There were low leaden clouds in the sky, and rain and snow were falling. The north wind was blowing hard in the Kanmon Strait, and the sound of cannons was deafening.

Led by the Wanhu Wuwei ships, the Ming fleet rushed forward violently for more than 300 meters, sinking and smashing hundreds of ships before slowly stopping... because the large and small warships of the Mori army had been squeezed into a ball and blocked by the pontoon bridge, unable to move.

From the perspective of the seagulls flying in the sky, the Ming Dynasty warships, painted all black, looked like a thick and long iron stick, stabbing deeply into the formation of the Maori coalition forces.

This gave the Ming Dynasty warships the opportunity to fully demonstrate their firepower. Their Yongle cannon, Hongxi cannon and Xuande cannon roared wildly, reaping the lives of the navy.

There are enemy ships densely packed on all sides, and every shot will hit the target!

Grapeshot and shotgun shells were fired continuously like a rainstorm, quickly clearing out the enemy ships within two hundred meters.

The Guan ship and Xiaochen, two hundred meters away, rowed desperately to reinforce, but were blocked by the boat in front. The bows and cannons in their hands could not shoot that far.

Just as Wang Rulong had expected, the long and narrow bay severely limited the numerical advantage of the Maori navy, leaving most of their troops helplessly watching from a distance.

On top of Moji Castle, Kobayakawa looked at the fjord with cold hands and feet. The scene he had expected of being surrounded from all sides turned into a tragedy of a tiger entering a flock of sheep. He felt like all the blood in his body was about to freeze.

Kobayakawa Takakage admitted that he had a gambling element. He bet that the Ming army had established such a big advantage only by relying on the power of firearms. But when he saw that the Ming army took the initiative to attack him, he knew that he might have lost the bet.

But now there is no time to be upset, we must turn the unfavorable situation around. As I said before, with ten times the number of troops and the advantage on our side, the Ming army has no way out. Even if we turn the Kanmon Strait into a meat grinder, we will consume the Ming fleet to death here!

"The Ming people are worthy of admiration for launching a desperate attack." He said to his subordinates in a deep voice: "Now is the time for the millions of united Maori troops to show our courage!"

"May the god of eight million bows and arrows bless us, and let our entire army charge!" After saying this, he personally beat the taiko under the flag of the Ichimonji Three Stars of the Mori family.

"May the god of eight million bows and arrows bless us, our entire army shall charge!" People on both sides also started to shout, and then the entire Moji Castle followed suit.

In the fjord, the Maori coalition's navy all shouted together.

The low morale was revived. Since the ships were all crowded together, let's learn from Minamoto no Yoshitsune's "Eight Ships Flying"!

The warriors led the navy, jumping frantically from one ship to another, and launched a desperate charge towards the Ming fleet!

"What are they shouting?" Zhao Shizhen was a little confused when he saw the Japanese suddenly getting excited.

"His Majesty, please board the ship..." Mr. Zhao learned Japanese from teaching videos, so he naturally couldn't understand the other party's slogans. However, it is true that the middle school people are particularly easy to be instigated.

Unfortunately, the bonus of courage cannot erase the huge gap caused by the generation gap, not to mention that the courage of the coast guard members is not inferior to that of the other side!

The enemies kept pouring in front of the soldiers, but they showed no fear and continued to load and fire according to the routine!

The sailors also took up weapons and shot at the Japanese pirates who climbed onto the ship from behind the sandbags and on the stern deck.

Some of the escaped fish climbed onto the deck, but before they could gain a foothold, they were stabbed off the boat with bayonets by the strong Marines.

The gap in power between the two sides was so great that several navy soldiers could not defeat a marine.

The sufficient supply of meat and eggs over the past two years, coupled with strict training, has completely improved the physique of the police officers. Their muscles have gradually bulged, and both their endurance and explosive power have increased significantly. Many young people have even grown taller. When facing the dwarf-like navy who have been eating vegetarian food all year round and even cannot get enough food, the advantage of individual combat effectiveness is particularly obvious.

What's even more outrageous is that they strictly followed the Sancai Formation, the smallest variant of the Mandarin Duck Formation, with three soldiers advancing and retreating together, attacking and defending together. The Japanese, who were used to fighting on their own in a scattered formation, were no match for them at all!

~~

The fierce battle lasted for two hours without realizing it, and the Kanmon Strait had been dyed red by blood, turning it into a dolphin bay.

The rain was getting heavier and heavier, causing great inconvenience to the navy climbing the enemy ships. Worse still, the rain made the bows and cannons of the Mori family ineffective. Even the roasted fire arrows that the Murakami navy was good at were useless.

However, the muskets and artillery of the Ming Dynasty were hardly affected, and the flintlocks performed well in the rain. The fixed shells were equipped with the waterproof fuse developed by Zhao Shizhen, which was actually the fuse inserted into the straw, so that the artillery could still fire in the rain.

If the gun doesn't fire, you only need to change the fuse, which won't take too long. And the rain and snow keep the gun barrel cool, so the gunfire of the Coast Guard fleet is even more intense than usual!

This scene shocked Kobayakawa Takakage on Moji Castle so much that the sound of the drums became chaotic.

However, a bigger blow followed.

First, the Inoshima navy that he had ambushed in advance on Kanju Island did not appear behind the Ming fleet... Later he learned that they were blocked outside Dan-no-ura by the navy of Sakai City and the Otomo family.

Then, the absence of the Inoshima navy made the Noshima navy, who already had a guilty conscience, retreat. They ignored Kobayakawa's orders and refused to support the Kobayakawa and Kurishima navy in the fierce battle. They withdrew from the battlefield westwards...

The successive blows brought down the morale of the Maori navy. Of course, the main reason was that the Ming Dynasty people stationed on the tall warships were like tireless and greedy monsters, constantly devouring their lives.

The Coast Guards fought fiercely from noon to afternoon, but they showed no signs of fatigue. They fought selflessly on every ship. When the cannons exploded, they fired Oda City rockets at the enemy ships. When the rockets ran out, they picked up Longqing rifles, used the fort as a cover, and shot at the Japanese pirates who kept climbing up.

The brave Marines fought ten to one, and when they could not pull out their bayonets, they dropped their rifles and pulled out the sailor knives behind them to chop. When the blades were bent, they just swung sandbags and knocked the enemy off the boat!

In fact, the navy of the Mori army was already very brave. With their iron cannons, bows and arrows all out of service, they could only engage in hand-to-hand combat. They also had to learn Ushiwakamaru's "eight-ship flying" and use the ships in front of them as springboards. They had to jump and jump in the dense rain of bullets to get close to the Ming Dynasty warships. Many of the navy fell into the sea and died halfway.

After approaching the enemy ship, they had to find a way to climb onto the Ming Dynasty warship, which was as tall as a building. In order to prevent them from climbing the ship, the hateful Ming Dynasty people also smeared oil on the hull, which was a gift from the "evil" and "non-human". The rain mixed with the grease made the tall hull slippery. Even the most skilled old pirates could not hold on to the hull of the Ming Dynasty with their feet, and could only fall down like dumplings...

However, even in such a passive situation, even though the Shima family broke their promise and the Nengshima family slipped away, the Mori family's navy still fought to the death and launched attacks on the Ming people again and again.

This fighting spirit is unprecedented in the history of the punitive operations, not to mention the Hirado navy who knelt down and surrendered.

This made Young Master Zhao feel that the Maori family's "one million people united" was indeed not an illusion.

However, he soon discovered that there was no such thing as "a million people of one mind"? They just had no sense of the overall situation and were stubborn once they got excited.

The final collapse of the Maori navy came from the sound of artillery behind them.

A task force consisting of two large Western sailing ships and ten large fuku ships appeared on the west side of the Kanmon Strait, where the Noshima navy was originally stationed.

The two large Western sailing ships did not fly the blue and white Portuguese royal flag. Instead, they flew the "sun and moon shining together on the blue sea"

The flag of the Tamra Garrison. On the patched carrack, there was also a junior police inspector's flag with a blue background and a gold star!

Twelve ships lined up in a battle line and fired broadsides across the pontoon bridge. The two large Western sailing ships, in particular, had three layers of cannons on the larger one and two layers on the smaller one. After several rounds of salvos, they overturned dozens of the Maori navy's warships.

The despair of being attacked from all sides extinguished the last bit of fighting spirit of the Maori army, which was already on the verge of collapse...

They wanted to escape, but all the boats were crowded together. Only some of the small boats on the outside were lucky enough to turn around and row towards Dan-no-ura, escaping back to the Seto Inland Sea.

Most of the warships were unable to escape, and had lost the will to continue the futile attack, so they could only huddle together and wait to be slaughtered.

Seeing this, the head of the Raishima family, Raishima Michitsugu, simply ordered a surrender. He then remembered that the Shima family was just a guest official of the Mori family and there was no need to die with them.

With the sound of trumpets, the warships of the Raishima family hoisted white flags one after another. This made the Kobayakawa navy completely lose their fighting spirit, and they also hoisted white flags and surrendered.

~~

On the Moji Castle, the retainers tried desperately to stop Kobayakawa Takakage from drawing his sword and committing suicide. They all cried and advised:

"Victory and defeat are common in the military. My lord is a man of gold and jade, and life and death cannot be taken lightly!"

"The head of the Takamoto family passed away early, and the old master is already old. The Mori family will have to rely on you for support in the future!"

"Lord Yoshikawa, who was left behind, hasn't come back yet!"

Kobayakawa Takakage finally stopped struggling, his eyes bloodshot as he said, "Forget it, let's deal with it first and then apologize."

He quickly ordered his men to lead troops to support his brother. Fortunately, before the troops left the city, Yoshikawa Motoharu retreated with his remaining troops.

Motoharu used 5,000 troops to block the 10,000 pursuing troops led by Tachibana Dosetsu for a full half day, until Takahashi Tomonori led his troops out of the mountains and forests, and the Yoshikawa army could no longer hold on and was defeated.

Tachibana Dosetsu joined forces with Takahashi Tomonori and pursued them all the way. In the end, only 300 of the 5,000 Yoshikawa troops followed Motoharu and fled into Moji Castle.

In order to buy time for the army to retreat, Yoshikawa's army lost more than 4,700 people in battle or captured. Add to that the more than 8,000 people who died or surrendered in the Battle of Kanmon Strait today. The loss of the Mori family on this day exceeded the previous half-year offensive and defensive battle with the Otomo family.

ps. Today is the weekend, I took my kids to the beach for an outing, so I'll write one chapter. I owe you one chapter, I'll make it up tomorrow.