Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 370
With Shimadzu Yoshihisa's self-imposed suicide, the Kyushu crusade came to an end, and the troops of the Toyotomi family began to march towards the skill in an orderly manner.

According to Hideyoshi's request, the famous generals brought the troops back in an orderly manner to disband the army, and the matters of rewards and transfers will be announced after they go to Osaka together for evaluation in August.

As for the neighboring country that Kyushu just won, Hideyoshi also arranged for the corresponding daimyo to take care of it.

For example, the Chikuzen country was handed over to Tachibana Muneshige to lead Harada, Munakata and other daimyos for temporary stabilization; the Buzen country was handed over to the Mori family for stabilization, and the Mori family also needed to be responsible for the assistance of the Chikuzen country.

Naoshima Naoshige is responsible for the stability of Hizen and Chikugo, Otomo is responsible for the stability of Bungo and Hyuga, and Higo state-owned Hideyoshi himself leaves Asano Nagamasa to lead Konishi Governor, Kato Kiyomasa, Mizoguchi Hidekatsu, Mori Tadomasa, Wakisaka Yasuji and others are doing the stabilization, and they are also responsible for the stabilization of Chikugo.

The Osumi country was originally a neighboring country of Shimadzu. According to the agreement, the Shimadzu family needed to withdraw their sphere of influence from Osumi and Hyuga Bungo to Satsuma, but before that, the Osumi country was temporarily handed over to the Shimadzu family.

Anyway, this time the three Shimadzu brothers and their heirs were all asked to go to Kyoto to meet the emperor, and even the leader had been taken away, so Hideyoshi was not worried that the Shimadzu family would cause trouble after he left.

But just when Toyotomi Hideyoshi returned to his hometown with the army in peace, a major event happened in Kyushu.

According to the agreement, the four brothers of the Shimadzu family need to let their heirs go to Osaka as hostages, and the hostage of the Shimadzu family is Togo Shigetora, who has already succeeded the Togo family.

As the heir of another independent wealthy family, Togo Shigetora was not with his cousins ​​in the inner city, but in Aya Castle, the home city of Hyuga Kunito Go's family.

Originally, the Togo family was also an aborigine of Satsuma, and the Shimadzu family had fought against it. Later, because they could not beat the Shimadzu family, they succumbed and became the retainers of the Shimadzu family.

Later, with the expansion of Shimadzu, it was transferred to Hinata as the power of Shimadzu Iehisa.

This was a very common thing. Iehisa Shimadzu personally asked Hideyoshi for leave and Hinata caught up with him. No one thought much about it.

However, when Hideyoshi returned to Chikuzen six days later, he suddenly received news from Hinata that Iehisa Shimadzu died of a sudden illness in Sadowara Castle, and his son Togo Shigetora was brought here by his elder brother Toyohisa Shimadzu.

The two brothers couldn't hide their sadness. Even in the face of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's questioning, the two brothers strictly kept the information and insisted that Iehisa Shimadzu died of illness or an infectious disease, and the body had been cremated.

At this time, Hideyoshi did not have clear regulations on the life and death of the daimyo as in the later Tokugawa shogunate period, especially for such a newly conquered neighboring country, the decree has not yet been issued.

Even though everyone present noticed something unusual, Hideyoshi had no evidence to prove that Iehisa Shimadzu committed suicide by suicide.

Besides, with so many big names watching, Hideyoshi also wanted to show his preferential treatment to the Shimadzu family, so he didn't want to ask this matter in detail.

So Toyohisa Shimadzu was allowed to inherit Sadohara Castle, and asked him to plead guilty to the emperor instead of his father, and at the same time accepted his younger brother Shigetora Togo as a hostage.

In fact, the daimyos of the Southern Kyushu Legion who were in Hyuga country more or less speculated about Shimadzu Iehisa's death. After all, Iehisa and Yoshihisa were locked up together during that time, and the daimyos saw the actions of the two brothers. in the eyes.

Therefore, news began to spread in the camp that Shimadzu Iehisa was ashamed of Shimadzu Yoshihisa and committed suicide. Once this is true, it means that you are not satisfied with the fact that Toyotomi Hideyoshi attacked Shimadzu and finally spared your life. This is a major event in changing the exile.

In order to show justice, Hideyoshi ordered Asano Nagamasa, who was left in Higo, to go to Hyuga to investigate the matter.

Perhaps it was because Hideyoshi had hit the Shimadzu family with a big stick, and what should be done at this moment was to appease Tianzao, and there really shouldn't be any urgency, so the matter ended in nothing.

Following the victory of the Kyushu Crusade, Hideyoshi met with Soyoshi Tomo and others who came from Tsushima Island in Chikuzen. Hideyoshi asked Soyoshi Tomo about the situation in Korea on the other side, and Hideyoshi who was listening on the side thought to himself: "Maybe in the At this time, Hideyoshi has already turned his back on the idea of ​​attacking North Korea."

Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 20 troops were divided into two at Chikuzen, and the Shikoku troops turned eastward from here, and took a ferry to Shikoku to disband.

Now there are only five forces in the entire Shikoku. Asano Nagamasa and Kato Kiyomasa were asked to stay in Higo, so only Fukushima Masanori, Kobayakawa Takakage, and Hideka's corps were under the 1 Shikoku troops who actually took the ferry back.

Since returning to Honshu Island from Kyushu requires ships to cross the strait, in order to transfer tens of thousands of people out of Kyushu Island as soon as possible, the navy fleet including Kumano Navy, Salt Water Army, Toyotomi Navy and Maori Navy They were all transferred to Shimonoseki, so the only ones who actually completed the transfer of the four countries were the Okayama water army of the Hide family and the Murakami water army of the Mori family.

As the second batch of troops, Hideka crossed the sea from Moji by boat on May 5. After half a month of trekking, he finally returned to Okayama Castle after an absence of nearly half a year on June 26.

This return to the city, Xiu’s family had already made a greeting in advance, not to mention the return of a large army from Kyushu. These people were conscripted from the entire Seven Kingdoms of Jibei, and some of them were relatives across the country.

Even though the Hide family had transferred nearly 2 people from Iyo and Sanuki in advance in Chikuzen, and Bichu left nearly [-] people from Hoki and Bichu, when they returned to Okayama, the entire team still had more than [-] people .

As in the previous arrangement, Hideka allowed the soldiers accompanying the army to stay in Okayama Town for 2 days, and use the reward money they received to spend in the city to buy supplies before leaving.

Throughout the Battle of Kyushu, the main battles fought by the Xiu family were fought in the sphere of influence of the friendly army, and the Xiu family was too embarrassed to plunder the cities of the friendly army, so the spoils they got were not many, so they launched the war in Chikuzen. Made a small fortune.

Even so, it was still not enough to reward the soldiers, so the Xiu family had written to Changchuan Zhenqin before returning to the city, asking him to prepare 5 guns for rewards.

Rao Yuxi's family is rich, but the daily expenses are also high, and it is not easy to raise so many coins in a short period of time, so in the end, they had to use salt, Bizen celadon and other materials to offset them.

Or allow them to take back the long spears and samurai swords that were issued when they applied for the recruitment, and use them as direct discounts for rewards.

Don't think that these things don't have much money. You must know that even now that the Warring States Period has come to an end, the weapons in the hands of many famous ashigaru are still strange. Bamboo spears are considered standard weapons, and sickles are tied to bamboo. Homemade guns.

This led to the fact that when the big names wanted to shoot, even if the queues were neat, the lengths of the spears in the hands of Ashgaru were different, and the combat effectiveness was very problematic.

The Yuki family was like this at the beginning, but after the reform of the Hideo military system, the requirements for conscripted peasants and ashigaru to prepare their own weapons were removed, and the weapons were distributed by their respective lords or Ukido uniformly. Long guns are basically unified into two guns/three guns.

Even the most shoddy Sanjian gun has the length of wood, so it must not use loose fir wood, only cypress or teak wood, plus the 30cm iron gun head and tail weight on it, the cost is there , The production cost of a gun is about 2 guan, even catching up with an ordinary samurai sword.

The cost of Erjian Gun is much lower, and the texture of the team's wood is not so strict. The average cost is about 300 Wen.

According to the arrangement in the Xiujia military system, every soldier who participated in the war could receive 200 cash per month, which was used to make up for the delay in production in his own field caused by the labor force going out.

The heads cut off on the battlefield start with 1 monies for the first level of ashigaru and 100 monies for the first level of the samurai, and are rewarded according to the level of the samurai without capping.

The Xiu family wants to achieve a unified standard for the entire army, but the army of this era is essentially a conscription system under the enfeoffment system, and the soldiers of the Xiu family's retainers are not soldiers of the Xiu family in essence.

The heads they captured were confiscated by their lords and reported to the Xiu family. The Xiu family distributed the rewards to the lords according to the standard, and then the lords distributed them.

Of course, the Xiu family has repeatedly requested that the 200 cash per month for battles must not be deducted. Even so, the rewards received by the ashigaru legions led by those retainers are still much less than the direct-administered reserve and standing troops of the Xiu family.

In the Battle of Kyushu, more than 1500 people were killed by Yu Xijia, hundreds of people were disabled due to injuries, and thousands of people were injured.

Although the Xiu family hopes to subsidize them, working for the master is an obligation of this era. For hundreds of years, they have never heard of funeral subsidies and disability subsidies.

Of course, because of the mining of the Iyo Copper Mine, Hideka has asked the samurai to hand over 10% of their annual salary in advance as a disability fund, plus the proceeds from the copper mine are used to subsidize 20 kanwen for the samurai war dead in one go, and in the future Disability allowance of 5 pennies per year.

This is still the reward that people who have paid the disability fund can get. If they have not paid, they will be paid at a discount of [-]%.

This is already the greatest progress Hideka can make, but for Ashigaru, Hideka is really helpless.

What the Hide family can do is to pay the Ashgaru family who died in battle with a one-time subsidy of 5 kanwen. Earn money by making these crafts at the Rush Works Workshop and the Matchlock Works Workshop.

Rao is this kind of operation that in the view of the Xiu family extremely squeezes the value of the people, it still caused an uproar in Yu Xi's family.

After the system was promulgated, neither the samurai nor the ashigaru believed that their masters would be kind, so few samurai paid the disability fund.

In the past more than a year since the payment, Yuxi's family has not encountered any serious wars, so many samurai have stopped paying.

Who would have thought that the Battle of Kyushu would come so fast? This is also the first time that the Xiu family's disability fund has been operated to pay, which is equivalent to a one-time emigration. Therefore, the Xiu family specially took care of Changchuan Zhenqin and tried every means to raise it. Funds must never be deferred.

Fortunately, the Xiu family's disability and war death subsidies only need to be distributed to the standing equipment recruited from the army, the directly governed equipment recruited from its own territory, and the retainers and samurai directly under it. The Hide family does not need to pay for the ashigaru and samurai under the retainers. .

Therefore, the pressure in this area is a lot of laughs. If you only count the payment for the death in battle this time, the whole army only needs 2200 kans if you count the ashigaru.

You said that the soldiers recruited by the retainers of the Xiu family didn't work for the Xiu family?Why can't they get the money?
They did sell!

But the Warring States Period was so cruel, the Xiu family had no obligation to them in this regard, and their indemnity was paid entirely by the kindness of their lord.

In the past, no matter whether it was a low-level samurai or ashigaru/farmers who died in battle or won, they didn’t get a penny. The so-called compensation allows them to go to the battlefield to search for loot by themselves. How much you can win is yours. Of course, it has a special meaning. Things must be handed in.

And after the reform of Hideo's military system, even the ashigaru of these vassals can receive a fixed monthly battle money and rewards, and the spoils of war are still collected by them themselves, which seems to be better than other families Too much.

Fortunately, the Xiu family has Iyo's copper mine as a branch city, and the bounty can be offset with materials. By the time the Xiu family returns to Okayama, Osafune Sadain has already collected the rewards that need to be paid.

After Xiu's family returned to the city, they arranged for the captains of the preparations and the heads of the families to collect them from the Longchuan Zhenqin, and then they distributed them.

Standing and Xiujia's directly-administered equipment needs to be distributed to each group of five by the equipment captain in accordance with the military service certificate.

As for the compensation for those who died in battle, Longchuan Zhenqin was in charge of sending the concentric people to send the money to their homes.

All the samurai and ashigaru who received rewards and subsidies praised the kindness of the Hide family to the defense line of Ishiyama Castle, and then took the spoils and distributed materials to Okayama Town to resell the city to buy the things they needed and prepare to take them home.

It's just that this time because of the reconstruction of Okayama Castle, Hideka's main base was temporarily changed back to Ishiyama Castle on the west bank of Asahikawa. To pay a 2 text / person to cross the river.

Seeing this situation, Hideka also suggested to Nasafune Sadakin, "You can build two stone pier wooden bridges at the exploration site on Asahikawa, so that the merchants and people who come and go can cross the river. .”

After hearing the Xiu family's thoughts, Changchuan Zhenqin reminded the Xiu family: "Your Highness, the money for crossing the four rivers alone can bring us nearly 5000 yuan in income every year. If the bridge is early, the money can be collected. It's not here."

"That's not how the account is calculated, Misaku Mamoru." Hearing the reminder from Osafune Sadakin, Hideka explained with a smile, "You have to know that with the development of the Ming trade and the development of our country's handicraft industry, Okayama Town has gradually become the most important place in the Seto Inland Sea. One of the important port towns, second only to Sakai-cho.

Goods traveling from south to north are transited here, but sea freight is expensive after all, and traders can go by land and never by sea.And we, as the central town of the West Country, can form a radiation effect.

Just imagine if after the bridge is built, it will be more convenient for merchants to travel on the road, and there will be no need for a ferry to move goods up and down. Will there be more merchants on the road?Will the trade in Okayama Town be more prosperous, and can we collect more import duties on goods?

In this way, isn't the tax collected every year more than the number of deaths that are only 5000 per year? "

"What? What radiation?" Longchuan Zhenqin didn't quite understand the terminology that Xiujia said, but he also knew that the freight trade would be more prosperous after roads, so he agreed to the bridge construction plan.

After the matter was explained, Nasafune said goodbye to Xiu's family and planned to go down to work.

At this moment, the Xiu family seemed to think of something, and reminded again, "Oh, by the way, you need to raise a batch of supplies as soon as possible. His Highness Guan Bai's army should arrive soon, and you and I will need it by then." Go to labor."

"Is it a labor force?" Longchuan Zhenqin stopped at the door and confirmed to Xiu's family.

The Xiu family nodded and said: "Yes, it's laborers other than military rations and supplies. Prepare some wine and meat for your father's banner team and various daimyos to enjoy. In addition, prepare for the samurai of the daimyos along the way. Gifts such as knives must be special for my father and uncle, to celebrate his victory in Kyushu."

"I need a special gift." Changchuan Zhenqin scratched her shiny forehead helplessly, but still agreed to the matter. "I understand, please rest assured, Your Highness, I will prepare properly."

(End of this chapter)