Chapter 993: Show Yourselves, Samurai of Satsuma! (Subscription Requested)

The eighteenth day of the second month of the tenth year of the Great Ming's Hongxing era, early morning.

From the Ōsumi Peninsula in the distance, the faint rumble of cannon fire still carried over twenty li through the damp sea air, sounding like rolls of thunder — boom, rumble, boom, rumble. This was the Eight-Nation Alliance's small armed galleons carrying out harassing bombardment of the battery on the Shimazu family's land at Tarumizu, on the western side of the Ōsumi Peninsula, in order to draw the attention of the Satsuma Domain's defenders.

This Sakurajima is called an island, but it is actually a peninsula, surrounded by seawater on all sides, with only its eastern corner connected to the Ōsumi Peninsula — and not very wide at that, just over two li, all of it mountainous, though not impassable. On the western side of the Ōsumi Peninsula, in the Tarumizu area, there is a stretch of beach where a landing is possible. After the troops land, they can advance along the coastline toward Sakurajima and reach the gentle slopes on Sakurajima's western side, which face Kagoshima Castle across the water.

The main body of Sakurajima is an active volcano, just over one thousand meters above sea level. The terrain on its eastern, southern, and northern sides is relatively steep, and the coast is mostly cliffs and precipices, making landing impossible. Only the western side (southwest and northwest) is relatively gentle, with many beaches and fishing villages where an amphibious assault can be carried out.

However, the Shimazu family and the Spanish fleet had long since noticed this point. They built the Sakurajima Battery on the gentle slopes due east of Sakurajima, and also built a battery beside the harbor east of Kagoshima Castle, at the foot of Shiroyama opposite Sakurajima. The two batteries are only seven li apart, of which about five li is the surface of the Sakurajima Strait — extremely narrow, and entirely covered by the fire of the twenty-four 12-pounder cannon on the Sakurajima Battery and the Kagoshima Castle battery.

It is this narrow strait that divides Kagoshima Bay into an inner and an outer part. As long as the enemy cannot seize the Sakurajima Battery, the inner Kagoshima Bay is an absolutely safe anchorage. And the outer Kagoshima Bay is far too open for the artillery of this era — even at its narrowest point, around Ibusuki Inlet, the width of the sea exceeds twenty li. Even if the Eight-Nation Alliance occupied the land on both sides, they could not use cannon to blockade the channel.

As for blockading with a fleet, it can be effective in the short term, but a long-term blockade is impossible. For one thing, the Eight-Nation Alliance still does not have enough warships in the East. If one excludes the ten-thousand-dan great bird ships, which are too slow and can only serve as armed transports, the allied fleet has only seventy-one armed galleons in total — though that is nearly twice as many as the Spaniards' twenty-odd armed galleons.

But these warships have to shoulder too many convoy duties, so only a portion can be used for the blockade of Kagoshima Bay. Moreover, they cannot remain on station all year round; even if the men can endure it, the sailing ships need repair, maintenance, and resupply. So once a long-term blockade mission is undertaken, the ships must rotate on and off duty. And the total number of armed galleons currently committed to operations in Kagoshima Bay is no more than thirty; once they rotate, there will probably be only twenty.

With that number of armed galleons, they would have to be wary of a surprise attack by the main force of the Spanish Eastern Invincible Armada.

Therefore, seizing Sakurajima remains the Eight-Nation Alliance's first choice!

On the waters of the outer Kagoshima Bay south of Sakurajima, the main force of the Eight-Nation Alliance fleet, along with the transport flotilla carrying the main force of the Ming Army's First Division, had already deployed into landing formation with murderous intent.

Because some ships had earlier been detached to control the Gotō Islands, Nagasaki harbor, and Tanegashima, and some light galleons had also been assigned to harassment and picket duties, the ships now concentrated on the waters south of Sakurajima numbered 27 armed galleons and 45 ten-thousand-dan great bird ships.

By the time the sky brightened on the early morning of the eighteenth day of the second month, the 72 galleons and bird ships had completed their formation under the command of Tasman, Zheng Jiangong, Davy Jones, and others. The 45 ten-thousand-dan great bird ships were placed in the first line, all bows facing the enemy, and began charging toward a beachhead two or three li wide on the southeastern side of Sakurajima.

Although this type of ten-thousand-dan great bird ship is unsuited for use as a warship (too slow), it is very well suited for amphibious assaults and for bombarding shore targets.

Because this type of ship differs from the traditional bird ship in having a rather broad forecastle. On the deck of the forecastle stands a mast rigged with a square sail, and beneath the mast the space is fairly open, allowing two 24-pounder short guns to be mounted side by side.

These two 24-pounder short guns are both mounted on wooden ring tracks and can traverse left and right — one of them can turn fully to starboard, and the other fully to port.

In addition, on the amidships deck of this ten-thousand-dan great bird ship, two more 24-pounder guns are mounted, one forward and one aft, capable of 360-degree rotation. And on the sterncastle is mounted one 24-pounder gun that can also rotate 360 degrees.

In other words, a single ten-thousand-dan great bird ship carries a total of five 24-pounder guns. When firing forward, two can be brought to bear at once; when firing to port or starboard, four can be brought to bear; and when firing astern, one can fire.

Although the whole ship carries only five guns, considering the power of explosive shells and the more stable trajectory of shells fitted with wooden sabots, these bird ships are still extremely formidable when firing in formation.

Now the 45 bird ships were divided into two squadrons, forming two oblique lines on the sea southwest of the designated landing beach. The bows of all 45 ships were pointed at the beachhead, and a total of ninety 24-pounder bombardment guns were aimed forward. Shells not yet fitted with wooden-tube fuses had already been hoisted up from below the forecastle deck — they could not hoist many at once, only two at a time. If these things cooked off, it would be catastrophic!

Therefore, warships fitted with bombardment guns all had their magazines moved to directly beneath the gun positions, and the shells were stored together with porcelain bottles filled with seawater inside fixed thick wooden crates. If a crate was struck, the porcelain bottles would shatter, and the seawater inside would soak the shells, reducing the chance of a sympathetic detonation.

In addition, beside each bombardment gun were placed two wooden buckets filled with seawater. These were to guard against a failed firing of the bombardment gun — the wooden-tube fuses used in the wooden-sabot explosive shells were lit and then inserted into the hole in the shell, and were in fact a kind of time fuse that exploded when the time was up! If the shell was not fired out, it would explode inside the bore!

So firefighting water buckets had to be kept ready beside the guns; if that failed, water would be poured down the muzzle.

Even with these basic fire- and explosion-prevention preparations, the bombardment gun remained a weapon quite dangerous to one's own side, so they did not dare mount many. Under current conditions, a single ship could carry at most five. Moreover, the area of the lower gun deck had to be reduced to free up space for building a dedicated magazine.

Therefore, any ship fitted with bombardment guns would have its total number of guns greatly reduced.

Zheng Jiangong stood on the sterncastle of his temporary flagship, the Fuqing, with a 24-pounder bombardment gun pointed astern right behind him.

At that moment he was raising a monocular telescope and carefully observing the beachhead ahead.

More than a dozen small boats launched from the ten-thousand-dan great bird ships were at that moment carrying the first wave of naval infantry charging through the waves toward the beach.

The beach was utterly silent — not a single shadow of a man.

But Zheng Jiangong's brow gradually knitted into a frown. For he knew that the only beach on southeastern Sakurajima suitable for landing could not possibly be undefended.

The Satsuma samurai could not be that stupid, and the Spanish admiral García was certainly no fool. The warriors of Satsuma must be hiding somewhere near the beachhead!

Zheng Jiangong cried out in his heart: Show yourselves, samurai of Satsuma!

At that very moment, the Satsuma samurai Saigō Takamori poked his large head out of a trench in a wood near the beach and squinted at the Eight-Nation Alliance warships on the sea not far away.

Saigō thought to himself: There really are a lot of warships! At least seventy or eighty of them, covering the sea! But it doesn't matter — however formidable the Eight-Nation Alliance's warships may be, they cannot set foot on the land of Japan.

Because on the land of Japan, there are countless hot-blooded samurai just like me!

At that thought, he clenched the Spanish light musket in his hand. Saigō, born into a Satsuma domain retainer family, was already in his early thirties. Although he held samurai status, he had never had the opportunity to enter service (his father was a domain retainer, but he also had two elder brothers), so he could only live at home, sponging off his family while assiduously practicing all manner of killing-and-burning skills, waiting for the chaotic age that belonged to him.

Now, at last, the opportunity had come!

(End of chapter)