Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 556 Yanfu City Planning (5.1K)

The new curved wheel expanded in the Hojo period in the eastern part of Iwafu Castle is still preserved by Hideo just like the iron cannon curved wheel. The difference is that there will be a bridge directly connected to the Ninomaru on the east side of the Honmaru. Famous tree curved wheel and bamboo curved wheel.

This will be the residence of the chief minister of the main family. Although a little expansion has been carried out, the land area is still limited.

They are all important ministers in the court, and it is impossible for them to live in a 2-bay hut like the ordinary banner samurai and Daishen banner in the samurai land. Everyone's yard must not be smaller than Ju Ji's long office in Oni.

Therefore, it can only accommodate a few people of the old family level and a few people with knowledge or status to build mansions here. According to the estimation of the area, the two curved wheels can roughly accommodate 20 to 23 houses, which limits the There is a minimum requirement that only retainers above Wanshi can build mansions here.

The reason why the residence of the great ministers was built here is mainly because it is close to Nichimaru, so that it is convenient for the elders and important officials to enter Ninomaru directly from here.

On the northeast and north sides of Mizunuma, along the Arakawa River and a half circle, this will be the station of Hideka Gomoto fans, and a training ground for Gomoto fans is also specially set aside on the north side.

So far, the general structure of the original Iwafu Castle has been changed, but the Xiu family's reconstruction of Iwafu Castle has not yet finished. At this time, Iwafu Castle is shaped like a chicken leg, and the samurai land unilaterally protrudes to the southwest.

The Xiu family is not going to choose his structural design. The biggest problem is that artillery will be popular in the future, and such a city wall can easily be breached from the side.

Moreover, such a castle is not conducive to the deployment of firepower, and it can effectively cover the enemy with firepower.

After thinking about it, Xiujia Xiujia decided to rebuild Nanmaru, which is now a samurai land, and build it into a polygonal and multi-edged castle, so that even in the era of guns, it can make the absolute two enemies facing the siege effective. hit.

After the construction, the Nanmaru was changed to the outer pill of the city, because the entire north, northeast and east sides of Iwafu Castle are partly against the Arakawa, so only the west half is flat land, and only the west half of Hideka has prepared the outer pill that should have 6 corners. .

In the horizontal area between the several included corners of the outer pills, there is a protruding pill each. These pills will bear the most violent firepower when they encounter a fire attack, and they will serve as the outermost corners in normal times. The entrance and exit of the city gate.

Beyond the outer maru is the castle town, which will be the living area of ​​the main townspeople. At present, the preliminary plan has demarcated a large area, and Hideya plans to build a circle of structures on the periphery of the castle town.

The so-called 惣structure is not a defensive facility in the full sense. It is not a city wall in the Japanese sense. It is just a part of the wall raised by rammed earth, which is about 1 meter higher. It is very short and is not usually used as a defensive facility. It's just a certain amount of protection for the castle town.

And there will be a 3-5 meter wide water ditch on the periphery of the structure. The name of this water ditch has a lot of room for operation. Because of its narrow width, it cannot be called a water hole, even if you say it is an irrigation canal. question.

Once encountering an enemy attack, a fence or screen can be quickly inserted on the top of the raised structure as the first line of defense against enemy attack.

However, considering the area and scope of the outer structure of Xiujiayanfu City, the investment required for defense is not proportional to the effect, so the significance of defense is not great. It is better to fight street battles with the invading enemy in the castle town.

The main purpose of these structures is to distinguish the castle town from the wild. At the same time, if necessary, fences can be directly set up on the structures, and thieves can be arranged to patrol the structures to prevent bandits and ninjas from easily escaping.

Hideka made full use of the geographical advantage of the dense water network here in Saitama, and integrated several surrounding small streams through Iwafu Castle, reducing the dependence on Arakawa.

At the same time, these small streams will run through the castle town of Iwafuki Castle, Waimaru and other structures. Hideka will use the water of these rivers to build relatively independent plots. This is a reference to the buildings built in Kyoto, and the width of the ditches between the buildings The ditch is about 2-3 meters wide and there are roads on both sides, which are also 2-3 meters wide.

Due to the densely covered ditches, the squares themselves have a certain defensive capability. The invading enemy is set up to attack inward along the main road. The defenders in the squares on both sides of the road can live on the roof during street fighting, condescending. to attack.

At the same time, these ditches also have the effect of blocking fires. It must be known that during the entire Edo Shogunate period, Edo Castle caught fire no less than a hundred times, and there were more than a dozen extremely serious ones, each of which caused serious loss of life and property.

However, the partitions between the workshops of Xiujia and the roads are 6 to 9 meters wide, which is wide enough to become a small firebreak.

Looking at the design drawings of Iwafu Castle, Tatsuya Togawa, who was originally in charge of the planning of Iwafu Castle, looked ashamed.

In fact, it is also understandable. After all, his design was almost completely rejected by his leader, and Togawa Tatsuya will inevitably feel a little bit disappointed and embarrassed.

On the other hand, Xiujia comforted him, "I know that you rarely participated in internal affairs in the past, and I also heard from Misaku Mamoru that you did ask him a lot about building the castle.

It's just that you need to know that Iwafu Castle is the foundation of my Kanto Toyotomi family in the future, how can it be built in such a shabby way?You can't design with the usual vision of building a feudal city.

Due to time constraints, I designed a version of the city by myself, and you can implement it according to this plan. "

The Hide family's mission was assigned, but Togawa Tatsuan hadn't responded yet, Osafune Sadakin who was beside him spoke first and said, "Your Highness, why is this city designed in such a way?"

The Xiu family saw that he was hesitating and couldn't say "what is this" for a long time, so they said: "Mei Zuoshou has something to say."

Seeing that Xiu's family didn't blame her, Chang Chuanzhen replied: "Your Highness's design is indeed a bit unconventional. The whole city looks like a star, and the sharp edges and corners of the city are not only not conducive to the effective use of the land, but also quite difficult to construct. difficult."

On the other hand, Todo Takatora, who had participated in the construction of Takamatsu Castle, looked at the Iwatsuki drawings designed by Hideka, and quickly understood what Hideka was thinking.

When Sanuki Takamatsu Castle was being designed, Hideka repeatedly indicated that it should design more demaru, and that the original city walls on both sides of the demaru should have protruding parts, so that when demaru was hit by enemy firepower, the two sides would be protected. The walls of the city can be used to counterattack the siege enemy.

At the beginning, the city wall designed by Xiujia was relatively regular. Until today, when I saw the blueprint of Yanfucheng's design, I found that Xiujia's Yanfucheng's design was actually more extreme.

But he quickly discovered the meaning of it, pointing to a sharp corner in the middle and said, "If the enemy wants to attack, he can't use his strength on the sharp corner, so he can only climb up from both sides of the sharp corner. You can use iron cannons, bows and arrows to attack the sharp-pointed defenders on the opposite side.

It seems that the protruding part of the pill and the sharp corner will attract a lot of attention, but in fact this is the poisonous meat that His Highness sent to the enemy.

These few pills are separated from the city by Mizubori. Although the height is higher than that of the city, they can be the first line of defense.

His Highness deliberately designed the entrance and exit of the city gate to pass through the bridge of Demaru and enter the city through the bridge of Demaru, that is, to design Demaru as a poison pill.

The city gate is always the weakest part of a city, but after His Highness's design, even if the enemy attacked through the Demaru city gate, they found that there was only one long bridge to continue their attack.

However, on the front is the garrison armed with iron cannons, and the two sides have to face the concentrated fire of the two protruding parts of the corners. It is not known how many people will have to go down to take the outer pill. "

"Besides, the caliber of iron cannons is getting bigger and bigger. Whether you admit it or not, Otomo and Shimadzu in Kyushu have indeed cast two types of firearms, the stone fire arrow and the big iron cannon. The size of the projectiles is already comparable to our small gold cannon.

This shows that artillery will inevitably be greatly used in wars in the future, and the original city walls are flat and neat.

Even if there are twists and turns to increase the defensive effectiveness of the city, even if a prominent scull tower is added, but under the artillery attack, if a piece of the city wall is blown down like Tosaoka Toyotomi back then, there will be gaps , then this circle of curved wheels loses the meaning of defense.

And once such protruding edges and corners are used extensively, even if the corners are broken, or one edge is forced, the defenders on both sides can still continue to attack the enemies who have just climbed up. "

"Your Highness is truly a genius! If I'm not mistaken, the reason why Your Highness designed the protruding part and the out-maru as edges and corners is to facilitate the direct shooting of the iron cannon. Compared with the out-maru shot in Takamatsu Castle before, the city wall itself is not There will be blind spots hindering the design of iron cannons!"

Fujido Gaohu became more and more excited as he talked: "Pointing to the protruding corners on the back of Xiujia's drawings, he said, "Chengxia suggested that His Highness should be at the end of the protruding part." It is best to deliberately raise it a little higher and build a stone screen on top of it.

In this way, even if the enemy climbs with a protruding curved wheel, the climbing enemy will still face the attack of a layer of defense, while the climbing enemy needs to face the shooting of the other protruding curved wheel, making this Iwafuwaimaru completely exhaust the enemy The poison pill of life. "

Fujido Takahu became more and more excited as he spoke, "Your Highness, please entrust me with the task of building Iwafu Castle. I will definitely put His Highness's ideas into practice."

Hearing that Todo Takatora wanted to snatch his mission, Togawa Tatsuya said unhappily, "Sado Mamoru, this is the mission His Highness gave me at the beginning, and you still have military service account preparation and team training, so I'm afraid you don't have time to do it yourself! "

Before the new members headed by Todo Takatora joined the Ukiya family, no matter how they were transferred, the important officials in the family would always be in the hands of the four families of Nasafune, Hanabō, Togawa, and Oka.

Now that there is Takahu Todo, two elders, Li Yuan and Ying Wa, who are not family elders, have been added. On the contrary, their Togawa family does not have this status.

Originally, Togawa Tatsuan disliked the new senators headed by Fujido Takatora. Today's Kanto Toyotomi family was developed by their parents' hard work. Why were they newcomers suddenly given high positions, but they couldn't get up? bit?

Is it because your wife is the sister of the Xiu family?
Now that Fujido Takatora has openly come to ask for the mission that originally belonged to him, how can he prevent Togawa Tatsuan from being angry, and directly contradicting the elder in front of the Hide family as an ordinary retainer.

Togawa Tatsuan was so angry that Osafune Sadakin on the side had to come forward and touch Togawa Tatsuan, telling him to pay attention to his own sense of proportion.

Uncle Osafune's face still needs to be given, so Togawa Tatsuan could only swallow the matter for the time being, turned around and saluted Hideka and said, "Please be sure to entrust this task to me, Your Highness, please!"

After Hideka heard that Takatora Todo had understood the reason for his design, in fact, he had the idea of ​​entrusting this task to Takatora Todo from the bottom of his heart.

When Sanuki Takamatsu Castle was built, Hideka explained the principles behind it, and Hideka also believed that he would have a deeper understanding when he built Iwatsuki.

But Hideka also needs to take into account the feelings of Togawa Tatsuan and the veterans in the family, so they haven't given an answer for a long time.

On the side, Osafune Sadakin saw that Hideka did not answer the request of Togawa Tatsuan kneeling on the ground for a long time, so he deliberately changed the topic to give Hideka a little time to think, "Your Highness and Sado both have ideas, but this way , will these protruding corners be wasted soon after such a large area?"

"It's not a waste," Xiujia said, "I plan to set up three-layer scull towers on the protruding corners and the bends of the main wall, so that soldiers can stand on the scull towers to attack people, and they can usually look at the enemy.

Set up a high platform on both sides and the tip of the corner, and I will probably set up a turret on the top of it, and install a 12-pound big gold cannon to bombard the enemies outside the city. "

"Cannon fort?"

Hearing Xiujia's idea, many people present were taken aback. After all, artillery is still a rare item at this time, and it is mostly used in field battles to disrupt the enemy's formation and defeat the enemy's mentality.

Looking at the whole of Japan, I have never heard of a plan to press cannons on the city to deal with the attackers.

However, Hideka's fortification plan was not over yet, so he took out another piece of paper. The scale of this paper was much smaller than the fortification plan just now, but it included the situation on the other side of Arakawa.

"To the northeast side of Arakawa, build a Tonomaru. On top of it is a three-story and four-story small castle tower. Below it are palaces, Buddhist temples and other buildings. This will be the place where the main family will worship gods and ancestors in the future.

On the outskirts of Dongzhiwan is a multi-ridged fortress. Since it covers part of the land of Hanaji Township, I plan to call it Hanaji Maru.

In Hanaji Maru, I like to have a beautiful back garden, with mountains, lakes, gardens, and various animals and plants. I even thought of the name of this garden as 'Korakuen', taken from the Song Dynasty In Fan Zhongyan's Yueyang Tower, "worry about the world's worries first, and enjoy the world's joys later" means. "

Osafune Sadakin, who heard so many bizarre ideas from the Xiu family, has not yet reacted, and has been thinking about how much the Xiu family's Iwafu Castle will cost in this way.

I originally thought that the Iwafu Castle built on flat land and on the basis of Iwafu Castle could save a lot of money, but the cost may be roughly equivalent to building an Okayama Castle on the mountain of Bizen, and there is no 5 to 60 guan. not come down.

"No, absolutely can't go on like this," Changchuan Zhenqin said in his heart.

Taking a breath, Osafune Sadakin decisively "snatched" the Hide family's drawings from Togawa Tatsuan, and after careful consideration, he reported to the Hide family: "Your Highness, the matter of Waimaru and Hanajimaru Let's not mention it for the time being, it is really difficult to put so many buildings in such a small area within the main area.

Take your Honmaru and Ouchi for example. The castle tower occupies 1/6 of the area of ​​Honmaru, but it is really difficult to fill in 6 palaces with different functions. Even if it is built, its spatial layout will be very cramped.

You also have the same problem with your Aone. Although part of the area has been expanded, the area you want to build, but what is your central axis, and what is the east, middle, and west palaces?

Besides, don't your Oni and Honmaru need a relaxing garden?Although you set up Korakuen in the east of Arakawa.

But from Ouchi to Korakuen, you have to go to Honmaru, pass through Ninomaru, Tenjinmaru Deming Account, and come to the northeast side of Shinshoji Qulun. Here is the camp of the Goben Fanzhong, and there are a group of men, and then you have to cross here Is it a bit far to get to Korakuen after crossing the long bridge over the Arakawa River?
From my point of view, how about reducing the facilities of the main city for some unused buildings, reducing the amount of work and moving the gardens back to the main city of His Highness? "

Nasafune Sadaaki finished speaking with a smile, and waited for Xiujia's reply. After hearing this, Xiujia said excitedly, "What Misaku said is right! Why didn't I think of this question!"

"Thanks to Meizuo watching over me, I was able to discover the unreasonable design of my city walls.

If this is the case, let’s expand the city wall outwards, and the original Sannomaru will become the Honmaru, so that the original location of the Honmaru plus part of Ouchi will become the new Ouchi, and the back of the original Ouchi will become a small garden.

Anyway, the water marsh in Iwafu City will be drained and refurbished. It is simply bigger than the main city Guoxiu. How about expanding the area of ​​the original water marsh in proportion? "

"Your Majesty doesn't mean that."

Changchuan Zhenqin wanted some of the scale of the building that the Xiu family had seen, which would save a lot of expenses. Who knew that the Xiu family seemed to "make a mistake" and actually thought of expanding the main structure, which made him tremble when he spoke. .

As Hideka said, he took a new piece of paper, spent a rough time on it, and said: "In this way, half of the area of ​​the castle town in the structure will be occupied. The original Sannomaru, Shunomaru, and Bamboo Maru At the current location of Wujiadi. The amount of work is huge, isn’t it just a little bit~”

However, before he could speak, Hideka looked at his "silly nephew" Tatsuya Togawa and said, "Although the task is arduous, Higo will be in charge of the main castle within the samurai land, as well as Sannomaru, Shunomaru, There is no problem with Takenomaru, Ninomaru, Honmaru, Okumaru, Shinshoji Qurin and Gomoto Banqurin on the north and northeast side?"

Hearing that the Xiu family finally entrusted him with the task of building the city, Togawa Tatsuan did not give the Xiu family a chance to repent at all, let alone the gap that Osafune Sadain would stop him from the side, and immediately saluted the Xiu family and settled the matter Should be next.

"Yes! Your Highness, please take a good look at it, I will definitely not let His Highness down!"

For a moment, Xiujia suddenly felt that Togawa Tatsuan and his father really had different personalities, this is a "loyal minister"! ~
(End of this chapter)