call!

With the crisp flapping of its wings, a goshawk glided over Edo.

Under its body, the huge Edo was stained with the color of blood and fire!

Edo is burning!

The fire is swaying, guns are in the forest, swords are in the trees! Countless creatures are disappearing in the battle!

From south to north; from open streets to narrow alleys... figures are running fast and colliding fiercely!

There are battlefields everywhere!

You can see soldiers from the two armies fighting each other everywhere!

"Come on! There are thieves here!"

"The shogunate's lackey! Die!"

"Young people from the Western Kingdom, stop being so arrogant! In terms of bravery, when we Bando warriors were expanding our territory, you didn't even know where to wear loincloth!"

"They're coming!"

"Ula!" (Russian)

"Throw away the iron cannon! This thing is of no use anymore! Draw the sword quickly!"

"Nanny! Nanny!"

"Wait, wait! I surrender! Surrender! I don't want to fight at all! It's Mr. Dashu... wait, wait! Don't kill me! Don't kill... Gu!"

…

Sure enough, the Zhishen people made a fool of themselves again.

Facing the wolf-like tiger-like French and Qi coalition forces, they didn't even engage in battle. Just seeing the enemy soldiers from a distance, they began to disorder their positions.

There are only a handful of people who can truly show courage, remember that they are a samurai, and dare to fight.

As soon as most people saw the approaching enemy soldiers and the blood spurting out, they instantly lost their courage and fighting spirit and ran away in panic.

When many people fled in a panic, they either accidentally broke into the fire scene or plunged into the enemy's formation, and died in a funny way.

Die quickly and reduce the number of borers - this should be the last contribution they can make.

In the end, everything was as expected by Tokugawa Iemo and Katsu Rintaro - only a few troops such as the Kōfu Army and the Fire Rogue Kai were able to be used.

Because he expected that the direct counselors would be of no use at all, Katsurin Taro specially separated this group of losers from those troops who could fight and dare to fight.

Let the former guard some unimportant positions and consume the enemy's weapons, ammunition and energy, and deploy the latter in strategic locations.

The strategic location of Edo... In addition to Mount Atago, Mount Goten and other highlands, it is undoubtedly the "Sanjujukomitsu"!

In order to defend Edo Castle, many gates were set up inside and outside the city, which are generally called "Sansokumitsuke", but the actual number of gates is actually more.

The city gates are located at strategic locations.

For example——

Close to Sujibashi Gate on Nakasendo Road.

Close to Yukibashi Gate on Tokaido Road.

Close to Yotsuya Gate on the Koshu Expressway.

Asakusa Bridge Gate near Nikko Road.

Wait, wait, etc., to name a few.

Unlike Chinese city gates, Japanese city gates are not designed to be tall and strong, but are designed to "make the enemy feel sick"!

The city gates of these important places are all double-layered square gates.

The so-called "square door" is a specially designed door mainly used for military defense and urban defense.

Its characteristic is that the door opening is designed in a square shape, that is, an arc shape, with multiple right-angled turns, which can effectively block the enemy's passage.

The cylindrical gate usually has a double-layer structure, with the Goryeo gate on the outside and the watarumon gate on the inside.

This design requires the enemy to make a right-angled turn after entering the Goryeo Gate to attack the Wataru Gate on the inside, thereby increasing the level and complexity of defense.

You have to make a right-angled turn before you can attack the next city gate... You know, this kind of design will definitely frustrate the enemy's charge momentum, and it can easily cause congestion of the enemy, with a lot of people crowded in the first place.

There is a traffic jam between the main gate (Goryeo Gate) and the second gate (Watar Gate).

While the enemy troops are congested, the defenders guarding the Wataru Gate can leisurely pour down projectiles, arrows, stones, boiling excrement water... causing great damage to the enemy troops.

Because of this construction idea of ​​"making the enemy feel extremely uncomfortable and disgusting", "Thirty-Six Views" is not a tall and majestic city gate.

At first glance, it looks like a courtyard gate that can be climbed over with just a ladder.

But it is no easy task to capture these city gates!

A construction idea similar to this follows the ancient Japanese city defense system.

The city defense system in ancient China took the city wall as the core, and then built a series of defense facilities such as moats, urns, and watchtowers around the city wall.

Once the city wall is breached, the city is basically lost.

This was not the case in ancient Japan.

Although ancient Japanese architects also built tall city walls and bottomless moats, they were even more keen on making the interior of the city extremely complex!

A typical representative is Edo Castle.

Edo Castle is a "の" shaped structure, which looks like a piece of mosquito coils. The interior is divided into main Maru, Ninomaru, Sannomaru and other areas.

If you want to hit the Honmaru where General Zhengyi is, you must penetrate the Sannomaru, Ninomaru...

Along the way, there are everywhere traps that are difficult to guard against, high walls that are difficult to overcome, and steep slopes that must be crossed with the barrage and rain of arrows from the defenders...

In other words, even if you cross the moat outside Edo Castle and break through the walls of Edo Castle, it does not mean that the battle is over and everything is fine.

Rather, it would be better to say that after the Edo Castle was captured, the real siege officially began!

Regarding how to defend Edo, Katsu Rintaro had a very clear idea.

He knew very well that the little combat power he currently had was not enough to repel the enemy.

Therefore, his core strategy can be summed up in one word - "endurance"!

Wait until Aomori leads the Shinsengumi to come to our aid!

As long as the Shinsengumi launches a counterattack, everything will be fine.

Due to the primitive and backward communication methods, everyone in Edo, including Tokugawa Iemo and Tenjoin, did not yet know the specific movements of Aoto and his Shinsengumi.

Not knowing when the reinforcements will come... There is nothing more painful than this in the world.

No matter what, the support of the Shinsengumi is their only hope for victory.

In order to block the enemy as much as possible, Katsu Rintaro carefully set up two lines of defense.

The first line of defense is "Thirty-six chapters".

As for the second line of defense, it is Edo Castle itself.

They are said to be two lines of defense, but in reality, the former is the core!

Katsu Rintaro's idea of ​​city defense is very simple. In a nutshell - all other places in Edo can be lost, but "Sansokumitsu" cannot be lost!

Once the "Thirty-Six Meters" are lost, the enemy can invade Edo Castle in one go!

A battle begins in Edo Castle...then it will be a bloody battle with no retreat!

Although Edo Castle is a famous city with second-to-none defensive capabilities, there are too many variables if a war starts in the city, and Katsu Rintaro does not dare to take risks.

Therefore, he tried his best to avoid fighting in Edo Castle and tried to keep the enemy outside the city gates.

He deployed heavy troops at "Thirty-six Jianfu" and used these gates as the winning point of the battle. Countless elite soldiers and generals gathered here.

Defend the "Thirty-Six Views" and the army will win.

"Thirty-six Seeing Attachment" was lost, and the French-Qiyi coalition won.

Simple and clear combat!

…

…

Edo, Yotsuya Mikado——

After Shinjuku was breached, Yotsuya was the first to bear the brunt.

Yotsuya is where the Yotsuya Royal Gate is located.

Katsurin Taro deployed 200 elite soldiers here.

They held their breath and looked solemn, clenching the weapons in their hands, not even daring to take a breath, staring straight ahead and outside the city gate.

Within a moment, right in front of the Yotsuya Imperial Gate, enemy soldiers turned the corner and swarmed into the middle of the street!

In just the blink of an eye, they turned into a raging wave, rushing straight towards Yotsuya Mikado with terrifying momentum!

"They're coming!"

"Damn it! What are those guys guarding Shinjuku doing? Why did the enemy soldiers leak in so quickly?"
To be continued...