With a history of 300 years, it is located at the heart of the old national road, the main point of the Tokaido and one of the largest castles in Owari Shimosa-gun. The www.biquge.info is 160 rooms (about 288 meters) from east to west and 130 rooms (about 234 meters) from north to south. There are dozens of samurai houses behind the castle, and there is a Suwa kowaku wheel dedicated to the god on the side. The main maru is separated by a wide Horizo on all sides, and only three bridges lead to the outside of the castle. In the middle of the well, a temporary yakura of civil engineering was built at each of the four corners.

Although it is on a plain, the city is clearly not afraid of frontal attacks or water cuts, and the only thing worth noting is that there are too many wooden buildings in the city, which can easily catch fire when dry.

"How much would it cost to change all the walls to stone?"

Pingshou Fanxiu muttered to himself, but was heard by Matsui Yuxian beside him, who whispered a Buddhist verse, and then immediately stepped forward to dissuade:

"I'm afraid it will take at least two thousand dollars, Your Highness thinks twice......"

"However, if the Imagawa family makes a comeback, it really needs to be repaired!"

Nagato Kawada expressed a different opinion.

Fanxiu smiled and waved his hand to stop the two, "Then it won't change for the time being, the Imagawa family won't attack in the short term." ”

The two said "yes" in unison and followed Fanxiu into the door.

Sure enough, as expected, the valuable things in the city were all emptied when the Imagawa family was evacuated, leaving only a lot of discarded furniture and weapons, which were placed in a mess on the ground. Fortunately, it was not long before I saw the dust and cobwebs that had piled up.

"That's ......," Kawada shook his head and sighed.

Fanxiu's face remained unchanged, but he kept moving forward, passing through the back door, and the two neat rows of samurai houses were facing each other. Directly in front of it is a small and simple house, and a little north is a spacious house with a courtyard, and it seems that when the castle was built, the rank of the retainers was also taken into account.

Then turning from the outside of the castle to the side, the Suwa curly wheel in front of me is quite well preserved, and the furnishings inside are even very clean, as if the Imagawa army deliberately cleaned it before leaving. It seems that the attraction of the gods is still greater than that of the worldly things.

"How much money is left in the accounts?"

Fanxiu suddenly turned around and asked.

"After the pension was distributed, the money was less than 100 yuan."

Matsui, who was in charge of managing finances, replied.

"What about the grain?"

"There are still 300 stone of new grain and 100 stone of old grain."

This is a serious problem, the new city is in ruins, and there is no extra money in hand.

"There are fifty taels of gold, do you want to exchange them?"

Matsui asked.

According to the market price, one tael of gold can be worth four yuan, and the merchant has to take a profit, and fifty taels of gold can be exchanged for one hundred and eighty yuan. It's still not enough.

"Kuro (Kawada Nagakin), bring the military service certificate. I remember that less than half of the actual military service here is available, right? ”

"Yes!"

Kawada took out the paper and replied:

"The original military service here was twenty-five cavalry, one hundred and seventy long-handled ashigaru, fifteen bow-ashigaru, and thirty iron cannons, but now only ninety-seven ashigaru, ten horsemen, and twelve bows and iron cannons are still recruited, and ......"

"How?"

"Not a single horse or cannon can be found in the city now! Not even bows and spears were enough. ”

Fanxiu nodded, his face slightly gloomy.

Located at the forefront of the battle, nearly half of the casualties were killed and wounded in the previous battles, and some of them were promoted to full-fledged samurai by Imagawa, so they ran to Suruga, and now there is a serious shortage of young men who can fight in the territory.

"Is there anything worth mentioning here?"

Fanxiu turned to look at Hattori Kotota, who had been silent. Ever since his brother had broken his arm and could no longer fight, the once active young man had become more and more silent.

"The most powerful is the former landlord Liang Tian clan, but he has been hired by the Oda Hall as an official retainer of the three hundred Guan Yulu!"

Liang Tian? I vaguely remember that he is indeed a villager here, but since he has been promoted, there must be no forces such as local snakes here for the time being. This can be said to be a good and bad thing, although there is no need to worry about someone uniting the people to do the right thing secretly, but it also loses a force that can be borrowed. After all, the combat effectiveness of ordinary peasants and soldiers is limited, and there are too few regular samurai, and these semi-professional tyrants in between are often the backbone of the feudal army.

"That'...... Xiao Fujitai, you continue to inquire about the news of this Liang Tian, and you will find a few servants and servants to clean up the city first. If there is a shortage of people here, I will go to Tsushima and buy twenty of them, and I will move in five days. ”

The two of them took their own orders.

Fanxiu turned around at this time, looked at Kawada Changqin, and said:

"Did Ning Ning find it?"

The latter shook his head.

"I don't have a clue yet."

"The Imagawa family's Ichinomiya sect is, is there any news?"

"The men sent to the Three Rivers said they had not heard from this man...... He should have died in Owari, but there is no head of him in the list of this battle! ”

"That means that Ning Ning should still be in Owari and continue to look for it!"

"Your Highness......"

Kawada stopped talking.

"How?"

"It's not easy to find a woman among the hundreds of thousands of people in Owari, and now there are a lot of things to do to move the city, and we only have about 20 people in total......"

Fanxiu's face was slightly gloomy, but after hesitating for a moment, he nodded.

"Withdraw those who have been sent to the Three Rivers! Owari's people still continue. ”

“…… Yes, sir. ”

Kawada breathed a sigh of relief and took the order.

Now by the side of the lord of the flat fanxiu, there are only four ashigaru left.

Not only are there not enough soldiers, but there are not enough retainers!

Even the horses are not enough, Xiujiang's horse has not healed after being injured, and what Fanxiu is riding now is just an ordinary war horse bought with ten pieces of silver, compared to Xiujiang, slow and clumsy, but fortunately, the temperament is not too strong.

"You two, stand guard at the gates." Fanxiu stretched out his hand and pointed out two soldiers who were slightly taller, "The other two will patrol with me!" ”

"Yes!"

The four of them seemed to feel that they were valued, and they all straightened their waists.

…………

There are a total of six villages in the territory around the city, with a number of 200 to 500, a total of 410 households, 2,300 mouths, and the output over the years can reach 5,000 stone in good years, and as many as 3,000 stone in famine years.

Of the six village chiefs, two have died in recent battles, two are missing, and the other Liang Tian has been promoted to the rank of official samurai, which just gave the opportunity for the hirato to be cleaned up, and he ordered the lords to send the annual tax directly to the city, without having to go through the process of first concentrating in the village, reducing a procedure that could be exploited, and undoubtedly greatly strengthening the authority of the lord.

The trust of the people on the border in the authorities is often not high, but when Fanxiu publicly announced that the tax would be halved for farmers who were not more than 14 or 30 years old, the people were all grateful to Dade and praised the lord's kindness. As a result, more than half of the eligible farmers were actually in the market, and the annual harvest in the collar suddenly decreased by more than 30%.

This peculiar measure might have been questioned if Imagawa had lived in Hojo, but on Oda Nobunaga's side, it was just a joke. At this time, the samurai were all desperately expanding their armies in order to achieve military success, but the only source of funds was real estate, and only people like Hisho Fanxiu, who never worried about the lack of meritorious service opportunities, dared to reduce taxes in this way.

After a parade, there were all praises, but the pan show was not happy. The actual living conditions of the war-torn people do not match what has been recorded in previous years. There is a severe shortage of ploughing cattle, and many fields can only use manpower, and even old men with gray beards and women carry ploughs on their backs.

The Owari people would not plunder their own people even if they fought a war, and Suruga was generally rich and civilized, but the Imagawa army of Mikawa and Enoe did not have any scruples. The samurai of Mikawa, in particular, were described as beasts by the villagers. Due to the lack of management, **** abduction has occurred repeatedly, and some people will even snatch ploughing cattle and slaughter them for food, which is simply an act of public anger in the world in the agricultural era.

The daily necessities of life were even more scarce, many people used ropes instead of belts, women did not even have cloth for patching, iron pots were all shared by several families, and water jugs became a luxury.

These are just hardware, and the troubles in the mouths of the villagers are not these, but the difficulty of marrying their daughters. Many girls grow up to the age of sixteen or seventeen, but there is no man of the right age in the vicinity. There was a bold village elder, seeing that this lord was kind and pleasant, and even immediately pulled out his beautiful daughter and begged Fanxiu to take her to the city, but the latter just couldn't cry or laugh.

The only thing the villagers can believe in is the Suwa Daimyo God built on the side of the castle, but the lord has only allowed them to go in to worship during the New Year and the Midyear Festival...... Fanxiu immediately came into contact with this ban. Although the Suwa Wheel is close to the castle, it is built outside, and the cards are separated, so are you afraid that people will get in? The previous ban was really inexplicable, isn't the shrine as prosperous as the incense?

The ashigaru registered in the military service, Fanxiu has also seen them one by one, their lives are undoubtedly much better than ordinary villagers, but most of them have old injuries on their bodies, their overall quality is unsatisfactory, and their equipment is even more lacking. When the Imagawa family left, they confiscated all the iron cannons and hard bows, and the rest of the people had only some bamboo-handled guns and soft bows.

It's a blue thread, but that's it!

This is still the Owari that has always been considered a granary. What kind of life do the people of those poor places live? It's unimaginable.

Fan Xiu rode in silence and drove to the last village. From the time of return, that village has a village called "Shiemon", which is quite prestigious in the village, and it seems that he is a down-and-out samurai when he hears this name! In troubled times, many unemployed samurai would rather become ronins or even thieves than return to their hometowns to farm, this Shiemon is somewhat interesting, if you are willing to actively cooperate, you can consider giving him a chance to re-emerge, just listen to the previous rumors, this person, but has always liked to go against the lord.

After walking for half an hour, when they approached the village, they first saw a huge tree, and under the tree there was a group of children, who kept picking up stones from the ground and throwing them at the tree. If you get closer, you can see several circles of different sizes carved into the trees. There was an adult sitting on the ground, pointing fingers from time to time, not as if he was playing with a child.

Is this the custom here?

Fanxiu thinks it's a little interesting, in troubled times, children's games also have an offensive flavor.

In line with the idea of following the local customs, Fanxiu drove forward and walked in front of the adult.

"O man over there! Is this a custom in your village? ”

This kind of attitude towards the common people was already kind among the samurai, after all, if they really paid attention to the equality of everyone with the peasants, it would only make the other party panic.

"No, it's just teaching them a little bit of self-defense."

The man replied subconsciously, then turned his head, looked at Fanxiu, and suddenly changed color.

"Your Excellency is the new lord, Lord Tiehand?"

"Exactly."

When the man heard this, he immediately got up, but his body was a little shaky, and the two children beside him stepped forward to support him when they saw this.

"What a faux pas, villain to participate in the tie prison adult!"

Then he greeted the group of children.

"Come and give a salute! This is the famous Tie Adult! ”

Although the attitude is very respectful, it does not have the cowardly and obscene appearance that is common in the lowly.

Such a bearing is indeed owned by a formal samurai.

Fanxiu waved his hand, signaling that there was no need to be formal.

"Why bother with the foolish boy? ――Your Excellency is the legendary 'Jinemon' who specializes in opposing the lord! ”

"In Shimohirano Shimiemon Choji! He had offended the lord before, and it was because he only knew how to whisper and did not know how to sympathize with the people. If it's a benevolent person like the Lord of the Tie Shovel, the only way to greet him is to bow down. ”

Even the Miao character and the name are in front of it, and it is really from a regular martial arts family. Is it really an unusual elegance?

Fanxiu thought so, but pretended to be puzzled.

"Benevolence? But I don't know what kind of thing I've done. ”

"Exempting half of the tax of lonely and widowed households is a rare act of benevolence and righteousness in the world!" Hirano Nagaji sighed with emotion, and then said: "In the past, Shinano's romantic Tatsumoru Kisoyoshi was an adult, and it is said that in his spare time, he would ride a horse to patrol the territory, and it seems that if the people have any difficulties, they will immediately help. Isn't it the same with the Prisoner today? ”

Fanxiu nodded slightly, and then sighed softly.

"Putting the people of the world in fire and water is a dereliction of duty for our samurai."

Seeing the poverty of the nearby villagers, this sentence is quite sincere.

"If all the warriors in the world are like prison halls, how can the people be in the midst of fire and water?"

Hirano shook his head with emotion.

It would be a little inappropriate to continue talking, Fanxiu pointed to the big tree, bypassing the topic.

"Is the self-defense technique that Emon is talking about, is it a stone throwing?"

Hirano shook his head.

"This is not a stone throwing, but a sword throwing technique that has been passed down from generation to generation in my family."

"Sword throwing?"

Fanxiu unconsciously thought of the scene of Edgeworth's murder in martial arts novels, but this plane doesn't seem to be a high-martial world?

"I beg your pardon for being ominous." Hirano saluted again, his attitude was extremely respectful, and he couldn't tell that he was a thorn in the past that led the peasants to resist the lord, "This sword is not a samurai's sword, but a ninja's shuriken!" ”

Shuriken? Could it be that this man is a ninja?

"The main family was originally the retainer of the Owari guardian of the Spo family." As if seeing Fanxiu's doubts, Hirano explained, "Later, there was a civil strife in the Sibo family, and the ancestors were affected and lost their territory, and because they did not want to leave their homes, they returned to their hometowns to work as farmers, but this famous sword throwing technique has been passed down - but although the family is proficient in sword throwing, they have not learned other ninjutsu. ”

"Well, the leg of the Emon is ......."

"This ......," Hirano smiled awkwardly, "A few years ago, the Kondo clan, the lord of the castle, heard about the reputation of the family and wanted to recruit the family. I admonished him on how to reduce the blessing of the people, but he was so angry that he broke his legs, and he was left with a chronic illness. ”

No wonder it has such a reputation among the villagers!

Although out of class, Fanxiu will definitely not support this kind of behavior, but such a character is still worthy of admiration.

Then Hirano called the two children to greet him, saying that they were his sons. The slightly older one is called Goro, and the smaller one is the same as the young name of Bunhide, which is called Hidechiyo.

Then they were asked to perform the sword throwing technique that had been passed down from generation to generation. Fanxiu was curious, so naturally he would not refuse.

The boy, named Goro, grabbed a pointed stone and stuck it firmly into the tree, then stepped back again and again, and only after reaching a distance of about twenty paces did he take out the wooden cross shuriken from his chest.

Then with a flick of his wrist, he drew an arc and knocked down the stone embedded in the tree pole.

Then he showed his ability to hit the target by bypassing obstacles.

Fanxiu nodded and expressed his appreciation, but Hirano Nagaharu was not satisfied, he asked the second son to put three targets on the tree, retreated thirty steps away and held three shuriken in his right hand, and in a very short time, fired three times in a row.

Of the two, the rest is only a fraction of a millimeter.

Then on the second attempt, all three were finally hit, and the targets were shot down almost at the same time, which shows that the trajectories and rotations of the three swords are different.

It's amazing! Although it is a little weak to use in battle formations, it can be a miracle to form a guard.

"Lord Prisoner, my eldest son is already ten years old, let him be your attendant in two years!"

Hirano pleaded, and then looked at Fan Xiu apprehensively.

The latter shook his head slightly, but Hirano's eyes suddenly darkened.

"It's the villain who has no case, please forgive the ......"

Even if he is close to the villagers and hostile to the lord who exploits at will, as a martial artist, he is always in the field and can't glorify the lintel, and he always feels ashamed of his ancestors.

Fanxiu smiled and reached out to help him up.

"If I hire you directly, your son will naturally be my retainer, so why should father and son be separated?"

Hirano was stunned for a moment, first happy, and then worried:

"But in the lower leg ......"

Fanxiu waved his hand.

"I invite Your Excellency, not only for the skill of throwing the sword, but for Your benevolence."

The latter was so moved that he immediately broke free of his support, fell to his knees again, and shouted that he had not seen the wrong person.

With just a few dollars, recruit a samurai who can teach a strange army, and who is also deeply loved by the people and can help consolidate the rule. With such a good deal, how can you doubt it?

As for the heart of righteousness...... It is undeniable that there is indeed a reason for this, but how can a person who has no other talent and role be valued?

Returning to the city with Hirano Ichi, and directly placed in the samurai house under the city, Fanxiu's mood finally improved a lot.

At this time, Kawada also ran back with a happy face.

"Miss Ning Ning has finally found it!"

His joy was not because he had found someone, but because the guys who were in charge of finding someone could finally be transferred back to use it, but Fanxiu obviously didn't care about it.

"You're doing a good job." Fanxiu smiled and nodded.

"The people involved are waiting outside."

"Someone involved?"

"It's the one who attacked the One Palace Sect and rescued the ronin of Ning Ning."

"Oh...... Nothing is wrong, right? ”

"They have already sent the head of the first palace to Cheongju City."

"Then please come in!"

After a while, I saw a middle-aged man with a short figure, walking quickly to the hall and bowing down.

"Masakatsu Wasuka has seen Lord Supervisor."

It turned out to be him! No wonder it's familiar.

PS1: Hirano Jinemon is a legendary figure, and the record is quite unsubstantial, but Hirano's swordsmanship seems to be a fact.

PS2: This person has nothing to do with Hirano Nagatai in the future Shigaku Seven Guns, but in my case, it is set as a father and son. Because there is information that shows that Hirano Jinemon's name is Nagaji, which is the same as Nagatai's father.

PS3: Masakatsu Wasuka is actually not as powerful as the legend, so I am not going to include this person for the time being. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) )