Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 508

The purpose of this special ranger is obvious. It is to have a unit that does not belong to any daimyo's command in the Yuao area, independent of the daimyo system, just like the longevity army handed over by the Xiu family to the Governor's Mansion of Ezo.

On the surface, this army is to make up for the slow mobilization of the big names, so as to solve the bandits and the rebellious crowd as soon as possible, but it may not have the idea of ​​​​targeting Yu Oo daimyo.

It's just that they won't say it.

And the most important thing is that the Longevity Army he handed over to Ukita Tadashi's family is composed of orphans he has recruited for many years. The soldiers are from the Xiu family's territory and the orphans recruited from all over the country. There is nothing to say about their loyalty.

And this time Xiujia wants to organize a standing army from the hands of Yu Oo daimyo.

Historically, the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate was financial. They essentially wanted to weaken the policy of the various vassal states with fatigue. This policy was well implemented in the first 200 years of the Tokugawa shogunate. up.

But when the enemy that this country needs to face is no longer the internal vassal state, but the external enemy outside, you will find that under this policy are already exhausted generals, daimyo and people.

As the actual power holder in Japan, the general who governs the world's military forces, in the face of possible invasion by foreign enemies, needs to undertake the entire Japanese city defense with less than 1/3 of the country's fiscal revenue, which is obviously an impossible task.

If you want to solve this problem, it is actually very easy to solve. One of them is to collect taxes from various vassal states. Woolen cloth?Even if there were, their endings are written in history.

You must know that generals are elected by the warrior class, and they are the cornerstone for generals to rule the world.

Ichikui of the common people is not terrible, but once the samurai gets involved, the world is always in danger of overthrowing.

Even in the era of Hideyoshi and Tokugawa, the two founding kings did not dare to directly ask the daimyo to pay taxes, but chose to let the daimyo pay tribute every year to continue bloodletting the daimyo.

However, this tribute is a ceremony, and the amount paid by the daimyo follows the precedent, which is not enough to cover the military expenditure of the later modernized military reform.

Since it is impossible to collect money from the daimyo to arm the army, we can only change our thinking, let the daimyo provide soldiers to protect the world for the general, and become one of the general's standing army.

In the Xiu family's vision, it would be better for them to provide military rations and salaries for this soldier, but this will inevitably lead to uneven military equipment and military pay for the soldiers, and now the Xiu family can only temporarily arm them uniformly.

To solve this problem thoroughly, Xiujia must become the person in power.

Fortunately, with Hideyoshi as the tiger skin now, the Hideo family can directly force Yu Oo daimyo to hand over. Even if they lost the troops of Dabao Temple and Onodera, the number of Hideo family's army is close to 6500.

A standing army of 6500 people is definitely not a small force in Yu'ao.

Hideka wanted to know what to do with this army. At that time, 3500 people would be stationed in Iwashiro, 1500 in Sendai, and 1500 in Akita, enough to monitor the daimyo of the entire Yu-O area.

Remember what Xiujia said to these big names before?

"The purpose of this army is to prevent the rebellion from becoming bigger, and to extinguish it when it is small. If it becomes difficult to deal with it, it will be delayed until the main mobilization arrives."

In Xiujia's mind, this "rebel force" is not just a group of people, including these untrustworthy Yu-Ao daimyos.

Seeing that the Yuao daimyo agreed, Hideka turned to Utsunomiya Kunizuna and Satake Yoshinobu and said, "The two adults are the daimyos closest to the Yuao area. If there is a rebellion in the Yuao area, I hope the two A grown-up can help."

Satake Yoshinobu and Utsunomiya Kunizun replied, "The ministers and others were ordered by Guan Bai, and were adjusted by His Highness. If it is useful for us, please explain it to Your Highness."

"That's good." When Xiujia heard that the two agreed to his request, he finally let go of his hanging heart.

After all, Utsunomiya and Satake say they are two families, but they love the same family.Now one of these two people is blocking the field, and the other is blocking in Ibaraki. If they resist him, then his control over Yu'ao will be greatly reduced.

"I don't need you to send people to participate in the ranger. I just need the two adults to second the troops that can be quickly mobilized in their hands as soon as possible after being invited by me or Toyotomi's attendants to help them deal with things in the Yuao area. "

In fact, there is another family that has a great influence on the Uesugi area today, and that is the Uesugi family located in Echigo.

As early as 1586, they began to intervene in the battle between Aizu and Dewa. Now that Hideyoshi has officially confirmed Daihoji Temple and Shonai Territory as the territory of the Uesugi family, the Uesugi family can be regarded as one foot into Yuao.

There is a dispute over jurisdiction, whether there is any right to govern Zhuang Nei Lingxiu's family.

Historically, the riots in Shonai officially occurred during the Yu Olympic inspection, and were finally extinguished with the joint efforts of Gamo, Mogami Yoshimitsu, and Uesugi Kagekatsu, and the Taibaoji family was stripped of Zhixing by Hideyoshi.

But now that Dabao Temple Yisheng doesn't want the Xiu family to intervene, why should the Xiu family stick to that cold ass and ask for trouble?
As for this life, after losing the help of Gamo and Mogami, the Taibaoji family can suppress the leader only by relying on the Uesugi family, please wait and see.

"Since you have no objection to the formation of the ranger, then let's settle this matter." Hideyoshi looked around and said to everyone
"I called you here today. Apart from this important event, there is one more thing I want to tell you in advance, and that is the matter of Yuao's ruined city and its construction."

Looking at what Hideyoshi said before, this is actually the only thing that Hideyoshi delegates real power to Hideo, and it is also Hideyoshi's greatest right in Yuao area.

As I said earlier, the city is a daimyo, and even a symbol of the authority of low-level warriors. The bigger the city, the more luxurious it is, which symbolizes the greater power you have around you.

At the same time, the city itself is a symbol of your semi-independence. If one day you and your lord can't pee in the same pot, you can apply for seclusion and hide in a small building to form a unified body.

But since Hideyoshi ordered to start abolishing the castle in the Uo-Kanto area, this comfortable life will never return.

This sentence was once again confirmed from the Xiu family's mouth, and everyone's expressions became a little serious, even more dignified than the Xiu family's expression of apportioning soldiers to them just now.

From the perspective of our later generations, the "One Feudal One Country One City Law" and the "Retainer Set Going Order" are both laws and regulations that strengthen the centralization of power by daimyos, which will help strengthen daimyos' grasp of the territory.

But at this time, the thinking of many daimyos has changed. In their view, each branch city itself is one of the defense systems of the city. Hideyoshi's request to abolish the castle is essentially asking them to abolish the castle defense themselves.

The destruction of the Hojo family is still in sight, and it is difficult to guarantee that Hideyoshi will fight back against Yuao and Kanto Daimyo if he decides to abolish his martial arts at this time.

In particular, Masamune Date, who was not very satisfied with Hideyoshi's handling, changed his expression from serious to gloomy after hearing Hideyoshi's order to destroy the castle.

"After thinking about it, I don't know much about the daimyo leaders in the Yuao area, so I thought this decree would be suppressed for the time being. After you go back, you will first send the soldiers who have just agreed to military service to Iwashiro for training, and then send them to Iwashiro. Sword hunting and the abandoned city unfolded together.

I don’t need to say much about the policy of the sword hunting order. You implement according to the law and confiscate the weapons of the people in your territory, including but not limited to knives, guns, bows, arrows, full armor, etc. This matter is handled by Ishida The Ministry of Governance and the Ministry of Punishment of Otani are responsible for supervision. "

Hideka said here, pointing to Ishida Mitsunari and Otani Kichitsugu who were sitting below, Hideka has already discussed with them, the matter of the land inspection will be postponed, and the land inspection will be carried out after the weapons in the collar are collected, so that The risk you face will be much smaller.

After getting the confirmation from the two, the Xiu family continued: "The collected items are sufficient. The big armors will be kept by the big names themselves, and 7% will be handed over to the family. Half of the collected knives, guns, and arrows will be handed over to be smelted into agricultural tools." , to be used for agricultural reclamation. The bows are all disposed of by the masters themselves."

Don't look at half of the folk knives and guns that the Xiu family asked to turn in. It seems that there are a lot of them, but you must know that the real farmers and craftsmen who were hunted by the knives are the bottom-level farmers and craftsmen. Most of these people's equipment is very tattered.

In the era of the integration of soldiers and farmers, farmers and soldiers needed to prepare their own weapons to fight for the daimyo, but just a low-level samurai sword required 5 kanmon, which obviously exceeded the annual income of farmers.

For peasants and soldiers, there are three most common ways to obtain weapons, one is the old treasures handed down from the ancestors; the other is the bamboo or wooden spears cut down on the mountain, and those who are a little rich will wrap them with iron heads; As for the third, of course it was captured after winning the battle on the battlefield.

When the Onin Rebellion came, Japan had been in chaos for more than a hundred years, and civilian armaments had already flooded. In the later stages of the war, some lucky peasant and soldier families were even better equipped than land servants and samurai.

However, most of the weapons used by farmers and soldiers are still crudely made hodgepodge. Even the real killer on the battlefield is not the weapon itself, but the pollution on the weapon.

For these huge quantities of weapons, some of the high-quality goods must have been confiscated by the local daimyo on the spot as an arsenal. As for the remaining surplus goods, there is no point in keeping them. They simply smelt city farm tools on the spot and distribute them.

As for how to supervise the smelting work of these agricultural tools, I can only trouble Xiujia to build a blast furnace for smelting and forging in Iwashiro.

The advantage of this is that centralized management and centralized destruction prevent the daimyo from hiding weapons, and at the same time stimulate the development of industry and commerce in the Iwashiro area.

In Japan, iron has always been a scarce and important material, which led to the fact that even in the Edo period, Japanese farmers still used a large number of wooden farm tools for production, and the efficiency of agricultural production was greatly reduced.

Nowadays, with so much scrap iron, it is impossible to use it to make farm tools and carry out a wave of industrial upgrading.

As for the full and large armor, the only way for farmers to obtain them is to peel them off from the battlefield, but for low-level farmers like them, even if they obtain the so-called full and large armor, they will still end up being "bought" by superior warriors .

For them, it is a very lucky thing to have a belly roll and a carcass on their bodies.

No matter at any time, armor is an absolute strategic material, and only in the current chaotic Warring States period will it be so flooded at the bottom.

There is no dynasty that has not confiscated civilian armor after peace, and even private armor is often regarded as a crime in the eyes.

In fact, no matter whether it is a round body, a belly roll, a large armor or a full body, their production methods are similar, and they are all connected with the various pieces of armor with a rope, which is essentially a different addressing method for piercing the armor.

Of course, this means that no matter how the samurai armor evolves, its material itself is guaranteed.

However, with the continuous expansion of the scale of the Warring States War, the demand for armor is increasing, and the maintenance of armor is a very cumbersome thing.

In order to meet the requirements of the superior lord, and also for the sake of his own life, bamboo armor and wooden armor wrapped in leather gradually entered the battlefield.

The bamboo armor and wooden armor we often see in later generations are mostly used in kendo protective equipment. In fact, this is a kind of ceremonial armor in Japan.

Because of its own material problems, it has the characteristics of light weight, easy production, and easy repair. Like bamboo spears, it has gradually become popular among lower-level warriors and farmers, and it still has a large number of folks today.

Especially the light weight is very suitable for malnourished Japanese farmers and soldiers.

Not to mention, these bamboo and wooden armors do have a certain defensive effect in the face of the arrows shot by Marugi bows and the chopping of knives and guns. It can be said to be very high-quality and cheap.

The main battlefield of the Japanese war has always been near Kinki, and the intensity and habits of war in the Kanto-Uo area seem to be more than 30 years behind Kinki.

This kind of bamboo and wood armor has long been eliminated in the Western Kingdom due to the large-scale popularity of iron cannons. After all, no one wants to spend money on wearing a protective clothing that is useless, and it may even slow down their own speed when escaping.

But the Kanto-Yao area is different. This thing is still widely used. In the army of Satake and the most famous daimyo that the Hide family has seen in the past two days, there are still soldiers wearing this kind of armor.

Of course, Xiujia also considered that due to the backward equipment in Yu'ao area, the big masters need a certain amount of armament reserves.

In the case of self-armament, the daimyo does not need to be responsible for the armament of the peasants and soldiers, but after the sword hunting order, they need to prepare enough equipment and weapons for ordinary soldiers in case of war.

With so many consumables confiscated at once, it is difficult to have enough new iron consumables to replace them. Yuao daimyo has a need to keep them, which is why Xiujia Xunxuan they retain 7%.

As for the 3% of Xiujia's hand, it is useless at all, and Xiujia is not interested in this kind of armor. He is not like a knife that can be reforged into farm tools and distributed.

The inner and outer leather on the entire armor is somewhat useful, and can be reused on the newly forged iron feet. As for the bamboo and wood chips inside, they were just dismantled and burned.

The operation of confiscating 3% was entirely a process to establish the authority of the Toyotomi family.

(End of this chapter)