Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 352 The Repeated Battle Between Maori and Shimadzu's Three Cities

The Maoli army won a small victory today, and there was a wave of excitement from top to bottom, as if the Shimadzu family on the opposite side was so vulnerable, and even began to mock the Yuki family's vulnerability.

The hip stretching shown by the Shimadzu family on the first day made the Mori family have a wrong perception of the Shimadzu family, so that their defenses against Shimadzu were lowered.

That night, when the Xiu family was sleeping, they suddenly heard the noise coming from outside. Years of life in the Warring States period made the Xiu family sit up reflexively, and asked outside, "What happened outside, why is this happening?" hustle and bustle."

Nobushige Sanada, who was keeping watch at night today, opened the door and responded to Hideka, "It's not our voice, it's the movement from Shinokuma Castle at the foot of the mountain."

Hideka heard the notification from Sanada Nobushige, pulled off his quilt abruptly, and ran outside wearing only his underwear. Just as he came outside, Shimizu Nobushi also rushed to report to Hideka, "Your Highness, Mt. Katsuo is on fire. gone."

Only then did Xiujia notice that it was clearly in the dark, but the sky on the southwest side was bright red.

Hideo climbed up a scull tower in three steps and looked south. Sure enough, as the two said, both Shinokuma Castle and Katsuo Castle were extremely lively at night, and there were constant shouts of killing from the two places.

On the side of Katsuo Mountain, it is unknown who accidentally ignited the wooden structure of the city, causing some areas of Katsuo Mountain City to burn.

Fortunately, the structure of the mountain city is step-by-step, one layer at a time, relying on the mountain to go up. Mount Katsuo is only the city below burning, and the city of Katsuo is still screaming at this moment, obviously still under the control of the Maori family.

Almost at the same time, Mori Terumoto's voice reminded Hideya, "Let Yasaburo (Shishido Motosuke) and Jiro Saburo (Kumaya Motonao) lead their own team to support."

Shinokuma Castle is just a small town, and it can accommodate more than a hundred people.

Although Katsuo Castle is the residence of the Chikushi family, geographically speaking, this city does not provide much advantage for the Northern Army to defeat the enemy.

So Bai Tian and the two left some of the defenders to garrison after breaking the city, and then led the large force to retreat to Rock House City, which also created an opportunity for the Shimadzu family to attack and seize the city tonight.

The two received the order, and after a little discussion, they combined 1600 troops and headed towards Shengwei City.

After all, Shinokuma Castle is too small. It is called a castle, but it is just a stronghold of the Shimadzu family at the front. It is not important to seize it or not. Even if it is taken back by the Shimadzu family, it will still be retaken by the Mori family tomorrow.

But Katsuo Castle is different. It doesn't provide much advantage for the Northern Army's next advance, but it is a standard mountain city with multiple circles of walls after all.

Bai Ri only succeeded in capturing the city with the help of Nei Ying. If he were to be lost like this, it would be difficult to regain the city next time.

It wasn't until seeing the two leading the attack with his own eyes that Mao Li Terumoto's restless heart calmed down a little, and when he turned his head, he realized that Xiujia was actually beside him.

He explained to the Xiu family with a little embarrassment, "The Shimadzu family is just fighting with trapped beasts. The Secretary of State does not need to worry too much. The family will naturally deal with it properly."

But things were beyond Mori Terumoto's expectations. The two led the team to march forward with torches held high. In the dark night, there is no possibility of hiding such an army of torches.

Seeing the army approaching from Iwaya Castle, he understood that they were here to support him. The morale of Katsuo Castle was even higher, and the voice of the mountain on the other side could be heard in the air.

The support of the two not only gave Katsuo Castle a heart-strengthening sutra, but also became the focus of attention of the Maori army in Rock House Castle. In this noisy night, everyone was in no mood to sleep, and stood at the top of the city to look at the fire dragon traveling far away.

But the good times didn't last long. About half an hour later, when the fire dragon was about to march to the foot of Katsuo Mountain, the torches lined up in a winding tongue appeared scattered, like a galaxy.

This kind of change is definitely not in line with the routine, because the shouts and killings from Katsuo City are so loud that people can't tell where the problem is for a while.

But gradually, the torch of the reinforcements seemed to be retreating, and everything was self-evident. They were intercepted by the Shimadzu family.

"Damn" the situation has developed to the point where even if Mori Terumoto pretends to be aggressive, he still knows what happened. The Shimadzu family not only sent people to attack the city that was captured by the Mori family during the day, but also sent people to set up an ambush on the road to stop the Mori family possible reinforcements.

Although Mori Terugen is not as good as his grandfather Yuanjiu and father Longyuan, after all, he has received a standard martial arts education, and has two uncles with outstanding abilities since he was a child. He is not the kind of person who is easily manipulated by emotions.

Although there is a lot of unwillingness in his heart, Mori Terumoto also knows that the sky is too dark now, and he doesn't know where the Shimadzu family will lie in ambush. The benefits and risks of continuing to send reinforcements are not directly proportional.

So he looked at Motonaga Yoshikawa and ordered: "Shaofu Jiro, you take the capital and move forward slowly, and carefully bring Yasaburo and Erlang Saburo back."

Motocho Yoshikawa succeeded the governor of the Yoshikawa family after Yoshikawa Motoharu passed away last year. He owns most of the Izumo country, the three eastern counties of the Iwami country and some manors of the Anyi country. power.

The Yoshikawa family operated Sanin Road under the command of the Mori family, and historically included Hoki Banguo, but in fact, 4% of the territory in Izumo was directly granted by the Mori family to the various retainers, just to let them obey Yoshikawa Motoharu.

Under the original Liangchuan system, such a responsible system made Mori Terumoto have little influence on the original Sanyo and Sanyin.

Historically, Yoshikawa Motoharu's actual territory was around 22 shi, but the strength he controlled exceeded 30 shi.

Kobayakawa Takakage is similar. He is in charge of supporting the jimi forces subordinate to Beihou Yikuni, Bichu Bankoku and Iyo. The actual knowledge and practice is only about 17 shi, but the power under his control is close to 30 shi, and the Jiji forces exceed 50 shi .

In other words, according to the Maori family in history, more than half of the Maori family's 102 million shi territory is under the control of Liangchuan.

Because he really can't get in the way of the two uncles, and his own strength has no absolute advantage over the two uncles. He desperately wants to break the situation in Kyushu, increase his own strength and suppress the two uncles at the same time.

We must know that when Mori Terumoto was most active in attacking Kyushu, the strength of the Mori family extended to Tanba and Harima, and the territory controlled by Ryokawa even exceeded 8% of the total strength of the Mori family. How could this not make Terumoto anxious?

This is the reason why Terumoto Mori did not express any resistance when Takakage Kobayakawa was made independent after Hideyoshi was promoted to Guanbai the year before, without compromising the Mori family's control over Backup.

In fact, when communicating with the two about this plan, Takakage Kobayakawa was the one who had the most conflict. Perhaps he really cared about the Mori family and didn't want the Mori family to be separated.

But in Huiyuan's view, his behavior is to continue to control his posture.

After Takakage Kobayakawa was transferred to Tosa, Mori Terumoto was finally able to take control, and it was at this time that Terumoto really felt a sense of security for the first time.

After getting Bingo and Kobayakawa Takakage to separate the Mori family independently, Mori Terumoto's strength at home grew, which also made him suppress Yoshikawa Motoharu for the first time.

At the end of last year, after Yoshikawa Motoharu died of illness and Ogura, although Terumoto ordered Yoshikawa Motonaga to inherit the Yoshikawa territory, he deprived him of the right to control the Sanin daimyo.

This is precisely one of Mori Terumoto's actions to increase his influence.

In addition, Yoshikawa Motocho's prestige is not as good as Yoshikawa Motoharu, which makes Mori Terumoto initially complete his centralization and increase his influence in the territory after Yuanchun's death.

If we infer Hideyoshi's wave of operations from the results, it is obvious that the internal contradictions of the Mori family were resolved, and some cleverness was misunderstood by cleverness.

Yoshikawa Motocho is worthy of being the queen of the generals. He followed his father to fight in the north and south since he was a child. He was quite organized in marching and fighting, and he properly brought Kumagai Motonao and Shido Moto out.

Fortunately, they successfully rescued some of the defenders in Katsuo Castle and the son of Chikushi Hiromon.

Speaking of this son, there is also an interesting story. The name of this child when he grows up is also called Chikushi Hiromon, but the official position of the father is Uenosuke and the son is Zhushuizheng. Therefore, the records of later generations usually refer to the two by their official positions. .

With the withdrawal of the Maori family, the resistance of Shinokuma Castle and Katsuo Castle gradually weakened, and even the fire in Katsuo Castle was extinguished.

After midnight, the sky in Chikugo returned to tranquility again, as if the war that happened in the first half of the night was all a dream.

However, the wailing soldiers at the foot of the rock house and the disgraced Kumagai Motonao and Shido Motonsuke in the evaluation room in the castle all declared that the battle just now was real and very intense.

Although it was already late at night and they had experienced the fierce battle just now, the members of the Mori family did not feel sleepy at all. They sternly scolded the Shimadzu family for their unruly behavior at the military meeting, and they even took advantage of the night to carry out a sneak attack.

The rescued members of the Chikushi family were settled down by Tachibana Muneshige and Takahashi Tozeng who were familiar with them.

And it's already midnight, even if everyone wanted to take action, they couldn't do anything, they complained, and after listening to Terumoto Mori's words of encouragement, they dispersed.

In the early morning of the second day, Mori Terumoto once again commanded the army to attack the three cities, and it was only after another day of fierce fighting that the cities could be taken back. However, at night, the Shimadzu family repeated their old tricks and took advantage of the darkness to capture the three cities again. return.

After two back-and-forth battles in the three cities, Mori Terumoto realized that the Shimadzu family on the opposite side was not easy to mess with, but the big talk had already been spoken to the Hide family, and it would be embarrassing not to take the castle back.

So after resting for two days, he attacked the three cities again. This time, Mori Terumoto invested more troops in the siege. After capturing the city, he built a fortress on the spot and defended it so that the Shimadzu family would not attack at night. return opportunity.

However, Sancheng has experienced many battles, and the city defense has long been dilapidated. Shimadzu Tadacho felt that it would not be beneficial to continue to invest in this Sancheng, so he did not send anyone to attack again.

Mori Terumoto spent all his efforts to win [-]%, but found that the three cities were no longer ready for defense, but Hideka was about to go back to meet Hideyoshi, for his own sake and to give Hideyoshi a good impression, he forced Bairi to attack The troops stationed on the spot and built more city defenses, and absolutely refused to return the three cities.

In fact, for Mori Terumoto and Hideyoshi, the rights and wrongs of these three cities have little meaning to them at all. To invest manpower and material resources to build city defenses and garrison for a so-called face, there are somewhat formalistic elements.

On the contrary, Tadaga Shimadzu is more pragmatic. In his opinion, the three cities have already fulfilled their value, so they no longer struggle with the gains and losses of one city and one place.

It was also under such circumstances that the battle between Maori and Shimadzu in Mihara County, Chikugo Country fell into a strange tranquility, and the two armies restored peace with the existing city as a front in a very tacit understanding.

On March 15th in the 1587th year of Tensho (26), Toyotomi Hideyoshi had already set out from Osaka on February [-]th, and all the famous people from all over the world gathered in Toyokuni (Bungo, Bungo).

Mori Terumoto handed over the defense of the front line of Iwaya Castle to Nobunao Kumagai, a veteran who retired but still participated in the battle, and led more than 1000 people from the headquarters to follow Hideo's army from Iwaya Castle to Kokura.

Along the way, they met Kobayakawa Takakage's unit who had returned from several ancient cities. Surrounded by the army, Xiujia noticed a man in plain clothes, followed by a row of men, women and children also in plain clothes.

Plain clothes like this are not commonly worn in Japan, and are usually only worn when the elders in the family pass away to express their grief and express their will to die.

Judging from this outfit, this group of people should be Qiuyue Zhongshi and his joining is not bad.

For this reason, Xiujia also specifically asked about the situation of Kobayakawa Takakage Akizuki Zhongshi. It turned out that after Kobayakawa Takakage conveyed Hideka's request for unconditional surrender, Qiuyue Zhongshi was unwilling.

After all, your Toyotomi Hide family is very good at beating me, but isn't it the same as being blocked by Tadacho Shimadzu in Chikugo for more than a month without making any progress?In his opinion, as long as he sticks to it, there is no possibility of negotiating with Hideyoshi.

But a few days ago, he received the news that Toyotomi Hideyoshi was about to come to Kyushu through Takakage Kobayakawa, leading an army of more than 20 people.

Qiuyue Chong is actually a Kyushu daimyo. He grew up so big and never went abroad to Kyushu. In his cognition, the Otomo and Shimadzu families in the past can gather 5 to 6 people, which is already very strong.

And now this Guanbai from Kyoto has gathered five times the strength of Shimadzu, which has surpassed Akizuki Zhongshi's cognition of this world, and his sense of resistance has completely collapsed.

That's why there is a bridge where their family goes out of the city in plain clothes.

However, after their opening of the ancient cities, Takakage Kobayakawa only had time to control the surrounding cities of the ancient cities. Tadana Shimadzu reacted before he could control Sugimoto Castle on the other side of the Chikuzen Mountains. Walk.

By March [-]th, the army had steadily returned to Xiaokura Castle. At this moment, it had become the base camp of Toyotomi's army in Kyushu. The entire Xiaokura Plain was densely packed with camps. Can't find a place to stay.

And because people had a very weak concept of hygiene at that time, 10,000+ people gathered under Xiaocang Castle, which made the smell here far away.

The Southern Kyushu Front Army led by Hideka and Takakage Kobayakawa, this time the conquest of Chikuzen was only a temporary one, and it was not organized under Hideyoshi's army.

Therefore, after the army stayed in Kokura for a short time, except for the daimyos such as Hideo and Takakage who stayed in Kokura Castle to welcome Hideyoshi, the army under their command was led by the elders to continue to repair the inner city of Bungo Prefecture, and at the same time prepare to attack Hinata Shimadzu Yoshi Hiroshi's battle.

　With the arrival of Hideyoshi, the Battle of Kyushu has officially entered the climax

　　
　
(End of this chapter)