On the 10th day of the fourth month of the third year of Motokame, before the spring plowing of the inhabitants of Hokuriku had ended, Oda Nobunaga led an army of 45,000 to the north and invaded the Echizen Province of the Asakura family.

Of these 45,000 men, the proportion of peasant soldiers did not exceed 30 percent, and as long as they were arranged a little in advance, they could fight from a long distance regardless of the season.

The Asakura family is different, although their maximum mobilization force is about 50,000 people, but less than half of them are really reliable and can be counted on. The rest of the peasant soldiers, poorly equipped, demoralized, and having to take care of the fields, are temporarily useless.

Of course, with the grace accumulated over the past hundred years in the Echizen country, it is not impossible to force the peasants to fight, but it will greatly prolong the time required for recruitment and assembly, and it will also have a great impact on the agriculture in the territory.

On the same day, the Oda army began an attempt to attack Kanesaki Castle.

Mori Kosei was in the north, Niwa Nagahide was in the south, and Takigawa Kazuki was in the east, and there was no way to attack from three directions at the same time, except for the sea in the west.

At first, it was a surprise and achieved certain results. The Taoist Qing Shilang and the Taoist Zhu Shilang brothers of the Sen Kecheng Department joined forces to connect and obtain the three generals and ascend to the city; Niwa Nagahide's subordinate Mizoguchi Seikatsu led a hundred men with gunpowder and took advantage of the night to launch a sneak attack and blow up a smaller side gate; The Takigawa family's Shinooka Taiemon made a feint frontal feint, covering Kiquan Tadasumi to dig a tunnel, bypassing the outer wall and leading straight to Sannomaru.

However, the guard general Chaocang Jingheng was not flustered, the soldiers came to block, and the water came to cover the earth. First, he personally led the troops to counterattack, drove the attackers out of the north wall, and then blocked the bombed south gate with boulders and sandbags prepared at a high place, and then suddenly filled the east tunnel with the seawater in the ditch, drowning more than 100 people of the Takigawa army.

As a result, the temporary commander of the front, Niwa Nagahide, judged: "The Tsuruga defenders are excellent and should not be neglected!" The assault was suspended.

In one day's effort, the Oda family lost five or six hundred soldiers in vain, and the defenders suffered less than 100 casualties, which was negligible.

On the evening of 11 April, Nobunaga personally led the main force of the Chinese army of more than 20,000 men, together with Hirate Honhide, Ikeda Tsuneko, and Beeya Yoritaka, to the vicinity of Kanesaki Castle and stationed themselves outside the town of 30 (about 3.3 kilometers).

The next morning, Niwa Nagahide and Mori Kosei moved northeast to prevent the enemy's main force from coming to help.

At the same time, Ikeda Tsuneko and Hori Hidemasa brought thousands of men and horses, raised the banner of the Asakura family, disguised themselves as reinforcements, and feigned an attack on Takigawa Ichiyibu, in an attempt to deceive the defenders of the castle.

The guard general Chaocang Jingheng climbed high and looked up, and saw that although the two armies were mixed, the banners were not chaotic at all, and judged that there was fraud in it, so he strictly guarded the door and ignored it.

On the night of the 13th, Ikeda Tsuneko and Hidemasa Hori repeated their old tricks. They drove wild boars and elk nearby to create chaos, and then led their troops to the gate, claiming that reinforcements had arrived, and demanded the opening of the city.

Through the torches, Chaocang Jingheng heard that the noise did not seem to be fake, and saw that the army under the city was defaced, describing fatigue, and slightly convinced, but he was still cautious in his heart, and he first had to send someone to hang the rope to go out to interrogate, and he was willing to go out of the city only after the right caliber.

Repeated inquiries, tirelessly, even though Nahori Hidemasa is smart, he can't always cover everything, and finally shows some flaws.

Asakura Keitsune immediately decided that this was not a friendly force and ordered a fierce fire downward, and Ikeda and the others could only flee in confusion.

On the afternoon of the 15th, Nobunaga ordered Nonomura Masanari, Inatomi Hidekatsu, Ito Nagaga and other guard generals to attack with 6,000 elite banners, while Takigawa Kazuki and Bee House Yoritaka met on the other two sides, and fought until sunset, but they still could not be defeated, and the loss of troops was close to 2,000, but they also killed and wounded hundreds of defenders.

And Hirate Hirate Hirahide personally went into battle, and Hirate Hideyoshi, Nakamura Kazuji, Honda Masashige and others, lightly dressed, only took more than ten people to explore the nearby mountain road, and found that Honmaru, who was high in the middle of the peaks, had no way to go up, but there were two rugged mountain roads that could go around behind Honmaru and lead to the port to the west.

At this time, the news was received that on the side of Ichijoya, it was finally decided that Asakura Jingjing, as the acting commander-in-chief, would lead 20,000 people to support Kanesaki Castle.

But the man was very slow, and at the end of the day he only walked 130 towns (about 13 kilometers) before he began to rest.

On the evening of the 16th, the Oda ninja accidentally captured two plainclothes envoys of the Asakura family, and found a letter from the wax pills, which said, "Reinforcements will arrive soon, please hold on."

Hori Hidemasa immediately asked people to forge a letter on this basis, changing the text to "Reinforcements are coming in the early morning of the 18th, please send someone out of the city to answer, and the inside and outside should be combined." Then they were sent to the city.

Asakura Jingheng was extremely hesitant, and he still felt that it was inappropriate in his heart, but he recognized the "reinforcements" as the enemy and pretended to be the enemy twice in a row, which had already made his subordinates very dissatisfied and damaged their morale, so they did not dare to continue to insist.

Although he is the grandson of the "Northern Army God", his status is noble, but he is not the eldest son, he has been a monk since he was a child, and he only took over because of the death of his brother, and it was only five years after he walked out of the temple. This time was only enough time to study the military science handed down by his ancestors, but it was far from enough for him to learn the political methods of deceiving the upper and lower levels.

Therefore, he easily lost the central right to speak, and only inherited the position of the family heirloom Tsuruga Gundai, and the five thousand soldiers under his command, although they obeyed his grandfather's orders, were always dissatisfied.

After thinking about it, Asakura Jingheng decided to believe this secret letter for the time being, but when receiving the "reinforcements", he lined up a lineup of sparse front and back secrets, and ordered Ueda Kikatsu and Akaza Naonori to take only a few old and weak, but they gave more flags and torches, pretended to be a large army, and went out of the city first, while the main force was on guard in the rear.

Ikeda Hengxing and Hori Hidemasa were very excited when they saw that the plan had succeeded, and when the "main force" of the defenders was deceived out, they changed their banners and cooperated with Takigawa Kazuki and Beeya Yoritaka on both sides to cover up the past.

Unexpectedly, Asakura Jingheng had already prepared, held the city gate, and did not let the Oda army fish in troubled waters, only losing two subordinates and more than 300 miscellaneous soldiers.

Fortunately, Heide took advantage of the chaos to attack, climbed over the hilly paths, personally led 500 soldiers, carried fire oil and dry firewood, bypassed the city wall, smuggled to the port under Kanesaki Castle, and burned the wooden wharf.

As a result, although the defenders still have more than 3,000 fighting strength, their morale has gradually declined.

From Ichijodani to Kanegasaki, it's only a three-day journey at most. But Asakura Jingheng has been on guard for nine days, but there is no sign of reinforcements.

Even if it takes time for the army to assemble, at least call someone to come over and send a message to calm the army's heart!

- Of course, it's not that the Asakura family didn't send anyone at all, it's just that the defending army was made by the true and false things, and unless they saw Asakura Yoshikei coming in person, they felt that it was a trap.

After another two days, reinforcements finally made a move.

Asakura Jingjing led more than 20,000 people, dragged and dragged his feet, and barely walked to about 100 towns (about 11 kilometers) away from the Oda family, and across a river, he began to build fences and dig trenches, and did not advance again.

Niwa Nagahide and Mori Kecheng did not receive the order, so naturally they did not take the initiative to attack.

The people were already uneven, the struggle was fierce, and with the lessons of the previous one, it was obvious that it was difficult for the Asakura army inside and outside the city to establish a full relationship of trust.

On the one hand, people are panicking because they don't know where the reinforcements are, and on the other hand, they don't know whether the city can still defend and hesitate.

Beginning on 20 April, the Oda family concentrated nearly 1,000 large-caliber iron cannons and began to attack mainly with intimidating fire and white soldiers charging as a supplement.

Three days later, Nobunaga reviewed the situation and sent Takei Yuan, who had known the defender Asakura Keiheng, to knock on the door in front of the castle to persuade the defender to surrender, promising to give twice as much as Zhixing and marry his adopted daughter to his son.

Asakura Jingheng categorically refused this, and politely but decisively sent him out of the city.

However, Naonori Akaza, the defender of Sannomaru in Kanesaki Castle, thought that his younger brother Naoho Akaza had been abandoned and died, and was very angry, so he immediately secretly hooked up with Takei Yuan and surrendered voluntarily.

Next, the remnants of the defenders felt that the general trend had gone.

In desperation, Asakura Jingheng proposed a plan to hand over the city, cut his stomach, and spare the lives of the defenders.

Nobunaga readily agreed, and announced with extra generosity that Asakura Keitsushi himself could leave safely.

If you think about it carefully, this enemy general has an extraordinary background, has certain abilities and ethics, but is widely excluded, rather than let him die in the city and achieve a name of loyalty, it is better to put it back, maybe it can further deepen the internal contradictions of the enemy?

simply made a sufficient gesture, and when Asakura Jingheng led the troops to retreat, he let Hirata Honhide come forward to say goodbye in front of everyone: "In the future, if your Excellency feels that there are too many disturbances and constraints in Echizen, and it is difficult to stretch your talents, you might as well come to Oda's house to have a look." ”

It may be useless to ask ordinary people to say this.

But Asakura Keiheng was so moved that he was about to shed tears when he saw that the world-famous Oda Danmasa and the affairs of the peace were so eager and reasonable......