Good timing! At last it has come! My daikai is hungry and thirsty.”
Naoe Nabeshima grinned happily when he heard that the Ming army was coming, rolled out of bed with a grunt, donned his daikai with the assistance of Sanbanro Matsuura, put on his lion-engorged helmet, and carried his katana out into the courtyard.
This set of daikai was once worn by Ryuzoji Takanobu, and had been specially rewarded to Nabeshima Naoyo before his departure.
Naoe Nabeshima, clad in his armour, was heroic, feeling the power transferring from his armour to his body, and his battle prowess increasing in magnitude.
Matsuura Sanbanro also wore a set of armour, although not as gorgeous as Nabeshima Naono’s, but also worth a lot of Matsuura family heirloom full-body heavy armour, the defensive power must be more than the Daikai has been even more than that, the rate of the other Japanese wearing armour accounted for about one-third of the rate of the other Japanese and most of their armour is light armour, and the other Japanese do not have armor, wearing cloth barefoot.
In the courtyard, the Japanese were ready for battle, dozens of bow-bearing Japanese stepped on chairs and exposed half of their heads on the courtyard wall, reaching out to draw their bows; ten other Japanese held iron cannons, occupying the third-floor vantage point, with their guns pointed outwards; the rest of the Japanese were in melee combat, with blades such as swords, naginata, and spears in their hands, ready to strike.
Although there were only one hundred and fifty Japanese pirates, they were all full of wariness, and no one was seen to have a look of fear on their faces.
“Yancy, bastards, not bad!”Nao Nabeshima looked at the group of Japanese pirates and praised them with a satisfied grin.
“General Naono, please look, the Ming army is already less than a mile away.”Matsuura Sanbanro said as he pointed outside.
Nabeshima Naono raised his head and looked out, and saw that a large number of Ming troops were advancing towards this place at the location of miles outside.
Nabeshima Naono roughly counted about 2,000 men and grinned, “Yancy! This time, my big sword can drink enough blood!”, followed by turning his head and shouting at the Japanese in the courtyard, “Bastards, we only have one hundred and fifty men, while the Ming army outside has more than two thousand men, are you afraid?!”
“No!”
“Afraid? We are afraid that the Ming army is not enough for us to kill! I heard that the Ming army is as weak as monkeys ……”
The Japanese in the courtyard arrogantly laughed out loud, and each of them regarded the Ming army outside the courtyard that had rushed to encircle them as nothing.
“Hahaha, you stinking bastards who are so sinful and inhuman, you are worthy of being the good sons and daughters of my Yamato!”Naoe Nabeshima laughed out loud with satisfaction, reaching out and pointing to the belatedly arriving Ming army outside, arrogantly saying, “When the Ming army arrives, this general will take you bastards to kill them all!”
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
“Kill!”
The Japanese pirates in the courtyard waved their blades, each one of them murderous, each one of them grimacing like a vicious wolf.
“General Naono, all of you, when this wave of Ming people come, if the Ming army is strong, we have to save ourselves, we only need to guard the courtyard, to make rafts in the evening, to raid the Ming army in the night, and then cross the river to hide away; if the Ming army is weak, then all of you don’t kill too hard, to collect a few points of force, don’t scare the Ming army away, this is the first time that we have come into contact with the Ming army, it’s a rare opportunity, I want toobserve and study the Ming army properly, after today, you all can kill with abandon.”
Matsuura Sanbanro calmly looked at the frenzied Nabeshima Naono and a group of Japanese pirates, and suggested in a calm and collected manner.
“Sanbanro, I hear you!”Nabeshima Naono nodded and said to the group of Japanese pirates, “General Sanbanro’s words have been heard! When the Ming people come later, collect a few points of force and don’t miss the big event of spying on the Great Ming!”
“Hey!”
The Japanese soldiers said in unison.
A few miles outside the courtyard, more than 2,000 Ming troops were advancing towards the courtyard, their uniforms separating them into two parts.
One part is the troops led by Liu Xi, the governor of Shaoxing, with a total of more than 1,000 people, four hundred of which are the troops of Shaoxing Prefecture, and six hundred of which are the unofficial troops from the eight counties under the jurisdiction of the conscripted government offices and civil servants.
The other part was a thousand guardsmen led by Xu Zi Yi, a thousand guardsmen.
Zhifu Liu and Qiantu Xu did not negotiate to come together to besiege the Japanese invaders, but brought their troops separately to besiege them.
The surviving people of Funing Town (the village that Nao Nabeshima and his group of Japanese invaders had ravaged) had more than a hundred people who escaped from the Japanese invaders and spread the news of the Japanese invaders’ landing in Funing Town, and the Shaoxing governor Liu Xi and Xu Zi Yi, a thousand-dollar guardsman, learnt of the news almost at the same time. After learning that the landing of the Japanese only a hundred or so people, Shaoxing governor Liu Xi and the guards of Xu Zi Yi both judgement came to a conclusion: this is a good opportunity to make a merit!
Recently, under the connivance and instruction of Wang Zhi, the leader of the Japanese pirates, the Japanese pirates have gone crazy and increased the frequency of landing and attacking the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the number of times Shaoxing Province has encountered the Japanese pirates has increased by ten times compared to the previous years. Shaoxing governor Liu Xi and the guards of the thousand households Xu Zi Yi, they are under great pressure.
Ming Dynasty governor status is equivalent to a prefecture-level city of the city official and mayor, high power and heavy responsibility, the government of the government orders, the general leadership of the counties, where the announcement of the national order, governance of the people, the trial of lawsuits, the inspection of malefactors, assessment of officials, tax collection and all other political affairs are its duties, of course, the most important responsibility is to protect the territory and people. Now, the Japanese have repeatedly attacked the Shaoxing prefecture counties, to the Shaoxing prefecture counties caused serious casualties and property losses, Liu Xi, the governor of the pressure can not be big.
The Ming Dynasty guards are to some extent equivalent to a small military region now, shouldering the responsibility of guarding. The guards thousand Xu Zi Yi is responsible for guarding one of the main areas is the Shaoxing province, now the Japanese crazy like the attack on Shaoxing province, as the guards of the responsibility of the Xu thousand, the pressure is like a mountain on top.
During this time, the Japanese invaders that attacked Shaoxing Province were always more than a thousand people, and even less than five or six hundred people, Liu Zhifu and Xu Qiandu had the intention to kill the Japanese, but they had limited troops and limited combat power, so they had the intention but not the ability to do so.
Now, when they heard that a group of more than a hundred Japanese pirates had landed, they immediately felt that this was an opportunity to wipe out the Japanese pirates and make a great achievement.
In the past, when a Japanese pirate landed and attacked, they would inform each other of the consensus and join forces to expel the pirates.
But this time was different.
After learning this news, they further confirmed that the news was true and that there were only a hundred or so Japanese invaders, they didn’t think of informing each other to join forces, and each of them drafted their own troops and horses and rushed to destroy the Japanese invaders to make a great achievement. They met each other only when they were travelling on the present road.
Oh, what a coincidence.
Liu Zhifu and Xu Qiandu were a bit embarrassed, but both of them were experts in the officialdom, so they could handle this kind of embarrassing scene with ease.
“Xu Qiandu ah, this official heard that the jurisdiction Funing Town was captured by the Japanese pirates, his heart ached for the people, fearing that the Japanese pirates would cause more killings, so he was too late to inform Xu Qiandu, so he drafted his troops and horses to come and exterminate the Japanese pirates.”
Zhifu Liu said with a pained face.
“Governor Liu, after hearing that Japanese pirates had landed in Funing Town, I was worried that the pirates would plunder other places and hastily summoned the guards and horses to come and exterminate the pirates, and I was so eager to exterminate the pirates that I didn’t have time to notify Governor Liu.”
Xu Qiandu clasped his hands together, with a face of responsibility.
