Chapter 760: Shimazu Is a Traitor

"Baka, there are at least five hundred — no, they're firing in volleys, at least a thousand arquebuses!"

Watching through his telescope as the several hundred ronin who had charged out blindly were cut down in heaps by grapeshot from three 3-pounder cannon and a thousand matchlocks firing in volley, the great strategist Kusunoki Masayuki drew a sharp breath of Sakhalin's cold air!

It really was cold!

His five-thousand-man ronin army had only four hundred six-monme guns in all — not because he, a strategist, failed to value gunpowder weapons, but because the Tokugawa shogunate imposed strict limits on the number of arquebuses each domain could hold.

Under shogunate regulations, a domain of ten thousand koku could possess twenty arquebuses!

Only twenty — in theory, no more than that.

Not only was the number of arquebuses regulated; the quantities of pikes, bows and arrows, and armor were also strictly controlled, all tied to the domain's assessed koku.

By shogunate standards, ten thousand koku could support an army of two hundred to two hundred fifty men — that figure included both samurai and foot soldiers.

A domain's armaments therefore had to correspond, sufficient to equip only two hundred to two hundred fifty men, of whom twenty carried arquebuses. The reason for such rules was to prevent domains from stockpiling weapons in peacetime and then, when the moment came, recruiting commoners en masse to expand their armies.

Thus in the Edo period, a domain of one million koku could lawfully possess only two thousand arquebuses.

For the Satsuma domain to sell off three thousand six-monme guns in a single transaction was utterly illegal. Of course, Satsuma held a rather special position in Edo-period Japan. Because Satsuma lay so far from Edo, had always been a powerful domain, had subdued the Ryukyu Kingdom with the strength of a single domain, and possessed Japan's only external vassal state.

The Tokugawa shogunate had therefore always looked upon Satsuma with special favor, turning a blind eye to its violations of law and regulation.

As for how many arquebuses a domain like Matsumae, which had no assessed koku at all, could hold — that required a decision from the shogunate itself.

Kusunoki Masayuki's ronin army was treated by analogy with a no-koku domain, with the shogunate fixing the number. Tokugawa Iemitsu thought highly of Kusunoki Masayuki and permitted his ronin army to hold four hundred arquebuses — a number that only a domain of two hundred thousand koku could possess!

Yet even if all four hundred arquebuses could be fired, against the enemy's one thousand arquebuses plus three cannon, there was simply no chance in firepower.

What was to be done? Kusunoki Masayuki was already losing his composure.

"Regional Commander!" Maruhashi Tadayasu shouted. "Send the whole army forward! We have more than four thousand samurai — if we charge and close to hand-to-hand combat, even ten times the Qing raiders would be no match for us!"

"But the Qing raiders' great tubes and arquebuses..." Kusunoki Masayuki still hesitated a little. "Perhaps we could flank them."

"Teacher!" Maruhashi shouted. "The enemy has three hundred mounted samurai, while we have only a few dozen — how could we possibly carry out a flanking maneuver? Better to press forward with the entire army and crush the enemy with numbers and samurai valor!

Besides, arquebuses can only be fired continuously a limited number of times. The Qing raiders have been firing volley after volley — a few more rounds and they'll be spent. We should seize this very moment to charge!"

Maruhashi, his student, truly had the superior grasp of strategy!

"Yoshi!" Kusunoki Masayuki drew the treasured sword passed down in his wife's family — said to have been wielded by Kusunoki Masashige — pointed it forward, and shouted: "Raise the Kikusui banner! Charge!"

The Kikusui banner was the hereditary war flag of the Kusunoki house, and by the military code Kusunoki Masayuki had established, the raising of the Kikusui banner signaled a full-army assault.

In an instant war drums, bugle calls, and battle cries merged into one great din. The four ronin squares began to move forward — arquebus-bearing samurai in front, then bow-carrying samurai, and finally samurai with pikes.

All the samurai wore armor, and in their clustered squares they pressed toward the Qing lines. They had not been massed together long, so it was hard to hold formation while charging, but the ranks had not loosened too badly; the archers and arquebusiers still ringed the pikemen to keep the Qing cavalry from scattering them.

As the four squares finally neared the Qing position, the volley fire from the front indeed ceased!

The samurai who had charged earlier without orders had already been shattered and were fleeing back with heavy casualties, but they had traded several rounds of arrows and arquebus fire with the enemy, and the pike-wielding samurai had even attempted a desperate do-or-die assault — only to be broken in the end by Qing matchlock fire.

But their sacrifice had not been in vain: it had at least overheated the Qing matchlocks, which for the moment could no longer be fired.

Yet the Qing's three bronze cannon still got off two rounds of grapeshot, all of it striking a single Japanese square and mowing down row after row of the arquebusiers and archers at its front!

Still, the Qing had only three cannon after all, and they could not possibly stop the tide of Japanese surging forward. After firing two rounds of grapeshot, the gunners "abandoned their guns and fled," and at the same time the Qing arquebusiers began to fall back.

Kusunoki Masayuki did not join the charge; he remained in the rear with several dozen mounted samurai, watching the battle. He lowered his telescope and said quietly: "Victory!"

Beside him, Maruhashi also lowered his telescope and shook his head slightly: "Not yet. The Qing still have a rear formation — over a thousand men, with pikes and sword-and-shield. It looks like they mean to fight hand-to-hand."

"Then it is victory all the same!" Kusunoki laughed. "Ronin excel at close combat. The Qing raiders are no match for them!"

"Hai!" Maruhashi Tadayasu answered, then raised his telescope again to look ahead. He could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Just then, a ragged burst of volley fire rang out — three or four hundred Japanese arquebuses opening up — followed by a tremendous roar of shouting, and a moment later the clash of weapons.

The ronin squares at the front had collided with fifteen or sixteen hundred Qing soldiers. Those Qing soldiers all looked very tall, and their pikes were longer than the Japanese pikes, so in the first impact they did not come off worse, and they skewered quite a few samurai. But the ronin whom Kusunoki and Maruhashi had personally selected were all men of high martial skill; once the fight closed to hand-to-hand, victory was certain.

What happened next seemed to confirm Kusunoki Masayuki's earlier judgment: the exchange did not last long before the Qing side began falling back step by step.

Those big Qing soldiers were powerfully built, but their close-combat skills were poor, and they lacked the courage to fight to the death — they were nothing but a rabble!

"It seems Karafuto belongs to Great Japan!" The words had barely left Maruhashi Tadayasu's mouth when dense hoofbeats came from the left front and right front, growing louder as they drew near.

"Cavalry!"

"A large body of cavalry!"

"Several hundred — no, at least a thousand riders!"

At once the older mounted ronin, men who had once served powerful domains, began shouting.

Kusunoki and Maruhashi hastily raised their telescopes and scanned left and right of the melee ahead. They saw the Qing cavalry split into two columns, each at least six hundred riders strong, all carrying lances, charging from two directions at the Japanese flanks and rear!

"Baka!" Kusunoki Masayuki cursed — not at the Qing, but at himself!

To call himself Japan's foremost strategist... and now he had fallen right into the trap!

The Qing had hidden cavalry in ambush, waiting for his whole army to press forward so they could wrap him up like dumplings. Such a simple disposition, and he had failed to see through it.

At that thought, the mortified Kusunoki shouted: "Mounted samurai, charge with me! Now is the time to show your loyalty and valor!"

He had only a few dozen mounted samurai, and their horsemanship was none too good — when did ronin ever get the chance to practice riding? Those who had once known how had by now mostly forgotten.

But there was no time to worry about that now. Fight first, think later!

On the Qing side, no large body of cavalry was dispatched to stop them — only fifty Solon lancers rode out to meet them.

Though only fifty riders, they formed a remarkably tight formation and could drive their horses at a fair speed, hurtling straight at Kusunoki Masayuki and his men.

Kusunoki Masayuki was a strategist after all; seeing the danger, he wheeled his horse and dodged the thundering column bearing down on him. But his men were sent flying, men and horses tumbling, with heavy losses. After completing their charge, however, the Qing horsemen did not stay to fight hand-to-hand, but swiftly broke off and left the field.

Maruhashi Tadayasu collided with a rider at the edge of the enemy cavalry formation, and both fell from their horses. The two grappled on the ground; Maruhashi drew his short sword, while the other man snatched up a firelock and used it as a club, striking Maruhashi twice on the head. He was on the verge of beating Kusunoki Masayuki's prized pupil to death when another mounted samurai ran him through with a lance, and he died on the spot!

Maruhashi then seized the dead man's firelock, glanced at it, and cried out in alarm: "It's the cross-in-circle! This is a six-monme gun of the Satsuma Shimazu house — Shimazu is a traitor! Regional Commander, Satsuma's Shimazu is in league with the enemy!"

(End of Chapter)