After the Daishou Warden became the guardian of the Lord Izumi, the heat brought by the new official lasted for dozens of days. It was not until August 15 that www.biquge.info instructed his retainers to suspend their work and enjoy a period of leisure.

It is customary to hold the "Tsukimi Festival" on this evening, and many families use glutinous rice to make sweet white jade balls, similar to mooncakes in Middle-earth. Symbols such as lanterns and rabbit dolls are displayed at the shrine. Literate mothers also tell their daughters the legend of "The Tale of Taketori".

The Mid-Autumn Festival is not one of the grandest festivals in Fuso. But for some reason, Hirate Hasuhide attaches great importance to this, so many people in Izumi Province also pay attention to it.

During the day, a great feast was held in the city. Most of the retainers and yori were able to attend, and some acquaintances of the locals were also invited, and everyone had a friendly and lively fellowship for different purposes, and the guests and hosts enjoyed themselves.

The organization of the banquet was relatively successful, there were no chaotic shots, and the atmosphere was not depressing. The supply of materials, the management of servants, and the arrangement of the program are all quite satisfactory.

At night, the show still seems to be very interested, and all the relatives are left behind to enjoy the moon together in the palace.

It's a pity that the wives and concubines and children are far away in Mino Gifu Castle, and there is only one Ji samurai by his side to serve.

In retrospect, after that 20-day get-together in May, I was away from home for a whole quarter.

It has been three months since Hirate Hazuhide received the appointment of the guardian of Izumi, and he has finally been able to live here, and he can start to think about taking his family over.

Therefore, with a relaxed home-based mentality, Fanxiu took a closer look at his new home, Kishiwada Castle.

The fortress is built on a hill with a gentle slope, bordering Osaka Bay to the west and the main road to the southeast. Sandwiched between the two, the castle occupies the boundaries of more than 20 towns (1 town is about 10,000 square meters) and is divided into three floors from the inside out, the so-called Honmaru, Ninomaru, and Sannomaru, each separated by a mizubori.

There is no castle tower in the castle, only a two-story imperial hall. However, Honmaru is the highest, and Hirate Hoshu sits by the window and can see the beach and the street at the same time.

Kishiwada Castle is located in the center of Izumi Province and is bounded by densely populated plains with rich land, commerce and trade to the north, and undulating hills to the south.

It was clearly built for political and military reasons, rather than for business. Although there were towns in the castle, they were mainly attached to the administrative government and provided services to the samurai in the castle, and the scale was far from that of the Kai towns in the northern part of Izumi Province.

However, after the hype was made by Hirate and Kano Eitoku, there were 1,200 down-and-out art practitioners who came here to make a living, and vassal and elegant wealthy merchants also often haunted the city, and the castle had a completely new look.

In order to cater to the interest of the castle lord, the citizens of the castle town hung lanterns painted with white rabbit patterns tonight, forming a sea of silver flowers.

At the same time, the Honmaru in the castle is naturally arranged accordingly to highlight the festive atmosphere.

Honhide stared at the castle town for a while, silently counted the number of lights, and realized that the size of the castle merchants had doubled in one month, and this "political achievement" was enough to make people satisfied.

But then he turned his head away, slightly dissatisfied with the situation before him.

He looked in the direction of the bay.

In the darkness of the night, I couldn't see the situation on the water, but I could only vaguely see a fleet sailing, led by a large warship with a length of about 30 ken (about 50 meters).

Heite knew in his heart that the big ship must be hanging the military flag of the Awaji Kuniyasu house.

They even invented this kind of big ship, so it is called "Ataka ship".

Awaji Kuniyasu is a traditional pirate force in the Seto Inland Sea area. But many years ago, Miyoshi Changqing sent his third brother to Anzhai to make an appearance, and inherited the position of family governor (that is, Anzhai Dongkang); As a result, the Ataka family became a branch of Miyoshi, and it developed rapidly with the main family, eventually becoming the maritime hegemon of Fuso and the western country.

Now the Oda family has sprung up and swept away the power of the Miyoshi family on Honshu Island, but there is no time to involve it at sea for the time being. The Nine Demons Yoshitaka may be able to make a name for himself in the future, but now he is only the strength of Takigawa Kazuki, and he can only assume the responsibility of cooperating with the army to attack Ise.

And the Izumi wealthy clan that Pingshou Tsunoshu had just subdued, and there were a total of 20 boats, more than 100 small morning boats, and 1,500 sailors, which was less than one-tenth of the scale of the Awaji Anzhai house. There is not a single large warship similar to the "Ataka Ship", and no one in this group understands the relevant construction technology.

If a naval battle really starts, the other side only needs to send three or five Ataku ships as pioneers, and they will be invincible, like a tiger entering a flock.

As early as two years ago, Fan Xiu sent someone to contact the current head of the Anzhai family, Shinyasu, and has sent five envoys so far. Each time, Nobuyasu received the messenger politely, accepted the gift, and gave the gift in return, but he never made a word of promise from beginning to end.

To this day, the Ataku family still maintains an ambiguous attitude. They never launched an attack on the shore, nor did they embarrass the fleet of the Oda family's royal merchants. They do not directly oppose the Oda family, but they will still provide maritime support for the Miyoshi family's military operations.

What's more, Atakiya's Awaji sailors maintain the habit of cruising in the Seto Inland Sea and Osaka Bay. Passing merchant ships had to pay customs duties and show obedience before they could be allowed to pass.

A few days ago, the reason why Ikenaga Heihisa of the "Notokaya" of Kaicho and Red House Muneyo of "Rouge House" were dissatisfied with Oda and preferred Miyoshi was also partly because the Oda family had not yet controlled the sea routes around Kaimachi.

Nobunaga, who was far away in Gifu Castle, was out of sight and out of mind. But the close draw is close at hand, and you can feel helplessness every day.

It's just that the feeling is the feeling, but there is nothing to be done. The establishment of the navy is a long-term process, and even if you are willing to invest money, it will not be able to achieve results in the short term. And a suitable framework is needed at the moment.

Normal people's thinking may be to expand on the basis of the Izumi Army, but the draw lacks confidence in this. The loyalty and combat effectiveness of those people have not been tested, and they cannot be regarded as a reliable force for the time being.

Fan Xiu shook her head slightly, deciding to put business on the back burner for the time being.

He tasted a white jade ball made of glutinous rice at random, and felt that the taste was no worse than that of moon cakes, but the sugar was slightly more and a little greasy. Then he raised his saucer and resumed his conversation with his relatives.

The most active present was the adopted son of the eldest brother of Hinohideyuki, Keijiro Hirate. With the support of Tsunohide, he has made a lot of military achievements in recent years, and he has also gained a certain reputation in the Oda regime, so he naturally sits firmly in his position.

Now it seems that he has the consciousness of a big man, and can handle such occasions with ease. Beside him are the three of Ji Ding, Changcheng, and Changzheng.

Next, there is the fourth uncle of Fan Xiu, who passed on to Noguchi Masatoshi of another family; and the only uncle I haven't seen much.,Shengjin Sadatsune.。 Led by these two people, the Noguchi and Ikutsu families were also regarded as relatives of the tie, and were sent by Nobunaga as Yori.

This is a very common measure in the Oda family. It is necessary to play a certain supervisory role without arousing the disgust of the parties, and the candidates must of course be carefully considered.

As a samurai who rose to prominence entirely on his own merits, Hirate Hoshu was once very estranged from his family. But now that he is in charge of the Izumi country, there are places to employ people everywhere, and it is impossible to completely ignore the resource of kinship. Therefore, as long as the clansmen who are not responsible for the death of the equalizer are mostly appointed to a certain extent. Even the responsible third uncle Changcheng and his brother Changzheng were also sent to idle posts under the mediation of Keiji.

And then there's Tamaroshi Sanjoro. Normally, the family members of the side room are not necessarily considered relatives, but this merchant has always been highly valued by Tiesade.

Especially in the recent period, when Fanxiu wants to implement a series of business policies, he can't always go into battle by himself, and there must always be one or two supports, so Yuyue's status is even more important.

Despite this, the businessman-turned-Tamagoshi Sanshiro still lowered his posture very low, and he was telling a joke with a humble and even a little flattering look.

However, when Fan Xiu walked by, Yu Yue Thirty Lang immediately restrained his smile and stepped forward quickly, indicating that he had something important to discuss, and Fan Xiu immediately took him in the direction of fewer people.

This honor is not available to everyone present, including Keiji.

Walking to the quiet balcony, Fan Xiu immediately asked, "What's the urgency?" Could it be that something went wrong with the 'auction'? ”

"It's not." Yu Yue didn't have time to give a gift, but replied succinctly, "Everything will go well in the auction." It's just that I met a Nanban merchant, and the other party made a very important suggestion. ”

"Nanban merchants? Are there any special sources? Fanxiu frowned slightly, "Do you want policy support?" Now is a critical moment to build credibility, and thousands of eyes are staring, and you can't kill chickens and take eggs. ”

"My subordinates understand." Yu Yue hurriedly explained: "What the other party is providing is not a commodity, but a kind of processing technology for iron cannons. Their request was to send troops to guard the workshop and ensure that the technology was not leaked. The subordinates can't make decisions about this matter, so they can only report it to the lord quickly. ”

"The processing technology of iron cannons? Did they explain what this technique does? ”

"I've heard that the accuracy of the fired cannon will be greatly improved, but the reload speed will be reduced. The method is to carve a pattern on the inside of the iron cannon. ”

"Rifling?"

Of course, the draw is no stranger to this technique. He also tried to buy ten rifled high-quality iron cannons from European merchants at one time. It's just that rifling in this era seems to be only made by hand, which is extremely time-consuming, and the requirements for workers' skills are very high, and they cannot be popularized at all.

But just now Tamagoshi Sankuro mentioned the "workshop". Could it be that now Europeans have more advanced mass production technology? It's worth a try.

It's just that someone with this kind of technology would come to me?

Fan Xiu had doubts in her heart and asked:

"This Nanban merchant...... How did he meet me? ”

Tamagoshi replied with some surprise: "Have you forgotten that this person is called 'Raphael Castro', and you introduced you to him a few years ago, and then you introduced him to many orders from the Oda family......

Fan Xiu immediately reacted, remembering the blonde Portuguese from years ago.