The huge sail battleship Victory sailed along the coastline on the sea surface of the Seto Inland Sea. Behind it are warships, supply ships and troop transport ships.

There were dozens of huge ships, which kept the fishing boats fishing in the Seto Inland Sea away. Fishermen in coarse cloth hid in the short fishing boats and looked alertly at the Zhili fleet passing by: "What a terrible fleet, is this a warship from the mainland?"

"We will soon arrive at Osaka Bay, the end of the Seto Inland Sea. The number of soldiers and recruited mailmen and auxiliary soldiers of the Shogunate combined to exceed 100,000, and the layers of surround Osaka Castle were encircled. The defense map brought by our intelligence personnel was a month ago. It is very likely that the situation had changed, and even Osaka Castle had been captured." A naval captain unfolded the defense map of Osaka Castle, marked with the intelligence obtained by the spies from the MIIS. Various arrows indicate the offensive and defensive situation of the Shogunate army and the Shogunate coalition.

The commander-in-chief of the Navy, Nelson, sat on the deck with his legs crossed: "Winter passes, if I were the chief officer of the shogunate, I would definitely launch a general attack on Osaka Castle."

"This time our troop transport ship brought not many soldiers, only one infantry brigade of 3,000 troops." said another naval captain who came to take charge of military affairs.

"There are more than ten troop transport ships that need to be deployed for 3,000 people, and they also need to transport food, ammunition, bedding, tents and supply ships that are supplied to them. The Ministry of Revenue has not allocated much to us for war. It is not that we can dispatch two fleets at a time, and hundreds of various ships are already quite difficult. The force of a brigade is the limit. It is not that we cannot deploy a corps, but that the budget is insufficient." said the Navy officer in charge of logistics.

"Can the three thousand infantry soldiers defeat the 100,000 troops of the shogunate?" asked a naval officer.

"The shogunate is known as a 100,000 army. In fact, there are only 20,000 to 30,000 troops fighting, and the elite may only be a few thousand. It is also a new army that we helped them train before. Our Zhili fleet also needs to go ashore to assist them in combat. The logistics and combat personnel are about 5,000, so it should be no problem to defeat the shogunate army."

"No, our Zhili fleet's target is not Osaka Castle, but to destroy the Shogunate's navy, cut off the retreat of the Shogunate army from the waterway, especially to block the waters of the Nagoya generation." Nelson said, "After we put infantry and artillery on Osaka Castle, we continued to search for the enemy's navy north along Honshu Island."

"The operational goal of the Fourth Fleet is to go directly to Edo Castle. According to intelligence, Edo Castle and the surrounding troops are less than 3,000, and all the main forces are concentrated in Osaka Castle and Kyoto. We have to deal with the main force of the shogunate, and the Fourth Fleet can easily capture the enemy's capital, and the treatment is really big."

"After all, the Fourth Fleet is a newly established fleet and should go to the West to fight. This time, participating in the civil war in Japan was just to get in touch with the captains of the Fourth Fleet, so the combat mission given to them by the military headquarters is very simple."

When the Zhili fleet entered the Seto Inland Sea, the Fourth Fleet anchored in the Lushun Guard was also ready to go. More than a dozen warships and supply ships were naval soldiers busy conducting the final inspection.

Ruan Youjin was wearing a lieutenant colonel officer of the Kyushu Army. According to the orders issued by the Navy, he would serve as the captain of the Soyuz battleship and be responsible for blocking Edo Bay.

"Prepare to set sail!" The main ship of Shu Han raised the flag of departure.

The Fourth Fleet has three sail battleships, the Wei Kingdom, the Eastern Wu, and the Shu Han. Among them, the Shu Han is the main ship of the fleet with more than 70 artillery pieces. The Eastern Wu and the Wei Kingdom battleships have slightly less firepower, and are 50 artillery-level battleships.

"Our combat goal is to occupy Edo Castle. Some of the troops block Edo Bay by sea, and the other troops take a train at Yokohama Port to Edo Castle by land. At that time, someone will pick us up in Edo Castle." On the Shu Han, the commander of the Fourth Fleet, Sun Xu, looked at the topographic map of Edo Castle. After several years of operation, the MIIS was able to easily obtain the Edo Castle's defense map.

"Who will come to pick us up in Edo Castle?"

"In addition to civilian staff such as schools, newspapers, banks, etc., we have other people in Edo Castle?"

The naval officer above the Shu Han asked.

"Of course there are people. The military has been planning for Japan for a long time, so they will definitely make such arrangements. Then someone will naturally accept us. I will disembark at Yokohama Port and lead 500 soldiers off the ship and take the train to Edo Castle." Sun Xu said.

"As for orders!" many naval officers responded.

The walls of Osaka Castle were attacked by tens of thousands of shogunate troops, and cold weapons and hot weapons were intertwined. Dozens of Farro-machine cannons organized by the Shogunate army were roaring. Sanada Maru's earth wall was concentrated by Farro-machine cannons, and many pieces of earth on the wall fell, which made people worried whether Sanada Maru's earth wall could survive the Shogunate cannon offensive.

"In the past, when Yukimura Sanada built this Izumaru to resist the Shogunate army, the artillery of the Shogunate was not as fierce as it is now. After twenty years of development, especially after the Kyushu Army opened the national gate, the Shogunate purchased a large number of Fromma cannons from the Fromma merchants, and also imitated a batch of artillery according to the field cannons used by the Kyushu Army. It is estimated that there are dozens of artillery under the city, and there are many older cannons, with power exceeding iron cannons, but lower than Fromma cannons. The various firearms together may have hundreds of firearms. Those ancient cannons have very little threat to our city wall, but Fromma cannons and imitated field cannons are likely to collapse the city wall..." Tadashi Takashi felt the shaking of the city wall and said to the general Somashiro.

"The power of the artillery is indeed very powerful. It is estimated that Sanada Maru will be blasted out of the gap in less than three days. The form of war has changed..." Somao saw a large piece of earth hit by a shell and fell off the earth wall, and he had no choice but to the shogunate's artillery offensive.

The artillery below was bombarding the earth wall, and Takahatsuki Takaha was able to try his best to suppress the opponent's firepower and organize the reserve team to block the gap. Some tactics that could be used in front of the artillery were also declared invalid.

The Napoleon artillery brought by Lu Xiangsheng basically turned into scrap iron because of exhaustion of ammunition.

"We used to pay attention to Seedjima iron cannons, but now it seems that the role of cannons in siege is far more than that of iron cannons. After spring, the earth walls and city walls became wet and loose, and their ability to fight artillery decreased a lot. Push the spare cannons together and you must break Sanada Maru as soon as possible." Shogunate General Tokugawa Iemitsu spent all his money and used all the cannons transported to Osaka Castle in winter.
Chapter completed!