Kyoto. Nijo Imperial City.

As soon as the soldiers of the Choshu Domain occupied Kyoto Castle, they gathered a group of men and supported the crown prince Prince Muhito, whom they had rescued, to ascend the throne in the Nijo Imperial Castle. The next day, a ceremony was held to officially succeed the emperor.

On the day of his accession to the throne, the new seven-year-old emperor, accompanied by Iwakura Gushi, the bodyguard of Emperor Takamei Hara, issued the "New Emperor's Edict" to the Kyoto officials under the court: abolishing the regent, Sekihaku, and shogunate; There are three positions: President, Negotiation and Participation; Then he issued the "Wang Zheng Retro Trumpet Order" as the policy policy, and restored everything to the beginning of Shenwu's entrepreneurship as the ideal of the new policy.

Through the "Imperial Decree", the new emperor officially decreed the abolition of the shogunate, and ordered the shogun Tokugawa Ieshige to resign from his official position, take the land, hand over all the fiefs and military powers, and rush to Nijo Castle in Kyoto to congratulate the new emperor.

In addition, the new emperor announced to the whole nation that he would learn from the West and form a new style of government, and appointed Prince Chihito as the minister and president of the Imperial Administration, Mori Keiko, the lord of the Choshu domain, and Toyonobu Yamauchi, the lord of the Shikoku domain, as vice presidents, and Iwakura, the court guard officer, as agreed, Katsura Kogoro as the advisor and participating officer of the President's Bureau, and Takasugi Shin as the advisor and deputy participating officer of the President's Bureau, constituting the main officials of the imperial government. And a discerning person can see at a glance that Iwakura Gushi, Katsura Kogoro, and Takasugi Shinsaku are the core of the imperial court.

The shogun Tokugawa Ieshige, who was far away in Edo, was only 14 years old, and he was frightened and panicked at that time, but fortunately, there was a plan of the main ruler of the shogunate, the Shogunate quickly mobilized the surrounding troops, and sent more than 14,000 soldiers from the Aizu and Kuwana feudal domains near Kyoto, plus 23,000 shogunate soldiers led by Kosu Tadashun, a retainer of the shogunate, a total of 37,000 shogunate troops.

One was to advance to Toba southwest of Kyoto with the shogunate's own soldiers as the vanguard, and the other was to march to Fushimi southeast of Kyoto with the Aizu and Kuwana feudal soldiers as the vanguard.

Upon learning of the Shogunate army's march, the Shogunate army of the new government immediately gathered 40,000 troops and divided into two routes to meet the attack. 15,000 Choshu feudal soldiers led by Katsura Kogoro and Takasugi Shinsaku defended Toba, while 16,000 Shikoku and other fallen feudal soldiers led by Yamauchi Toyonobu defended Fushimi, and the remaining 6,000 anti-shogunate coalition troops were set up as reserves at Nijo Castle and Toji Temple, under the command of Mori Keijin and Iwakura Gushi, respectively.

At dusk, the battle first started in Toba.

It has to be said that although the Choshu soldiers mainly used old arquebuses, some flintlock muskets bought from Dutch merchants, and many cannons that had been purchased from the Dutch. The key is that they are well-trained; as early as more than 10 years ago, they set out from the central political situation and the needs of coastal defense on the issue of opening the port, and adopted a policy of enriching the country and strengthening the army, and mercantilist, and their financial and military resources are quite strong. In contrast, the shogunate soldiers, who thought they were well-equipped, were mainly cold weapons such as standard katanas, bows, arrows, and spears, mixed with some firearms such as earthen guns and some shotguns purchased from the Chinese Empire. For example, the soldiers of the Aizu clan and the Kuwana clan did not even have firearms such as shotguns, only some cold weapons such as katanas, and even some feudal soldiers even swept over with bamboo thorns and wooden sticks. Moreover, because of the hurry, only a few dozen small artillery pieces were brought, and the weapons were obviously quite different.

So the victory or defeat can be imagined.

The vanguard of thousands of shogunate soldiers, led by Shinsengumi, took the lead in rushing to a half-moon-shaped position guarded by the Choshu feudal soldiers led by Katsura Kogoro. At the sound of Katsura Kogoro's order, dozens of cannons that had been erected by the Choshu feudal soldiers opened fire violently, and the first round of shells hit a samurai team at the top of the shogunate column, which was the pro-army of the commander of the shogunate's pro-army, and then there was a rain-down musket shooting, and the shogunate's pro-army was immediately in chaos.

When Kosu Tadashun finally stabilized the defeat and organized the shogunate soldiers to fight back, he personally led thousands of pro-troops, holding katanas, to carry out a white-edged charge to the half-moon-shaped position guarded by the shogunate army, but although these shogunate samurai were proficient in swords, how could they be opponents of firearms, only charged for two rounds, and then converted into hundreds, and the rest were repelled by bullets. At this time, the sky darkened, Takasugi Shinsaku personally led the "Odd Soldier Team" like a herd of lions down the mountain, and also rushed to the shogunate's pro-soldier camp with a katana in hand for a white-knuckle battle, the long-trained "Odd Soldier Team" members were strong Choshu Domain samurai, unstoppable, and the shogunate army could not resist the night attack of the "Odd Soldier Team", and then, the rest of the Choshu Domain soldiers swarmed up and defeated the shogunate soldiers, and the shogunate soldiers fled to Yodo Castle overnight under the leadership of Kosu Tadashun.

On the other front, Fushimi, not far east of Toba, a fortress called the Shinjosho in the southeast of this town more than ten miles south of Kyoto, the soldiers of the Aizu Domain and the Kuwana Domain on the shogunate side, also under the leadership of the lord of the Kuwana Domain, launched an attack on the soldiers of the Shikoku Domain and other fallen feudal clans stationed here. The soldiers of the Shikoku Domain and the other Fallen Shogunate were also dominated by cold weapons such as swords, armor, bows and arrows, so the two sides fought to the death and suffered heavy casualties.

The combined forces of the Aizu and Kuwana domains of the shogunate attacked the shogunate several times, and at great cost they once occupied Momoyama, where the shogunate and fortress were located, but they were all repelled by the Shikoku clan and other fallen feudal forces. The two sides engaged in a fierce white-knuckle battle on the slopes of Momoyama Mountain, in which thousands of people were killed and wounded in the night, and the two sides fought until late at night, and the victory was still indistinguishable.

At this time, the news of the battle on Fushimi's side came, saying that the shogunate's own soldiers and the vanguard commander Kosu Tadashun were defeated and retreated to Yodo Castle.

The next day, Mori Keito, Minister and President of the new government, ordered Prince Sugawanomiya Chihito to lead a reserve of 3,000 men in Nijo Castle to conquer the shogunate army. At noon, Prince Chihito came to the camp of the Toji Temple with a pennant and a sword from the emperor, and the morale of the shogunate army was greatly boosted.

The two defeated armies of the shogunate fled outside Yodo Castle, only to find that the Yodo Castle Guard, who was originally a descendant of the shogunate, flatly refused to allow the shogunate army to enter the city, and the shogunate commander Kosu Tadashun realized that something was wrong, and walked around the city and fled to Osaka. The ensuing army arrived at Yodojo, and the Yodojo garrison ordered the castle to open the castle to welcome the fallen Choshu and Shikoku feudal soldiers.

Two days later, the new emperor, under the manipulation of Iwakura Gushi and Takasugi Shinsaku, announced that the new era name would be "Meiji", and immediately after that, he issued the "Edict on the Expropriation of Iemo" and "The Shogunate Domain Taxes Will Be Halved This Year and Next Year." It was announced that all Tokugawa Ieshige would be removed from all positions, that he would be deprived of the domains and official positions of the recalcitrant Sashoku feudal lords such as Aizu and Kuwana, and that all the domains of the old shogunate would be included in the domain of the new government. The "halving of taxes in the shogunate domain this year" made the people in the shogunate domain completely turn to the new government and support the new emperor.

After doing this, Takasugi Shinsaku proposed that, in the name of the emperor, send an envoy to Nagasaki to present his credentials to Nabeshima Genrui, the lord of the Kyushu domain, and the representatives of the Chinese Empire behind him, Lin Hongnian and Lawson, hoping to gain the support and recognition of the Chinese Empire. Of course, if the other party asks for anything, as long as it is not too harsh, it can be agreed.

At the same time, the emperor also sent envoys to the French embassy, the United States, Prussia, and the Netherlands in Nagasaki to win the sympathy of the foreign powers, or at least not to support the Edo shogunate.

After doing this, the little emperor appointed Prince Arisugawa Miyashihito as the governor of the Eastern Expedition and Katsura Kogoro as the deputy general, and led the army to continue the expedition and attack Osaka.

The army of more than 30,000 people led by Prince Chihito raised the emperor's banner and waved it in the wind. On the road from Yodojo to Osaka, the people, men, women, and children along the way, sat on the side of the road with food and food, bowed together, and enthusiastically rewarded the army of the shogunate, and the policy of halving the tax showed a strong effect and effect, and the morale was high.

In the shogunate army, except for the Aizu domain soldiers and Kuwana domain soldiers, the remaining 5,000 people were not ready to defend Osaka Castle, and the remaining nearly 13,000 shogunate soldiers saw that the shogunate army was too strong and knew that they could not hold Osaka Castle, so they directly ordered to prepare for retreat, and put a total of 180,000 taels of gold stored in Osaka Castle on the warship, and the remaining nearly one million taels of silver were directly buried by people, wanting to return to Edo by sea.

At this time, news came from Edo that the shogun Tokugawa Ieshige, who had appointed the shogunate's elder Nakakura Katsushizu, personally led the reorganized 40,000 shogunate coalition troops to Osaka on warships and troop carriers. In addition, Tokugawa Ieshige also appealed to the Kyushu Domain and the Chinese Empire for help in accordance with the provisions of the "Japan-China Treaty of Friendship and Commerce" and the clause that "in the event of a rebellion or a foreign attack, the troops of the Chinese Empire may be borrowed to resist and suppress it".

As soon as the news spread, the Osaka shogunate army, which had been in a panic all day, was suddenly reassured, and their fighting spirit was high, and they held Osaka Castle and waited for reinforcements to arrive.

.......

At the same time, one or two men with black and gray faces and unkempt faces and ragged faces walked slowly down a hillside east of Kyoto with a thin boy. Behind them, the site of the once famous temple was in ruins.

There were some crows hovering in the sky, and every now and then they let out annoying cheer sounds.

Seeing a few corpses on the side of the road that had been eaten by wild beasts and only half of their bodies were leaking white bones, the boy immediately retched...... The beggar-like man's eyes flushed, and he looked back with a sad look at the place they had stayed for more than ten days that they could never forget, and then staggered east.

.......... PS: Taking advantage of the limited free army, I recommend three good histories:

the same type of good "Crossing the Days in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom";

very good Three Kingdoms "Three Kingdoms Hegemony in the World";

I like a new history book "Daming Nelson" opened by an author. Thank you!