people were "boy scouts" who studied in the army.
They will bring food supplies and a large amount of ammunition to the Chinese Commercial Building, as well as 5 small field guns and several rockets.
Although the news brought by the Sea Spirit said that the Ryukyu Army was quickly defeated, none of the 150 soldiers flinched.
However, Yin Feng was very worried about the war situation in Ryukyu. The Ryukyu side collapsed too quickly. I was afraid that Chen Zhongji would soon engage in battle with the Japanese pirates. However, the wind direction on the sea has not changed. It is still impossible to go north to support Ryukyu on a large scale.