Compared to Hokkaido, Japan’s defenses in Honshu were even more sick in the head.
With Edo as the dividing line, Sanli City arranged three iron defense lines on the south side and four on the north. As for the defenses of the bay, it would be even crazier than that of Hokkaido.
Keisuke Honda’s strategy was really clear; he wanted to defend for a month.
Han Xin scoffed at this strategy. The strongest defense in front of the strongest attack was just a decorative piece. Military people often said that the best form of defense was offense.
As for how to attack Honshu, Han Xin had a full combat plan.
6th month, 7th day, the north army started to move.
Guo Ziyi led the blazing legion corps to cross the straits, disembarking on the northmost point of Honshu and sweeping down from north to south. The 1st division of the Tiger, Eagle, and City Protection Legion Corps would split into three and disembark at three different ports on the north of Honshu.
Honshu simply had too many ports, so the Japanese army’s limited number of troops could not form a completely airtight defense. The moment Han Xin found a hole, it would be when the enemy has an all-out collapse.
Furthermore, the expedition army now had Hokkaido as their backline, ensuring that endless amounts of grain was being transported to the frontlines. Even if they fought on four front,s it was still more than enough.
Hence, one could see that the strategic reason for the expedition army taking down Hokkaido was much more important than the actual war purpose.
As for how would the four armies would break through the iron defense lines set up near the ports, with Ran Min’s forces’ experience at the port of Kushiro, it became much easier.
“It’s just about how much losses we can handle,” Han Xin said.
As they say, ‘The soft do not command troops.’ When he needed to be vicious, Han Xin naturally could do so even to his own men. For the final victory, sometimes sacrificing a bunch of forces was unavoidable.
There were obviously no wars where no one died.
Apart from these four groups of troops, the Bear Legion Corps led by Han Xin would get close to Edo. Whilst they took down the north of Honshu, they would sweep the surrounding castles around Edo to clear out obstacles for the final siege.
Han Xin arranged it in such a way to reduce the time needed for the country war.
The more Japan wanted to drag it on, the more Han Xin needed to give the enemy much to think about such that they could not drag on. Of course, the final siege needed the south army to work together with them too.
Not mentioning other aspects, but just the million guards in Edo were not something the north army could handle alone.
During these two days, under the pressure of outside forums and comments, the south army had sped up. A day ago, they were about to take down Kyushu and establish their backlines.
Not long later, they would be able to go up north to attack Shikoku.
Even so, the south army was still really far behind schedule, and Ouyang Shuo was extremely unhappy about it. Luckily, he still had a trump card in his hand that he could use to turn around the situation at a crucial moment.
This trump card was only something the attacking country war side leader knew. Even Keisuke Honda did not know about it.
Sometimes, Ouyang Shuo even hoped that Di Chen would continue on like that. If that was really the case, he would give Di Chen a huge present. Who knows whether Di Chen would be able to accept it or not.
…
In the next week, all three battlefields that had to do with China entered its sieging stage.
Apart from Han Xin leading the army to massacre around Japan’s Honshu island and dismembering the Japanese’s so-called defensive lines, the other two battlefields were also really intense.
In Korea, the Li Jing led army was unstoppable. In a short 10 days, they had taken down the entire north of Korea and were officially at the foot of Korea’s imperial city – Seoul.
Different from the Japanese battlefield, Li Jing planned to surround Seoul but not attack it yet. He would use the chance to sweep the south of Korea and make Seoul the only city left.
Before this, Great Xia had already wiped out four countries, and this kind of wiping out surrounding problems before attacking the imperial city method was proven to be the most effective.
The reason was pretty much Gaia’s settings regarding the imperial city guards. Even in the 5th year, compared to the imperial city guards, the territory armies were still weaker and were easier to take down.
Such a situation was not only common in Singapore and Annan, these medium and small sized countries, but also in China. Even with global giants like Great Xia and Handan City, the situation was still the same.
Furthermore, before the country war, the imperial city and the territory armies were enemies. Even more so in regions where one territory and one imperial city was left.
Both sides were usual competing against one another to take over control of their region.
During the country war, although both powers huddled together, in the end, they were forced to work together. As such, their relationship obviously would not be close.
Hence, when the territories were being swept by the enemy, the imperial city guards normally would not help to attack.
Just like in Japan, Emperor Meiji did not support Sanli City. The million guards of Edo remained housed within the city and did not move.
As Keisuke Honda’s target was to drag on for a month, Edo was the final barrier. The stronger the troops housed in Edo, the longer they would be able to defend for.
Hence, although he was unwilling, Keisuke Honda did not raise any issues.
One could foresee that after this country war, even if Japan could keep its land, Sanli City would be totally wasted and would not be able to lead Japan.
Maybe Emperor Meiji would become the biggest winner from this whole war.
…
On the Korea battlefield, apart from warfighting forces going head to head, there was also another interesting point, which were the navy battles that were more exciting than the one on the Japanese battlefield.
Not because of other reasons, but simply due to Korea having a famous navy general Yi Sun-sin. This person was once hailed by the Koreans as the top general in Asia, and his most famous battle was the Battle of Noryang.
The Battle of Noryang happened at the end of the 16th century and got its name as it happened in Noryang. The sides that engaged one another were the Ming Dynasty and the Korea Alliance Army and the Japanese army.
The commanders were Ming Dynasty’s Chen Lin, Deng Zilong, Korea’s Yi Sun-sin as well as Japan’s Konishi Yukinaga and Shimazu Yoshihiro. In the end, the Alliance Army won.
At that point, the one in power in Japan was one of their warring states three heroes – Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
In this country war, Toyotomi Hideyoshi was sent by Keisuke Honda to defend Kyushu and Shikoku. Oda Nobunaga naturally defended Honshu.
Back to the Battle of Noryang, this battle had an important place in Chinese history and also world naval fighting history, as it affected the political situation in east Asia.
It was also termed by western military people as one of the eight naval battles in the ancient world.
During this battle, Yi Sun-sin led the Korea turtle ship squadron and won against the Japanese with lesser numbers before dying in battle valiantly. In truth, the actual commander of the battle was Chen Lin, but the credit was snatched away by Yi Sun-sin. He became a huge hero to the Koreans.
Koreans used this as a background to film the movie The Admiral: Roaring Currents, be it viewers or box office records, it created history in Korea.
Although Yi Sun-sin’s skill was immortalized a little too much, he was in fact a skilled person.
He led the Korea squadron and had an interesting face off against the Qi Jiguang led Binhai Squadron.
The special turtle ships of the Koreans entered the eyes of the world for the first time.
