Warring States Survival Guide

Chapter 199: Oda's New Ally

About 30 typhoon air masses form in the northwest Pacific every year, of which about eight will affect southern Kyushu and Shikoku Island, and about three will invade Kansai, Kanchu, Kanto and Hokuriku.

The autumn typhoons in August and September are particularly severe. Because the sun moves from north to south during the transition from summer to autumn, the sea temperature is warmer, more energy is accumulated, and the damage caused is greater.

This type of autumn typhoon is usually the one that strikes the Owari area.

Perhaps it was because the Little Ice Age was approaching - the precursors of the Little Ice Age disaster, which had a huge impact on Ming Dynasty society, are said to be traceable back to the early Jiajing period, and began to become obvious in the 1585th year of Wanli ().

At this time, the heaven and earth seemed to be warming up for a disaster. In the nearly two years after the Battle of Okehazama, the temperature in the Owari area of Japan fluctuated violently. It was extremely hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter. The autumn typhoons also became very strong. Strong winds and heavy rains crossed the Ise Bay and hit the Owari area, causing large-scale wind disasters and floods.

The situation was the most severe in the past year, with more than two-thirds of the villages on the Chita Peninsula affected. Houses collapsed, rivers flooded, countless fields were damaged, and there were also heavy casualties.

After the autumn and winter of the year before last, a small-scale drought occurred again in the spring of last year, which delayed spring ploughing. It was as if the heaven and earth hated Yuanye, the time traveler, and threw a series of punches at him.

Yuanye finally understood how the Ming Dynasty fell. These days, natural disasters like this are really deadly.

So after Yuanye occupied the Chita Peninsula, he ignored everything else and spent most of his energy on disaster relief and restoring production.

Instead of continuing to expand, the Wanjin Army was forced to shrink its organization and urgently ordered hundreds of veterans and low-level officers to retire and transfer into the administrative system so that management and disaster relief capabilities could be strengthened in various villages.

Military spending was also greatly reduced in order to have more financial resources to support the Chita Peninsula through the famine and resume production. Even the Wanjin Army was forced to transfer a large number of personnel to the disaster area to participate in disaster relief, which delayed many things.

It is not easy to be a lord, but thanks to his active disaster relief, his reputation among the common people of Chita Peninsula is at its peak. In the past two years, the common people have been very accepting of him as the new lord. Everyone thinks that he is a rare good man in a thousand years. Even the refugees in the mountains are willing to work for him - in fact, there are not many refugees. The continuous natural disasters have made it impossible for the refugees to survive in the mountains, so they all went down the mountain again.

In short, for almost two years after the Battle of Okehazama, Yuanye did not have a smooth life. He could only be considered to have won the hearts of the people, but had little other gains.

…………

"According to daily observations and inquiries from many parties, the temperature and rainfall at the beginning of this year were basically similar to those in normal years. Many local elderly people believe that the typhoons this autumn will not be too strong, but it is not certain whether this is the case. Disaster prevention work is still the focus of the next step. At the same time, food reserve work cannot be suspended. We must take advantage of the natural conditions in spring to organize more wild vegetables and catch more fish and shrimp. In terms of publicity, we must continue to emphasize the importance of saving food and try to find substitutes. Eat less food if possible, and give priority to replenishing reserves..."

Endo Chiyo was holding a meeting with internal affairs officials, and Yuanye was in attendance. After hearing this, he breathed a sigh of relief even though he had read related reports before - it seemed that the abnormal climate should have passed. After all, it was a rehearsal for the arrival of the Little Ice Age catastrophe, and the scale of the disaster was not large. If there really was no rain for nine years or the peninsula was flooded, he would really want to hang himself.

In other words, he could mine saltpeter and exchange it for food at a high price from Kanto, Hokuriku and other unaffected areas, otherwise it would not be so easy to pass this level.

He was thinking about it in his mind and did not disturb Endo Chiyo from arranging the work. These were all routine matters and he would not be able to do better than Endo Chiyo if he came in person. When the meeting was about to end, he went back to his office first. Just as he was about to take a break from his work, A-man came in hurriedly again.

Yuan Ye sighed, feeling that he really couldn't take a half-day off now, but of course business was more important, so he immediately asked, "Why are you running so fast? What happened?"

Aman did not delay and said directly: "Two things. The first thing is that the lord of Inuyama Castle, Oda Nobumasa, has rebelled and has made an alliance with Saito Tatsuoki."

"It's started again..." Yuanye rubbed his eyebrows and sighed softly.

The Battle of Okehazama took place in the early summer of the year before last, and in the autumn of that year, a wind disaster and a flood occurred. The coastal areas from Owari, Mikawa, Totomi to Suruga were all affected to varying degrees, and everyone was immediately silenced.

But last year, Mino's "conspirator" Saito Yoshitatsu died of leprosy while helping his ally Rokkaku family to deal with the Asai family, and passed the position of head of the family to his fourteen-year-old son Saito Tatsuoki.

His death made Oda Nobunaga instantly excited. Regardless of the serious damage to Owari, he immediately led his direct troops across the Kiso River to "pay tribute". As a result, the two sides fought fiercely at the border of Nishiminomori. Nagai Mamoru and Hibino Kiyoie, two of the "Six Elders" of the Saito family, fought desperately and were killed on the spot. This barely stopped Oda Nobunaga from continuing his attack.

After the Battle of Moribeguchi, another of the Saito family's "Six Elders", Takekoshi Naomitsu, also died of illness, leaving only Inaba Issutetsu, Ando Morinari and Ujiie Naomoto to support Mino and the Saito family, and they were renamed the "Mino Three".

After that, the Oda and Saito families did not fight again, mainly because Owari was suffering from disaster and famine, and even if Oda Nobunaga wanted to launch an all-out attack, it would be impossible - this time it was not that the Owari clan was unwilling to contribute, but that they really had no power to do so at the time, and there was no food to support them in gathering their men and soldiers.

But Oda Nobunaga did not give up his plan to take over Mino, and kept sending small troops to carry out piecemeal invasions, which made Mino very annoyed. Now, the lord of Inuyama Castle, Oda Nobumasa, suddenly rebelled. Perhaps the Saito family has used its trump card again and started to plot and scheme, trying to relieve the pressure on Mino by instigating internal strife in the Oda family.

Hara didn't care too much about Oda Nobumasa's rebellion. This person was not very famous in history, at least he had never heard of him, so he thought it would not have much impact.

Besides, Inuyama Castle is at the northernmost end of Owari, close to Mino, while he is at the southernmost end, facing the Pacific Ocean. It is so far away that he cannot influence him. He threw Oda Nobumasa aside and said to Aman, "You continue to follow up on this matter. What is the second thing?"

"Matsudaira Motoyasu sent people to Kiyosu Castle to form an alliance with Oda Nobunaga. It now seems that Oda Nobunaga is about to agree." Aman reported.

Matsudaira Motoyasu, the future Tokugawa Ieyasu.

He is now a formal neighbor of Yuanye, but Narumi Castle and "Tokaido" are controlled by Oda Nobunaga, and the territory controlled by Wanjin is only a little bit bordering Mikawa in the northeast corner. But he is indeed a formal neighbor. He can rush into Nishimikawa at any time, and Matsudaira Motoyasu can also quickly enter the Chita Peninsula.

Before, Harano had wanted to secretly hit Matsudaira Motoyasu with a stick, but not to change history, but just to make it easier for him to expand his territory towards the west Mikawa direction. However, he failed. After the Battle of Okehazama, Matsudaira Motoyasu was the first to run away, and he didn't even see him.

After Matsudaira Motoyasu fled back to Nishimikawa, he immediately occupied the empty Okazaki Castle. In addition, the Imagawa family had always used the Matsudaira family as cannon fodder, and the Matsudaira family had to be the first to take on any tough tasks. Not to mention treating them as allies, they didn't even treat them as human beings.

This led to the Matsudaira family harboring resentment towards the Imagawa family. As a result, Matsudaira Motoyasu raised the "flag of independence" in Okazaki Castle, and the Matsudaira branch family and in-laws in Nishimikawa responded one after another. Within two months, Nishimikawa fell into the hands of Matsudaira Motoyasu.

At that time, the Imagawa family was busy fighting among themselves for a new head of the family, so no one cared about him. The Hara was digesting the new territory, and there were also serious natural disasters. They also had to guard against Oda Nobunaga's madness, so they were also unable to intervene, and as a result, Matsudaira Motoyasu easily gained a foothold.

He really is worthy of being the old turtle who finally conquered the world. His luck can only be described as extremely good.

If Matsudaira Motoyasu and Oda Nobunaga were to form an alliance again...

Yuanye pondered for a moment and sighed, feeling that there was no chance for further development in Xisanhe. Two consecutive years of natural disasters had made him miss the best window of opportunity.

There was indeed no way for him to expand his territory further to western Mikawa. Because he forcibly occupied the Chita Peninsula, his relationship with Oda Nobunaga became cold. It was also because of the typhoons and floods in the past two years that made it impossible for the Owari area to launch a major war, and the death of Saito Yoshitatsu diverted Oda Nobunaga's attention. Otherwise, Oda Nobunaga would definitely have taught him a lesson.

However, even though Oda Nobunaga did not pounce on him to beat him, he still caused him some trouble. He significantly increased the "shipping fee" for goods exported from the Chita Peninsula through Atsuta Port, and basically took back all the preferential policies previously given to Manzu, causing Manzu to lose a huge amount of money.

By the way, even though Oda Nobunaga was suffering from a disaster and was plotting to take over Mino, he was still repairing the rock fortresses in Narumi Castle and the north bank of the Ōtaka River. It seemed that he was very wary of him and wanted to lock him up completely on the Chita Peninsula and would never let him out.

Since Oda Nobunaga is already on guard, if he tries to seize the land of western Mikawa again, there is a high probability that Oda Nobunaga and Matsudaira Motoyasu will join forces to beat him up.

However, his military strength has not increased much in the past two years, and he will probably suffer a great loss in a war.

Yuanye began to walk around the table again. He didn't know much about Japanese history, and he had never thought that there would be a natural disaster after the end of Okehazama. When a natural disaster really happened, he couldn't ignore the lives of his people and go out to fight when they were short of food and clothing. As a result, his idea of continuing to expand westward to Mikawa was completely shattered.

But it is absolutely impossible not to develop. If the land doesn’t work, maybe we should try the sea.

Now he owns the peninsula, which has a large population, rich resources, and increasingly powerful subordinates. As long as he recovers for a year or two, he will have enough resources to build a fleet and cross the sea to seek new territory.

Aman finished his report and was waiting for his instructions, but Yuanye started grinding the millstone again. He couldn't help but wonder, "What's wrong with you? It's no big deal that the Matsudaira family and Oda Nobunaga have formed an alliance. We just need to guard the Odaka River, and they can't get in easily."

She is now second only to the king in the Chita Peninsula, and has been living a good life that she never dared to imagine before. She is extremely satisfied with her current life and feels that it is not impossible to live like this for the rest of her life - she feels that this foundation is enough to ensure that the Nohara family will have no worries for three generations, and she just needs to protect it well without having to work any harder.

It's just that Yuanye has been refusing to give birth, which has made the Yeyuan family small. This makes her a little worried. She thinks that instead of Yuanye working on the mill, it would be better for her to go back to her room and have a baby. It's a waste of energy to worry about this all day long.

Yuanye glanced at her and couldn't explain to her that what he wanted was not personal hegemony, nor was it for personal power and enjoyment. He simply couldn't shrink into a corner and enjoy a peaceful life. The only way to complete his plan was to continue to expand outward and seek larger territory and strength.

After all, it is not easy to establish a country. It is definitely not enough to rely on the county of Chido Peninsula alone.

"You don't need to worry about this kind of thing, just go and do your own thing!"

Yuanye drove Aman away and continued to think about where he could hide. Less than half a month later, an envoy from Oda Nobunaga came and invited him to meet in Kiyosu Castle to meet Oda's new ally Matsudaira Motoyasu.

(End of this chapter)