Chapter 1070

"Then what are we waiting for here?"

"Waiting for their fighting spirit to wane, waiting for them to take the initiative to talk peace." Li Song glanced at Pan Yu and said, "You don't really expect me to throw the lives of our Great Ming's sons into the meat grinder, do you? If Li Choo wants to fight, I don't care—he can send his Korean troops. But if he wants me to use the Liaodong army to fill the ditch, that's not happening."

Pan Yu fell into thought.

Li Song said, "Our objective is to drive out the Japanese pirates and restore Korean territory, not to trade lives for lives."

Pan Yu took the lesson to heart. He could only suppress his urgent desire to go home and followed Li Song in besieging them.

Surround but do not attack—that is to force them to retreat across the sea.

"After paying such a heavy price, are we just going to return empty-handed?" Hosokawa Mochii flew into a rage and slammed his palm down, shattering the table before him. He was unwilling to simply go home.

Tayama Genichi hesitated, then, under the watchful eyes of his subordinates behind him, mustered his courage to step forward and said quietly, "General, we still have no word from General Ouchi. I'm afraid the omens are bad. The soldiers' morale is low, and Korea has Great Ming's support. If we keep fighting, I'm afraid..."

Hosokawa Mochii clenched his fist. "Concentrate all the cannons."

His eyes flickered slightly, as though he had made up his mind: "Great Ming certainly cannot bear to commit too many troops here. If we deal them a crushing defeat, they will be discouraged and leave. Korea is nothing to fear—as long as Great Ming does not intervene, this land will be ours!"

"Offending Great Ming like this—what if they get angry and retaliate..." Tayama Genichi said softly, "Right now they're still willing to just surround us without attacking. If..."

Hosokawa Mochii kicked the chair beside him aside and roared, "So timid and indecisive—when will we ever glorify our Yamato nation?"

His face set with determination, he declared, "Great Ming certainly does not dare to fight us to the death. Quite a few Ming troops and Chinese are stationed at Omori and Nanao Port. Once the two nations go to war, those people will all be our hostages."

He walked to the window and pointed north. "Look, they don't dare advance a single step now, surrounding without attacking—you can see they're afraid of harming our hostages."

Tayama Genichi muttered inwardly: Who compares themselves to a rat?

Moreover, he truly had no confidence in winning this war. And the Ming troops and Chinese at Omori and Nanao Port were not unarmed civilians. Three years ago, the shogunate had taken advantage of Great Ming's regime change and the new emperor's unstable position to launch an attack on Great Ming. Two of those armies had gone to Nanao Port and Omori.

The losses were heavy. Not only did they fail to recapture the two ports and Omori, they ended up losing a great deal of territory. In the end, the Ming army either returned those lands or gave them to the local daimyo and landlords. The shogunate then dumped the whole matter onto ronin and pirates, and only then was the affair settled.

So, can they really use the Chinese at Omori and Nanao Port as hostages?

The peace faction and the war faction were at an impasse, and both were crowded into this patch of land at Busan.

Just then, an envoy from Japan arrived, ordering Hosokawa Mochii to withdraw his troops and return home to negotiate peace with Korea.

Accompanying the Japanese envoy were two Embroidered Uniform Guard agents, who passed straight through the Japanese army to find Li Song outside the defensive line.

"Peace talks?" Li Song looked at them in surprise. "Japan agreed?"

"Yes. The shogun Ashikaga Yoshikatsu issued the order personally. The court asks you not to attack, to avoid escalating the conflict."

Pan Yu frowned. "Ashikaga Yoshikatsu is nothing but a puppet. Can he really make decisions?"

The Embroidered Uniform Guard agent said, "He wants to use Great Ming's hand to bring the domestic factions to heel, and neither the shikken Hosokawa Mochitaka nor Tayama Mochikuni dared to refuse."

Pan Yu looked at Li Song.

Li Song furrowed his brow, tapped his fingers on his knee in silence for a while, then said, "Very well. If peace talks can end the fighting and reduce casualties among our soldiers, we naturally agree. Here's what we'll do—I'll send you to see the King of Korea. He has already moved back to Hanyang."

Though Li Choo wished he could slaughter every last one of those Japanese soldiers, he knew he did not have the ability to do so now. If he relied on Great Ming's help, the Japanese, fighting with their backs to the wall, would inflict heavy casualties on Ming troops as well. Therefore, peace talks were the best solution.

Li Choo agreed.

Thus, Korea sent envoys, and Li Song also picked two military officers from the army who knew Japanese and Korean to accompany them, along with the two Embroidered Uniform Guard agents, to go together for the peace talks.

Pan Yu stood with hands on hips on the high ground, watching them walk into Busan Castle, and gave a cold laugh. "The Commander doesn't really think peace talks will work, does he?"

"When a general is in the field, he is not bound by the sovereign's command," Li Song said. "Besides, Ashikaga Yoshikatsu is still a puppet. It's impossible to get these two armies to obey him based on his order alone."

Pan Yu said, "They've been holding out without fleeing—they're not willing to give up. I think we still have to fight, and fight hard. Only by hurting them badly enough will they learn that our Great Ming is not to be bullied."

Li Song glanced up at the sun, then counted on his fingers and smiled. "Soon. Just wait a little longer."

"Wait for what?"

Li Song said, "You'll understand when the time comes. Since they want to talk now, let them try. We can't just lead a massive assault on the city at this point—Busan isn't that easy to take, and a lot of people would die."

Pan Yu lowered his eyes in thought.

Now, the only three remaining Japanese armies had all gathered here, with the largest numbers and the best weapons they had ever had. Holding fast within the city, they were indeed difficult to attack.

The reason they were hard to attack was that they had been driven to desperation, and under that despair their morale had somewhat recovered. Moreover, three sides were difficult to surround...

Pan Yu stroked his chin in thought. If the city gate could be opened from the inside, it would be much easier to attack.

He stared at the city in the distance in silence, then went back and found locals to inquire.

Korean city walls were not very high, and the distinction between inner and outer city was clear. He had learned that entering and leaving the city required paying a toll, and he was certain that among the poor commoners there must be someone who knew a way to get into the city without going through the gates.

While Pan Yu was busy with this, the envoys negotiating at Busan suffered a violent attack. Hosokawa Mochii was unwilling to negotiate and didn't even show his face.

Had Tayama Genichi not brought troops to protect them, Hosokawa Mochii would have tried to cut down the Korean envoys.

Fortunately, the Ming military officers and the two Embroidered Uniform Guard agents who had come along firmly shielded the Korean envoys, and Tayama Genichi would not allow Hosokawa Mochii to harm any Great Ming personnel. Only thus did the envoy party escape the ordeal.

The envoy party was furious, and the two Embroidered Uniform Guard agents who had come from Japan also looked puzzled. "The Japanese are actually this bold here? They're extremely humble in front of Lord Kuang."

"That's all on the surface!" the Korean envoy shouted. "Envoys, you must not believe them. The Japanese are cunning and vicious—their humility is all an act."

The Embroidered Uniform Guard agents frowned.

They did not want war. Once the conflict expanded, it would also affect Omori and Nanao Port.

This year, mineral exploration at Omori had advanced another step. Best of all, Lord Kuang had led the craftsmen in developing a new quenching method, which yielded a higher rate of silver production and silver of higher purity. The silver was truly as white as snow. Once stamped with the official seal and sent back to Great Ming, the value of each ingot of silver kept climbing.

Moreover, not only was the silver mine profitable, the two ports were also very profitable—especially Nanao Port.

It was already a mature port with sufficient throughput. Over the past two years they had also expanded it. Every year, countless merchant ships docked at the port. Besides those from Great Ming, many foreign merchant ships came as well, and the silver earned was almost on par with what they dug from the mines in the mountains.

Just this year, by June alone, Omori had already shipped four boatloads of silver back to Quanzhou Port.

Now Tianjin Port was also fully cleared, and the pirates along the shipping routes had been largely cleaned up. Starting from the second half of the year, silver would be shipped directly to Tianjin Port.