Chapter 366 25. The Enemy Comes and I Fight for a Point

Hosokawa Fujitaka will definitely be famous in the future. To be honest, there are not many people on this planet who can maintain their high status under two generations of feudal dynasty rulers, let alone Japan.

And Hosokawa Fujitaka was able to continue the three regents of the Muromachi shogunate to the 542,000-koku powerful daimyo of Kumamoto in the Edo shogunate. Although Hosokawa Tadaoki also had a role in this, it must be said that Hosokawa Fujitaka's own ability and vision were good.

So what is Hosokawa Fujitaka doing at this moment? He hurried to gather the Luoyang Town firefighters, and reunited with the lost public servants along the way. He took out all the armor and weapons he had stored and armed a small number of firefighters. In the end, he was still one step short and could not enter the imperial palace immediately.

But after all, it was dark, and although there were torches, the brightness was still very ordinary. Hosokawa Fujitaka was also cunning. He arranged the more than a hundred public servants in helmets and armor gathered along the way in the front row. He also paid a lot of money to trick a group of firefighters into holding long spears as cover, and the rest of the firefighters raised flags and cheered.

When Iwanari Tomomichi came with more than a thousand people to block the attack, Hosokawa Fujitaka took advantage of the locals of Luojing and sent more than a hundred firefighters with long weapons to attack everywhere, and they would run away as soon as they got stuck, creating an ambush from all sides and countless reinforcements.

At the same time, he personally led more than a hundred Fenggong to fiercely attack Iwanari Tomomichi, and stunned Iwanari Tomomichi who had just arrived.

"How many people does Hosokawa Fujitaka have? Where did such a large army come from?"

It's no wonder that Iwanari Tomomichi couldn't figure it out. He got lost. He really didn't expect that the firefighters who usually patrolled the streets with only two or three people and greeted the big and the second at the street corner could gather a team of thousands of people at once.

Blind spot!

And after Hosokawa Fujitaka's set of combined punches, in Luojing where the streets are densely populated, the two sides can actually only have two or three hundred people who can fight. Iwanari Tomomichi was confused. He was not a smart man. He was frightened and did not dare to move.

Hosokawa Fujitaka saw that there was a way. While continuing to harass the Iwanari army, he tried to advance to the Imperial Palace and tried to join Ashikaga Yoshiteru.

Iwanari Tomomichi was not willing to do it. He was stunned by the infantry assault of hundreds of Fugong. It did not mean that he was really stupid. He also knew that no matter how many people the Hosokawa army had, as long as they could not enter the Imperial Palace, Ashikaga Yoshiteru would still have 200 people, and he would still be a weak chicken.

The shortcomings of the Hosokawa army appeared. There were too few people willing to fight to the death, and there was a lack of long-range attack methods.

Iwanari Tomomichi brought a lot of archers, and many samurai Fugong people also carried bows and swords. Now, the Iwanari army was nailed to the road, with long soldiers outside and bows and arrows on guard. Wherever there was a sound, they would rush there desperately, without sparing arrows.

Now Hosokawa Fujitaka was exhausted and it was difficult to continue to advance.

…

"Your Highness, the bandits outside the palace have shot arrows." A general entered the palace holding an arrow with a piece of paper tied to it.

"Swords have no eyes, and fire and water have no mercy." The "deputy general" Yamauchi Yoshikatsu, who was standing by and commanding the soldiers, read it slowly.

"Go and observe whether the bandits are preparing to attack the gate with fire!" Yamauchi Yoshikatsu, who reacted immediately after reading it, ordered immediately.

"Your Highness, prepare wet cloths and cover the mouths and noses of the soldiers." If you want to attack with fire quickly, you must use kerosene and gunpowder, so you must prevent the harm of smoke.

After making preparations, Yamauchi Yoshikatsu ordered 20 to 30 generals with bows and good archers to climb onto the roof and shoot the bandits who tried to attack the gate with fire at any time.

I have to repeat again that Ashikaga Yoshiteru's good face is really important. Originally, the 200-man defense of the palace was relatively tight. But Ashikaga Yoshiteru was good at face. Not only was the outer wall gate built solid, but the interior of the palace was also unexpectedly conducive to defense.

Why? Because of the ostentation, half of the area in the palace is a pond!

In order to go boating on the pond in summer and show his status as the shogun, the pond was dug very deep to ensure that there was enough water in the pond. It was also connected to the waterway outside Luojing, which meant that more than half of the area of ​​the imperial palace did not need to be defended. Even if the bandits came in, they had to swim across the wide pond that was several meters deep.

Think about it, an elite soldier with a sword and a spear, in full armor, first climbed up the courtyard wall that was more than two meters high. Then he landed perfectly and was lucky not to twist his foot, and then swam hundreds of meters at night with this equipment that weighed at least ten or twenty kilograms, and finally attacked the guards who were waiting for him in a state of freezing.

Isn't this a gift!

Yamanouchi Yoshikatsu only needs to send a few people to watch the lake. As long as they are not deaf, if there are bandits who are not afraid of death and come to this triathlon, they can wait for him to come ashore and shoot him to death.

Miyoshi and the Matsunaga army naturally knew the structure of the imperial palace, so they didn't think about climbing over the wall to swim, and just broke through the gate and went in. More than 3,000 people can't break open a wooden door?

Before Matsunaga Nagamichi opened his mouth, a loyal henchman dismantled the beams of a large house on the roadside and had more than a dozen strong soldiers carry them on ropes ready to break through the door at any time.

Inside the imperial palace, on the one hand, the various precious flowers and trees that the general had transplanted at a great price were cut down, and the logs were simply peeled and sent to support the gate bolts. On the other hand, rice bags and cloth bags were filled with mud, trying to completely block the gate.

Even the lake stones that Ashikaga Yoshiharu cherished during his lifetime were all overturned and moved to the gate to block the gate.

Anyway, you have a plan, and I have a ladder. You come and I go, neither of us gives in.

The Miyoshi army outside the imperial palace also frantically threw fire arrows at the gate and threw pine oil torches, hoping to quickly ignite the wooden door. As long as the gate is burned and shaken, the beams will hit it and it will definitely break the door.

But the wooden door just couldn't be burned. Ashikaga Yoshiteru was reluctant to buy more new clothes, but he was willing to spend money to paint the door that represented the face of the Muromachi shogunate with vermilion paint in three months. The fireproof performance was awesome.

Miyoshi Nagayoshi saw that this was not a big deal, so he ordered people to carry kerosene to pour on the door. But as soon as the fearless Miyoshi bandits approached the door with buckets, they were named and reimbursed by the Fenggong on the roof.

After two or three times like this, no one dared to pour oil. Even if Miyoshi Nagayoshi took out a ten-liang gold judge on the spot, it would be useless. The soldiers were not stupid. They earned money for their lives, but no one was willing to earn money that they could earn but not spend.

Seeing the offensive frustrated and time passing by bit by bit, Matsunaga Nagamichi, who knew that this expedition was very risky, did not hide it. He waved his hand and asked a hundred iron cannons to come forward, holding bamboo bundles and shooting at the elite bow-wielding Fenggong on the opposite side.

Although the iron cannon is not accurate, its range is indeed longer than that of the bow. Originally, the servants on the roof did not take the iron cannon seriously, but after a stray bullet took away a servant, everyone began to hesitate.

Song Yongji took advantage of the situation and sent someone to move a barrel of gunpowder to the front of the gate and threw it down. The iron cannon fired in unison, igniting the gunpowder.

"Boom"! Smoke filled the air!

………