Pillars of the Wu family

Matsuhime Hojo didn't turn her head when she heard the movement outside the room, but said indifferently: "His Highness Ashikaga Sosaburo has come down! Are you here to take my life?"

Yoshitoki Kira stood standing in the room with a dagger in his hand. Looking around, the quiet decoration did not see the slightest luxury. In contrast, Ashikaga Fujimasa's room is a nouveau riche. Hou Zi put his hands behind his back and admired it carefully for a while, then suddenly smiled and said: "I have heard for a long time that the idiot married a smart and beautiful lady, and today I saw it, it is indeed so! It is such a pity that such a beauty is married to that idiot. point!"

"Your Majesty, please be respectful. I am definitely not a vain woman, let alone fear your power and sword. If you want to kill me, kill me!" Hojo Matsuhime paused and brushed her long hair gently with a horn comb.

"Do I really look like a bad guy? Or like a bastard who preys on wives and daughters?" Yoshihiro Kira touched his cheek, and Nai shrugged and said, "I have no intention of touching Mrs. Hojo, I just want to tell Hojo Don't worry about your husband's safety anymore, madam. After the death of that idiot, Yu will make the decision to betroth Mrs. Hojo to my righteous brother, Mrs. Kira. This person must be recognized by Mrs. Hojo! I don't intend to occupy this place The Furukawa Imperial Palace does not have the bad habit of robbing other people's wives and daughters, and before Mrs. Hojo gets married, there will be no less than half of the offerings, so that's all I have to say, and I will leave!"

Hojo Matsuhime sat still in a daze, until Kira Yoshishi left far away, and after a while, she combed her long hair, looked at herself in the mirror and said with pity: "So he didn't treat me at all. This means, I thought he would snatch me to be his wife... Do I think too highly of my appearance? Forget it! Just make it easier for Kira-sama to go to that idiot!"

……

Kira Yoshishi never thought of robbing Toshi Masa's woman, let alone using this method to deepen the hatred of the Kanto samurai towards him, and take this opportunity to attack his hard-earned reputation. The most indispensable thing in his position is Beautiful woman, as long as he reveals similar thoughts, a lot of samurai will send their daughters and sisters to the pillow mat. He doesn't want the blood of the Ashikaga family to rot on the street.It would be even worse if he made a few unworthy descendants and caused some trouble for his direct son Zhenwangwan.

This anticlimactic Furukawa battle reflects how weak the Furukawa government's control over Kanto is, like a paper tiger that looks majestic and majestic, but is completely vulnerable to foreign powers and middlings. Kira Yoshishi did not even have [-]% of his strength Come out and knock him down easily.This level is really not as good as a finger of the Hojo family, no wonder the Hojo clan government also looks down on this guy.Choose to kick him back to the Furukawa Imperial Palace.

The real sufferers in this battle are Chiba Yinfu, Yuan Yinzhen, and Gaocheng Yinji. As for the small city masters of Xiasuo, Xiaye, and Changlu, it is not worth much to kill and injure a group of people. These three All the large citizens of the leading country left to make this encirclement and suppression operation not so perfect. A total of more than 400 people were killed and nearly [-] prisoners were considered a good harvest. Compared with the self-inflicted loss of less than [-] people, it can be called Gotta win a game. [

This was an unfair war. Yoshitoki Kira led the elites of the five countries to attack the people of the three countries in the Kanto and the Southern Mutsu. The morale of the general commanding the army and the unity of the people of the countries were too poor. Far.Before the fight started, the gang broke up, and Harusuke Kota's rebellion further pushed this Chinese coalition army into the abyss.

With no effort to fight back, it was a competition to see whose legs could run faster. The samurai with a dark heart was still thinking about how to stop his enemy.Let him run slower, it is better to fall into the rolling iron stream of Kira's army. This kind of joint battle can hardly see any hope of victory, so Yoshiaki Satake will retreat without hesitation. There is no chance to go again.

What surprised Yoshito Kira was that Haruto Yuki had the courage to "loot" Ashikaga Fujimasa while the Furukawa Imperial Palace was in chaos.Regardless of whether he was out of public interest or other factors, he blatantly wanted to oppose the Kira family, which greatly touched the bottom line set by Kira Yoshitoki, so Kira Yoshitoki immediately ordered an attack on Yuki Castle.

Perhaps Yuuki Haruto thinks that he can save Ashikaga Fujimasa by doing this, and it is a good two-way strategy. At worst, he will wait until Kira's army kills him and then surrender decently, but he doesn't understand that what Kira Yoshitoshi wanted was Ashikaga Fujimasa's "life.The purpose of rescuing this good-for-nothing is to fight against him. If he flatters Ashikaga Fujimasa so much, he basically cuts off the possibility of continuing to sell to the Kira family.

Yuuki Haruto's act of snatching Ashikaga Fujimasa should be a temporary decision. It seems that the hasty action was insufficiently prepared and he didn't communicate well with his elder brother Hidezuna Koyama, so that he only led [-] troops to retreat to Yuki Castle to defend. An envoy was sent to inform Koyama Hidezuna that before he could get an answer, Nagano Yezheng led an army of [-] to encircle Yuki Castle.

Almost overnight, the wind direction in Kanto turned around. First, the Yamakawa Castle controlled by the Yuki clan was forcibly opened by the samurai of the Netsu Kira family to lure wolves into the house, forcing the Yuki clan to have a powerful family. Afterwards, the residence of Tagaga Masahiro, the lord of Kagu Castle, another branch of the Yuki Clan, was also captured by the Kira Army, and he was forced to flee to Yuki Castle for refuge.

The speed of the Kira family was too fast, which made the pedigree of the Yuki family feel worried. That night, they gathered in the Ohiro room in Yuki Castle to discuss countermeasures. Oshima Katsukichi said worriedly: "I Yuki The territory of the family has been lost one by one, and if this continues, the Kira family will annex all the places where we wait."

The family members of the genealogy generation cast their eyes on Yuuki Harutomo. As for the attitude of Ashikaga Fujimasa who is sitting on the right seat, the attitude of Ashikaga Fujimasa is completely unimportant. Ever since he left the Furukawa Imperial Palace, this idiot is like a bereaved dog, sitting in the room in a daze In a daze, he had already recalled that because of the collective betrayal of Harusuke Konta and the family of the genealogy generation, he personally killed the favorite and was abandoned by the most trusted Matsunaga, and finally came to Yuki City in a daze.

Thinking of that painful memory, the corners of Ashikaga Fujimasa's mouth twitched slightly. Even without looking up, he could feel the contempt and hostility from the members of Yuki's family tree. Other Kanto samurai might have turned him, the Furukawa family, to Kira Yoshitoki asked for credit and rewards, and he was able to barely maintain his politeness, probably because of Yuki Haruto's face.

Ashikaga Fujimasa can only hope that Yuki Haruto can turn the tide and use Yuki's brave performance to reshape the great deeds of the Yuki War in the past, but this idiot still forgets the most important point, the Yuki Battle At the price of Yuuki Mochi's death in battle and almost extermination of the whole family, the Kanto samurai preserved the last trace of blood for the descendants of the Ashikaga Mochi clan he admired.Yuuki Haruto didn't intend to seek life and death for this good-for-nothing.

Yuuki Harutomo had noticed Ashikaga Fujimasa's hopeful eyes a long time ago, and secretly thought that if His Royal Highness had known this earlier, why would he have caused so many scandals in the first place, and turned to the samurai in the room and said, : "Let's make peace! As long as the town government is willing to let His Royal Highness go, everything else can be discussed slowly."

……

Kira Yoshitoki's headquarters is located in Shanchuan Castle, which is only one mile away from Yuki Castle. Standing in this castle, you can almost see all the movements in and out of Yuki Castle.Kira Yoshishi's main army had only [-] elite cavalry troops stationed in the city. Nagano Industry was leading [-] Ueno troops to surround Yuki Castle, while Sanada Yutaka led [-] troops and turned around. country launched an attack.

Chiba Yinfu, Hara Yinzhen, and Takashi Yinkichi, the most powerful families in Xiaso Kingdom and even in the northern part of Shangso Kingdom, were all detained in Shanchuan City as prisoners, making the southeast of Xiaso Kingdom almost a dangerous place to defend. With the combination of the strategic wooing and massive military suppression, it is impossible for the people of the next country to form an effective "possibility" of forming a group, and several people of the country have opened the city first or have the ability to block it.Under the influence of role models, the Chiba clan's territory was quickly eroded in sevens and eighties.

The rest of the branch cities are all directly descended from these three families as the city lords. In the face of Sanada Yutaka's Shinano Legion's massive advance, they still stubbornly maintain a firm attitude of not opening the city. They belong to the core area of ​​​​the territories of these three families. Not only is the city high and deep, but it also has a large number of loyal and brave warriors guarding the city. [

Sanada Yutaka's handling method is somewhat similar to Uesugi Terutoro's strategy of entering the Kanto.First, a large army was sent to cut off the main road of Xiasuo Street to ensure that several cities remained relatively silent and lost contact. The Chiba clan's residence was Moriyama Castle on the south bank of the Tone River at the easternmost end of Xiasuo Country. The terrain advantage is more conducive to the Kira Army Strategies for cutting off contact.

Cutting off the connection is to catch the turtle in the urn, and continue to pass on all kinds of false information about the Kira army's entry into the country.Some rumors that Chiba Yinfu, Yuan Yinzhen, and Gaocheng Yinji were defeated and captured, while others said that these three family governors were still safe and sound and were still standing on the last line of defense in the Furukawa Imperial Palace, killing the Kira Army in Chiba's territory for a while It was said to be 6000 people, and then it was said to be 3 people. The true and false information was passed to the hands of the city lords of the cities, causing panic.

The ordinary people in the market don't understand the military and state affairs at the lord level at all, but they just hear rumors from east to west that they all seem to be the same.For a while, they couldn't figure out which family's rumors to believe were more credible, and they fell into the most common logical trap. When several rumors appeared at the same time, people always tried their best to identify the truth of each rumor. Credibility, and find one of the rumors that you think is the most credible and believe it.

This is the brilliance of Sanada Yutaka in spreading rumors. Dazzling rumors spread almost at the same time in the various castle towns of Xiasuo Kingdom. Regardless of whether they are true, false, reliable or outrageous, they are all flying in the sky, and many people claim to be Witnessing the outbreak of that battle outside the Furukawa Imperial Palace, many townspeople were willing to believe in making up a bunch of random stories.

Humans always have an instinct called blindly following "sex". This is what it means to tell a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth. No matter how nonsense everyone tells it, it will be generally accepted, and the makers of these rumors needless to say for sure It was the Kira ninjas. Of course, they made up these rumors not for fun, but to facilitate Sanada Yutaka to hide his real combat intentions.

Medieval countries all have a characteristic, that is, the speed of information exchange and dissemination is very slow. It often takes half a year or even more than a year for an ordinary news to spread from Guandong Road to Kinai. That is to say, there is no so-called "news" in this era. , All are some old news from hearsay and word of mouth. For example, the movement of Sanhe needs a month of transmission time if there is a channel, but if there is no channel, it will take three to two months to slowly complete a natural transmission process.

The ordinary samurai in Xiazuo Kingdom will always know everything clearly every ten or eight days. After all, the Chinese lords who are close to each other and belong to the Chiba family have a long list of kinship relationships that are too numerous to count. On such a day, they suddenly discovered that their news channels were not so well-informed, and a lot of favorable and unfavorable news flooded their ears. Which one is true.

In layman's terms, it means being a land turtle lord in the countryside.Usually, I don’t go out of the gate, I don’t go out, I just hang out in my own territory in the countryside. Except for the occasional trip to Moriyama Castle to almost ask the lord of the country, I usually don’t think of going out to visit relatives in the eight countries of the Kanto for ten or eight years. Visiting friends.

There are many such typical conservative samurai in Kanto.If you use one sentence to describe it, it would be "poor mobility of people, closed news and conservative folk customs", although they are not mountain people living in the mountains like savages.But the old-fashioned temperament and the simple and simple life are still interlinked, and this is also the most standard way of life for Kanto warriors.

The external communication channels of Moriyama Castle were blocked, and the streets of Xiasuo Junior High School were also blocked. Without definite information, it was impossible to talk about self-discrimination of the true and false information. Listening to a bunch of false information provided by the Kira family or doing Make a completely wrong judgment, or be too frightened to make a judgment lightly, and there are two kinds of people in the crowd of the next country.

The first person to emerge was Shimada Yoshihiro, the lord of Mihiro Castle who was very close to Moriyama Castle.With two hundred troops excitedly, they rushed to Moriyama Castle to find out what happened, and crashed into the sky and earth net set by Sanada Yutaka's main force, and were surrounded by Kira's army popping up from all directions without even reacting. The dazed disarmed captive becomes an honorable prisoner.

Sanada Yutaka continued to fabricate piecemeal fragments of lies and revealed them.To the people of the Xia Dynasty, the war is critical but not to the point where they are desperate with their knives. The lucky Chinese warriors are still waiting to see the changes in the situation. 』The samurai who forced the country to serve as the leader of the Kira Army led the party to trick the gate of the fortress.

Fortresses are often breached from within, and Yukitaka Sanada is well versed in this truth and is good at using it.Every time, he can catch what the enemy warriors most desire and need most and use it to lure them. Regardless of fame, fortune and power, as long as Kira Ninja finds any clues, he will pull these warriors into the water under his internal and external pressure. Once on the thief ship It became a grasshopper on a rope, and there was no chance to get out of the palm of Yukitaka Sanada.

These traitors in Liche are the ones who most hope that Kira's army will take down all the cities.Because the Kira army took down the city, they can talk about their merits and rewards, but if they can't take the city, they have to worry all day long because they are afraid that the news about themselves will be leaked, and they dare not take the initiative to confess to their lord Not to mention how much shadow Ricci will cast on his reputation and the trust of his master, Sanada Yutaka's gloomy and unpredictable temperament is enough to make these traitors dare not betray again.

In just a few days, Sanada Yutaka relied on his "excellent" strategy to quietly pull down more than a dozen large branch cities in the Fangsuo Peninsula, but all these actions successfully left the Chiba family in Moriyama Castle to Mongolian guards. In the dark, the gap in strategy, military strength, and information control has widened too much, and the unfair war is destined to result in a disastrous defeat for the people of the country.

Most of the people in Xiasuo Kingdom did not dare to show their heads. Some of the Chiba clan's retainers who were close to the border took the initiative to move closer to the Hojo Army in Shangsou Kingdom, but at this moment, the Hojo Army was surrounded by Satomi Yoshihiro's army and was chasing and beating Kururi City. How can I dare to accept that these people from the lower country come all the way to seek refuge? If Kirayoshi is angered, they turn around and come to the upper country to beat them.

Yoshiki Murakami led an army of [-] troops around the country for half a circle, and took advantage of the dark night to attack Usui Castle, the original residence of the Chiba Clan. The entire siege process was far beyond imagination. Things went much smoother. Usui Sakon, the lord of Usui Castle, was still a young man of [-] or [-] years old. Four years ago, his father, Usui Keyin, died suddenly, so he hastily succeeded him as the governor. The leader of the family, Chiba Yinfu, fought soy sauce, and hadn't experienced a real battle test.

Faced with Yoshiki Murakami's night attack, they didn't know how to deal with it at all. The Usui family's descendants walked within a few miles around Usui Castle. In the middle of the night, he couldn't find any family members on behalf of the genealogy to seek strategic assistance, so in the panic, he took the best opportunity to stick to it, and as soon as Otemon was broken, Usui Kyuyoshi surrendered when the situation was over.

The big movement in the lower country, one south and one north, can't hide the attention of those who are interested. The blockade of the Kira Army can only maintain the contact and suppression of the key areas of the main street. , Without hesitation, he joined the big family of Kira Army.

In the blink of an eye, most of the Xiasuo Kingdom surrendered so easily, and the Chiba family genealogy vassals who lacked the order of the family governor did not intend to continue to resist. They were thinking about how to surrender in exchange for a decent treatment, when they heard Sanada Yutaka quickly adjust the situation in Moriyama Castle. The people of the country.It was easy to open the gates of the city and control the Chiba clan's residence in a majestic manner. Seeing that the momentum was wrong, all the descendants of the Chiba clan voluntarily surrendered to the Kira clan.No one dared to shake the hegemony of the Kira family's march into the Kanto.

The news of the Chiba Clan's surrender spread across the entire Fangsuo Peninsula like wings. This time, not only the vibration of the Fangsuo Peninsula, but also the entire Kanto people were shocked.No matter how rich the Chiba family is, it is not something that ordinary daimyo can do as you please. In less than ten days, they have won successive battles and great victories in sieges. A leading country swallowed so quickly Its speed is comparable to Takeda Shingen's Suruga Invasion.

The Kanto samurai have long heard that the Kira family has paired the famous generals from the Shinano country, Yukidaka Uri Sanada and Yoshiki Murakami, who are fierce and mighty. The first time they saw them, they immediately gave the people of the Kanto country a blow. Even a blind person can see it. At this time, the Kira family is definitely not a powerful character they can provoke, so there is a rumor quietly circulating in Fangsuo Peninsula, saying that Yoshiki Murakami is as brave as a tiger.Sanada Yutaka is as cunning as a fox, and this name gradually spread to the eight countries of Kanto and even the whole world in the following time.

At the moment when Yukitaka Sanada captured a large area of ​​territory in the southeastern part of the Fangsou Peninsula, and the battle of Yuki in the northwest of Shimosou was also at the most critical moment, Yoshitomi Kira refused Yuki Harutomo's peace proposal without hesitation.On the contrary, Jie Chengshi and many resistance forces took the opportunity to propose a choice between two, either to surrender everything obediently, or to enjoy the thrill of raging fire.

Yuuki Qingchao is not a person who is afraid of getting into trouble. Seeing that Kira Yoshishishi did not intend to let it go, he contacted his allies everywhere and pretended to fight to the end.But he had only opened up his airs a few days before he heard the news that the Chiba Clan was defeated and surrendered. For a while, the panic among the retainers caused the samurai in the family to be shaken.

Yoshitomi Kira didn't give him more time to think about how to deal with the crisis. Taking advantage of the news that Yuki Castle was besieged and the news was blocked, he used the combination of the Iron Cannon Team and the Baking Team to blast away the enemies in Hitachi at all costs. Yuki's territory intends to take this opportunity to completely cut off the possibility of Yuki's retreat.

The lord of Shimozuma Castle, Tagaya Zhengkei, is also a powerful member of the Yuki Clan.He is in charge of the banner head of Hitachi's attack and ranks first among the Yuki Four Heavenly Kings. Not only does he have a great voice in Yuki's family, but he is also a powerful national with a thousand troops in his hand. In the castle, Tagaya Masakei still gave up the idea of ​​"suicide" and gave in honestly.

The surrender of Tagaya Political Economics had a great influence on the Yuki family retainers of the Hitachi Kingdom. When Kira Yoshitoshi’s Honjin launched an attack on Shimodate Castle non-stop, Mizutani Masamura, the most brave of the Yuki Four Heavenly Kings, had no choice. Going out of the city to fight, but defending the city and making a tenacious plan, this kind of determination, which is very different from his usual character, completely exposed his guilty conscience.

The aggressive approach of the Kira Army frightened the people of the Kanto Kingdom after all. The Hojo family did not expand in such a big way when they were at their most prestigious. From the Musashi Kingdom to the Xiasuo Kingdom and then to the Changlu Kingdom according to the plan, such a frightening combat power is simply unheard of. I have never seen it before, and there are never-before-seen baked jade tactics and terrifying strategies. It would be a ghost not to frighten these Kwantung people who don't know the details.

Yoshiki Kira immediately seized the opportunity to pour out all the remaining roasted jade in the formation, and blasted several gaps in the solid earthen wall of Shimodate Castle. When the Mizutani army didn't know whether to defend the gap in the soil or the dilapidated Otemon Gate, both sides launched an attack at the same time to break through the city and enter the city in one fell swoop. into the bottom of the sieve.

It is a last resort to use up all the roasted jade that is not much in stock in one go. This is the case in wars, especially siege warfare. Either imitate Yixiangzong's storming the city and fill it with human lives, or siege the city until his food is exhausted. Or it is to pour out a huge amount of "medicine" in a short period of time, smashing the opponent's defense system and morale collapse.

Japan has no related mineral deposits of saltpeter. All saltpeter depends on trade imports from the Ryukyu country. This kind of trade import is still a one-way import. The price is high, the service is poor, the service is unstable, and the supply is unstable. It often gets stuck. Yishi's slightly better advantage than them is that he can make soil nitrate and use the soil method to synthesize gunpowder particles, but soil nitrate is not a mass-produced mine after all, so there are so many stable soils for him to use.

Even though Echiha has vigorously promoted livestock breeding in recent years, the stable soil produced by the production of tens of thousands of livestock a year is still limited. These livestock manure must be accumulated for many years to produce high-quality stable soil. However, the Kira family advocates high temperature The composting method and the use of biogas in some workshops are related to the development of agriculture and handicrafts, as well as the economic layout of the Kira family. Both of these things also require a large amount of livestock manure as base fertilizer to decompose.

It is not possible to leave a large pile of livestock manure in the idle land for military purposes, let it be exposed to the wind, sun and rain, and then after several years of natural degradation to form usable stable soil, this is inefficient and low-yielding It is rare and very unstable, and it needs to occupy cultivated land. The land planning of the Kira family is very strict. It is forbidden to cut trees on the mountains beside the riverside roads and in densely forested areas.

Other usable land is mainly farmland, villages, roads, walled cities, and towns. The division of developed land, land to be developed, and land to be improved is also very detailed. It is impossible to designate a piece of wasteland and throw a large pile of manure on it. It degrades freely, who knows if there will be countless pests and many troubles this summer.

The military serves politics, and the economy also serves politics. When it is difficult for the two sides to compete, it is necessary to look at short-term and long-term interests. At the time of Ji Liangyi, the economy was more important, so the raw materials for roasting jade were delayed. The production of soil nitrate in the past few years has relied on laying down a piece of land, and then dispatching people to investigate where there is soil for stables and toilets in the local area, and then summoning hired workers to refine black powder on the spot.

The output is low, the efficiency is low, and the supply is unstable. It is still the old third that bothers the members of the Kira family. Fortunately, last year Claudia brought a lot of saltpeter to last for a while, but the pure saltpetre is not willing to directly refine black fire "Medicine", I always want to keep some as a strategic reserve, in case I need it someday, I will take it out and refine it into gunpowder for use.

It is precisely because of the above reasons that the Baker team has very few chances to appear on the stage in recent years. Even Kato Shoaki was transferred out of the Roker team to serve as the ashigaru general. Kira Yoshishi once planned to abolish this special unit, but he just remembered some old things and felt that it was a thought to keep it.

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