A samurai who doesn't want to be a daimyo is not a good onmyoji

Chapter 7 Nibon's Buddhism

Hearing what Shinkuro said, the attendant who had always followed his advice showed some hesitation this time: "Miyabe Castle? But young master, those monks never pay much attention to us?"

The Asai family, where Shinkuro was born, was the overlord of Kitaomi, and nominally controlled a territory of hundreds of thousands of koku, which sounded very majestic.

It's just that the Asai family is not from a famous family. They were originally just a country tycoon. Their ancestors can be said to have no reputation. They became famous because many wealthy families helped behind the scenes;

Secondly, the Asai family started to prosper relatively late and has only gradually prospered in recent decades. Moreover, there is also a powerful enemy in the southwest, the Rokkaku family. In recent years, after Shinkuro and his father succeeded to the throne, the Asai family suffered many defeats one after another. , lost a lot of reputation;
Finally, it is because the contemporary head of the Asai family, Asai Hisamasa, the father of Shinkuro's body, really does not have much talent.

When he was young, Asai Hisamasa was recognized as a "heroic but unworthy and unworthy man". It was purely because all his brothers were dead that he took the position of such a lord for nothing.

Ever since Asai Hisamasa took over as the family governor, he could be said to have shown no performance in the battle with Minami Omi's old enemy the Rokkaku family. Under his leadership, the Asai family was unable to withstand the enemy at all.

After many defeats, many wealthy families, landowners, and even shrines and temples in Kitaomi gradually became dissatisfied and despised him and the Asai family, because their interests also suffered varying degrees of losses.

Every time there is a battle, the Asai family will ask all his nominal vassals to send troops, plus the Asai family's main army, to fight the opponent together.

If the battle is won, the samurai who send troops can naturally take advantage of the situation to plunder the enemy, but if they are defeated, the small pension from the Asai family alone will not be enough to make up for their losses. It is strange that they can be happy.

The same is true for the Miyabe Castle in front of them. Although they are not nominal vassals of the Asai family, they will inevitably be robbed of money and water if they are within the Asai family's sphere of influence.

In addition, when the Asai family was at its most prosperous, they tried to take Miyabe Castle under their control and use it as a branch of the main city, Odani Castle, to prepare for the next expansion. Although in the end, it was only because of the attack of the Rokkaku family that The Asai family had no time to take care of this matter, but after all, it had offended Miyabe Castle.

The relationship between Miyabe Castle and the Asai family has also deteriorated as a result. Now, the two sides cannot be said to be in conflict, but the contradiction is very obvious.

However, the Asai family did not dare to use force to conquer the opponent, even if the strength of Miyabe Castle was less than one-tenth of the Asai family's comprehensive strength.

Because monks live here in Miyabe Castle, and gods and Buddhas are the beliefs of the entire Nibon community, their status is more special than that of ordinary rural tycoons.

The Warring States Period in Nippon lasted for hundreds of years. Everyone knew that the temples that had annexed a large amount of land, had a large number of believers, and paid almost no taxes were extremely rich, but the daimyo who really dared to raise troops to attack the temples to plunder their wealth, But it hasn't appeared yet.

Because this kind of dangerous behavior is likely to lead to a joint crusade from all temples in the world, the monks in Nibon are not only good at chanting Buddha's name, they are also good at killing people.

So now if Shinkuro Asai takes the initiative to send him to his door, although he will not be attacked by the other party, some ridicule and humiliation are almost unavoidable.

Looking at the other party's expression, Shinkuro roughly understood the other party's concerns. Speaking of which, this attendant could consider this for him. He was really loyal. How could an ordinary person dare to say that?
However, if it was the original Shinkuro, he would naturally not feel uncomfortable rushing to find him, and even if he went, there would be no consequences. Miyabe Castle would never send troops to conquer him, the young master of the Asai family. For monsters, even his nominal father would not be able to come in person.

But now the new Shinkuro has a different way of coping, because according to what he knows, the owner of Miyabe Castle, Miyabe Tsugujun, has been looking for traces of magic for many years!

When they saw Shinkuro Asai leading a dozen people to the wooden fence, dozens of guards guarding Miyabe Castle started making noises, raising their weapons to intimidate them, and prohibited them from moving forward.

There were three or five monks on the sentry tower raising their bows and arrows, aiming at them from a distance. Although they were holding bamboo bows with rough workmanship and poor accuracy and shooting range, they were still within 20 meters for those who had never worn them. Shinkuro, who is heavily armored, and the Ashigaru, who are completely unarmored, still pose a great threat.

Looking at these monks who, without exception, have bald heads, but all of them have big muscles, round waists, fierce faces, and shiny faces. It is obvious at a glance that they live a good life and eat a lot of meat. Shinkuro feels a little sad in his heart. .

Although they are all monks in name, they probably don't know how to read any scriptures. In fact, they are all guarantees of Miyabe Castle's military power.

According to the information obtained by the Asai family, many of them were simply bandits and bandits before, but they were recruited by the lord of Miyabe Castle, Miyabe Tsurujun, and then shaved their heads and changed their names to monk soldiers.After all, it is much easier to train these guys who have seen blood outside than to train monk soldiers again.

Probably the long-term war and frequent deaths have made the people panic all day long. They are eager to find spiritual comfort and hope that something external can change this situation. Therefore, in Nibon, religious beliefs Very extensive.

From daimyo to samurai to farmer, most of them have a certain degree of faith.

Japan's native faith is Shintoism, but hundreds of years ago, when Buddhism spread from the Cathay Empire across the sea, Buddhism overtook the latecomers and became the main faith of Japan today.

Later, due to the practice of the Ashikaga family of Nippon shoguns, except for the heirs, the sons of many daimyo family governors were sent to temples to become monks and practice Buddhism.

In this way, brothers fighting for power can be avoided and a certain degree of support from each temple can be won.

In addition, due to the ignorance and stupidity of the people, it is easy for them to regard various creatures, natural disasters and even monsters beyond their knowledge as gods.

If a black bear in the forest swallows several human lives, the ignorant people may worship it as a god out of awe and call it the Black Wind Temple or something like that.

Even among the 800 million gods in Nibon, most of the middle and lower-level gods are monsters in nature. In this case, the ignorant people naturally have more demand for faith.

In recent years, the Nanman people have come all the way from overseas, bringing with them some foreign beliefs. However, because the number of Nanman people is very small, and they first visited Kyushu Island in the westernmost part of Nibon, their unique beliefs are still limited for the time being. It failed to affect the entire Nibon.

However, Shinkuro can conclude that their faith will gradually expand in the future.

Because those Nanman people not only came with their faith, they also had a large number of muskets and even real cannons.

Compared with the backward bamboo bows of Nibon, their power is much stronger. It is impossible for any daimyo who is interested in the world to ignore them.

If those Nanman people use artillery as a condition to promote their beliefs, it is difficult for Shinkuro to believe that any daimyo can resist the temptation, unless they are the most loyal believers in Buddhism or Shinto.

Unlike the monks in the original world, these monks can not only eat meat and drink alcohol, but also marry and have children.

The war in Nibon has been going on for a long time. Many powerful temples have taken the opportunity to occupy large areas of land and pay almost no taxes. Coupled with their religious beliefs, they often attract many farmers to seek refuge, which further strengthens the Their strength.

With religious brainwashing, those ignorant girls with fanatical beliefs, even if they have not undergone any combat training and are only given a bamboo gun, will be able to exert stronger combat effectiveness in actual combat than ordinary Ashigaru. Because they are not afraid of death, and even long for death so that they can go to a better afterlife.

So now, many large temples have the strength to compete head-on with lords from various places. The most famous one is the Honganji Temple, which occupies several cities and has countless troops.

Honganji Temple has openly established itself as a daimyo, and can easily raise an army of tens of thousands of believers with a single call, making it one of the top powers in the world.

Although the strength of Miyabe Castle is far from comparable to Honganji, their attitudes towards the Asai family are not much different.

At least as far as Shinkuro knows, after they established this "Miyabe Castle", they began to reduce taxes year by year. Especially after the Asai family was defeated by the Rokkaku family again last year and lost nearly a thousand troops, they directly stopped paying taxes. handed in.

Shinkuro gestured to the attendant beside him, and Kozaburo immediately understood. He took the initiative to step forward and shouted loudly: "This is the young master of the Asai family, Mr. Asai Shinkuro, who came here specifically to pay a visit to Mr. Miyabe Tsurujun!"

(End of this chapter)