In Maeyama Castle, Ueda Nobukata gathered all his forces, totaling more than 1,700 people, of which only 200 belonged to him.

And the Sakushi people have been divided, and Kamizu Kenra has gathered more than 100 people, and the other 300 people are under the command of an old samurai named Takamasa Uehara.

Then there are the five hundred Sanada people under Sanada Yutaka, and there are more than four hundred people under the command of Youzu Motonao.

This was only temporary, he also recruited soldiers and horses to defend the former mountain castle, and this time he swept more than a dozen castles in Kitasaku-gun, except for Komoro Castle and Iwao Castle that survived, the rest of the castles were looted.

Of course, in order to make a good impression on the people of Saku County and some wealthy families, Ueda Nobukata did not rob them, but only asked them to symbolically hand over a little money to support him Ueda Nobukata against Takeda Harunobu.

In this way, Ueda Nobukata plundered a total of more than 5,000 kan of money and 7,000 koku of grain.

There are more than 20,000 stone territory in Kitasaku County, and now there are 7,000 stone of grain left.

However, Ueda Nobukata plans to expand his army to 3,000, and under normal circumstances, one ashigaru can receive a five-in-one rice (about 750 grams) a day.

The record in "The Tale of the Miscellaneous Soldiers" is even more generous: "one liter of water, six rice he, one spoonful of salt, and two spoonfuls of miso" ("one spoonful" is one-tenth of "one he").

The rice is cooked and eaten directly in the morning, and the rest is made into rice balls with salt or miso, which are divided into two parts, which are convenient for wartime.

Sometimes the battle is so fierce that the soldiers' bodies are in a state of extreme tension and fatigue, and it becomes difficult to chew rice balls, so they can only rely on some easily digestible porridge to restore their strength, and the large amount of digestive enzymes in miso can help soldiers digest rice.

The ashigaru class generally ate only grains such as wheat and millet, and even decent samurai were expected to keep everything simple in normal times, using only brown rice porridge or vegetable rice (rice mixed with a single or multiple vegetables, roughly equivalent to Chinese mixed vegetables or salty rice) as their staple food.

However, on the battlefield, in order to boost the morale of the army, the daimyo can also be said to lure them from evading military service, even Ashigaru can receive white rice, and some daimyo with deep pockets can even provide the soldiers with some fish, birds, shellfish and other meat for the soldiers to open meat. A large number of Ashigaru went to war to improve their food.

Different from the rice we eat every day, in order to ensure the dryness of the food and prevent spoilage, we must add a drying step after normal washing and cooking to remove the water in the rice as much as possible.

When eating, ashigaru can use it by immersing the dried rice in water and soaking it again, and it is naturally better if it is hot water.

If the conditions do not allow the ashigaru to soak the rice with water, then these hard rice grains will definitely dry the mouth.

If this ashigaru had accidentally used brown rice to make dry rice, his tongue would have to be tortured.

However, brown rice also has the advantage of providing soldiers with a variety of vitamins that are not found in white rice.

Among the other grains commonly found in ashigaru, fried rice is usually made from brown rice.

The stem rope is made by weaving the stem of taro into a hemp rope shape and boiling it with miso, and the soldiers used the stem rope as a rope in peacetime, and when the food is scarce, cut the required amount and put it in the soup to cook a pot of miso soup that fills hunger.

In addition, the water cylinders for the ashigaru to hold water during the march were also important to carry. In addition to bamboo tubes and gourds, there are also water tubes made of wood, metal, and wade paper (a double-layer wrapper coated with persimmon kernel liquid).

Contrary to most people's imagination that there is no food to eat other than the main food of the day, the ashigaru people also keep some herbs, non-staple foods and even snacks in the "lighter bag" tied around their waists, such as pick-mes, hemostatic medicines, wormwood, insect bites, horse medicine, umeboshi and dried miso, dried natto, pepper, dried pine fish, blood food pills, and even garlic, among which umeboshi is the most valuable.

It is said that Hojo Sakumo, who unified Sagami Province in the early Warring States period and established the foundation of the Hojo clan's dominance of the Kanto region, ordered all soldiers to bring umeboshi to prevent thirst.

In addition, umeboshi can also be used to disinfect water, and can be used as a hemostatic medicine and seasickness medicine. There are even rumors that the sour smell of umeboshi can wake up dying soldiers who are delirious and whose breath is wandering the front line.

There is also a Japanese version of the "Tale of the Miscellaneous Soldiers" that says that if a soldier really licks or eats a umeboshi, he will become more thirsty due to the sour taste, but if he just puts the umeboshi at the bottom of the feeding bag and just opens it, the saliva secreted in his mouth is enough to quench his thirst for a while.

Another important food in the Ashigaru recipe is the ball-shaped dough known as "yoyo balls".

Its diameter is about one inch (in ancient Japan, one ruler was equivalent to about 30 centimeters, and one inch was about 3 centimeters), and the method of making food pills varies depending on the region and the daimyo masters.

However, it is usually steamed and dried with a variety of rice noodles and bean noodles, and it is generally enough to eat two to three to fill the stomach without reducing physical strength.

The allotted rations were kneaded into pill shapes to make them lighter in weight and smaller in size. The main ingredient of the Bing Food Pill is carbohydrates. It can be stored at room temperature for more than a month, and it can be carried in a feeding bag when marching.

In terms of food, in the case of 10% of the 3,000 troops, samurai accounted for 10%, that is, 300 out of 3,000 people were samurai.

The consumption of 2,700 ashigaru plus 300 samurai is close to 75 koku a day, and about 2,250 koku a month.

That is to say, more than 7,000 stone of grain was only enough for Ueda Nobukata to support for three months, and by the time of May, the more than 5,000 koku was only enough for two months' food expenses.

Even if he produced thirty iron cannons in the past few months, he would have earned three thousand yuan, and he had to buy weapons, armor, etc., and he also needed to gather workers to build the city.

And he also has to give his samurai Ashigaru Yuroku, which is a lot of money.

At the meeting, because of the matter of money and food, a careful calculation gave Ueda Nobukata a headache.

Ueda Nobukata only knew the importance of the foundation at this time, and the sudden rise to a high position in two or three years like him showed that his foundation was insufficient.

At the meeting, Ueda Nobukata swore that there would be no problems with the money and food, and then let everyone go down to recruit troops first.

Only Satomi Yuzu and Yukitaka Sanada knew that the money and grain in Ueda Nobukata's hands could not support Ueda Nobukata to hold out until the autumn harvest.

What about Ueda Nobukata, he thought about it, and the only way was to borrow, to borrow money from Tennoji House!