He lacked capable intelligence personnel under his command, so he asked Edo for help.

Under the personal supervision of Tokugawa Iemo, the shogunate showed rare efficiency and changed its previous administrative style of "repeatedly kicking the ball".

Edo immediately responded to Hijikata Tobizo's request and quickly dispatched their ninja unit, the Gowaban, to send Hachioji to help.

Since the formation of the Oniwaban, the shogunate has always relied heavily on it, often sending the ninjas of the Oniwaban to various places to monitor the vassals.

For this reason, the ninjas of Yuteiban have always received excellent training.

Compared to other units such as the Daban Team, Academy Team, and Xiaoxing Team, the Yuting Team is one of the few that has not been completely corrupted and still retains some level of professional capabilities.

However, as the saying goes, "the upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked", even the shogunate itself has been corrupted into this virtue, and Yu Tingfan cannot be alone.

Compared with when it was founded, Yutingban's espionage capabilities have greatly declined, and it is filled with playboys who are just waiting to die on their ancestral merits.

Therefore, in addition to the imperial ban, Tokugawa Iemo also sent out a new imperial ban directly under him.

In this way, Saege, Yae and a large number of elite ninjas from the New Imperial Palace were dispatched one after another to explore the intelligence of the French and Qi coalition forces from different directions and aspects.

Of course, the New Yutingban is a secretive force with a high degree of confidentiality, and only a handful of people know of its existence.

In other words, Hijikata Toshizo had no idea about the support of the new imperial family.

In short, thanks to the unremitting efforts of the ninjas in the Gowaban and the New Gowaban, various types of information were continuously sent to the Hijikata Toizan case.

He learned that the French and French coalition forces were divided into two groups: 1,500 troops from the Western Route Army went to Sekigahara to intercept the Shinsengumi, and 2,500 troops from the Eastern Route Army continued to march toward Kanto.

The enemy's strength has weakened... This is certainly a good thing for Hijikata Tozo.

However, 2000 versus 2500...his military strength is still at a disadvantage.

There is no strength advantage, no terrain advantage, no quality advantage...no advantages at all.

The soldiers who are united by a thousand people are not fools.

A force that quickly captured Nagoya Castle, Sunfu Castle and other important towns with such force was unlikely to be a good enemy.

Next, they will stop this tiger and wolf army on the undefensible plains.

It would be strange if Qianren Tongxin, who has been farming all his life and has never experienced actual combat, doesn't feel scared.

The changes in demeanor of Hijikata Toshizo and the other soldiers were all visible.

After a while, he cleared his throat.

"Everyone!"

He raised his head and shouted, attracting the attention of everyone present.

"The enemy army has arrived!"

"It won't be long before the ferocious faces of the thieves will come into view."

"As I said before, General Tachibana won't be here for a while, and Edo won't be able to send reinforcements."

"In other words, we can only rely on our own strength to survive this current difficulty!"

Shortly after arriving at Hachioji, Toshizo Hijikata received the order from Edo.

Judging from the size of the land area and the complexity of the terrain, Edo is an excellent battlefield for street fighting.

But from another perspective, Edo is the most unsuitable place for street fighting.

The reason is its extremely high density of wooden houses.

A piece of broken sleeve that caught fire could turn two-thirds of Edo into ashes, let alone a single cannonball.

Even if a fire breaks out, there is no need to fight this battle. The terrifying power of Zhurong alone is enough to defeat the defenders of Edo.

Therefore, if you want to keep Edo, it is imperative to carry out a major transformation of Edo!

Katsu Rintaro, who was fully responsible for the "Edo Cage War", quickly launched a large-scale "Edo Transformation Plan."

First, demolish those densely packed houses, widen roads, and increase the number of wide and narrow roads.

[Note·Guangxiaolu: a wide road specially used for fire prevention.]

The samurai and monks, who accounted for only 20% of the total population of Edo, owned nearly 80% of the land in Edo.

Therefore, the buildings in the martial arts area and the temple area are very sparse, so there is no need to move them.

Only civilian land is a big problem and is the focus of the "Edo Transformation Plan".

It would take a lot of time and manpower to completely transform such a large town.

As a result, the defenders of Edo, represented by the Komu Army, are now busy transforming Edo and setting up the battlefield, and are unable to mobilize troops to support Hijikata Tozo.

Not only were they unable to come to aid, Edo also asked thousands of people to unite and defend Hachioji to buy time for the reform of Edo!

If the enemy troops approach the city before Edo completes its transformation, the ensuing Cage Castle battle will become extremely difficult.

There are no reinforcements, and they have to shoulder extremely heavy tasks... Although it is fucked up, there is really no way to blame the shogunate.

After all, the shogunate really tried its best...

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Chapter completed!