Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 345 Tachibana Mountain Castle
Xiujia was still thinking about how to help Shiojumaru regain the position of Munakata's family governor, but now that Fukada Shisei took the initiative to send it to the door, it was beyond Xiujia's expectation.

"The governor of the Zongxiang family?" Xiujia asked strangely, "Isn't the governor of the Zongxiang family right in front of me?"

Zhanbu Zhenbao hurriedly retorted, "He is some kind of Zongxiang's family governor. His Highness Shiojumaru is still here. Seeing that he is so eager to take over the position, there is nothing tricky about the lord's sudden death. Please ask His Highness to be the master of the family."

He nodded slightly, and greeted Nobuya Shimizu to take the two of them down for the time being to take care of them, and then summoned Fukada Shisei.

Eiichi Fukada came in and greeted the Hide family very modestly: "Munakata Commander Munakata Sakae has met His Highness Toyotomi, and wished His Highness long luck in martial arts."

"Munakata Shirong?" Xiujia asked suspiciously, "I remember that the governor of Munakata's family seems to be called Munakata Shizhen, why is it replaced by you, and what is your relationship with Munakata Shizhen?"

Hearing Hideka's question, Fukada Shiei responded in a mournful tone, "My brother suddenly died of a sudden illness the day before yesterday, and I will inherit the family business."

After the Xiu family finished listening, they gestured to Akashi Jingqin who was beside him with his eyes, and he said knowingly, "Oh? After your brother died suddenly, you will be the successor of the family governor? Don't you have no heirs?"

It is impossible to hide this point, Zongxiang Shizhen's son is so old, and all the big names around him know the bottom line.

Besides, after surrendering Hideyoshi, as a retainer, he was required to hand over his genealogy to prove his identity, so Hideyoshi asked him that on purpose.

Hearing the Xiu family's question, Fukada Shiei was silent for a moment and continued to lie to the Xiu family, saying, "His Royal Highness, my brother did have an heir in exchange for Yanshou Wan, but he died of illness together with my brother."

When the Xiu family heard this, they pretended to be surprised and said, "Really? So your family is suffering from an epidemic, and it is contagious. How is your health?"

"Thank you, Your Highness, for your concern. My brother and I do not live in the same city, so we are safe." Fukada Shiei lied, his face blushing and his heart beating, and he continued to fool the Hideo family. "When my brother was alive, he followed the traitor Shimazu Yoshihisa, Resisting the king's teacher, the ministers, etc., although they are strong as ministers, they cannot persuade them.

Now that my brother has passed away, the retainers elected me as the successor of the family governor. I came here today with 3 stone collars from Zongxiang County and more than 6000 people. I hope that your highness will take pity on me for the sake of the people and accept me. Wait please drop.

Although we are humble and weak, we are still willing to serve as pioneers for Guan Tianxia's peaceful world, and to contribute to His Royal Highness's victory over Shimadzu. "

After hearing his words of loyalty to himself, Xiujia couldn't help being amused, and joked to him, "You mean, it was the fault of Zongxiang's Zhen alone in the Zongxiang family's rebellion?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, I have already remonstrated with my elder brother more than once, but my elder brother insisted on following the thief. As retainers, I can only act faithfully. I hope that Your Highness will forgive me."

Fukada Shisei was in tears as he spoke, if Hideka didn't happen to know their family's history, he would have been fooled by his acting skills.

Watching Fukada Shisaka's performance, Xiujia's disgust towards him continued to rise, especially seeing his fake compassionate expression that made cats cry and rats made his stomach regurgitate. Zhanbu Zhenbao and Yanshou Wan who went down.

The moment he saw the two of them, Fukada Shiei showed a moment of surprise, and lowered his head to avoid their eyes.

How could the Xiu family make him feel better, and immediately pointed to Zhanbu Zhenbao and Shiojumaru and asked, "Munakata Shirong, do you know these two people?"

Fukada Shiei lowered his head and replied, "These two adults have never met before."

"Oh? Don't you even know your own family?"

Just at this moment, Zhanbu Zhenbao suddenly stood up and kicked Fukada Shiei to the ground and scolded, "Bastard, do you think the lord was poisoned by you?"

Fukada Shirong exclaimed: "Where did the crazy guy come from, talking nonsense here?"

Then he wanted to crawl towards His Highness, muttering "I beg His Highness to make decisions." But he was knocked to the ground by the servants of the Xiu family.

Hideka had had enough fun at this moment, stood up from his seat, looked at Fukada Shisei coldly, and said to him, "For a bug like you who murdered the head of the family and conspired to usurp the throne, death is a reward for you." .”

The Xiu family immediately reprimanded the left and right and said, "Come here, pull him down and hack him to death with knives. Take his head and pass it on to Zongxiang throughout the county. Not a single city that is unwilling to surrender will be left behind."

The order of the Hide family was issued, and Akashi Jingkin and Todo Takatora respectively led the army to sweep the entire county of Munakata. Munakata had only 5 or 6000 people in the county, and the entire army mobilized no more than 1500 people, and they were scattered in various cities.

When the Hideo soldiers came to Ishimaru Castle, Yoshida Zhenchen, Ishimatsu Hideken and others who belonged to Fukada Shiei knew that the situation was over, and they opened the city and surrendered one after another. Weeds such as Fei's mirror naturally surrendered.

After Hideo came to Ishimaru Castle, he summoned Munakata's retainers to make a big fuss about Munakata's sudden death, and encouraged them to report and expose each other. He wiped out the Fukada, Ishimatsu and other powerful families' territories, and greatly reduced the Yoshida and Ling clan's Zhixing helped Yanshou Wan expand the scope of the territory directly under it.

Do you think these knowledge and actions are to strengthen the centralization of Yanshouwan?

Don't be silly, the Xiu family will soon be working for nothing!

In the name of Munakata's family, Hideka rewarded Zhixing, who belonged to Zhanbu Zhenbao Baishan Castle, and at the same time awarded the second and third samurai of his subordinates Bizen, Bichu, Misaku, etc. who had no inheritance rights to dozens of people in Munakata County. , Each person gave more than a hundred stones to know and do.

He even transferred an uncle from the Futian sub-family to He Yuancheng for 2500 shi, and let him exist as the banner head of these warriors, and all their knowledge and deeds came from the hands of the above-mentioned Munakata sub-family whose fiefdoms were reduced.

The Xiu family was delayed in Munakata County for 2 days to deal with the territory, and then led the troops to Tachibana Mountain City.

The smooth progress of the whole battle was beyond Hideka's imagination. There was basically no decent resistance along the way. Hideka successfully crossed the Fukuma River and entered Kasuya County.

The person responsible for the siege of Tachibana Castle was Tadacho Shimadzu, the son of Naohisa Shimadzu and the cousin of the four Shimadzu brothers.He has been following Shimadzu Yoshihiro since the attack on Hizen, and served as the general general when he attacked Chikugo Iwaya Castle, leading the powerful coalition forces to break Iwaya Castle.

Iwaya Castle is Takahashi Shaoyun's home city. Not long before the Hide family landed in Kyushu, Iwaya Castle was captured by the Shimadzu family, and Takahashi Shaoyun died in battle.

According to the records in "Zhuqian Xufengdoji", "When the gunshots did not stop all day and night, the shouts of soldiers fighting in the city echoed across the earth. Everywhere in the city may be a place to decide life and death. Attacks are repelled, lives are lost in battle."

From the battle until about 9-27 a.m. on September 4, Shimadzu had invaded Iwaya Castle Honmaru for the third time, and there were less than a hundred defenders in the castle.

Although Shaoyun and other Takahashi retainers desperately defended against the war, it was only a matter of time before the Shimadzu army swarmed in, trampling on their own corpses.

Shao Yun held a long knife and led Banner into the enemy's formation, beheading 17 people.Shaoyun's fighting posture at this time is recorded in "Xifan Wild History", "Shaoyun's strategy is superb, he led the troops into battle, defeated the offensive of the Sa army several times, and killed a lot."

Although the Shimadzu family won the castle in the Battle of Rock House Castle, 27 generals died in the battle due to Shaoyun's desperate resistance, as many as 3 ashigaru and low-level samurai died in the battle, and 1 were injured. Hundreds of people, including many direct descendants of Shimadzu.

Although the Shimadzu family suffered heavy losses, Tadaga Shimadzu still became the mainstay of the Shimadzu family because of his homework on Iwaya Castle and his exploits in killing Takahashi Shaoun.

In fact, Shimadzu Tadacho had already received the message when the Hide family invaded Munakata County, and began to recruit the Hizen, Chikuzen, and Chikugo daimyos to fight against the Hide family.

However, perhaps because he was afraid of the sudden backstab of Tachibana Mountain Castle behind him, Tadacho Shimadzu finally chose to retreat to the south bank of the Tara River, set up the main formation in Beppu Castle, and used Mingwu Castle as the front line to fight against Hideka.

Shimadzu Tadacho's retreat was almost equivalent to surrendering Kasuya County to the Hide family. After the Shimadzu family voluntarily retreated, the Hide family also entered Tachibana Castle very smoothly.

The main structure of Tachibanayama Castle is built on Mt. Tachibana, but his Honmaru is built on the top of Mt. Matsuo, and the main peak of Mt. Matsuo is as high as 342m. This height is so outstanding above the Fukuoka Plain, which makes the view of Mt. Tachibana very good.

Tachibana Muneshige, who was staying on the Tachibana Mountain Castle, looked at the Shimadzu army that was slowly fading below the castle. Even because they retreated too quickly, they didn't even take away the tools for the siege, so they couldn't help feeling suspicious.

He was suspecting that this was another trick of the Shimadzu family, so he sent people out of the city to investigate the movement of the Shimadzu family, and the information he got was that the Shimadzu family had retreated to the south bank of the Dara River, a large area of ​​territory south from Tachibanayama Castle Not a single soldier from the Shimadzu family was seen.

The strange behavior of the Shimadzu family quickly made Tachibana Zongshige realize that "the reinforcements from the Toyotomi family are coming", so he sent people to the north to search for the reinforcements from the Toyotomi family. On the same day, he received the news that the Toyotomi family had arrived in Munakata County.

He couldn't believe his ears when he received the news. After all, Tadacho Shimadzu sent him the news that Toyotomi's family was defeated and Kokura, an important town in Kyushu, was lost a few days ago.

At the same time, it also brought Tachibana Zongshige the condition that he would be given the ability to retain his skills if he surrendered in Kaesong.

Tachibana Muneshige, who has been trapped for a year, has long been on the verge of collapse. Now news of the defeat of the Toyotomi family came from the Shimadzu family, which almost made him choose to surrender.

But only a few days later, the Shimadzu family had to choose to retreat because of the coercion of the Toyotomi family. Now he recalled that he was a little scared at that time, and almost fell before dawn.

However, it has been two days since the scouts brought the news of the arrival of Toyotomi's reinforcements. Tachibana Muneshige waited in the city but never got it. If the scouts reported that Toyotomi's army was at Munakata every day, he would have even thought Toyotomi The army retreated.

Finally, on January 15th of the 1587th year of Tensho ([-]), Tachibana Munemo just got up when he heard his retainer ten o'clock Lianzhen happily running to him to report, "My lord. Yes. It's Wusan Tongwen, Feng The reinforcements from the minister's family have arrived!"

Tachibana Muneshige didn't even have time to finish his bowl of tea and rice, so he followed the footsteps of Shishi Renzhen and ran to the oar terrace on the top of Matsuo Mountain to look north.

Sure enough, as Shishi Lianzhen said, a black giant dragon stretched from the north, and the flag bearers in the team held up the blue-bottomed flags like the ridges on the dragon's back.

Standing with Muneshige Tachibana at ten o'clock, Renzhen couldn't help complaining, "As expected of the army from Kyoto, it is gorgeous from top to bottom, and it uses so much indigo to print and dye the flag."

In the past when productivity was underdeveloped, blue and purple were very difficult to obtain, and only Awa in Japan had the ability to mass-produce indigo at a high price.

The blue fabric is not enough for the clothing of nobles and nobles, and which daimyo would use it as the background color of the flag?
Later generations of film and television and game products, in order to more clearly show the enemy and us and increase the conflict of colors, will think that different exclusive colors will be added to different forces.

However, the military jackets of the historical daimyos were all of uniform plain color, and they were stained gray-black because of unwashed clothes, but this was not the original color, but a stain.

Similarly, the flag seals that distinguish each family and the flag fingers on the back of the ashigaru are all white and black stripes. Even at Hideyoshi's level and wealth, the slightly cheaper yellow is used as the background color of the curtains and flag seals.

It's a pity that the Xiu family is to protect the influence of later generations of games. For Yuxi family's flag seal, they naturally want to use blue as the background color. This is also a small selfishness of the Xiu family in order to satisfy their own aesthetics.

At ten o'clock, Lianzhen and Tachibana Zongshige complained about the extravagance and waste of Xiu's family. This is because he has not seen the bannermen and entourage of Xiu's family. They are all wearing blue battle jackets with blue feathers on the lining. Existence as a stand.

(The longbow is carried on the back, so there is no flag pointing object.)
Tachibana Muneshige ignored Shishi Lianzhen's complaints, and after seeing that it was the Wusan Tong pattern flag that came, he turned excitedly and walked down the city, shouting loudly along the way, "Hurry up! Organize people to meet His Highness Guan Bai's reinforcements. "

What Tachibana Munemo saw was the former army of Ukita Kan's family, and at this time Hideka had just crossed the Fukuma River and entered Kasuya County.

Tachibana Muneshige stood under Tachibana Mountain Castle, and waited for an hour before he saw Hideo himself. At this time, he had heard from Ukita Kane's mouth that the person who came to help him had a relationship with him in Osaka, and was said to be "Wusou in the West". Hideo Toyotomi.

"Tachibana Zongshige has met His Highness Toyotomi." Tachibana Zongshige saw the Hideo riding on a tall horse from a distance, and saluted him, but some of the Hideka didn't recognize the person who spoke. .

In fact, I don’t blame the Xiu family. Anyone who has been caged for a year with foreign support will be as haggard as Tachibana Zongshige is now. The most important thing is that he doesn’t know when the reinforcements will come. This kind of torture comes from the spirit. pain.

(End of this chapter)