Prime Minister Bizen

Chapter 770 Niwa wins Yujin City to death
Niwa Changhide organized two groups of "officer's death squads" to successfully break through the city, followed by various small formations, forcibly resisting the iron cannon projectiles fired from the flanks and the stones thrown from the city, expanding the results of the battle from point to point.

Fighting until sunset, Sannomaru on the east side of Uozu Castle was finally controlled by the Niwa family, and more reinforcements rushed in with the city gate wide open.

This time, there is no such thing as fire oil blocking roads to block backup, and digging traps in the city to make the attacker fall. Dongsannomaru was completely taken down.

Seeing that the sky was getting dark, Niwa Nagashige decided to withdraw his troops and wait for tomorrow before continuing to attack the city.But at this moment, there was a centipede envoy behind him who came to deliver an order, "His Royal Highness Zuofu has an order, and all armies will attack the city overnight."

There is no way, even though he has been fighting for a day, Hideji is still unwilling to let the Niwa family go, and he doesn't even have the idea of ​​sending someone to replace him. In order to ensure his family name, Niwa Nagashige can only continue to bite the bullet and order himself The subordinates continued to attack the city.

After the fall of Sannomaru, the battle at Uozu Castle became so intense that Niwa Nagashige himself felt that there was not enough elite troops, so he had to send someone to the Asano Nagamasa Office for assistance.

Asano Nagamasa is an old man of Hideyoshi's generation, because he is familiar with Niwa Nagahide in government affairs, and Niwa Nagamasa is his nephew.

Facing Niwa Nagashige's request, Asano Nagamasa dispatched 120 samurai from his own fans to support without saying a word.

As a pro-vassal of the Toyotomi family, he must have extra income in addition to his own knowledge and practice. Asano Nagamasa has been in charge of the Toyotomi family's internal affairs for many years, and has saved a small treasury.

He would naturally imitate Toyotomi's use of salary and money to raise a group of landless samurai in addition to the samurai in Zhixing land.These warriors are like the court knights in Europe, without fiefs but supported by salaries paid by the king.

Different from warriors with knowledge and actions, their existence is to protect the master's house. They don't need to work in the fields on weekdays. They train in the training ground in the city every day. Their combat effectiveness is much stronger than that of ordinary warriors.

With the addition of more than a hundred elite warriors, Niwa Nagashige was able to act as a desperate stop by the Uesugi monk soldiers in the main city.

Seeing that even the monks and soldiers could not stop the offensive of Toyotomi's army, the Uesugi defenders in the city also had differences.Some people think that they should retreat in time, and break out of the encirclement and return to Echigo before the north of the city has yet entered the city.

But this proposal was quickly rejected: "Now that the mountains are covered by heavy snow, I don't know if I don't know if I don't know if I don't know if I can't get through. Is it possible to return to Echigo after breaking through the encirclement?"

Nakajo Sansheng also expressed his opinion, "My lord asked us to guard Uozu and asked us to guard until the beginning of spring, and he will come with reinforcements.

For this reason, we have specially sent additional reinforcements and armaments to us. Now Yujin City will be destroyed in just over a month. Is this how we repay the Lord's kindness? "

Nakajo Sansheng is from Uesugi Kekatsu's close family, his words almost represent the meaning of Uesugi Kekatsu.

Nakajo Sansheng made up his mind to learn from his father to defend Uojin Castle, and use this to repay the great kindness of the Uesugi family.But he will not hinder other people's chances of survival, and hand over those who are willing to leave to a samurai named Tsuda Kensuke, let him lead people to break through from the north of the city.

Hori Hideji was in charge of encircling the north side. Although he had no interest in being hostile to the Uesugi family, he did not work hard on storming Uozu Castle.

But now someone opened the door on the north side and ran out. These heads are all military exploits!Compared with Toyotomi Hidekatsu, Fukushima Masanori, and Niwa Nageshige who have been thankless and stormed many times on the east side, these military achievements in front of them are really easy.

If there is no accident, more than a hundred people who rushed out of the city were captured by Hori Hideji. The defenders who were still shaking in the city and wanted to leave the city saw that their colleagues were all beheaded by people outside the city, and there was no more. The thought of continuing to escape.

In the breakout situation of the defenders in the city, Sansheng Jo was the only one watching from the Honmaru Yagada. In his heart, he naturally spurned these cowards who betrayed Uesugi's family and colleagues, but in essence he still hoped that they could break out and survive.

But when he saw those people being caught and beheaded one by one, he could only close his eyes in pain, and silently recited the mantra for them.

Zhongtiao Sansheng let them go on purpose. Having this group of unsteady people in the city will definitely shake the morale of the defenders. After sending them away, the remaining people can defend the city with one heart.

As early as he received this mission from Uesugi Jingsheng, he had already started to study how to defend the city.After researching and researching, he finally came up with only one answer, which is a dead city.

Since it is a dead city, let's make death more thorough. He remodeled the various streets in the city and used obstacles to increase corridor-style passages, which not only increased the distance the attackers could advance, but also allowed the defenders on the roof to fight against them. Attacking soldiers on the street deal damage from multiple angles.

These arrangements of his did have an effect. The traps in the city hindered the Niwa family's offensive momentum. Even the elite samurai could not use their pace in these small areas, let alone the foot with three long spears in hand. It's light on the public.

And the defenders guarding the houses everywhere just need to stab out the spears in their hands without thinking, and they don't need to pay attention to whoever they stabbed to death.

The martial arts of the samurai are useless here, spears are stabbing from all directions, and there are ashigaru holding bows and throwing stones on the head to disrupt their own battles. They really beat the master to death.

The Niwa Army, who had been fighting for a day and night, was already extremely exhausted, and in the end they fell into this kind of positional warfare and trap warfare, which dealt a great blow to morale.

On this matter, Toyotomi Hideji sent someone to ask Niwa Nagashige, "Niwa's offensive has weakened. Do you need to step back and rest, and replace other elite soldiers?"

Don't think that Toyotomi Hideji is kind. The outer perimeter of a flat city like Uozu Castle is the most difficult to break through. After the outer perimeter is breached, the inner city walls only need to be beaten round and round.

Toyotomi Hideji stopped Niwa Nagashige from temporarily withdrawing his troops when the Niwa family defeated Sannomaru just now. Now that he has gained a firm foothold in the city, he wants to replace him just to take credit for Niwa Nagashige.

Of course, Niwa Nagashige knew that his soldiers were exhausted, but now the victory was in sight, as long as he could win Uozu, he would be able to get all the merits, and it would not be impossible to get a title increase, so he rejected the envoy sent by Hideji suggestion.

In order to boost the morale of the city, Niwa Nagashige directly drew out the saber from his waist and said to the thousands of soldiers who were still plundering outside the city, "Now that the city of Yujin has been destroyed, it is a good time for you to make contributions! Come with me!" Enter the city and kill the enemy!"

After all, Niwa's long legs clamped the horse's belly, and the horse consciously galloped towards the city, followed by his Niwa family's nearby samurai, and after that, it was a temporary sign of half-soldier and half-civilian foot light.

Niwa Changzhong came to the city, rode on a horse and encouraged the soldiers under his command: "Everyone! You will be rewarded for breaking the city, and I will advance and retreat with you!"

The soldiers who were fighting hard in the city turned their heads and saw their own daimyo behind them. Their morale was slightly boosted. The teams that had been gradually forced out by the defenders also stabilized and began to advance in an orderly manner under the command of their respective warriors.

In the early morning of November 6, the 1601th year of Qingchang (11).

It snowed all night in Echigo last night, but due to the heat gathered by the wind torches above Uozu Castle, these snowflakes dissipated one after another.

Until today, the sky just turned white, and with the cessation of Uozu Castle's offensive, with the snowflakes floating in the sky and the noise in the city gradually quieting down, all of them declared its ownership to the victor of this battle, Toyotomi Hideji.

Uozu Castle was eventually captured by Hideji, looking at the Honmaru where the fire was on fire at this moment, Hideji felt extremely happy in his heart, as if he had released all the grievances he had felt for many years.

In order to celebrate the fall of Uojin City, he came out of the main camp in person and walked towards Uojin with other daimyos.

But before the person stepped out of the formation, he heard a horse galloping in the distance with a black [x] family crest on a white background, with a trace of sadness on his face. Contrary to the family crest, it shows that the visitor is from the Niwa family who is the main attack today.

Yujin City was taken down, and Xiuci was in a good mood. Before the visitor came close, he said to the visitor, "Go and tell your Highness to tidy up Yujin City. I will go to the city for inspection later, and I will It is said that the main formation will be moved to Yujin."

The visitor ignored Xiuci's notice and turned back. Instead, he knelt down in front of Xiuci and said, "Zuo Mansion! My lord died in battle!"

When Xiuci heard the news, the smile on his face froze, he couldn't believe the news.How can Niwa Nagashige be a daimyo, who holds 6 to 7 stones in his hands, how can he say that he will die when he dies?
"What's going on? Didn't someone report just now that Senator Niwa has led troops into the city?"

The person who asked the question was Asano Nagamasa, who had a good relationship with Niwa Nagahide as mentioned earlier.In his and Hidecho's eyes, Hideyoshi's substantial reduction of the Niwa family's title was that their Toyotomi family owed the Niwa family, and Hideyoshi continued to help the Niwa family.

In this Uojin siege, Niwa Nagashige came to ask for reinforcements from himself, and he handed over one of his most elite troops to him without saying a word, but he never thought that now he would have the next generation of Niwa's family governor life.

"At that time, the surface of the city was indeed cleared, and the Lord led people to patrol the city. But who knew that there were still people lurking in the dark to attack the Lord. The Lord was killed by the iron cannon on the face when he didn't notice."

The messenger answered almost in a crying tone, Niwa Nagashige may not be a good citizen for the people, but he is still good for the samurai class.

Unlike Asano Nagamasa who was shocked and regretful when he heard the news of Niwa Nagashige's death in battle, Toyotomi Hideji also felt tremendous pressure,

It's just that his pressure didn't come from Niwa Nagashige's death, but because he originally wanted to go to the city to rest, but now he was afraid after hearing that Niwa Nagashige was sniped with an iron cannon in the city.

Before his dream of people in the world is awakened, he absolutely dare not just die like this.

"Go and capture the man who fired the iron cannon at this moment, I will cut him down myself!" Asano Nagamasa was obviously very dissatisfied with Niwa Nagashige's death, and he ordered to the Niwa family samurai.

"The city is being cleared, and it is not known who injured the Lord! I will pass the order from the Yue Zhongdian right now."

After the man left, Asano Nagamasa said to Toyotomi Hideji, "Let's enter the city slowly in the left mansion, and wait until the city is safe before entering."

This is exactly the step that Toyotomi Hideji has been waiting for!Haikou has boasted just now, if he becomes timid and timid, it will really lose face to his left minister.

Now that Deputy General Asano Nagamasa offered to propose, he naturally had to accept it "reluctantly".At the end, I have to swear a few words about the rats in the city.

Toyotomi Hideji finally won Uozu Castle within his own planning period, although the price he paid was indeed a bit high.

He doesn't feel sorry for the life and death of a small daimyo who is not close to him, but his deputy Asano Nagamasa attaches so much importance to it, and other daimyos are somewhat resentful, so he naturally has to show his own attitude.

"Give Niwa a generous funeral, record his meritorious deeds, and give him a generous seal after the war. Since he has no heirs under his knees, his younger brother Niwa Nagamasa will inherit the Kaga Tsubata domain."

The fall of Uozu Castle, Hideji can finally take a breather, which represents the end of his first phase of the war.

While sending people to clear the remaining Uesugi remnants in the Etsuchu area, he mobilized a large number of troops from the garrison areas in Kaga, Echizen, and Kinki to Etsuchu.At the same time, he is also sending people to contact Tokugawa Ieyasu in Shinano and Mogami Yoshimitsu in Dewa, and they have agreed that they can enter Echigo in three ways after the beginning of spring.

At the same time, he will naturally not forget his younger brother Xiu Sheng who flirted with him before, and he wants to tell him the news that he has taken Yujin City.

But I don't know which link has a problem. The messenger deviates when expressing Xiuci's meaning to Xiusheng, making Xiusheng feel that Xiuci is showing off to himself to highlight his incompetence.

Hidekatsu did not have much meritorious service within Toyotomi's family. Many people said that the reason why he was able to get Echizen's 30 koku chikyo was the gift from his uncle Hideyoshi, and now it is his wife's nepotism.

Of course Xiu Sheng would not agree, he is also a person who shed blood on the Korean battlefield!

But if we really want to study Xiusheng's achievements, I'm afraid even he himself can't count them.

Xiusheng misunderstood what Xiuci meant. Xiuci might really want to show off to him, but he definitely didn't mean to belittle his younger brother.

But Xiu Sheng thought so, he angrily drove away the envoy who came to convey the message, and kept himself in the city, he was angry with Xiu Ci and himself.

He wanted to wait for Xiuci to see his attitude before sending someone to coax him, but obviously Xiuci just got full of will so he wouldn't take this brother's unreasonable troubles seriously.

It was at this time that Chacha and Ah Chu from Osaka City sent letters to the couple, inviting them to celebrate the New Year in Osaka City.

His wife, Ajiang, immediately suggested to him, if he thinks Beizhizhuang is too boring, how about going back to Osaka Castle?

This proposal was approved by Toyotomi Hidekatsu, who prefers bustling Osaka to Echizen in the countryside.

But what you need to know is that he is now under the account of the regiment, and he belongs to Xiuci's temperate existence. It is fine not to join the battle without Xiuji's permission, and it is a bit too much to leave the pick to go to Osaka City for fun.

(End of this chapter)