Chapter 3548
Chapter 3548
Chapter 3548
While Tokugawa Iematsu was busy arranging the transfer of power among the three great families, the shogunate's rear was once again raided by the Kyushu coalition forces.
This time, the target of the Kyushu coalition's surprise attack was no longer the area near the Kanmon Strait. Instead, they quietly bypassed Shikoku Island and went straight to Osaka.
The Satsuma clan's armed fleet carried out this mission, departing from Kagoshima and sailing through the southern waters of Shikoku Island to Osaka, a distance of 1,500 miles. For the Japanese navy of that era, this was already a long-distance raid.
This action of Satsuma Domain was not included in the combat plan formulated by Hai Han. It was because it learned from certain secret channels that almost all the garrison troops in Osaka had been transferred to the front line that it immediately dispatched more than a dozen warships and organized this expedition.
Due to the enormous pressure on the Kanmon Strait battlefield, the troops sent by Satsuma Domain in this operation were mainly reserve troops, but the effect was surprisingly good.
When the Satsuma clan sent troops, they thought they would give Osaka a try first, but when the fleet arrived at the local area, they found that there was almost no defense inside and outside Osaka Castle, so they immediately carried out looting in the local area.
The fleet went upstream along the Yodo River and rushed inland until it was only forty miles away from Kyoto, where it turned back.
This was not because they had any awe for the Emperor in the Kyoto Imperial Garden, but because the various properties they looted along the way were so great that the ship was almost full.
The fleet commander was also worried that if he stayed too long near Osaka, the enemy would have time to mobilize troops to encircle him. Apart from anything else, as long as the enemy gathered a group of civilian ships in the lower reaches of the Yodo River to block the waterway, it would be difficult for his fleet to get in and out quickly and get away safely.
Seeing that the ship was almost loaded, the commander ordered an evacuation. If it ended like this, then the losses in Osaka would almost all come from the people, and it would not have much impact on the shogunate.
However, a fleet that wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to escape from Osaka was blocked by the fleet withdrawing from the Yodo River. The cargo carried by this fleet was more than 200,000 kilograms of military rations to be sent to the shogunate army on the front line, as well as a batch of military pay that had just been raised in Osaka and Kyoto.
The speed of these grain transport ships was naturally slower than that of the warships, and they were soon intercepted in Osaka Bay. After the Satsuma army boarded the ships and inspected them, they found that they were full of grain and fodder, as well as several large boxes of silver ingots. They were overjoyed and immediately robbed the ships and the people, and escorted them back to the base camp in Kagoshima.
Although this raid did not cause much damage to the shogunate's armed forces, it successfully cut off a very important batch of supplies. I wonder how much effort the shogunate will have to spend to fill this hole.
Hai Han also learned about this only after the fleet returned to Kyushu. Although Satsuma did not report the operation to Hai Han in advance, Hai Han could not blame Satsuma for being able to escape unscathed from the expedition with rich spoils.
However, the Hai Han military also knew that once this matter spread, the other members of the coalition would definitely have other ideas.
After all, fighting in the Kanmon Straits would not bring any direct benefits to the various clans, but would instead consume limited warships and sailors. However, the Satsuma clan only dispatched more than ten ships to attack, but achieved such a huge gain, and others would definitely be willing to follow suit.
Earlier, the coalition forces' tactics of attacking the ports behind the shogunate were mainly aimed at the area near the Kanmon Strait, and the farthest target was only Hiroshima, which was more than 200 miles away from Kyushu. However, the Satsuma clan's self-initiated attack this time stretched the range of the expedition to 1,500 miles. This might indeed disrupt the rear of the shogunate, but if it attracted several other clans to follow suit, it would inevitably weaken the Kyushu coalition forces with limited warships to control the Kanmon Strait.
After discussions, military generals including Shi Diwen, Yan Chujie, and Chen Yixin believed that this incident might cause loopholes in the overall deployment of the coalition forces, and that the coalition forces should be warned to limit such expeditionary raids at this stage.
However, they greatly underestimated the Japanese's makeshift team in commanding large-scale battles. Before the other coalition forces had time to take action, more abstract things happened.
The shogunate was furious when it learned that Osaka had been attacked, and immediately retaliated in a similar manner, sending an armed fleet to bypass the southern tip of Kyushu Island and raid Kagoshima, the headquarters of the Satsuma domain.
The local triumphal celebrations in Kagoshima lasted only two days, and they had never expected that the shogunate army would attack so soon. The unprepared defenders could only fight back hastily.
The most ironic thing is that the several coastal defense guns originally deployed by the Satsuma domain in Kagoshima were dismantled and transported to the battlefield in northern Kyushu a few days ago because of the needs of front-line operations, and they did not have much effective means to attack the shogunate fleet attacking from the sea.
There were only some militia and reserve troops stationed in Kagoshima. The few warships that were hastily dispatched lacked experience in naval warfare and were soon sunk by the shogunate army near the port.
However, in the subsequent landing battle, the shogunate army encountered stubborn resistance from the defenders and failed to gain any advantage.
The fleet had limited manpower, with only about a thousand men able to be deployed in the siege. Although the defenders were mainly militia and new recruits, their weapons and equipment were not bad, and they were equipped with a large number of muskets like the regular army.
After leaving hundreds of corpses outside the city, the shogunate army had no choice but to give up the plan of attacking the city and chose to withdraw.
Although the defenders successfully repelled the enemy, they suffered greater casualties than the attackers, so it can only be considered a tragic victory.
The two sides were unable to gain an advantage on the front battlefield, but they were often successful in sneak attacks on the opponent's rear. Moreover, such attacks were not planned much beforehand and were almost always decided by the commander on a whim, but they always worked out well.
When the news of the attack on Kagoshima in Satsuma reached the front line, it also made the other families in the coalition panic, because their troop deployment was not much better than that of Satsuma. Almost all those left at home were old, weak and new recruits, and they might not be able to withstand the shogunate's stealing tactics.
The lord of Tsushima Domain, So Yoshizane, also took the initiative to visit Shi Diwen. Because he had successfully launched a surprise attack on Ogi Castle, the capital of Choshu Domain some time ago, he was now worried about retaliation from the other side, so he asked Shi Diwen if he could transfer part of the troops on the front line back to defend his home.
Shi Diwen knew that if the Tsushima clan was asked to withdraw troops and return home to deploy defenses, the morale of the coalition forces would be dispersed, so he immediately rejected his request.
However, Shi Diwen also gave Zong Yizhen an idea, asking him to seek foreign aid, such as the Koreans who have always wanted to intervene in this civil war. Now the Korean King Li Li is watching the war in northern Kyushu. As long as he nods his head in agreement, it will not be difficult to send a team from Busan Port to Tsushima Domain to assist in defense.