The Rhapsody of Mounted Blade Players

After easily wiping out the small court of Emperor Huizong Zhao Ji of the Song Dynasty, Ye Tianlong had already decided on his next target to attack when his troops were returning to Tokyo City, and that was the Japanese country.

There are a large number of gold and silver mines in the Japanese country, and Ye Tianlong has long been eyeing it. It just so happened that the Japanese people did not hesitate to obey the instigation of the Jin people last time and dared to actively invade his Qinglong Empire. This time, there are no other reasons for the expedition. No need to look for it, it’s justifiable.

However, if you want to attack Japan, you need to cross the sea, so you need a navy. When Ye Tianlong returned to Tokyo City and asked the soldiers to repair it, he asked Zhang Shun and others about the construction progress of the naval warships.

Soon, Zhang Heng and Zhang Shun wrote a reply and reported to Ye Tianlong the construction progress of their naval fleet. Since Ye Tianlong occupied the Song Kingdom for less than a year, the large warships completed by Zhang Shun and the others were not yet available. More, plus the original ones, there are now only nine large warships in total, there are a total of fifty-three medium-sized warships, and there are one hundred and eighty small warships.

After reading the reply from the Zhang brothers, Ye Tianlong expressed that he was very satisfied. After all, it had only been a few months, and it was already very good that they had been able to build so many warships.

After some thought, Ye Tianlong decided to mobilize all large warships, as well as fifty medium-sized warships and one hundred small warships, to carry an army of 60,000 to the Japanese expedition, and these 60,000 were only the first batch of troops. , all of them are regular soldiers who go to fight in the front line, and will later carry 500,000 militiamen to completely occupy the Japanese country.

Regarding Ye Tianlong's decision to launch a large-scale cross-sea expedition to Japan just after conquering Sichuan and Shu, many former Song officials in the court were quite critical. After all, in the Song Dynasty, due to the emphasis on civility over military affairs, most of the time The monarchs and officials of the Song Dynasty would not solve problems through war, but would rely on negotiation, land cession and compensation to resolve some disputes with other countries.

In the eyes of those officials of the former Song Dynasty, launching troops and expeditions at every turn was a waste of money and people. Besides, the Japanese country was separated from the Central Plains by a vast sea, so it was not a wise thing to attack the other country! Therefore, in just a few days, dozens of officials, big and small, wrote to Ye Tianlong to express their opposition to this matter.

However, in the face of the protests of those former Song officials, Ye Tianlong adopted strategies that he could no longer read back, and he acted like a foolish king who insisted on having his own way.

After more than a month of preparations, Ye Tianlong finally led his army to go on an expedition. This time, in addition to those masters of horse and infantry combat, the generals he led also had many masters of water warfare to deal with possible encounters. water battle.

This naturally includes the Zhang brothers who were the first to follow him, as well as the three Ruan brothers, Tong Wei, and Tong Meng, and more than a dozen naval generals with excellent water skills.

But perhaps because the fleet under Ye Tianlong was too large, they didn't encounter any pirates or Japanese fleets along the way, and not a single battle broke out.

Finally, when the fleet arrived near the coastline of Japan, they finally saw several warships flying the flag of Japan.

However, the size of these battleships is equivalent to the small battleships of the Qinglong Empire. Facing such a huge fleet, they are completely defenseless.

Facts have proved that these warships are indeed not here to fight, but are sending envoys from the Japanese Emperor to surrender to the Qinglong Empire.

According to the Japanese envoy, as long as Ye Tianlong is willing to withdraw his troops and stop fighting, then their Japanese country will also be willing to recognize the Qinglong Empire as their father's country like Dali, claim vassal status and pay tribute, and contribute a large amount of gold, silver and beautiful women to their father's country every year.

If it were another country that knelt down so quickly and so thoroughly, Ye Tianlong might have been merciful and let him go, but Japan! As for this poisonous snake, Ye Tianlong will not let it continue to exist just because of the temporary kindness of a woman.

So Ye Tianlong resolutely rejected the Japanese surrender request, and asked the Japanese envoy to go back and tell them that the emperor should wash his neck at home and wait for death!

After the Japanese soldier returned to Kyoto in embarrassment, he truthfully told his emperor Ye Tianlong's reply.

After learning that the emperor of the Seiryu Empire would not accept their surrender, the Japanese emperor naturally did not want to sit still and wait for death, and immediately began to recruit young men from all over the country to join the army, preparing to fight to the death.

When Ye Tianlong's tens of thousands of troops completed the landing a few days later, the Japanese side had already gathered an army of more than 300,000 people.

However, most of them are young men who have just been forcibly recruited. Both the equipment and training are close to nothing. They really go to the battlefield to kill the enemy. There are only more than 20,000 troops with real combat effectiveness. , after all, most of the soldiers were lost in the previous invasion of the Qinglong Empire.

In order to allow these hastily recruited young men to have a certain combat effectiveness on the battlefield, the Japanese country chose to trade territory for time.

Facing the attack of the Qinglong Empire's army, those cities basically gave up without any resistance, allowing the Qinglong Empire's army to occupy them one by one. Sometimes they even left some grain, grass, gold and silver in the city to lure the Qinglong Empire. To spend time occupying these cities, and give up the plan to directly attack Kyoto.

Ye Tianlong soon saw the Japanese people's plan. This was a conspiracy after all, but Ye Tianlong didn't take it seriously and continued to attack the cities step by step.

With this time, the Emperor of Japan will definitely gather all the people he can muster. At that time, he will catch all the threatening young men of Japan, and throw the remaining people into the mines to mine. , go to the farm to work as a serf for him.

In this way, it took Ye Tianlong more than a month to reach the Japanese capital of Kyoto. At this time, the naval fleet had already returned to China and began to carry the first batch of 100,000 militiamen.

By this time, the Emperor of Japan had gathered an army of half a million people here, and each soldier had undergone at least half a month of emergency training. The weapon in his hand also had at least one bamboo spear, and he also had a Protect yourself with bamboo armor.

On the contrary, Ye Tianlong now only has 50,000 soldiers on hand. After all, a relatively important city he conquered before needs to be guarded by troops to ensure the smooth flow of the logistics line, so there are 10,000 soldiers left behind one after another. The city is garrisoned.

However, even if there were only 50,000 troops left and he had to fight against an enemy force that was ten times as many as his own, Ye Tianlong did not panic at all. After all, his Song Jiang, the Minister of Rites, had personally experienced the combat effectiveness of the Japanese soldiers. The gap in combat effectiveness with the soldiers of the Qinglong Empire is not generally large. This is not only reflected in the equipment and training level of both sides, but also the absolute gap in hardware such as height and body shape. In the eyes of the soldiers of the Qinglong Empire, those whose average height is not The Japanese soldiers who reached 1.5 meters were like children who had not yet grown up. They could easily hang them with one hand.

Therefore, not only Ye Tianlong, but also the ordinary soldiers of the Qinglong Empire had a relaxed expression when facing the large Japanese army.

"attack!"

Following Ye Tianlong's order, the more powerful Qinglong Empire army took the initiative to attack the more powerful Japanese army that had just formed its formation outside the city.

Naturally, the first ones to achieve results were the crossbowmen. As they poured waves of arrows into the enemy formation, those Japanese soldiers who were only equipped with thin bamboo armor suddenly fell in pieces.

The Japanese archers were naturally firing arrows back, but once the distance with their junk bamboo bows was too far, the arrows they fired would become non-threatening and even leave no trace on the armor of the Qinglong Empire soldiers. Can't do it.

Seeing that long-range attacks could not hurt the enemy, a large number of Japanese ashigaru warriors held out their spears and launched a countercharge towards the Azure Dragon Empire's army.

Upon seeing this, Ye Tianlong immediately sent his own spearmen to fight.

The two sides soon collided hard, and each other stabbed the spears in their hands at the enemy on the opposite side.

However, the spearmen of the Azure Dragon Empire can kill an enemy with one stab, or at least seriously injure them. However, those spears of the Japanese Ashigaru, unless they happen to hit the gaps in the armor of the spearmen of the Azure Dragon Empire, will not be able to do anything at all. Cause some effective damage to these enemies who are armed to the teeth.

Soon the warriors of the Japanese country also engaged with the heavy infantry of the Qinglong Empire. The battle between the two parties became more intense, often with the heavy axes and scimitars of the Qinglong Empire slashing hard. , the Japanese warrior on the opposite side will be chopped into several pieces even with armor, and die miserably.

Even the crossbowmen on both sides were quickly killed into a group. Among them, the Japanese side had more troops. Therefore, although they were at a disadvantage in the battle, they were not completely defeated by the Qinglong Empire for a while.

At this time, Ye Tianlong personally led the two thousand heavy-armed cavalry under his command and charged towards the Japanese Emperor.

Since it was a cross-sea expedition, he could not carry too many war horses, so this time Ye Tianlong only had more than 2,000 cavalry in his hands, and he usually rarely dispatched them. This time, he saw the Japanese emperor personally coming out to supervise the battle, so he personally led the expedition. This group of cavalry was dispatched, preparing to capture the thieves first and capture the king first.

The Emperor of Japan was protected by more than 10,000 to nearly 20,000 elite soldiers. These soldiers were also the only veterans in the entire Japanese country, and the other soldiers were basically new recruits.

The elite veterans of the Japanese country were indeed very capable in combat. When they saw that the enemy cavalry was intending to attack the emperor, they immediately formed a formation on the spot, preparing to withstand the enemy's attack.

However, Ye Tianlong did not stupidly bump into them directly. Instead, after approaching the range of the riding bow, he led his cavalry to fire arrows at the Japanese soldiers. Among them, he directly switched the Demon-Slaying War Bow in his hand to a multi-purpose one. In arrow mode, every time you release an arrow, the arrows will quickly split into dozens of arrows in mid-air, which can clear an area of ​​enemies in one go.

The other soldiers were not bad either. The arrows they fired were fast and accurate. Most of them hit the faces and necks of the Japanese soldiers. One arrow could kill those Japanese soldiers.

Those Japanese soldiers are also trying their best to fire arrows to fight back, but even the performance of the bows and arrows used by these Japanese elites is much worse than that of the Qinglong Empire. The farthest effective killing distance is only about a hundred meters, and at most it can It was enough to shoot through some bamboo armor and leather armor, which was enough for civil war in the Japanese mainland, but when it came to the iron can-like heavy cavalry of the Qinglong Empire, it was completely blind.

When rushing to the front of the enemy's formation, Ye Tianlong quickly divided his cavalry into two teams, split them in half from the front of the Japanese army's formation, and then passed around the two wings of the Japanese army. Naturally, he kept shooting in the face during this period. A Japanese soldier was shot down in the formation.

Some Japanese soldiers also tried to use shields to block arrows, but within a few seconds they were blasted by the dense and powerful arrows that kept coming.

After shooting for about ten minutes and wiping out more than half of the Japanese elite, Ye Tianlong gathered the two teams of cavalry together again and launched a charge against the army formation that had become much sparser.

In just one charge, the Japanese army formation with heavy casualties was directly overwhelmed by Ye Tianlong. The Japanese emperor also fled towards Kyoto City not far behind under the escort of dozens of personal guards.

However, the Japanese emperor was wearing extremely gorgeous golden armor, which could be said to stand out from the crowd. Ye Tianlong immediately locked onto the opponent and immediately led his army to chase him.

During the pursuit, Ye Tianlong was also firing arrows continuously, but because both sides were moving at high speed, most of the arrows fired by Ye Tianlong missed the target. Occasionally, some arrows that were more accurate were shot by the Japanese emperor. The bodyguard discovered it in time and blocked it with his body.

Seeing that the Japanese Emperor was about to flee into Kyoto City, an arrow suddenly shot out from Ye Tianlong's left side like lightning, accurately hitting the Japanese Emperor's head, piercing the iron helmet on his head and then piercing through. He cut his head off, and finally poked an arrow out of his mouth.

Seeing the gradually lifeless corpse of the Japanese Emperor swaying and falling from his horse, Ye Tianlong couldn't help but be overjoyed and shouted excitedly: "What a great arrow! What a good shot!"

Turning around to look, Ye Tianlong discovered that the person who shot the arrow was actually Xiao Yangyouji Pang Wanchun. This general under Fang La's command had always had a tendency to mess up after he was captured by him, even though Ye Tianlong personally went to target him many times. The psychological work did not allow him to completely let go of the grudge that his protagonist was harmed by Ye Tianlong.

This time, Ye Tianlong took the other party with him. He just felt that this bad guy didn't have any suitable job arrangements, so he simply took him with him to the Japanese country to relax and see more of the sea on the way. Maybe this way, the grudge in his heart could be solved. It’s been eliminated bit by bit!

Now it seems that this trick is really effective. Xiaoyuki Pangmanchun, who has been showing off for several months, finally showed his edge again and killed the Japanese Emperor with one arrow.

And as the news that the Japanese emperor was shot and killed spread quickly, the Japanese soldiers who were still fighting on the battlefield suddenly looked like their parents had died, and they began to flee with mournful faces.

When Ye Tianlong saw this, he was naturally not polite. He immediately led his soldiers to pursue the Japanese whose morale had collapsed, and hunted them for a day and a night.

According to the final statistics, of the 500,000 Japanese army, more than 200,000 were killed on the spot, and about 200,000 were captured. In the end, only 20,000 to 30,000 escaped.

This is mainly because Ye Tianlong has too few soldiers and horses under his command, especially the cavalry suitable for chasing down deserters, which only totals more than 2,000. Otherwise, none of the Japanese soldiers would be able to escape from under his nose.