On the afternoon of the second day after receiving Tokugawa Ieyasu's urgent letter for help, Hirate Honhide was impassioned, and he decided to make a "duty-bound" policy and led his army to the east.

Only a few people were left to monitor Mizuno Nobumoto in Kariya Castle.

From the current station, the journey to Hamamatsu Castle is about 700 towns (70 km). It would take three days to march at a normal pace, and two days if it was a rapid march.

However, out of respect for Takeda Shingen's opponent, Hirate honhide maintained the fine tradition of "speaking boldly and using troops carefully", and undoubtedly ordered all troops to move forward 160 towns (16 kilometers) every day to ensure that they would reach their destination in five days.

As for Hamamatsu Castle, will it be lost halfway through......

"I know the character of Tokugawa Mikawa, and he said that if he can hold out for another ten days, it will not be less than ten days. There is no need to have the slightest doubt. Therefore, our army must guard against arrogance and rashness, and move forward steadily, so as to be worthy of the Tokugawa Mikawa-sama's hard work! ”

- This is how Tie Tsushu explains.

Of course, this is not enough to convince the stakeholders.

Tokugawa Nobuyasu couldn't listen to a word, he was so anxious that his eyebrows burned, and he didn't care much about his demeanor, and said some inappropriate cruel words such as "Even if Your Excellency pushes me, I will definitely rush to the aid of Hamamatsu Castle with one shot", and he will leave first.

For this kind of rude behavior, the retainers and the people of the subject countries are all angry: our criminal department is the most anxious for justice and righteousness, jealous of evil and hatred, and has always been inseparable from the traitor, but he is worried about the danger of the soldiers, and acts steadily.

However, the tie only smiled: The children are not sensible, why bother to be harsh?

This so-called sea is inclusive, and humility is like a valley.

However, Kawada Nagajin and Toraya Soyoshi got through the upper echelons of Okazaki Castle, and then Tsukuyamaden and Ishikawa Shumasa came forward together to persuade Tokugawa Nobuyasu for various purposes, and Hiraiwa Jinyoshi managed to contact Hamamatsu Castle and ask Ieyasu's opinion.

Of course, they also have a point: "If it is difficult for the lord to rescue after all, my family always needs to have an emergency charter tune, and it must not be distracted overnight." ”

According to what Hirate Honhide has seen, many of the middle and upper class samurai of Mikawa are actually very happy to see this.

Probably because Tokugawa Ieyasu was shrewd and capable, wide on the outside and strict on the inside, his subordinates were skilled, and he was virtuous, and he used many outsiders and humble people, which made the "child soldiers" with mixed qualifications very uncomfortable. His son, by contrast, is credulous and easy to fool – no, he should say "benevolence and righteousness."

Tokugawa Nobuyasu was full of enthusiasm to kill the enemy and save his father, but he was fooled by his mother and teacher, and he had no idea, and he didn't know whether to be fast or slow, so he could only follow the pace of the Tie Army and stay a little south in front.

As for Oda Nobutada, his enthusiasm is much lower than that of Hinobu Hide, and if he hadn't been able to keep his face up, he might have retracted to Owari or even Mino, and he didn't plan to come.

Including the retainers below, they also lack the will to fight.

This is not entirely to blame for not saving them or fearing the enemy like tigers.

In the two or three months since the start of the war in the late spring, the Oda family's direct banner has suffered a serious attrition, and the current number of troops that can be fought is probably less than half.

The ability of Owari Kunizhong is not very reliable, and the position of Mino Kunishiro is worth being wary of, and each of them has a lot of losses.

The South Omi and North Ise levels are still under pressure to protect themselves, and they can only be nominally subordinate to Oda Nobutada, but they can't actually provide a single soldier.

On the contrary, the tie also posted some people to those secondary fronts to support.

(In Chapter 50, the general who led the troops to support Kita-Ise wrote Nakamura Kazuji, but I wrote it as a public Noguchi Masato, and there was a discrepancy here.) The following texts will be unified as Noguchi Masatoshi)

In short, Oda Nobutada's situation is very bad, and theoretically, no matter how dangerous or urgent Tokugawa Ieyasu is, he is powerless and unable to help.

However, with the example of "impatience for justice and righteousness, jealousy and hatred" on the side, if you don't do anything, it will be too embarrassing!

So Oda Nobutada demolished the east wall and repaired the west wall, drew out more than 2,000 new troops, and took more than 1,000 troops from the people of Owari and Mino, and gathered 5,000 troops.

Leading the team was the only important minister who invited Ying, Ikeda Hengxing.

Then forcibly pulled Sasa Hidenari, who had just become the son-in-law of the Tie family, to be a deputy general.

In this way, whether it is taking care of each other in the battle formation, or rewarding meritorious deeds later, the tie always has to give some face.

The others stayed in Owari to recuperate.

It took two days to make this setback, so it was two days later than the tie army.

However, Ikeda Hengxing seemed to be very active in the battle, and it took only two days to catch up.

At this time, the Hirate army was facing off against Takeda's besieging forces from a distance of about 10 kilometers from Hyakuta-machi.

……

Taking advantage of this time, Hirate took the time to ask about the actual situation when he sniped Tsuchiya Masatsune.

Keer Caizang, who didn't have much to do, insisted very much on the view that "the aiming distance of the rifled iron cannon could not exceed 120 paces", and Suzuki Hidemoto also stood up under his encouragement (coercion).

Then he found thirteen or fourteen guards who were familiar with iron cannons, and made several attempts by the river.

All of them were armed with specially made iron cannons, and they fired at different distances in unison, and hung them in large bamboo baskets with a diameter of three feet as targets.

The results were unexpected.

At a distance of 200 paces, each person fired a bullet, and only one person was lucky enough to catch it to the edge of the bamboo basket.

One hundred and sixty paces, one person hit the center of the target, and one hit the outer ring to the left.

One hundred and twenty steps, there are still only three of them, including one who will rub into.

Moving closer to eighty paces, seven people finally hit the target, but more than half of them were over, and the scene was not too ugly.

In this way, Suzuki Hidemoto led people to within 100 paces and then shoot, which was indeed the right decision. As the tie said, if you are 300 paces away, the probability of hitting the lottery may be about the same as winning the lottery jackpot.

That is to say, it proves that the role of rifling is not as great as imagined.

However, Hirate saw with his own eyes that during the "Spring Field House" test, Tian Fu Jingcheng had a 70% hit rate within 150 steps, and about 30% within 200 steps, so he believed the saying that "there is still a certain possibility of hitting 300 steps away".

It's embarrassing.

Write to inquire about this immediately.

A few days later, after receiving a reply on the march, Tian Fu Jingcheng confessed that he himself had repeatedly studied the internal structure of the iron cannon, the depiction of rifling, the ratio of gunpowder, and the position of the target, and knew it all well, so that he could achieve divine marksmanship, and it was unlikely that ordinary soldiers would approach this level.

Moreover, as the champion of the "Imperial Trial", his shooting skills are indeed far beyond those of mortals.

But this is also to "show the best performance in front of the adults of the criminal department", so it can't be said to be guilty, right?

Obviously, in the era of small workshops, everyone has not yet formed the consciousness of "standard goods". Although "Springfield" is already working in that direction.

With this in mind, the draw didn't take too much of it, only mentioning that future weapon trials will require a more rigorous process, simulating the real situation on the battlefield, rather than sitting in a lab to create the desired result.

This system reform will be implemented as soon as we go back.

In any case, compared to an ordinary iron cannon that is worth aiming at within thirty paces, and fifty steps is completely dependent on the sky, it is still much better.

Suzuki Hidemoto's violation of the military order was only reprimanded and not implemented.

There was no way to fall - Ikeda Hengxing hurried up with 5,000 Oda troops and came to see him as soon as possible.

He also deliberately pulled up Zuo Zuo Xiucheng, and he didn't look at the face of the monk to see the face of the Buddha, and he only saw it.

It just so happened that the scout team that was ahead of the company turned back and found out the general layout of the Takeda army.

Now the 23,000 coalition troops under the command of Hirade, plus 5,000 Oda troops and 3,000 Okazaki troops, are located in the northwest of Hamamatsu Castle, about 10 kilometers away, backed by the Mitsugaku Mountain, which is more than 1,000 feet high, and there is a small river more than 10 steps wide in front of it.

But on the other side of the battlefield, the Takeda army not only firmly surrounded Hamamatsu, but also had the spare strength to spread out the formation, and there were troops extending out on the left and right sides, as if they had set up their pockets and waited for reinforcements from the encirclement point.

That's a bit of a hassle.

Takeda Shingen could wait for Hamamatsu Castle to run out of morale and ammunition, but Hikawa Tsunohide could not sit idly by and watch Tokugawa Ieyasu fall or surrender.

However, it is also very troublesome to take the initiative to march in, turn over the small river in front of you, and go further until you reach the sea, where there are hardly any mountains and rivers to block it, and it is a plain and a smooth road, with only small hills and streams that are very easy to cross.

This is the fertile land used by Yuanjiang to grow food.

This is where the saying goes, "The people of Mikawa go to war, the people of Toe grow rice, and the people of Suruga sing all day long" comes from this.

In the absence of an advantage in numbers, it is not wise to attack the Koshin Corps, which is known for its field combat capabilities, on such an unobstructed and smooth road.

After thinking about it, he still had to focus on off-court actions, and at the same time had to be mentally prepared that Tokugawa Ieyasu could not keep it.

Then Ikeda and Hidenari Sasa came in.

Tie Fan Xiu shared the general situation.

Ikeda Hengxing listened carefully, did not refute at all, and patted his chest very quickly and said: "But if there is a use of martial arts, please ask the Lord of the Criminal Department to order as soon as possible, the only wish of the contemptible people is to be able to take the lead and stand in the fiercest place in the fight against Takeda's traitors." ”

Pingshou Fanxiu heard it strangely, and hurriedly dissuaded: "As the lord of the 5,000 army, I'm afraid it's not appropriate for you to get involved." ”

Ikeda Hengxing shook his head decisively: "I know that the Owari army has not been able to serve the public recently, but this time we have carefully selected and asked the Lord of the Criminal Department to believe me once." ”

Listening to his words, there is quite a generous and sad song, and there is a vague death will in it.

Wen Zhiping couldn't help but marvel.

On closer inspection, Ikeda Hengxing's wounds have just healed, the placket and cuffs are still exposed with gauze, and his face is a little pale, but the whole person shows a determined and unquestionable temperament.

It's quite unfamiliar, and I don't know how to refute it.