Chapter 69 28. Odawara Castle Gate Opens

After more than ten days of playing and cursing in the streets, the city has long been accustomed to the siege of the Kanto coalition forces without attacking. After all, seeing that all the Hojo navy was driven into Odawara Port, the return ships from the sea route kept coming day and night. Soldiers and soldiers unloaded food and salt from morning to night, and the smoke from cooking outside the city was sufficient every day.

Anyone who saw it must have been on the thigh of the rich and powerful Nagao Kagetora. Now Nagao Kagetora waved a lot of money and bought at least two or three months of food from the sea route (the city estimated wrongly, it was actually only a little over a month). When this batch of food was eaten, the summer harvest food would come up.

As long as Nagao Kagetora had enough patience, he could at least besiege Odawara Castle for half a year. Although the food in Odawara Castle could at least support 20,000 troops for a year and a half, now that Odawara was isolated from the inside and outside, it would be difficult to solve the problem of 50,000 mouths of townspeople. With this calculation, the food in Odawara Castle would only be enough for seven or eight months.

In this way, the outcome is fifty-fifty. Few foot soldiers in the city can figure this out. But most of the samurai with some culture and ability can basically see it. Anyway, Nagao Kagetora's money was robbed, and he used the money to buy food. With the food, he can surround Odawara. This effortless and non-death siege method is simply the best choice at the moment.

So most of the samurai began to slack off slowly. After all, they were going to face a boring siege for more than half a year. When the foot soldiers saw that their leaders were floating, they also relaxed. Although they were still on guard normally, they were not as hard-working as when the war just started.

The result was beyond the expectations of the Hojo army. Half a month passed quickly. After all preparations were completed, today, Nagao Kagetora forced more than 20,000 weak people (those captured and sold civilians. Anyway, the families of the soldiers in the city who were useful had already been selected, and the remaining ones were just right to use their remaining energy to dedicate themselves to the "just" cause). The strong ones carried rice bags, the weak ones dragged earth bags, and men, women, old and young were driven into the army in a mess and without order.

As for the formation, there were crude and shoddy horse carriages carrying a large number of earth bags and rice bags. Hundreds of them moved with the army to a distance of 150 meters in front of the city.

The city suddenly saw the Kanto coalition army going out, and the alarm bells rang loudly. Countless soldiers rushed to the earthen ramparts. The flags and flags of the Sankai Ling were connected into clouds, rolling and sweeping up to the top of the city.

Kobayata rode a horse to command the front line, and Aji followed closely with the horse flag of the sun and moon. Soon all the carriages drove out of the army alone. The crudely made carriages creaked under the pressure of the earthen bags and rice bags on the carriages. The quality of the pack horses was far inferior to that of the war horses. They snorted and stepped in panic when they felt the atmosphere on the battlefield. They seemed to feel the fate of being abandoned on the battlefield.

As for the drivers, they would definitely not use the soldiers of the Yamanouchi family or the soldiers of Nagao Kagetora. Every foot soldier was so precious. They must have used the civilians that Nagao Kagetora had brought in, and forced hundreds of young and strong men who could drive to drive by threatening their families.

Then 20 or 30 carriages were lined up in a team, pierced the horses' buttocks, and drove the carriages quickly towards the trenches, and the smoke and dust rolled up into the clear blue sky. The shouts of people and the neighing of horses were loud. Xiao Pingtai told the horsemen that as long as they could jump out of the carriage and come back alive, they would be rewarded with a table of rice for each person, and their whole family would be redeemed and released.

Then a bloody and exciting scene appeared. The pack horses pulled the fully loaded carriages into the trenches and broke their bones. Then it splashed a huge splash of water and sank to the bottom of the water with a wail.

However, the carriages kept rushing towards the trench from the back, and the soldiers on the earthen ramparts were stunned for a moment. Even if there were a few archers and cannons, it would be difficult to hit the horses in a hurry, and even if they were hit, the horses would not die for a while.

In just 20 to 30 minutes, hundreds of carriages rushed into the trench. Except for a few that failed, most of them successfully entered the water. The bodies of people and horses and earthen carts filled up several sections of the trench without surprise.

At this time, Xiao Pingtai could no longer care about the casualties of the people and horses. He sent an order to the rear formation. Nagao Kagetora immediately sent 2,000 iron gunners and 1,000 heavy rattan archers to charge to a place 30 meters away from the city in three sections with bamboo bundles and wooden shields under partial protection, set up bunkers, and then fired in sections to suppress the top of the city. The Hojo army behind the fence on the earthen ramparts was shot and could not raise their heads.

Seeing the situation, without saying anything, Nagao Kagetora's samurai foot soldiers raised their swords and guns, followed the passage left by the iron gunners, and under the cover of firepower, forced more than 20,000 weak foot soldiers to rush to the city and throw rice bags and earth bags. Even if these weak foot soldiers were accidentally shot and wounded under the city, no one would stop to rescue them, and they directly made the foundation for climbing the city. Who cares about their life and death when fighting? Nagao Kagetora doesn't care that these are his property, and Kobayata doesn't care even more.

In the war, don't talk about whether people are human or not. In this Warring States period, except for samurai foot soldiers, other people are nothing in the eyes of the daimyo, and a few deaths are nothing. Kobayata has seen through this basic understanding a long time ago.

Moreover, this method has been used by more than a few people in ancient and modern times, from East Asia to Western Europe. Especially the so-called bandits, driving the people to consume the ammunition and supplies of the guards and wear down the morale in the town. It can also prepare for the siege and reduce the number of casualties of soldiers.

At this time, people are not much different from numbers. When the Ottomans attacked Constantinople, they also used jihadists and militias who were no different from ordinary people. When the Crusaders attacked Jerusalem, they also sent pilgrims to attack it. Not to mention the Mongols who attacked the city.

In China, not to mention the bandits, many barbarian dynasties were the same. The Jin army sent out a large number of soldiers wherever they went. Anyway, they were all southern barbarians in their eyes, and it didn't matter if they died. For example, the Northern Wei Dynasty seemed to have been sinicized, but it still used ordinary Han people in its own country to attack the city. As for the pigtail dynasty, let alone, they were very happy. When the heavenly soldiers arrived, everything would be destroyed. Do you really think it is a joke in the history book?

It was not so bad in Japan. This kind of thing of driving people to the city rarely happened. Xiao Pingtai now aimed at capturing the city, so he certainly didn't care about the names of these people. After forcing these people to throw earthen mounds for more than three hours (under ideal circumstances), countless casualties were caused. The original earthen mound, which was ten meters high from the bottom of the moat to the top of the mound and had an inclination of nearly fifty degrees, was piled up into two slopes, each twenty to thirty meters wide.

This slope was completely enough for Nagao Kagetora's army to directly climb the city and fight for the mound. Thus, the gate of Odawara, a world-famous and unrivaled strong city, was opened.

A chapter of more than 7,000 words will be arranged in the next two or three days.