None of the people sent out came back alive, which means they were all dead.
In fact, Saburo Abe is well aware of this, but he just doesn't want to admit it.
Seeing Zhang Wuji withdrawing troops and advancing in an orderly manner, Hirohito Hiroichi said again: "Now that I think about it, Tokugawa Hideyoshi was right to be clever and refuse to enter the city. Now, I can only hope that he can give me another surprise."
"If he can achieve something outside, after Zhang Wuji withdraws his troops, I will give him a real marshal."
…
Regardless of Hirohito's fantasy, Zhang Wuji really went out to wipe out Tokugawa Hideyoshi.
Zhao Min, on the other hand, was still attacking the city in an orderly manner.
After Zhang Wuji left, Zhao Min's face became much more serious and she became less talkative. Her serious expression made Zhao Linger and the others quite uncomfortable.
…
Hundreds of miles away, Tokugawa Hideyoshi was also busy with his work.
He was in a place called Nagoya, and was trying hard to collect everything he could use. At this point in time, military discipline was no longer that important. Tokugawa Hideyoshi needed to expand his army and support himself.
Therefore, it was not only Zhang Wuji who burned, killed and looted along the way. In fact, his friend Tokugawa Hideyoshi did almost the same. However, he was far less cruel than Zhang Wuji. After all, he was a Japanese.
"General, General, my family only has these two bags of food. My father hasn't eaten for a day. Please at least leave one bag for us."
A Japanese citizen knelt in front of Tokugawa Hideyoshi and begged for mercy. Upon seeing this, Tokugawa raised his hand and slapped him in the face: "Baka, you have a very bad conscience. Who is your father? How can a useless person have the right to eat?"
"Now, the Ming army has surrounded the city of Tokyo. This general is now recruiting soldiers to rescue the emperor."
"Someone come here, this guy is young and strong, a good candidate for a soldier, catch him first."
The Japanese people not only had their food stolen, but were also conscripted.
And now, this kind of thing is happening almost everywhere Tokugawa Hideyoshi goes.
Relying on this simple and crude method, the number of troops under Tokugawa Hideyoshi's command has reached 60,000, which is more than when he confronted Zhang Wuji in Edogawa.
Sometimes, the so-called burning, killing and looting are not necessarily done by invaders, but may also be done by our own people.
The Chief of Staff, Takeda Nobuo said: "General, isn't it inappropriate for us to do this now?"
Tokugawa Hideyoshi sighed: "Not good, not good at all."
"As early as when the navy was defeated, Hirohito Hiroichi had already begun to make drastic preparations for war."
"If we go back five years, five years ago, after Musashi Hideki was defeated, Hirohito Hiroichi began to expand the army on a large scale and conscripted men everywhere. Otherwise, how could he have replenished the 200,000 soldiers lost by Musashi in such a short time?"
"The people of Japan have long been complaining, and what I am doing now is probably not even the tip of the iceberg compared to what Hirohito did in the past two years."
"Besides, isn't there anything we can do right now?"
"Tens of thousands of troops must be fed, right? But Tokyo City is under siege and there is no supply. We have to find a way ourselves. But what else can we do except recruit locally?"
"If we defeat Zhang Wuji, Japan will still be ours. Even if we plunder them a little too harshly, the people will not be considered slaves of a conquered nation. But if we lose, can these people be better off than they are now?"
"No matter how powerful a country is, it cannot withstand war."
"With the war having reached this point, all the lands west of Tokyo City must have been infested with countless casualties and starving people. Since the Ming army landed in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the number of people killed by Zhang Wuji is not just the hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The number of casualties among the civilians is probably in the millions."
"And this number increases by tens of thousands every day."
Takeda Nobuo sighed: "The general is right. In this battle, even if we defeat Zhang Wuji, I am afraid that Japan's national strength will be completely lost."
"No one knows how many people will die, but it will probably take 30 to 50 years to return to the way things were seven or eight years ago."
Tokugawa Hideyoshi also sighed: "It doesn't matter if it takes thirty or fifty years, at least it will be good enough as long as Zhang Wuji can be driven out."
"As long as Zhang Wuji can be driven out, Japan will sooner or later become strong again, but if Zhang Wuji cannot be driven out, there will be no country like Japan in this world."
…
Although Tokugawa Hideyoshi is currently scrambling to collect food and expand his army, and may seem unremarkable on the surface, in fact, he is still patriotic, and at the very least, he is a tough nut to crack. If it were any other general, he would probably have surrendered directly.
He really wanted to win this battle and bring Hirohito Hiroichi out of Tokyo City, but what he could do specifically depended on whether Zhang Wuji was willing to give him this opportunity.
But he didn't know yet that Zhang Wuji was already on his way to conquer him.
…
Five days later.
When Zhang Wuji and Zhao Min parted ways, he took almost all the cavalry with him. However, even with all the cavalry, there were not many people in total, only about three thousand.
And these three thousand people were all handed over to Yang Xiao.
Yang Xiao led the cavalry in the charge, while Zhang Wuji led 20,000 heavily armored soldiers in the back.
During these five days, Yang Xiao in the front swept through several villages and towns along the way, and almost killed everyone in the places he could reach. Behind him, Zhang Wuji's army plundered these places where they had been killed, and usually got some food and grass.
"It's been five days. We are wearing heavy armor and our marching speed is slow. We have traveled less than three hundred miles in five days. I don't know when we can meet Tokugawa Hideyoshi."
Wei Xiangjun couldn't help but complain.
After lighting the bonfire in front of her, Zhou Zhiruo said, "I'm too lazy to think about Yang Xiao now. He's having a great time killing people up front and doesn't care whether we can keep up or not."
Wei Xiangjun smiled and said, "Uncle Yang still has his merits. Although he killed a lot of people along the way, he did it in a beautiful way. Uncle Yang drove these people to one place, killed them, and buried them in the end. This is already a great conscience."
Zhang Wuji smiled and said, "We must have this kind of conscience. When the dead bodies pile up together, it is very easy for plague to occur. Even if Yang Xiao doesn't bury those people, we still need to bury them."
As he spoke, Zhang Wuji glanced at Long Ze and Aoi who were also sitting next to him.
To this day, both of them have been completely obsessed with Zhang Wuji, and they don't care about the lives of the Japanese people. After all, they have long regarded themselves as citizens of the Ming Dynasty.
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