Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 271 New Okayama Castle in Design
The samurai class in Japan is particularly interesting, and of course it is also similar to the current social status quo in our country.

That is, high-level samurai have the education of civil and military retainers, so they don't have to worry about the learning of the next generation.No matter how bad it is, they will spend money to send their children to temples or merchants to study for a year or two, just like the wealthy families who hire someone to give their children extra lessons.

However, mid-level warriors do not have such financial resources to find someone to teach their children. Instead, they will use their relationships and the strengths of other partners to let their children teach each other among them. Does it look like the middle class with a certain family background?

The low-level samurai and the upper samurai are like a fault.Obviously has a relatively high social status, but because of money problems can't provide children with a better educational environment, it is unfair to classify all this as education.

From their father's generation, they have been told: It doesn't matter if you don't know how to study, you can't starve to death if you learn a craft.Then, generation after generation, they were fixed in this class, working for the upper-class warriors by selling their flesh and blood.

At any rate, they did have a craft of "fighting and killing" as their parents said, and they had a job in this troubled world, but after the world settled down, it was like when this craft was eliminated due to environmental problems, their way of life was eliminated. cut off.

So they complained even more about the injustice of the master's family, and attributed their own sinking to the social structure, but they didn't want to be abandoned by the times because they didn't seize the opportunity in the past.

As for the people at the lower level, they are even more oppressed. If there is no Hongwen Museum opened by the Xiu family, they will have no chance to make a living in their lives. Just work.

What the Xiu family wants to do is very simple, that is, to provide low-level warriors and ordinary people with a chance to develop without shaking the warrior class structure.

Intermediate samurai are the ones that the Xiu family can win over. They just lack a good teacher, so they can only give their children as good an education as possible under limited conditions.

The Hongwen Museum is this opportunity.

Xiujia intends to let the Hongwen Museum provide professional education, including but not limited to political management, agriculture, and industrial science and technology development, so that the middle-level warrior class can become the backbone of the family in the peaceful era, and very few outstanding ones can step up. into the ranks of managers.

The school based on Tonomaru is a place provided by Hideka for low-level warriors and civilians to learn basic culture. It will not teach advanced professional knowledge, but will train them to be qualified performers.

The combination of the Hongwen Museum and the school is like the difference between the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer Academy and the Army University in later generations. Ordinary children struggle all their lives for a chance to go to the Non-commissioned Officer Academy for further study and become an officer, but the nobles themselves can easily go to the Non-commissioned Officer Academy for further study. After completing his studies, he was admitted to the Army University to receive more advanced education.

The Xiu family is not the savior of the world, and has no great intentions to break the current social structure. It just hopes to add some vitality to the current dead structure and give a small number of people who are capable of climbing a path.

In fact, in the various counties of Yuxi, the system that the directly-administered military personnel need to take turns to assemble for 5 days every month is similar to the school.

They were all provided with food and lodging by Yuxi Family, and received orthodox military training education, except that one was for adults with military service certificates, while the school was for minors.

The reason why Hideka came here today is very simple, it is the day when the Tonomaru Academy is about to start, and Hideka needs to give a speech today.

The most special thing about this school is that Xiujia mentioned loyalty education here, and even the score of this class is extremely high.

And the content of the course is to make you subconsciously think that the samurai should fight and die for the lord through continuous brainwashing.It is a disgrace to flee from the battlefield.

In fact, Bushido originally had such a central idea, but in today's troubled times, this trend of thought is all based on self-consciousness, otherwise there would not be so many cases of inferiority.

The Hideka emphatically mentioning this point here is to wash away the experience and lessons of the shogunate, fearing that the overseas students sent by him will return to the country and change his life.

I pay you to teach you life skills and you give me loyalty, isn't that basic?

The Xiu family even felt that after this group of children graduated from the army, they could become a good obstacle for the high-level samurai families. If any high-level retainers wanted to rebel, this group of middle- and low-level samurai who had received the education of the Xiu family's loyalty to the emperor could respond effectively. The crisis is reduced to a minimum.

In short, the ultimate goal of Xiujia’s education reform is to “strengthen the influence of low-level warriors and civilians in society, further promote the centripetal force of middle-level warriors to Xiujia, and limit the possible changes of high-level warriors.”

It was around 2 o'clock in the afternoon when the event was over, and Hideya rode his tired body on the horse and headed for Honmaru along the mountain road.

The Xiu family, who was about to take a good rest, walked to the courtyard outside the Honmaru Outer Hall, but saw that the courtyard was surrounded by water, and when he took a closer look, it was all staff and strength assigned to the chief executive of the Family Elders Association. Concentric, some people's names can even be called by Xiujia.

"What are you guys doing here?" As the leader of the Hide family's attendants, Iemitsu Iemitsu yelled at them because he was afraid that they were here to make trouble.

Hearing Hanchuan Iemitsu's voice, the group of people turned their heads one after another. After seeing Hanchuan Iemitsu's figure, they all turned around and knelt down to salute.

After everyone knelt down, the Xiu family realized that what everyone surrounded was actually a model of a castle guard.

"Is this the castle guard of Okayama Castle?" Xiujia asked curiously.

Historically, Okayama Castle was built on the basis of Ishiyama Castle. It is located on the west bank of Asahikawa. It is not the real "Okayama Castle", but located in Bizen Ono County.

However, after Hideka became the governor of the family, he actually moved the newly built Okayama Castle to Okayama on the other side of the Asahi River.

Strictly speaking, Okayama is not a mountain, but a mountainous area composed of three small slopes of Caoshan, Okayama and Kasaishan.

The area of ​​this mountain is not large. It can be considered that the length of the foot of the mountain is 3km from east to west, and the longest point from north to south is 1lm.On the other hand, there is an endless impact plain for more than ten kilometers around Okayama, facing the sea in the south, Asahikawa in the west, and Baijian River, a tributary of Asahikawa, in the north and east.

Looking at Okayama from the satellite map, it is really a strategically important place with excellent defense.

This is also the reason why Hideka moved the city here. Of course, Hideka's Honmaru is not built on Okayama, but on the highest peak on the west side, Caoshan.

Hearing Xiujia's question, Maeda Xuan raised his head slightly and reported back to Xiujia, "It is the Okayama Castle structure that I designed, and I came here today to explain a little about it to Your Highness."

Xiujia followed the sound, and saw the bald man in the crowd, and the old writer Togawa Xiuan beside him.

Today, one month has passed since the previous big evaluation. The elders and other vassals headed by the Ukita Kan family have gradually left Okayama Castle and headed for the stable territory of Xinling.

The Iyo people, headed by Akashi Keijin, had the task of suppressing and needed time to assemble their forces, so they set off at the latest, and only set off today.But today in Okayama, there is only one elder, Hideyasu Togawa, who is still living here.

Regarding the construction of the city, it has always been the top secret of the samurai family. Naturally, it cannot be said in this kind of place, so Hideo said to Maeda Genichi: "In that case, you can go in with me, and Uncle Togawa will also come together. Bar."

Having said that, Hideka stepped into the Imperial Palace first, followed by Maeda Genichi and Togawa Hidean. As for the model, the attendant was naturally carried in under the guidance of a special person.

After instructing everyone to sit down in the assessment room, Hideka could then get a close-up look at the whole picture of Okayama Castle that Genichi Maeda was designing.

The Okayama Castle designed by Maeda Genichi is completely different from Hideie’s design. Although it is still on top of the main body of Hideie’s shooting, the Ishiyama Castle on the west bank of Asahikawa, which was originally planned to be connected together, was independent and became a branch of Okayama Castle. exist.

In the future, Ishiyama Castle will be used exclusively as a place for garrison troops. There will be no castle guards in Ishiyama Castle, but there will still be three circles of stone walls. It is a flat castle built on the west bank of Asahikawa.

The entire Okayama City was built completely according to the situation of the Okayama Mountains, and the main structure was still on Caoshan Mountain. The three-story city wall was built on the flat land of the mountain, and the city wall was all built with stone walls.

At the foot of Caoshan Mountain, a circle of city walls was built at the foot of the mountain by using the excess land from leveling the land and excavating the soil piled up by Mizubori, so that the main structure of Okayama City has four circles of city walls.

Outside the Waimaru, there will be a circle of 15-meter-wide Mizubori. The terrain is high on the left and low on the right, leading the water potential of the mainstream of Asahikawa to flow out of the nearly Baijian River.

Three stone pier flying bridges are set up above the water hole, one across the main body of Baijian River in the north, and one across the water hole in the northeast, connecting the triangle between Asahikawa and Baijian River.

There is another one standing in the west of the city, straddling the main body of Asahikawa. The 60-meter-wide Asahikawa main body is used as a water hole, and a stone pier is set up every 10 meters. A total of six and seven arch bridges connect Okayama Castle and the west bank of Asahikawa. It is magnificent.This will also be the main gate of Okayama Castle in the future.

Above the 140-meter-high Caoshan Honmaru is a four-story five-story castle tower second only to Osaka Castle.

The outer facade of the castle tower is all painted with lime produced in Bichu, and the tiles are paved with specially made porcelain tiles from Okayama, which is full of luxury.

However, due to the small area of ​​Caoshan Mountain, and relying on the mountain to build three circles of city walls, the establishment of the castle tower is basically close to the usable area of ​​Honmaru, which made it necessary to move to Erzhimaru to set up a special office. Pursuant to the operation.

Due to the reality of the capacity, the Caoshan Honmaru will be used as the place for important ceremonies of Ukita, and it can only accommodate a castle and Ukita Shrine.The location where the Xiu family usually lives will be relocated to Okayama on the other side.

As for Okayama, which runs from southeast to northwest on the eastern side of Caoshan, there are two circles of city walls. The outer pill is called the Okayama Maru, together with the Erzhimaru of Caoshan Castle, and the Okayama Honmaru is called the Nakamaru.

Above Nakamaru, there is a three-tiered and four-story castle tower standing here, which exists as the second tower of the main building of Okayama Castle.

Okayama Maru and Nakamaru will be the places where Uki’s family members and Hideka live, so the buildings here are largely left blank and left to Hideka to develop on their own.

On Kasai Mountain on the east side of Okayama Mountain, due to the distance from the main body of the Okayama Mountains, it was built independently like Ishiyama Castle. There are 3 circles of city walls and a two-level and three-story stacked tower. out of town).

To sum up, the Okayama Maru and Naka Maru above the Okayama mountain will be the "harem" for the daily life of Uki's family governors and family members in the future, while the Caoshan city wall on the west side will be used as a place for offices and reception of foreign guests.

Kasaiyama Castle and Okayama Castle are relatively independent, but they still have a certain connection. Like Ishiyama Castle, they will exist as a satellite city of Okayama Castle.

Maeda Genichi's overall design is not unsophisticated. After seeing the model in front of him, Xiujia couldn't help but praise Maeda Genyi from the bottom of his heart.But soon there were two problems in front of Xiujia.

"Minbu's design is really ingenious. I think it took some effort, but has Minbu walked around Okayama?" Although Hideka liked Maeda Genichi's design very much, he still raised his own question.

As mentioned above, the geographical location of the Okayama Mountains is extremely good. Not only is it the only natural high platform in the surrounding plains, but it is also protected by two rivers on the left and right.And Shanyang Avenue is directly connected to the foot of the mountain, which is a rare strategic location.

So why was such a place not designed as the main city by Ushido in history?

Of course, part of the reason is that the Japanese castle was transitioned to the Pingcheng. With the construction of the Ishigaki castle and the castle tower, the mountain castle itself not only has no defensive advantage, but also increases the construction cost.

However, in history, there are still Okayama Castle branches on Mt. Cao and Mt. Kasai, which proves that this place is suitable for building a city.

In fact, the location of the Okayama Mountains, surrounded by mountains and rivers, was not only seen by the famous architects at the time, but was also valued by the Duke of Luoyang, Kyoto, more than a hundred years ago, and the first-ever buildings were built here.

Caoshan and Kasaishan are alright. On the last Okayama in Okayama, from west to east, there are five ancient tombs: the Triassic Rock Tumulus, the Sawada Goyama Tumulus, the Balachiyan Tumulus, the Ergu Tumulus, and the Kongo Mountain Tumulus. Funeral tombs.

Because of the good feng shui here, the successive feudal lords of the Bizen Okayama clan built their own tombs in various parts of the Okayama mountain body.

If Genichi Maeda's design is to be followed, the family members of the Uki family will inevitably live on top of the ancient tombs, which is very taboo for superstitious Japanese.

Sure enough, Hideyasu Togawa's complexion became unkind after the Hide family posed this question. If it wasn't because Genichi Maeda was a foreign minister sent by Hideyoshi Sekibaku, he might have directly reprimanded him for his bad intentions.

(End of this chapter)