Chapter 1112: The Use of Japanese Samurai (Seeking Subscriptions)

Nishizaka Hill lies about six li north of the port town of Nagasaki, close to the Nakashima River. Although its name contains the word "hill," there is in fact no hill there at all; it is a fairly flat stretch of land. What it does have are rolling ridges rising on either side of Nishizaka Hill.

In 1597, a martyrdom took place on Nishizaka Hill: twenty-six Japanese Catholics were put to death here on the orders of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the youngest of them only twelve years old. For that reason, this place is also a holy site of Japanese Catholicism.

In the original history, another momentous event that gladdened the hearts of the Chinese people also occurred near here. A thing called an atomic bomb fell in the vicinity of Nishizaka Hill.

But the Nishizaka Hill of the present day has gained a bastion fort built up from sandbags, called Nishizaka Castle. The castle stands astride the Nakashima River, blocking the broad front by which one advances south from Sonogi County down to Nagasaki Town. To call it broad is only by the standards of Kyushu; in truth it is no more than three or four li wide, enough to deploy some troops.

The great army of the Shimazu clan advanced from this direction and pitched camp on the ground north of Nishizaka Castle, in territory belonging to Sonogi County. The camp was well laid out, resting on the low hills between Sonogi County and Nagasaki County, with Omura Bay at its back, occupying terrain from which one could advance or retreat at will.

But the Toyotomi army could not take Nagasaki by skill at pitching camp alone, so a great battle was unavoidable.

And before the great battle broke out, the two sides could hardly avoid a round of back-and-forth contention and probing. The defending side had to hold on to the "open" ground in front of Nishizaka Castle as long as possible, to prevent the attacking side from building up an assault position there.

The attacking side, for its part, had to strive to drive off and suppress the enemy's small detachments and push the battle line up to the walls of Nishizaka Castle.

To the surprise of the attacking Toyotomi army, whose main strength was the Shimazu clan, a force of Red Horo cavalry flying the three-leaf hollyhock banners of the Tokugawa clan suddenly appeared on the Nagasaki battlefield. Moreover, these Red Horo cavalry were very numerous — as many as a thousand men!

A thousand Horo cavalry: within Japan, that would be a formidable cavalry force indeed. According to historical records, the Echigo cavalry, famed for a time as a cavalry force, numbered only thirteen hundred in all, and even they were not a standing cavalry unit but merely mounted samurai, who normally received almost no concentrated training and were only gathered together in wartime to charge in groups of a few dozen riders — and that is all there was to cavalry combat in Japan's Warring States period.

And the present Tokugawa shogunate claims to have eighty thousand mounted hatamoto. That is simply nonsense meant to fool ghosts. Zhu Cilang's Great Ming Celestial Dynasty itself possesses only eighty thousand cavalry, and that is counting the cavalry of the strong garrisons of Anxi, Hexi, Shuofang, Anbei, and Daning; if one added the cavalry of Jianzhou and Heilongjiang, there might be another ten thousand.

With Japan's paltry territory, how could there be eighty thousand horse? In fact, the Tokugawa shogunate's hatamoto number only five thousand, and counting the gokenin below the rank of omemie, all the shogunate's direct retainers together come to just seventeen thousand men — from which one can also see how high the "unemployment rate" of the samurai class is!

And the Red Horo, Black Horo, and mounted guard units among the shogunate's hatamoto together number only a little over a thousand men.

Now that a thousand Red Horo cavalry have suddenly appeared on the Nagasaki battlefield, how could Shimazu Mitsuhisa not be startled?

And the warhorses those Red Horo ride all look very tall, and the samurai riding them look rather burly as well. Are these really Tokugawa cavalry? Could they not be Ming lancers in disguise?

"Those are not Ming lancers. At most they are black cavalry." At a forward position held by the Toyotomi army, De Velasco lowered his telescope and said to Shimazu Mitsuhisa beside him, "Their horses are too small. They are not Arab or Indian horses."

What? These are still small?

Shimazu Mitsuhisa truly did not know what to say. Those horses were plainly large beyond all reason, and yet he called them small.

Though worried inwardly, Shimazu Mitsuhisa could not lose face outwardly, or it would shake the army's morale!

He snorted and said, "It is only a thousand-odd cavalry! At the Battle of Byeokjegwan during the Joseon campaign, were not several thousand of Ming China's iron cavalry routed by our samurai?"

De Velasco thought to himself: That was your ancestors' good luck. Had they met the Ming iron cavalry of today, most likely none of you would be left!

Having spent quite some time in Japan, De Velasco understood very well the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese samurai armies. The Japanese army's strength is its pikemen — not the arquebusiers everyone imagines, because the arquebus units in the Japanese order of battle at this time are not numerous, usually only about one-tenth of the total.

The present Shimazu army, not counting Toyotomi's other forces, is a special case: because of a long tradition of heavy arquebus use, and because it has received strong support from Spain, it can field a relatively large number of arquebuses and organize a new-model army of more than twenty thousand men. But the arquebuses possessed by the rest of the Toyotomi army's various divisions are pitifully few; even reaching a ratio of ten percent is difficult.

And the Japanese army's greatest weakness is that it has no true cavalry — not few, but none! Those mounted samurai temporarily drawn out and formed into groups do not really count as a true cavalry force; they are merely a crowd of samurai on horseback.

The Japanese army's second weakness is its feeble artillery firepower. Before the remnants of Spain's Eastern Invincible Armada joined the Shimazu clan, the Shimazu had no true artillery either.

Without cavalry and without artillery, an army that mainly pokes and stabs with long spears cannot be called weak, but it absolutely cannot be counted a first-rate force.

"Great Elder, how many more days until the preparations for the attack are complete?" De Velasco turned his head and asked Shimazu Mitsuhisa.

"Ten more days." Shimazu Mitsuhisa gazed at distant Nishizaka Castle. "After that, another two to three months will be needed to extend the siege trenches up to the walls of Nishizaka Castle."

The "parallel siege method" has by now spread abroad. The Spanish have already mastered it, and even Shimazu Mitsuhisa, who follows the Spanish around, has learned it too.

"Two to three months." De Velasco nodded slightly. "There is time. There should be time."

"There is time. There is certainly time!"

Xie Xun, chief firearms instructor of the Nagasaki army and a man of Ming marine background, was at this moment inside a Western-style building on Dejima in Nagasaki, giving his personal guarantee to Tokugawa Taka, lord of Nagasaki, and Hoshina Masatsugu, supreme commander of the Nagasaki army.

"Give us just two more months, and the twenty musket companies of the flintlock regiment will certainly complete all their training. With these twenty companies of flintlock musketeers, victory in pitched battle is assured!"

"How many musketeers are there in twenty musket companies altogether?" Tokugawa Taka, dressed in a trim kendo outfit, cut in and asked.

"There are two thousand musketeers," Xie Xun replied. "All of them samurai recruited through examination!"

"Can two thousand musketeers really play a decisive role?" Tokugawa Taka was deeply uneasy.

"There are also a thousand Horo," Hoshina Masatsugu said. "They have already trained for some time, and they have fine horses brought in from the Great Ming!"

"In addition, the Great Ming has provided an artillery battalion with twenty-four field guns in all. The firepower is already sufficient!"

"A thousand Horo plus two thousand musketeers is still only three thousand men!"

"There are also ordinary musketeers and pike-wielding ashigaru. In another two months we can raise fifteen thousand men!" Hoshina Masatsugu said. "Add the Horo and the flintlock musketeers, and that is eighteen thousand men — enough to give battle!"

"Correct!" Xie Xun said with a smile. "Our Nagasaki army is certain to win! Because my two thousand flintlock musketeers will certainly not disappoint Her Highness the Princess — Tokugawa Taka is not a true princess, at least not yet — or Your Majesty!"

What he said was no boast!

Because the Ming army has already found the best way to use Japanese samurai — namely, to have them carry flintlocks and advance in formation under enemy fire, and when they close to within twenty paces of the enemy, break them with dense volleys!

This tactic is in fact the one trick of the British "lobsters" in history. It sounds easy enough, but carrying it out is extremely difficult! At least most Ming musketeers cannot do it. Zhu Cilang's boy soldiers perhaps could, but Zhu Cilang is unwilling to spend them carelessly. The samurai of Japan, on the other hand, do not fear being spent, and so are just right for this use.

(End of Chapter)