Chapter 3526
Just on the other side of the strait, which is only about ten miles away from the expedition camp, there is a large-scale house. Like the land a hundred miles east of the Kanmon Strait, it belongs to the Mouri clan, the great name of the Choshu clan.
Although the seat of the Choshu clan is Ogi Castle, which is more than a hundred miles away, the former lord Hidemoto Mouri liked this place very much during his lifetime. Not only did he build a mansion here, but he was even buried not far from here after his death. Inside Gongshan Temple.
Mouri Hidemoto married the adopted daughter of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogunate of the shogunate, as his stepmother. This was also a political marriage in which the two families joined forces. Therefore, the relationship between the Mori clan and the Tokugawa shogunate was once very close, and the shogunate also regarded the Choshu clan as the most important political ally in western Honshu.
However, after the accident in Kyushu last year, the position of the Choshu Domain was not clear, and it even maintained contacts with the Fukuoka Domain across the strait.
This may be because the Choshu clan does not want to become the target of the Kyushu clans, or perhaps the current lord Tsunahiro Mori wants to wait and see the situation to see if the shogunate has the ability to deal with the rebels in Kyushu.
If the shogunate has nothing to do with them and can only watch Kyushu escape its control, then the Choshu clan may inevitably have some other thoughts.
The shogunate must have been aware of such a crisis, so it quickly decided to launch a crusade against Kyushu at the end of winter, and notified Tsunahiro Mouri to prepare the Choshu Domain to become the front line of the war.
The preparations required by the Choshu Domain were different from other places in Japan. They not only sent out troops to fight and that was it, but also had to prepare to receive the troops mobilized by the shogunate from all over the country.
Tens of thousands of horses eat and drink every day, and the supplies they consume are huge. Some of them must be supplied by the Choshu clan nearby, which will inevitably cause huge logistical pressure.
Although the Choshu Domain accepted the tasks assigned by the shogunate, it is hard to say whether they were willing to do so. After all, before the war even started, the Choshu clan had already consumed a large amount of material reserves and suffered considerable economic losses.
The shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna probably considered the impact of this, so he went to the front line to supervise the battle in person, and set up his headquarters at the Mori mansion in the Kanmon Strait.
When the weather is good, standing on the high ground of Maori Mansion, you can overlook the coast of Kyushu Island across the strait, which is very convenient for observing the movements of the Kyushu Allied Forces at the east end of the strait.
Tokugawa Ietsuna was naturally very dissatisfied with Kaihan's approach of bringing a multinational delegation to watch the battle in the Kanmon Strait. This was clearly a deliberate attempt to create obstacles for the shogunate to crusade against the Kyushu rebellious party.
After Sakai Tadayoshi returned, he reported the results of the final negotiations with the Kyushu vassals, which made Tokugawa Ietsuna furious.
"The Haihan people are just stalling for time for the Jiuzhou rebellious party!"
Tokugawa Ietsuna angrily threw the pen holder on the table in front of him. Although it was a Haihan glass craft that he liked very much, his temper was too strong to care about it anymore.
The pen holder hit the wall and shattered into pieces. Everyone present was silent and did not dare to speak out to persuade him.
The shogunate mobilized troops from all over the country, and Tokugawa Ietsuna personally went out to fight. Naturally, victory was needed to be able to match such a large battle. However, Haihan's intervention made the battle situation full of variables. No one dared to pat their chests and guarantee victory against the Kyushu Allied Forces.
According to the original combat plan, after completing the troop assembly in the Kanmon Strait, the shogunate army should take the initiative to launch a cross-sea landing on Kyushu. With the width of the Kanmon Strait, we only need to occupy a landing site on the other side of the strait, and then set up forts on both sides of the strait to form a crossfire that blocks the strait channel. If the warships rush in, there will be no good results, and maybe the shogunate insurgency can be avoided. Dominant naval battle.
Then tens of thousands of troops were gradually transported over to start a decisive land battle with the Kyushu Allied Forces. The shogunate army with superior strength obviously had a greater chance of winning.
Moreover, placing the battlefield in Kyushu can minimize the impact of the war on the area controlled by the shogunate, and the shogunate army will requisition food and manpower on the spot, so there is no need to have any worries.
In this way, Kyushu's war potential is consumed while fighting, and it is only a matter of time before victory is achieved.
But now the Haihan people have stepped in, which has greatly affected the implementation of the shogunate's combat plan.
The place where the Haihan people camped was one of the pre-selected landing sites for the shogunate army. With the strength of the shogunate army, they naturally did not dare to rush into the camp where thousands of Haihan troops were stationed, not to mention there were dozens of Haihan warships watching at sea.
According to Tadaki Sakai's report, during the military exercises held near Sasebo Bay a few days ago, Haihan's largest ship, the Zhoushan, demonstrated amazing attack power, and its naval guns could easily destroy sea targets several miles away.
If we look at the environment of the Kanmon Strait, it means that the Zhoushan can directly bombard the location of the Maori mansion at sea.
Although Haihan currently claims that he will not participate in the war, if he breaks out when the shogunate army crosses the sea to fight, it will really be a disaster.
Haihan defended the eastern end of the strait, where the defenses were weakest, for the Kyushu Allied Forces. The coastline to the west was not so easy to attack.
At the narrowest point of the strait, the Fukuoka Domain built several forts last winter. It was not easy to cross the sea under gunfire.
Although there are many flat coastlines at the western end of the strait, the Kyushu Allied Forces are stationed there, and the sea is relatively open. The armed fleets of the Kyushu Allied Forces can also sail into this sea area to assist in defense, which is not the best operation for the attackers. The situation may turn into a decisive battle at sea that the shogunate does not want to see.
Forced by this situation, the shogunate must make adjustments to the original battle plan, but in this case, the time to start the war may have to be postponed, which is definitely not a good thing for the shogunate army that has assembled far more troops than its opponents. .
Every day the offensive is delayed, the shogunate's expenses will be several times that of the opponent. If it is delayed for another month or two in this place, the shogunate's army will be overwhelmed by its own logistics supply before they can fight.
Tokugawa Ietsuna was not that patient, and was slowly grinding away with the Kyushu Allied Forces here, so he ordered his officers to formulate a new combat plan as soon as possible, and the time to launch the attack should not be later than the end of March.
However, this was not an easy task. The shogunate army was a coalition of troops drawn from more than a hundred vassals across the country. Among them, more than 20 were led by the daimyo himself.
Each family has its own plans and ideas on how to use the precious people they have worked so hard to manage. Some people want to charge into the battle and seize the lead, others are fishing for opportunities while waiting for the opportunity, and some people just plan to go through the motions, as long as they can bring back all the troops they came with.
Each family has different ideas, and it is naturally not an easy task to temporarily formulate a battle plan that satisfies everyone.