I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 142 Yue Fei Returns
While Zhao Zicheng was plotting Yue Fei's return journey inside the Kaesong Palace,
Yue Fei himself was leading two thousand soldiers to attack and seize territory on Tsushima Island, while also testing the new tactics of the Song army.

Yue Fei's progress was slower than expected, but it was a case of slow and steady wins the race. He fought the battles more impressively than Zhao Zicheng had anticipated, and the casualties among the Song soldiers were much lower than expected, even negligible.

Over the past two years, Zhao Zicheng, under the pretext of suppressing pirates, has carried out a purge of several small islands along the coast of Fusang.

Last year it was Iki Island, and this year it's Tsushima Island.

These areas have historically been ruled by powerful local clans that were not actually governed by the central rulers of Japan, but only nominally submitted to Japan.

During the Heian period, the powerful clan that controlled Iki and Tsushima islands was the Ahiru clan. Later, during the three major shogunates, it was the Mō clan that controlled them.

The fact that the main branch of the clan was able to rule the area for over 700 years, spanning the Kamakura, Muromachi, and Edo shogunates, demonstrates just how stable the ruling structure was on this remote, isolated island. Even during the Mongol invasion, the period when the "Ghost of Tsushima" story takes place, the main branch of the clan ruled Tsushima.

However, precisely because these islands were so far from the central government of Japan, when the Central Plains dynasty attacked the Ahiru clan, who now ruled Tsushima and Iki, under the banner of eliminating pirates, the Heian court, controlled by the Taira clan, did not react much and basically accepted the situation reluctantly.

Moreover, Zhao Zicheng did not wrong them, because the Abilu clan at that time were pirates who often supported their men by plundering the maritime trade between Japan and Goryeo.

Tsushima Island is situated right in the middle of the trade route between Busan in Korea and Hakata in Japan (present-day Fukuoka/Kitakyushu), less than 100 miles from Busan Port. On clear summer days with good views, one can even see Tsushima Island directly from the high mountains surrounding Busan.

Such a geographical location is a terrible waste if it is not used as a maritime supply port and for pirates.

Yue Fei's strategy of eliminating them served two purposes: firstly, it allowed him to train his troops, maintain their readiness, and refine their skills with new weapons and tactics.

Secondly, it can expand trade and increase the purchase of copper mines in Fusang, and there is also a small silver mine on Tsushima Island itself.

Finally, you can also take advantage of the opportunity to occupy some land, and it's a trade hub port, so why not?

……

"Ignite the fire! Divine Archer Squad, advance and suppress the enemy!"

"Fire arrows! Block the back door; anyone who dares to leave through this door will be shot dead!"

The Japanese troops on Tsushima Island had by then been cornered by Yue Fei at their last and most crucial stronghold, Izuhara-cho.

With over a thousand archers, including hundreds of powerful crossbows, Yue Fei overwhelmed Abilu's soldiers, forcing them to cower and defend.

Izuhara-cho is located at the highest point of Tsushima Island, which is also the main peak of the island, making it a relatively strategic location. However, precisely because of its natural terrain and the lack of manpower for large-scale construction by the Abiru clan on the island, Izuhara-cho had no castle walls or stone ramparts, relying solely on the natural terrain for defense.

In terms of city defense facilities, there were only dense wooden stake fences, a gate made of rough and hard logs nailed together, and a few wooden watchtowers.

This type of all-wooden fortress was perfect for providing practical testing for early bronze cannons or gunpowder explosive weapons.

Wave after wave of Japanese archers, wielding seemingly enormous bamboo bows, exchanged fire with the Song army, but achieved absolutely no results.

At first, the Song archers were quite startled when they saw the enormous size of the Fusang Bow from afar.

After slightly breaching the outermost line of defense of the Japanese, several bamboo bows seized from the corpses were presented to Yue Fei.

Yue Fei picked up one of them, weighed it in his hand, and casually pulled it to try it out, but accidentally broke the bamboo bow.

Fortunately, Yue Fei's martial arts skills had already reached a state of perfection. With quick eyes and hands, he dodged the flying broken bamboo and the hemp rope bowstring by slightly shifting to the side.

Yue Fei was somewhat disappointed, but fortunately, he had captured more than one bamboo bow. He picked up the second one and examined it carefully, and a new curiosity arose in his heart: "Why can't this kind of bow even be symmetrical? The two sides are not the same length. How can it be used to shoot accurately?"

Completely baffled, Yue Fei had a prisoner he had just captured demonstrate how to draw the bow. The prisoner, not daring to disobey, demonstrated cautiously, and only then did Yue Fei realize the answer.

"That's right! The reason why this bow can't even be symmetrical is to make the bow as long as possible! The shorter side of the lower half of the bow is already level with the chest of the Japanese. If it were to be lengthened further, the feet of the Japanese would probably be dangling off the ground when they draw the bow! So it is made asymmetrical, and the upper half is lengthened separately."

No wonder the upper part of these bows is almost twice as long as the lower part; it was designed so that the short-statured Fusang people could draw the longest possible bow. The total length of these bows is at least 1.5 times the height of a Fusang person.

Unfortunately, no matter how long the bow is, if the material and bowstring are not good, it's all for naught if the bow is just a few extra inches longer.

Faced with the Song army's overwhelming range advantage in every aspect, the Japanese were forced to remain behind the forward-deployed wooden stakes and ramparts, as well as on the watchtowers. This gave the Song demolition experts the opportunity to carry oversized landmines and, under the cover of shields, proceed with slow and meticulous work.

Yue Fei knew that such a weak enemy presented a rare opportunity, and that directly using bronze cannons would be a waste of practical testing material. Therefore, he preferred to conduct a practical demolition exercise first.

Over the past two years, under Zhao Zicheng's guidance, the Song army's gunpowder workshops in Goryeo have been able to mass-produce high-quality gunpowder.

The proportion of nitrate-sulfur charcoal was almost at the peak of the black powder formulation, ensuring the optimal combustion rate and explosion effect of the gunpowder, and the raw material supply chain was also very well-established.

To address the shortage of saltpeter, Zhao Zicheng invented an additional method called "saltpeter extraction from toilet soil," which only matured in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. This involved having the soldiers and civilians under his jurisdiction scrape the white frost off the toilet wall bricks.

Those who have lived in the countryside and used dry toilets in later generations should be familiar with the white frost that grows on the blue bricks of these toilets. That stuff is actually potassium nitrate crystals, and of course, it also contains some impurities.

As for sulfur, since Goryeo is closer to Japan, just a short distance away, trade is extremely convenient. Zhao Zicheng was able to purchase at least a million kilograms more sulfur each year by expanding trade with Japan.

Japan is an archipelago of volcanoes with abundant sulfur. Kyushu Island, in particular, which is directly opposite Korea, has been known as the "Land of Fire" by the Japanese since ancient times. The island itself was formed by the volcanic activity of Mount Aso, an active volcano, and sulfur is found everywhere.

With such a plentiful supply of gunpowder raw materials, the Song army was able to develop gunpowder-based siege weapons of various sizes.

First, there's the issue of cannonballs for bronze cannons. Zhao Zicheng couldn't yet manufacture exploding shells, so he could only fire large iron balls. For weaker city gates, a direct hit could breach them. If the gates were stronger, repeated bombardment would be necessary. Early bronze cannons couldn't be made very heavy; the iron ball's weight was roughly equivalent to a 12-pound cannon in later times, about 10 Song jin (a unit of weight in China).

If the purpose is to kill personnel, stone pellets or grooved slugs can be used instead. Stone pellets are used like regular shotgun shells and can only hit enemies within a hundred paces; beyond that, their kinetic energy diminishes too much.

Grooved lead bullets ensure that they shatter and scatter upon impact. Lead is inherently soft, and with the added grooves, it can spontaneously form fragments upon impact, resulting in a larger kill radius than a whole iron ball, but certainly not as large as later grenades.

However, regardless of the method, the early-generation shells used today lack explosive charges and can only break through walls through impact, not by detonation. Zhao Zicheng's planned explosive weapons include hand grenades, landmines, and custom-made gunpowder bombs.

Hand grenades are too small and don't have enough explosive charge; they're only for throwing to kill enemies, not for attacking cities. Landmines come in various sizes; the largest prefabricated landmines can hold tens of kilograms of explosive charge, encased in a grooved iron casing, enough to kill a wooden stockade in one shot.

For larger, heavier city gates, especially those reinforced with iron bars, relying on landmines to blow them open was unrealistic; bombs filled with massive amounts of gunpowder would need to be made on the spot. Zhao Zicheng had also read some military histories from later generations and knew that during the Taiping Rebellion, the Taiping army used coffins filled with gunpowder, stuffing them with thousands of kilograms of gunpowder at a time and burying them tightly, which could directly blast open the gates of large fortified cities in one go.

Today's fortress in Genen-cho, Tsushima Island, was clearly not up to the task of using custom-made bombs, so Yue Fei had two large landmines deployed to test the waters. The Japanese soldiers dared not climb the walls, and were therefore completely unable to suppress the Song army's operations. They were unaware of what the Song army was doing and were utterly oblivious to their surroundings.

This made Yue Fei feel that it was not challenging enough. A few minutes later, the Song soldiers completed the task, lit the fuse, and began to retreat.

To ensure the explosive effect, the Song soldiers followed the tactical requirements meticulously. When placing the landmines at the gate of the village, they made sure to place them as close to the gate as possible and piled up rammed earth on the other side of the landmines to ensure that as much of the pressure as possible was transferred to the wooden gate during the explosion, rather than wasting it in the air.

With a loud "boom," the main gate of Yanyuan Town was flung open, and seven or eight thick logs flew more than ten steps away, breaking into several pieces.

Yue Fei spurred his horse and brandished his spear, leading his men into the stronghold. Two hundred cavalrymen followed behind, and they immediately routed the Japanese soldiers inside the gate.

The Japanese soldiers were completely caught off guard. They had never seen gunpowder-powered explosive weapons before. The explosion that shattered the gate not only caused severe physical damage but also left a profound psychological impact on all the Japanese soldiers. So much so that when Yue Fei charged in, most of them were still stunned and hadn't even reacted yet.

Yue Fei's move may have seemed reckless, but in reality, he seized the opportunity with remarkable precision.

The regular Japanese troops in places like Tsushima and Iki Island were few in number. The local land was small and food production was insufficient, so they could only support four or five hundred or even two or three hundred regular soldiers respectively.

Before the battle, Abilu made an emergency mobilization, which amounted to only 400 regular soldiers plus nearly 1,000 peasant militiamen. The total number of soldiers was less than that of Yue Fei's troops, and the difference in the quality of their weapons and equipment was even greater. It is not surprising that Abilu was crushed by Yue Fei.

Groups of Japanese soldiers, armed with bamboo spears but in a scattered formation, were easily cut down by the Song army. Before they could even recover from the shock, they were scattered and trampled, falling to the slaughter. Yue Fei personally led the charge, his double-hooked iron spear flashing left and right, repeatedly stabbing and hooking to kill more than ten Japanese soldiers. No one could withstand a single blow from his spear, and not a single move missed its mark.

The island lord, Abirunaijiang, who was in the imperial palace at the highest point of the inner village, was so shocked by Yue Fei's sudden attack, accompanied by a loud bang and the collapse of the outer gate, that he was unable to react for a long time.

Fortunately, while Japanese castles lacked city walls, they particularly favored building the second and third tiers of walls. In particular, Gen'en-cho, located on a mountaintop, allowed for the establishment of multiple layers of defense.

Taking advantage of the brief time gained from the annihilation of the outer defense line soldiers, Abirunae quickly dispatched all the remaining archers to the watchtowers of the last line of defense in the main citadel.

He also urged his soldiers not to retreat under any circumstances, but to continue firing arrows to suppress the enemy, and to keep firing back even if the Song army's arrow rain was dense.

Some Japanese archers, unable to withstand their fear, retreated without permission. They were even chopped down by Abirunae with a Japanese sword as a form of military discipline. The rest of the archers, intimidated by this, gritted their teeth and fought to the death for the time being.

Unfortunately, this resistance was of no real value. After Yue Fei easily annihilated all the Fusang soldiers outside the main camp, he ordered the Song army's divine-armored archers to continue suppressing the Fusang bamboo archers from outside their range, while also having the gunners bring up the only two bronze cannons that fired ten-pound iron balls.

It's laughable that the Japanese bamboo archers are still stubbornly holding on, waiting for the Song army to send demolition experts to load explosives and plant mines so they can shoot the Song demolition experts.

In the end, they didn't get anything. After waiting for half an incense stick's time, the Song army made all the necessary preparations to fire and finally fired the first live artillery shell of the era.

The soldiers were clumsy, struggling with the tasks of breech cleaning, charging, loading ammunition, inserting the fuse, and igniting the fuse, but the enemy was even more oblivious. With another deafening roar, a large hole was blasted through the hardwood door of the Genencho Honmaru.

"How come only three logs broke? Artillery shells are indeed not as effective as explosives. Looks like we'll have to fire a few more shells."

Yue Fei put down the monocular bronze-cased telescope in his hand, looking rather regretful.

Indeed, the telescope in his hand was also something Zhao Zicheng had worked on during his two years of seclusion. Since the technique for firing large pieces of transparent glass still had flaws, the lenses could first be polished using natural crystal.

Once you understand the basic principle of combining a concave lens with a convex lens into a telescope, the remaining issues such as focal length and focusing can be addressed through repeated experimentation and trial and error to gradually accumulate experience. After a few years of tinkering, it is still possible to produce a few high-end telescopes exclusively for the use of trusted generals.

Yue Fei was still very young and was very keen on applying various new tactics and strategies. In actual combat, he could summarize his experience and lessons learned after firing just a few shots.

For example, just now, after observing the actual combat effect of a single blast, he realized a problem: the blast point of the buried explosive was extremely close to the city gate or city wall, and the explosive power could be largely absorbed by the wall and city gate, thus causing large-scale and all-pervasive structural damage.

In contrast, artillery fire was simply the impact of a large iron ball. Although the force and speed were far greater than those of a catapult, no matter how fast the cannonball was, it would only make a hole in the wooden door and at most break a few adjacent planks.

Therefore, although artillery bombardment could breach city gates, it lacked the element of surprise and could not achieve the surprise attack effect of "artillery bombardment destroying the gate and then immediately followed by a cavalry charge into the breach." By the time the city gate was completely destroyed, the enemy had already made preparations.

In all warfare, one engages with the orthodox and wins with the unorthodox. Contrary to initial intuition, explosions are the unorthodox method, while artillery fire is the orthodox method.

After firing a cannon and planting a mine to blow up a wooden door, Yue Fei summarized these two points.

He also ordered the cavalry, who were originally well-disciplined and ready to rush in after breaking through the main gate of the citadel, to temporarily retreat. Instead, he replaced them with spearmen and swordsmen, who formed a neat and orderly formation, ready to advance in a grand manner and engage in orderly street fighting after breaking through the gate.

The two cannons fired one after the other, followed by a slow process of extinguishing the embers, cleaning the cannon barrels, and reloading. It took a good amount of time, about the time it takes to drink a couple of cups of tea, before they could fire again. After three rounds of firing, a quarter of an hour had passed when the main gate of the citadel was finally completely blasted down and shattered into pieces.

With a cold expression, Yue Fei brandished his spear, and the Song infantry surged toward the breaching gate in perfect formation. This time, Yue Fei himself did not rush in, seemingly regaining the composure of a general in command.

The Song army surged in like a tidal wave, quickly clearing out the bamboo archers on the watchtowers throughout the main castle, and the Japanese soldiers surrendered in despair. Only then did Yue Fei, carrying a five-foot-long, horizontally shaped steel sword, personally lead a group of trusted infantrymen into the palace.

The core members and trusted warriors of the Abiru clan were gathered here, numbering about a hundred, each wielding a long spear and a Japanese sword to resist.

Yue Fei killed seven or eight Japanese warriors with a single stroke, leaving Abiru Nae sweating profusely. In desperation, she instinctively ordered all the armed warriors to gather around and kill Yue Fei, trying to take advantage of the fact that Yue Fei's weapons were shorter.

Upon seeing this, Yue Fei remained expressionless, not even offering a cold laugh.

While the length of the spear is indeed an advantage, it's impractical for indoor combat. A long spear can't be swung freely; if it's held upright, it can reach the ceiling. It can only be used for straight thrusts, with at most a few small flourishes.

Such monotonous moves were like child's play to Yue Fei, who had already mastered martial arts after two or three years of instruction from renowned masters.

With a casual gesture, Yue Fei used his horizontal sword to swing and swivel, easily tangling together more than a dozen spears that were thrusting from different directions. Then, using their momentum, he pulled them upwards, and all the spears simultaneously pierced the ceiling.

Yue Fei then swept his blade around the lower area, and those Japanese warriors whose arms were pulled into an upper stance and whose middle and lower areas were wide open were all killed.

Even those few with relatively superior martial arts skills who, in a moment of crisis, could draw their spears to parry or leap back to draw their wakizashi to fight again, were all cut in two by Yue Fei's single stroke. The sharpness and durability of the newly forged horizontal sword in Yue Fei's hands far exceeded the imagination of Japanese warriors.

These two moves are hard to categorize as belonging to the Murong family's unique technique of using the enemy's own methods against them, or derived from the Mani thief's teleportation secrets. Perhaps they were just Yue Fei's spontaneous creations after three years of hard practice and mastery. It's impossible to distinguish which style or school they belong to.

Yue Fei strolled leisurely to Abiru Naijiang and beheaded him with a single blow, thus erasing the Kingdom of Tsushima from the list of powerful nations.

Those Japanese pirate islands between Kyushu and Busan were merely used by Yue Fei for practical training and testing of new weapons before becoming Song territory. They posed absolutely no challenge.

(End of this chapter)