In April and May in Shinano, the weather begins to rise, and the snow has long since melted, leaving the roads muddy.

Akechi Mitsuhide walked on the road of Kiso Valley with two retainers one foot deep and one foot shallow, and he was about to walk out of Kiso Valley in a while.

He had seen the situation of the Kiso family and couldn't help but sigh at the decline of the Kiso family.

Soon they arrived at Kizu Ridge on the edge of the Kiso Valley, and from here they could walk northeast to Shiojiri.

At the place of exit, a castle can be seen at the end of a very narrow passageway, completely blocking the road.

It was a fortified fortress in times of war, and it was usually a toll gate.

Akechi Mitsuhide and a few others happened to be going out, so they didn't collect money, just checked and let them leave.

The few of them hurried away, and before dark, they rushed to the Shiojiri area, where there was originally a sentry, but now it is the territory of the Takeda family, so the sentry has been transferred.

They had to spend the night in a small, abandoned house.

However, it's not just the three of them who are camping here, there is also a passing ronin samurai.

The ronin samurai stared at Akechi Mitsuhide and the others, and he had the attitude of drawing his sword if he didn't agree.

Wise Mitsuhide knew that he was here to inquire about information, so he naturally didn't want to do much, so he said: "Your Excellency, don't be excited, the three of you are just staying here and leaving as soon as it is dawn." ”

The ronin samurai's attitude softened a little before he said, "I'm just spending the night in the next place." With that, he retreated to the corner.

Akechi Mitsuhide had no choice but to retreat to the opposite corner with his two retainers.

After a day of running, Akechi Mitsuhide was already very hungry, and after putting down his things, he asked his retainers to collect firewood.

After a while, the rice balls on the fire were already roasted, and bursts of aroma wafted out, and there were plums in the rice balls of Akechi Mitsuhide, which tasted sweet and sour.

And the ronin samurai hiding in the corner just cowered in the corner and didn't move, and his Adam's apple was faintly visible squirming.

Akechi Mitsuhide looked at the ronin samurai and suggested that his retainers send a rice ball.

The samurai was not polite, he picked it up and ate it, finished it in three or two clicks, and even licked the residual taste on his hands.

The samurai grinned reluctantly, "Thank you, Your Excellency, for the rice balls, but I'm hungry." ”

Akechi Mitsuhide smiled, "It's just a matter of raising your hands." Where did you wander the samurai? ”

The samurai sighed and said, "This Shinano samurai is below, and it was already last autumn that he became a ronin. ”

Wise Mitsuhide became interested, he walked over, handed out the bamboo tube, and said, "Oh? I would like to hear about it. ”

The samurai sighed and said slowly, "I was originally a samurai who led the family at night in Kita-Shinano, and my family decided to take refuge in the Takeda family.

As a result, it was discovered by the guardian generation Ogasawara Temple.,The leader of the army was defeated.,The head of the family, his wife, sons, and daughters were all killed.,Zai also ran out in that battle.,It's really ashamed.,It's really the Liudi-horse team of His Royal Highness the Guardian Dai is too powerful.。 ”

What the samurai said made Akechi Mitsuhide even more interested, first of all, the samurai mentioned Nobukata, which was the first object that Akechi Mitsuhide wanted to investigate when he came to Shinano.

The second is the Wandering Horse Cavalry, which rarely appears on the battlefield and usually appears at various celebrations, so this makes Akechi Mitsuhide very interested.

When he first saw the iron cannon, he dared to ask Saito Michizo to go to Kyoto to find the iron cannon.

He hurriedly asked the samurai, "Your Excellency, do you remember what His Highness Ogasawara looked like?" ”

The samurai's face flushed, and he said with some excitement: "How can this be forgotten!" I will never forget that scene in the next life.

At that time, in the second team, the first team took the lead in engaging the enemy, at this time, only the stray horse team attacked, and at about a hundred paces, those stray horse cavalry shot out sword feathers, most of which were blocked by wooden swords, and a small number of shot sergeants, and the sword feathers could not shoot through the armor.

Then, at thirty paces, the cavalry of the Wandering Horses fired a new round of arrows, this time different, and the armor could also be pierced.

At this time, the Liudi horse team was only about twenty paces away from the military formation, and at this moment, the front row of Liudi horses split into two and spread out to both sides, revealing less than twenty cavalrymen behind.

When he was only twenty paces, he saw a puff of white smoke drifting down, and then there was a thunderous sound in his ears, and the front row of a team of wooden trees was all rotten, and the formation of the football was scattered, and then it was broken by the third captain, the Guns and Horses. ”

Akechi Mitsuhide listened to the samurai and noticed that these stray horse cavalry shot arrows while the horses were running, and in general, the stray horses at the festival waited for the horses to stop before shooting arrows.

Then there were the twenty horsemen who were shooting with iron cannons, and he was sure that the strange weapon that the samurai was talking about was the iron cannon.

But none of the iron cannons he had seen were used on horses. The main thing is that the iron cannon is very long, and it is difficult to use flexibly on a horse.

He immediately asked: "The twenty horsemen use iron cannons, and when they shoot them, there will be white smoke and a loud noise, which is about three feet long, and they need to be held with both hands before they can be used." ”

The samurai wondered, "Hands?" But I remember that it was one hand, and it was not that long, it was estimated that it was only about two feet, and I held it with one hand. ”

When Wise Mitsuhide heard this, he immediately thought about it, according to what the ronin said, such a short iron cannon is indeed convenient on a horse, but the gun tube is shorter, the power is smaller, and the range is not so far, which is the same as the ronin's description, you need to take twenty steps before you can shoot.

But in terms of power, the power of the ordinary iron cannon is still the same, or even stronger, but for the use of the iron cannon, do the samurai of Shinano know more than them?

Akechi Mitsuhide felt that this business was not only about investigating paper, but also about this Shinano guardian.

He nodded and said, "That's right, this is different from the iron cannon I've seen below, it's really amazing, this Ogasawara Hall is really curious." ”

The samurai replied, "It's really magical, the year before last, Ogasawara Shinano Mamoru who was the guardian had been driven out of Shinano by Takeda Kai Mamoru .

At that time, Ogasawara Hall was also called Ueda Nobukata, who was a retainer of Murakamiden, but he led his subordinates to attack Saku-gun alone, and Ogasawara Guardian Hall provoked it, causing Murakami Hall to oppose his own retainers.

Subsequently, the Murakami den was defeated by his own retainers, and the army was defeated and wiped out, leaving only one daughter to marry Ogasawara den.

Ogasawara suddenly inherited the name of the Ogasawara family last year, took charge of Shinano, and in a few years went from being a minister to becoming a guardian of a country, and the speed of rise is staggering. ”

Akechi Mitsuhide was greatly surprised, judging from the narration of the ronin, Ogasawara Nobukata's rise was too fast, and in his opinion, this was the fastest in the next gram.

Whether it is his lord Saito Michizo or the Owari Oda family next door, it has taken a long time to get to where they are today.

For example, after Saito Michizo became a samurai, then became a monk, then became a businessman, and finally became a samurai again in Mino, and then slowly seized the position of Mino guardian step by step, which took him more than ten years.

Another example is the Oda family, which was only the Oda family's concubine at the beginning, and the Oda family was the deputy official who guarded the Spo clan, and it took the Oda Nobunaga family a hundred years of hard work to become the Owari guardian in the hands of Oda Nobuhide and Nobunaga.

He was a little anxious to meet this Ogasawara Nobukata now. He knew that this person would definitely be a guardian in the future, after all, the real guardian had lost power, and a powerful guardian like him would definitely find a way to become a guardian, as evidenced by his inheritance of the Ogasawara family's name.

Akechi Mitsuhide continued to chat with the ronin samurai, wanting to know more news, and also learned a lot about Kai Takeda.

As soon as the next day dawned, Akechi Mitsuhide urged his men to set off and go to the small county.

When Akechi Mitsuhide and his men entered Ueko-gun from Chikuma-gun, they saw many sentry posts of the Takeda family along the way, and after entering Zhina-gun, they also found many sentry posts of the Ogasawara family.

However, compared to the Takeda family, who had to pay money when passing through a castle, the Ogasawara family's castle did not charge tolls, but only required registration and inspection of personal belongings.

Akechi Mitsuhide was greatly surprised, he had been to many places, and the daimyo or lord of each place would set up a road card to collect money, and of course, there were some places in Minami Omi where the Rokkaku family did not accept money.

When he saw the merchant next to him, he immediately leaned over and asked, "Your Excellency, do you know why there is no toll here?" ”

The merchant smiled: "You haven't been here for the last two years, since Ogasawara Hall was in charge, the matter of collecting road fees has been abolished, and Ogasawara Hall is not bad to us merchants, there is no messy tax, you only need to pay business tax." ”

Akechi Mitsuhide nodded secretly, he knew that this Ogasawara Nobukata was a very powerful lord, and he was a little worried about this.

If this Ogasawara Nobukata drove away Kai Takeda, he would definitely go to subdue the Kiso family, so would this lord of the country invade at that time?

Once invaded, Mino will be very dangerous, and now not everyone in Mino is convinced by the rule of the lord, and when he returns to Mino, he must let the lord pay attention to this Ogasawara Nobukata.

With this in mind, Akechi Mitsuhide became even more urgent, and he immediately rushed to the small county with his retainers.

In the afternoon, they entered the Ueda Basin, which was Uedawara.

Standing on the mountainside, he looked at Uedawara, and then he saw the construction site of Ueda Castle, and he did not expect that someone would build a relatively large castle on this flat land.

However, he took a closer look at the surroundings and found that the surrounding environment was well protected by the city under construction.

He suddenly became interested, pointed to the Ueda Castle under construction, and said, "I'm going to rest around there tonight, Kikumaru, and tomorrow you will go to that construction site to see if you can get in and be a laborer and explore this city." ”

Kikumaru is a farmer who lives on the border between Mikawa Province and Owari, and has a who, thanks to a bandit attack on a village near Akechiso, was rescued by Akechi Mitsuhide, and Gokai followed Akechi Mitsuhide.

He was short and stocky, familiar with some herbs, and ran very fast, like a monkey in the mountains and forests.

Another of his retainers and guards looked like a samurai, unlike Kikumaru's peasantry.

Kikumaru looked at the construction site in the distance and said, "Okay, what does the master want the villain to explore?" ”

Akechi Mitsuhide patted him on the shoulder and said, "You don't have to deliberately inquire, you just need to tell me what you heard and saw when you were doing things." ”

Kikumaru paused: "Hey, the villain knows." ”

Akechi Mitsuhide nodded, and immediately rushed to Ueda Castle with two of his men.

At this moment, Nobugata didn't know that "Kirin" Akechi Mitsuhide had come to his own territory, and now that he had returned to Katsumi Castle, the vegetables and rice cultivation in Nozawa Village were very successful, and the next thing was the usual care, so there was no need for Nobugata to stay there.

Now that the snow has melted, spring ploughing is over, and the weather is suitable, he has to guard against Takeda Harunobu's attack.

With his current strength, he has more than 3,000 standing guards and can take the initiative to attack at this time, but he is not sure that he will capture an important stronghold.

It's just a waste of your energy to take some inconsequential cities.

He might as well wait for Takeda Harunobu to attack and play defensive counterattacks by himself.

Don't look at Takeda Harunobu is very good, he can only besiege the siege, throughout Takeda Harunobu's war, he has been besieging the city for a long time.

Of course, this has something to do with some tactics in the Warring States Period, that is, encircling the point to send reinforcements, which is the favorite tactic of the generals, who always like to attack and kill the army that comes to the aid first, and hit the morale of the defenders in the city.

But if there are no reinforcements to support, then you will have to besiege it.

Undaunted by this, the Nobukata stored enough food and water in important strategic cities.

It had been four or five months since he left Katsura City, and his wife and concubine were still more than a month away from giving birth, and he had to be by his side at this time.

At this time, the mood of the mothers is very unstable, and it is a good time for him to go and cultivate feelings.

After accompanying a few mothers, the letter will discuss things with Kotaka.

In the afternoon, Nobukata took a nap and then went to the construction site of Ueda Castle, accompanied by Kotaka.

After making some rounds, he said with satisfaction: "At this rate, Ueda Castle can be completed this year." ”

Xinglong nodded and said, "If you expand the number of people, you can still advance it." ”

Nobugata asked, "What's going on with the Takeda family?" ”

Kotaka replied: "According to the report of the Shin Masa, there are many unknown people snooping around. ”

Nobugata smiled: "Then let him continue to investigate, Kotaka, as soon as possible, it is best to complete it in September, money is not a problem." ”

Xinglong frowned slightly, and replied: "Lord, it's not a matter of money, the main thing is that it is difficult to build a stone wall. ”

Nobugata looked at the farmer who was carrying the stones in the distance and said, "Then build the Honmaru and Ninomaru first, and take your time with the rest." ”

Sanada Yutaka nodded, not rebuttal.

The two quickly left the construction site surrounded by a group of people.

And Akechi Mitsuhide happened to come over with Kikumaru and Yobei and saw Nobukata.