Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 189 A new world is about to emerge!

There are many records about the Battle of Okehazama in later Japanese generations. After all, this was a key battle in Oda Nobunaga's transformation from a country bumpkin to a man of the world. But the process is hard to describe as it has too much of a fictional flavor. It seems that Oda Nobunaga was squatting in Kiyosu Castle, facing the menacing attack of Imagawa Yoshimoto, feeling deeply desperate. Then he picked up a folding fan and danced to "Atsumori", and rushed out of the city with the determination to die. Miraculously, he found Imagawa Yoshimoto, who was miraculously resting away from the team, and was hacked to death by Oda Nobunaga in a daze.

In those stories, Oda Nobunaga seemed to succeed only because of luck, and Imagawa Yoshimoto was more like an unlucky clown, despised by God. The only meaning of his existence was to serve as a footnote to Oda Nobunaga's victory, and a very failed footnote at that, making the Imagawa family seem weak and vulnerable, without any charm of the world's number one daimyo.

But Hara had been in misfortune for a long time and had dealt with Oda Nobunaga many times. He knew that he was not just a "strange person" or that his eccentricity was just an appearance. Many of his actions that were understood by others as "nonsense", "spur of the moment", and "the big fool is doing stupid things again" were actually intentional on his part.

What's more, the Imagawa family has been plotting to take over Owari for more than half a century. The Furuno Castle was built by the Imagawa family. Even if we count from the Battle of Shozuka, the Imagawa family and the Oda Danmasatada family have been fighting head-on for more than 20 years. If Oda Nobunaga had a second brain, or a few more folds in his brain, he would never have underestimated this mortal enemy.

Therefore, the Battle of Okehazama was by no means a coincidental raid, nor was it a desperate attempt by Oda Nobunaga that won by luck, but rather it was a prepared and premeditated action.

While Imagawa Yoshimoto was preparing to go to Kyoto, Oda Nobunaga was already preparing to kill him.

At this moment, the Battle of Okehazama had actually begun, and in history, Monkey King was very likely to have participated in it and rendered great merit, and then he was able to come to the fore, becoming a mid- to high-level samurai after the war, gaining command of the "Kawabinami-shu", becoming the vanguard of the attack on Mino, and even slowly growing into a master of the world.

Based on the movements of "Monkey No. 2", Hara seemed to have seen a corner that would not be recorded in the "historical materials". He suddenly realized that he was waiting for the Imagawa family and the Oda family to start fighting. He did not expect that Oda Nobunaga had already taken the initiative. However, he could not judge what Oda Nobunaga sent Yakuro to do.

Of course, it was useless to make the judgment. He could not move at this moment. Otherwise, when Imagawa Yoshimoto went on the westward expedition, he would most likely reach the Shirakawaguchi line and turn around to kill him first. He could only order the "Survivors" to shift their focus and begin to actively explore the situation on the Shirakawaguchi line.

Time seemed to slow down for a moment, and Yuanye carefully observed the changes in the situation. He had to take advantage of the brief window of opportunity after the war between Oda and Imagawa to seize as much territory as possible. Otherwise, with only the small place of Shinwantsu, he could already muster so many troops.

If he missed this window period when no one cared about him, he would most likely be trapped to death on the Chita Peninsula, and it would be extremely difficult for him to increase his strength.

At least it will be difficult to deal with it on land. He will probably have to disband some of the field troops, redevelop and train the navy, and see if he can grab a new territory in the Seto Inland Sea.

That would be very costly. After all, the shipbuilding industry requires both technology and a large amount of manpower. He had made little progress in this area over the years, and the navy was mostly used as a transport team. He was not sure if he could really take a ship to the Seto Inland Sea to fight the pirates who lived there all year round.

The wait made him anxious, even though he knew that the battle was bound to happen, he still waited anxiously. Aman kept passing information from all sides to him, and even "Monkey No. 3" and "Monkey No. 4" and others appeared - Oda Nobunaga was constantly sending people secretly, among them were some very capable Oda Lang's party, who also looked like monkey's "successors".

Probably in history, Oda Nobunaga did not hang himself on a rope. He arranged a large number of promising people to carry out various covert operations. The monkey probably stood out only after fierce competition.

In short, after Oda Nobunaga's actions, Yuanye was a little confused about who was Monkey's "successor". He could only wait until the Battle of Okehazama was over and see who Oda Nobunaga was going to marry Nening to - Nening should be the best prize prepared by Oda Nobunaga. Whoever married Nening would be the grassroots samurai that Oda Nobunaga was going to support.

At the same time, in addition to these "monkeys", the "Shoumingshu" commanded by Aman also discovered traces of the "Xiangdanshu" many times. These "Ninja troops" of Oda Nobunaga suddenly became active on the Shirakawaguchi front line, and seemed to be engaged in some conspiracy, but Aman was not sure. Shinshumaru was also a veteran, and the "Xiangdanshu" were reorganized from mountain bandits and river pirates. The "Shoumingshu" were not qualified to provoke them for the time being - the two had different styles. The "Shoumingshu" were like pure intelligence personnel, while the "Xiangdanshu" were more like a special operations team that could take into account combat missions. If they really fought head-on, the "Shoumingshu" would suffer heavy losses.

The new year soon arrived, even though everything seemed calm on the surface but undercurrents were surging.

The New Year period was peaceful, and Yuanye had a comfortable year. But just over a month after the New Year, A-Man hurriedly sent him the latest news: "Yamaguchi Kyotsugu may be dead."

"Yamaguchi Kyotsugu?" Yuan Ye was stunned for a moment before he remembered who this was, "The Lord of Minghai Castle?"

He was also a talented person. He was originally a noble family of Oda Danjotada's clan. After the death of "The Tiger of Owari" Oda Nobuhide, not long after Oda Nobunaga came to power, he killed the warriors sent by Oda Danjotada's clan and turned to the Imagawa family.

His defection directly led to Chita County falling completely into the hands of the Imagawa family, and Aichi County also lost more than one-third of its territory, making Atsuta Port, the lifeline of Oda Danmasatada's family, begin to be directly threatened by the Matsudaira and Imagawa families. In short, this man should be ranked in the top five of the people that Oda Nobunaga hated the most.

Ah Man nodded immediately and said, "That's him. The current rumor is that he was summoned to Sunpu Castle by Imagawa Yoshimoto, and then, no one knows what happened, but Imagawa Yoshimoto ordered him to commit seppuku. Also killed at the same time was his successor, Yamaguchi Kyokichi. It is said that he was besieged and killed while escaping."

"What about Narumi Castle?"

This is a key node in controlling the Shirakawaguchi Defense Line and the gateway to the root of the Chita Peninsula. Harano doesn't care much about Yamaguchi Kyotsugu's death, but he is very concerned about the ownership of this city.

Aman flipped through the notebook and replied, "The news has not been fully confirmed yet, but it should have been taken over by the Imagawa family. The new commander is Okabe Motonobu (Tamba no Kami). The rest of the branch castles controlled by the Yamaguchi family have also been taken over by the Imagawa family and the Matsudaira family. The whereabouts of the Yamaguchi family are unknown."

After a pause, she added, "I guess it's all there. I'll check it out later."

Yuanye didn't care much about the life and death of the Yamaguchi family. He just murmured: "The local snake is dead..."

The nature of the Yamaguchi family is the same as that of the Arako-Maeda family. They are both local tyrants and their words are more effective than those of the daimyo. Now the Yamaguchi family has been suddenly wiped out by the Imagawa family. In reality, the Imagawa family's ruling power over the root of the Chita Peninsula has declined. It is difficult for them to get the support of the local people when the rabbit dies and the fox mourns.

Yuanye thought for a while and asked Aman, "Was this done by Oda Nobunaga?"

Aman shook his head. "I don't know. Our forces in Suruga are very weak and our reaction is not that fast. We can't be sure what happened in Sunpu Castle, but... it should have something to do with Oda Nobunaga, right? Maybe it's a counter-espionage plot?"

Yuanye also thought so. Oda Nobunaga sent "monkeys" to infiltrate the Shirakawaguchi line, and with the cooperation of the "Xiangdanshu", they made various unusual moves, secretly colluding with the Yamaguchi family, or simply spreading rumors to make the Imagawa family suspicious? They thought that the Yamaguchi family was suspected of returning to the Oda family. In order to ensure that there would be less resistance on the way to Kyoto, they simply tricked Yamaguchi Kyosuke and his son to Suruga and killed them, and seized their territory?
Of course, it is also possible that Imagawa Yoshimoto just felt that he was about to go to Kyoto, but his own people were not completely reliable at the key points on the way, so he could not rest assured and took the initiative to wipe out the Yamaguchi family. That is also possible.

It was difficult to find out the inside story. Oda Nobunaga had done a great job of keeping this secret. Some of the Lang family members that Aman had arranged to go in could not get any information about this. The Imagawa family's base camp was too far away, so just passing the information back and forth was a bit difficult, not to mention placing a spy next to Imagawa Yoshimoto.

Yuan Ye thought about it for a while, but he had no clue, so he put this little doubt aside. It was not important to think about it now, as long as he was sure that things had changed.

It seems that the Battle of Okehazama will take place this year. Whether we can eat meat or starve depends on this year!

Yuanye made up his mind and without much hesitation, he went to various meetings and started to get Xin Wanjin moving, switching from a production state to a war state, increasing the training intensity of the peasant soldiers, organizing the peasant soldiers to take over the defensive positions of the Wanjin army, organizing auxiliary troops, and preparing a large amount of military rations, gunpowder, horses and vehicles.

These changes were gradual so as to avoid too much turmoil in Shinwanjin. Strict control would only be implemented at the end. While he was preparing to join the war in Shinwanjin, Oda Nobunaga was also busy.

As the Yamaguchi family was inexplicably wiped out by Imagawa Yoshimoto, Oda Nobunaga also took active action and sent a large number of people to... build rock forts and surround Otaka Castle - Otaka Castle was near Atsuta Port, and it looked like a dagger pointing at Atsuta Port. It seemed that Oda Nobunaga was preparing to take advantage of the sudden demise of the Yamaguchi family to remove this thorn.

He really invested a lot of money and sent a large number of people. In more than a month, he built the Washizu and Marugane forts, and stationed a large number of Lang party foot soldiers there. He used this as the starting point of the attack and began to try to destroy the fortifications around Otaka Castle.

Almost at the same time, Imagawa Yoshimoto also took action, appointing Ii Naomori as the vanguard general, leading 5,000 men westward along the main road to open a passage to Kyoto.

Two days later, Imagawa Yoshimoto ordered his son Imagawa Ujizane to garrison Sunpu Castle, while he personally led an army of 20,000 in a sedan chair and officially began his journey to Kyoto, shaking all the way. The whole world was shocked.

All eyes were focused on it, after all, a new ruler of the world was about to be born!
(End of this chapter)