Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 761
Xiujia arrived in Bulaifang City in early March of the 4th year of Qingchang. With Xiujia's arrival and the weather gradually getting warmer, the horn of counterattack against Ezo officially sounded.

At this moment, only the Mori family and the Gifu clan's army have not yet arrived in the planned Ezo expedition. The Hide family has urged it many times. The latest news is that the two armies have just passed through Shiraishi Castle and entered the northeast.

Xiujia had a good talk with Daban before. Daban needs to provide 10 shi of military rations and 5 guan of military funds.

But the Xiu family will not just waste it needlessly, because the war window between the Northeast and Ezo is extremely short.In Bulaifang City, the Xiu family launched their first military discussion.

"When I was in Hanamaki, I received news from the Mogami family that he and Anton and other daimyos had assembled more than 1 troops in Akita, and the Uesugi family also sent reinforcements, led by 4000 people led by Honjo Shigeru The total strength there is about 1.

Before His Highness Koriyama brought part of the army and the garrison of Ou's garrison to the north, he brought more than 6 troops. This time I came from Kanto with more than 10 troops, and the total strength of the two sides is [-].

I have already made a promise in Osaka that this battle will not only expel the rebels and Ezo bandits from the country, but also chase down the remnants of the enemy in the enemy's territory, completely wipe out Ezo, and open up thousands of miles for my emperor.At that time, you will all be meritorious ministers, and I will not hesitate to reward you. "

Xiujia used the subject "I" here instead of "Osaka" or "big brothers" because he has already brought himself into the position of the last man in the world.

In fact, the daimyo who came to help the Nanbu family and the Oysterzaki family to drive out bandits and thieves are still somewhat interested. After all, they can loot waves along the way to earn some loot.

But there is little interest in continuing the Northern Expedition to Ezo. After all, this is the rumored bitter cold place.

Therefore, the response to the Xiu family's pre-war mobilization was somewhat perfunctory.The reason why they were willing to follow the Xiu family was because they had military exploits and trophies to take, and they came because it was an order from Osaka, and the coach was the Xiu family himself, so they wanted to give some face.

Xiujia naturally saw what everyone was thinking and didn't take it to heart. By the time they discovered the value of Ezo, it was too late.

"I have written to Debamori to ask them to postpone going north to Taiguan on the 15th, and then send troops to Qingjin. This time the main attack is launched from our side, and the first strategic goal is to destroy the rebels in the three counties of Lubei.

After all, this is the territory of the Nanbu family, and I don't want you to consume too much military power again. Let the Nanbu family and Ou's government army be responsible for this battle.

I will add 3 more reserve teams with a total of about [-] people. The general will be in charge of Toyotomi Inuko, His Highness Toshinao Nambu will be the deputy, Tatsuya Togawa will be the assistant prime minister of the central army, and itami Torashige and Masayuki Ibaraki will be the vanguard. "

The Xiu family had already planned to let their son earn military exploits, and the other big names showed little interest in this matter, so the Xiu family directly asked Xiuzheng to be in charge.

Xiuzheng is still just a 12-year-old child, about the same age as the Xiu family when they took command of the conquest of Jianyue. The scarf with Qitong pattern looks quite decent.

Many of the big names here have seen the three sons of the Xiu family along the way, and they are particularly concerned about this son of the Xiu family, but they still showed surprise after hearing that the Xiu family made their sons in command. expression.

The Xiu family ignored the whispers of the daimyo below, and continued to introduce: "My family has to close Bai Enshang first, and has a Zhuyin certificate for Eizo. I know that Ezo's climate is cold all year round, and the days of ice and snow are only 4~ August, September to next March are all covered with ice and snow, so if you want to make a northern expedition to Ezo, you must make good use of this window period when the ice and snow melt."

"So when Inuzi cooperates with the Nanfang family to deal with the rebels in Lubei, another team is needed to attack the Ezo bandits in Qingjin, and the task of commanding this part is handed over to Junshandian.

You lead Date, Tokugawa and other families with a total of 1.5 troops to attack Qingjin from Lubei, and more than [-] troops of Yuhou's top daimyo are also under your command. "

As the most important right-hand man of the Xiu family, Feng Chen Xiuzhen must have won the trust of the Xiu family regardless of her ability.Most of the troops left to him by the Xiu family were dominated by the famous Northeast clans, which were already under his jurisdiction. Only the Tokugawa were outsiders, but they also had a certain relationship with him.

Besides, in the Ezo crusade army formed by Xiujia, besides Xiujia, Xiuzhen has the highest status (middle-aged and old), so it is only natural for Xiuzhen to be in command.

So when they heard that the Xiu family had put Toyotomi Xiuzhen in charge, the reaction of other daimyos was much smaller than that of the Xiu family letting their own son be in charge.

The Xiu family's military strategy has come to an end. Due to the harsh winter this year, it is already March, but the snow in the northeast has not yet melted. Ben Fan took the folks to clear the snow and moved forward slowly.

The war continued smoothly. The first battle took place on March 3. Hitachi, a subordinate of the Hideka Hondo clan, was leading more than a thousand civilians to clear the snow on the road when they encountered an attack from the defenders of Hachinohe Castle.

There is an Eagle's Nest City in front of Kuyin City, which is built on the Eagle's Nest Mountain, which is the highest mountain in the entire Ma Yuanchuan Valley.

Since the mountain's trail entrance was on the other side of the mountain, the castle was under the control of the Hachinohe family.Although the city is not big, its location is very important. It overlooks the entire river valley, serving as a tip-off for the Hachinohe family.

Hachinohe is not a surname, but refers to the branch of the southern family that was originally sealed in the place of Hachinohe. In addition, there are Yihu, Sihu, Qihu, Jiuhu, Nanshi, Beishi and other families.

As we all know, the Jiuhu family was wiped out by Nambu Toshinao in the previous second Oushi Centralization, but the struggle for succession within the Nanbu family has been going on for thousands of years.

At first, the Nambu family was a noble family in Kai. Because of their exploits in battle, they took Nanbu as their family because they won the southern shepherd of the Kai country.At first, it was to check and balance the power of the Takeda clan, but shortly after he was named Kai, he followed the Minamoto Yoshitomo to conquer the Minamoto Yoshitsune and the Oshu Fujiwara clan.

After the war, he was conferred the title of Kobube County of Mutsu Country. In his later years, he distributed his territory to six sons. The eldest son received one household, the second son received three households, the third son received eight households, and the fourth son received Seven households, five sons were granted four households, six sons were granted nine households.

This distribution method is very scientific, and the biggest advantage is that it is hard to remember.But at that time, because the ruling core of the Nanbu family was in Kai, the rule of Mutsu here was basically in charge of the Hachinohe family.

However, due to the team's mistakes during the Nanbei Dynasty, the Hachinohe family and the Nanbu family were suppressed, and the Sanhe family became the chief lord of the Mutsu Nanbu family.

Later, in the dispute over the succession rights of Nambu Nobuzhi, the two clans of the North and the South jumped out to support Nambu Nobuzhi, and opposed the Nambu Haruma, the head of the Nambu family, and a war broke out because of this.

The root cause of the Jiuhujia rebellion is also the root cause of the succession issue.

Masei Hachinohe, the head of the Hachinohe family, is a pacifist. On the surface, the two sides called for a peaceful settlement of the dispute, but in fact he took the opportunity to invade the territory of the Shitohe family to expand his strength.

Since Nambu Nobunao and Nambu Haruma were fighting over succession issues, they didn't have time to manage Hachinohe Masei's little tricks.

But Masei Hachinohe's good life didn't last long. After Nannan Nobunao came to power, he naturally had an opinion on this guy who took the opportunity to make trouble. Even if he couldn't deal with it publicly, the small actions in private were not small.

Now you go to [Wikipedia] to introduce Masei Hachinohe in this way:
The Sanhe Nanbu Clan has the highest status in the Nanbu Clan, so when the head of the Sanhe Nanbu Clan, Nambu Haruma and Nambu Haruji's father and son, died, in order to compete for the position of the next family governor of the Sanhe Nanbu Clan, the entire Nanbu Clan went on a rampage. Turmoil, at this time Hachinohe Masei chose to support Ishikawa Takanobu's son Nambu Nobunao.

After Bei Xinai's persuasion, she put down her body and tried her best to assist Nanfang Xinzhi, becoming the most important right-hand man of Nanfang Xinzhi along with Bei Xinai. In 1590, Toyotomi Hideyoshi asked daimyo from all over the country to participate in the Odawara Conquest, and Masei, who was deeply trusted by Nobuo, was in charge of staying at Minohe Castle, the home base of the Minohe Nambu Clan, during Nobuo's expedition.It is said that Zhengrong suffered from eye diseases and became blind.

But it can be said that these are all beautified nonsense. After the death of Nanbu Qingzheng and Nanbu Qingji, Bei Xinai directly led troops to surround Sanhuo City, "convincing people with virtue" and forced all the important samurai of the Nanfang family to sign. Affidavit to Nambu Nao.

And how could Hachinohe Masei, who was the two ends of Uncle Snake, gain the trust of Nambu Nobunao and be given the post of staying behind?Not to mention that the Hachinohe and Sanhu families have their own contradictions in the supervision of the family.

Just imagine, assuming that Zhu Di treated Zhu Yunqi kindly after he seized the throne, would his descendants let Zhu Yunqi's descendants supervise the country?

And Wikipedia's explanation of Hachinohe Masei ends here, but in fact Hachinohe Masei was still bound in Minohe Castle until he died of old age after being blind.

After the establishment of the Morioka Domain, the first person to be sealed off to a remote place was Naohei Hachinohe, the son of Masei Hachinohe.Judging from the above performance, the Hachinohe family does not appear to be trusted by Nambu Nobunao.

In fact, as far as Hideka knew, Hachinohe Masei's eye disease was indeed caused by Nanbu Nobunao.Just like the Byzantine emperors blinded the eyes of their enemies in political struggles in history.

If history has not changed, the Hachinohe family may indeed be completely controlled by the Nanfang family as it was in history.However, in this life, the Ezo bandits invaded the south, and Hachinohe and other families, who were already dissatisfied with the southern Xinzhi, took the opportunity to raise the flag of rebellion.

As local aborigines, the Sanhe Nanfang family ruled the Nanfang family in name for hundreds of years and did not dare to touch the Hachinohe family, which shows the dominance of the Hachinohe family in the Lubei area.

Because it is located in the extreme north, the largest mobilization force of the Nanfang family is about 5000, and 1000 of them belong to the Lubei Nanfang family.

Such a size would definitely not dare to move rashly on the Nanfang family, but it was not enough for a daimyo from Kinai like the Xiu family.

There were 1500 people in Hideka's team alone. In the face of the sudden attack, there was no retreat as Naoe Naobu had expected. Instead, they lined up in front of the snow to meet the enemy.

It is Suga Masatoshi, a powerful general of the Hide family, who controls the Chang Lu people.He followed the Xiu family from Bizen to Jianyue, and then from Jianyue to Mikawa, Shikoku, Kyushu, Kanto, and North Korea. He was already a veteran in the battlefield, otherwise the Xiu family would not have sent him to be a vanguard.

Because of the snow, the Hachinohe family's own soldiers were a little slow in marching. The key point is that they let out a charging roar from a long distance, as if to remind them "we are coming".

The corners of Masatoshi Suga’s mouth turned up slightly as he looked to the east, looking at the soldiers of the Hachinohe family who were deep in the snow, with their arms raised to give the order. give an order.

At the moment when Suga Masatoshi was under his command, iron cannons, bows and arrows fired together, and the smoke covered the entire river valley, and screams came from the other side of the smoke.

The battle here is not over yet, the second row of the iron cannons, the second round of arrows from the bow and arrow is about to be fired, and after three rounds of arrow feathers, accompanied by the roar of Masatoshi Suga, he rushed into the smoke first, and the horse trampled on the ground On the poor peasants and soldiers of eight households, they rushed straight into the enemy's line and chopped down all of them.

With just a breath of effort, this dimensionality reduction strike-like battle came to an end. The Hachinohe soldiers retreated back to Nakadate Castle, and Masatoshi Suga did not pursue them, and continued to clean up the war and clear the road.

The Toyotomi family's attack speed like a whirlwind sweeping fallen leaves shocked all the big names in Mitohe Castle, and they only heard the samurai below announce "The Hachinohe family went out of the city to attack the former army" just a moment ago.

Before the deployment of the supporting army here came out, another samurai came to announce the news that "our auxiliary soldiers have repelled the Hachinohe rebels".

If there was anyone who felt the most uncomfortable hearing the news, it would probably be Nambu Lizhi.The news that the Hachinohe family was once one of the elite of the southern family, and was repelled after a while seemed to hit him in the face as painfully.

He couldn't hold back his restless heart anymore, he stood up and asked the Xiu family for orders, "Youfu, the Nanfang family please fight to guide the city."

This is the military exploits handed down, the total strength of the Hachinohe family is no more than a thousand, and as the front line between Nakadate Castle and Sanhe Castle, there must not be many garrisoned.

The Nanfang family's defeat in the river valley just now was when morale was low, and it was easy to take down the protruding fortress of Kuyin City.

Xiujia naturally saw through Nanfang Lizhi's intentions. Nanfang Xinzhi died in a hurry, and he came to power in a hurry. He urgently needed a battle to establish his prestige.

Since Zhongguan City was a gift left by the Xiu family to their son Zheng Jia, then Kuyin City is the best stepping stone for the southern Lizhi to kill people and gain power.

It is now March, and although the snow still reaches the calf, it is difficult to transport food in large quantities, but it has little impact on the march of the army.

Xiu's family asked people to clear the snow to sweep out the passage for transporting grain, but it did not prevent Nanfang Lizhi from doing meritorious service.

For the request of his younger brother Nambu Lizhi, Xiujia had no objection, and asked him to lead 3000 people from the headquarters to launch an offensive against Kuyincheng, which was garrisoned by only 200 people, and took it on the same day.

With the victory of Kuyincheng, the Ma Yuanchuan River Valley was opened up, and the Xiu family could devote more manpower to clearing the road.

At the same time, under the leadership of Maeda Toshiie, the Utsunomiya congregation, led by the Toyotomi politician, set out to make peace with Nambu Toshiekai with the Nakagawa family's military strength, and with a total force of 7000 troops, went to besiege the garrison with only 600 troops. Zhongguancheng.

The gap in troop strength is huge, so huge that there is no room for resistance in Zhongguancheng.

Einao Hachinohe wanted to surrender to Toshinao Nambu, but Toshinao Nambu just wanted to use the head of your Hachinohe family to stand up, and directly rejected Einao Hachinohe's surrender conditions.

After 5 days and nights of siege, Nakadate Castle was declared to have fallen, and several nearby branch cities lost their willingness to resist when they saw their own castle fall, and surrendered to Nambu Lizhi one after another. The Hachinohe rebellion was considered high .

The governor of Qihu households on the north side, Qihu Guangxing, saw how mighty the master's family was, and lost the will to resist. He took the initiative to negotiate with Nanfang Lizhi and wanted to surrender.

However, the destruction of the Hachinohe and Kuohe clans does not mean the end of the war. At present, the biggest enemy of Lubei is not the division of these two southern families, but the exiled Northeast of Ezo, which was guarded by Onodera Yoshimichi. Rebels, and Ezo tribal soldiers.

The Ezo tribal soldiers came here for nothing more than looting. Onodera Yoshimichi and others had had enough of the bitter cold in Ezo, and established a rule there as soon as they went south to invade the southern family.

Now that they see the Nanfang family making a comeback, they have no intention of resisting, they just want to leave Ezo.Willing to surrender on the condition of being subordinate to the southern home.

This is literally taking your land and then using your land to surrender to you.

Not to mention that they must die as rebels, even the Nanfang family's own conditions are unacceptable.

However, compared with the division of families in the south where the methods of warfare are still primitive, the main force comes from rebellious samurai families from all over the Northeast, and mixed with the untouchables and thieves who have been exiled in Ezo from various parts of Japan in the past 7 or 8 years, their combat effectiveness is much stronger.

And because most of the exiled people are physically strong, they organized an army of more than 2500 people and scattered them in Towada, Qingjin and other places.

In fact, at the beginning, Nanfang Lizhi wanted to accept their surrender, so that Qingjin, who had left Nannan's home for 15 years, could take it back.You must know that this is the hometown of Nanfang Xinzhi.

But Nambu Lizhi’s old Bei Xin’ai reminded some of the family governors above, “That bandit invaded the territory of the Oyezaki family, which was a crime of rebellion. The right mansion came here to conquer this house. How could my Nanfang family take in the rebels? ? Could it be that you think that the soldiers of the Right Mansion are not good enough?"

Bei Xin'ai's generous speech finally awakened Nan Lizhi who was somewhat superior.He himself is not only greedy for the Qingjin territory, but also for the 2500 soldiers who can fight.For the Northeast, a robust labor force is the most lacking.

But now that the Xiu family is watching from behind, he can only work with the Toyotomi politicians to physically eliminate them.

(End of this chapter)