The Yoshino River originates in Mt. Bottle-no-Mori in the central part of Shikoku Island and flows from west to east into the Kii Suido, winding for 50 miles. (about 196 km) is not very long, but the water is quite wide, and the tributaries are extremely numerous, and the back and forth are turbulent and turbulent. It has brought precious fresh water resources to the island's inhabitants, as well as unbelievable flooding.

This river is one of the three major rivers in Japan, and it is not for nothing. Shikoku Island has a climate of frequent rainfall, and in the summer, the water level of the Yoshino River rises sharply, drowning houses and crops and causing flash floods and mudslides. Like a moody monarch, every three or five years, he always has to make a fuss before he stops.

But it is also impossible for people to relocate far away. All the paddy fields in Awa and Sanuki are either along the banks of the Yoshino River or along the banks of its tributaries. The paddy field can grow rice, and when the service is right, you can get one stone and two buckets of rice every time, if you open your eyes to reward the wind and rain, you are even expected to harvest as many as one stone and five buckets; Dry fields without water sources can only grow miscellaneous grains, and no matter how carefully they take care of them, it is difficult for the yield of miscellaneous grains to break through every stone.

Not to mention that the taste and nutritional value of mixed grains are far inferior to rice, and the price should be discounted.

(Note: 1 is 992 square meters, about one and a half acres; 1 stone is equivalent to 130 kilograms; Two buckets per stone, equivalent to two hundred catties per mu, was a very happy figure in the 16th century. ）

The creation of heaven and earth is both feared and inseparable, and water control has naturally become a top priority.

The dam canal project will not only help to promote production and secure tax revenue, but also gather the hearts and minds of the people. Rulers with a little brain know that water conservancy is the lifeblood of Awa and Sanuki, not to mention that today's actual talker, Shinohara Nagafang, is very shrewd and strong, far more than "a little brain".

At the beginning of his reign in place of Yoshiken Miyoshi, who had died in battle, he publicly declared: "Matters related to water control need to be reported immediately, even in the military formation!" ”

Of course, it's just an attitude. In fact, water control is a very important but not urgent task, and there is nothing worth reporting immediately except for the breach of the embankment.

This kind of thing must happen once in more than ten years.

Unexpectedly, when it happened to be against the Tie Army, there were really people who came to see him about the water control.

It was still the middle of the night.

"In this year's joint battle, my family's leaders were seriously damaged, and I am afraid that after the autumn harvest, I will not be able to afford enough people to participate in the construction of the embankment, can I ask for a slight reduction in the Youjing Palace?"

The speaker was a landsquire of Itano-gun, Awa Province, whose name was Shichijo Kanzhong, who was not yet twenty years old, and had not yet married a wife and had children, but had inherited the territory of five Zhuangzi from his deceased father.

The annual output of the five Zhuangzi is about 1,500 stones, and according to the rules, after the autumn harvest and before the spring ploughing, 30 strong men should be provided free of charge to assist in the water conservancy project, which is a feudal obligation written in the "Letters of Service".

Of course, this can be regarded as a matter related to water control, and it meets the standard of "immediate reporting".

Shinohara Nagabo stared at Shichijo Kannaka, who was sitting in front of him, for a while, and from the other party's eyes and face, it was easy to see that the so-called "can't afford the people" was just an excuse.

It is true that the land of the Shichijo family has suffered a little bit of military disaster, but it is by no means impossible to bear this little labor.

What is this young man doing to solve problems?

The easiest thing to think of is the issue of rewards for various battles in recent months, right?

That's a headache......

In May and June this year, he crusaded against the traitor Kagawa no Kei and the Oda family Sanuki Shokatsu Bee Suga Masakatsu, and in July he fought against Tosa's ambitious generation Chosō Ibu Yuanqin, and in a turn to war, Shichijo Kanesaka repeatedly made meritorious contributions.

The Kagawa family formation generation Kawada Shichiro Guard, the pioneer of the Wasuka family, Inada Saoma, and the genealogy of the Nagamune family generation Hamada Zenzo, the heads of the three enemy generals were all won by this person, and the credit is really not small.

Then, Shinohara Nagabo gave him a total of less than 100 koku of land, and also gave him 35 taels of gold in three batches.

Shichijo Kanezhong has reason to be angry about this.

Thinking that Yamauchi Kazutomi in the army on the other side of the river was only two or three generals in the previous joint battles, and the quality was not as good as the above ones, so he got a leap from 100 koku to 500 koku.

It's not a deliberate attempt to suppress the upstarts. These battles are only reconquest of lost territory, not expansion, and there are no additional territories to grant. And in terms of money, Miyoshi Nagayi occupied the treasury left by Juguangin (Miyoshi Chokei) and used it all in to make trouble, and the treasury of Awa Katsurui Castle was empty at this time, and it was already stretched thin to eat grain, and it was not easy to squeeze out thirty-five taels of gold. Thinking of this, Shinohara Nagafang has a grudge against the dead Miyoshi Changyi, but now there are too many people who need to hate, so I can only let it go first.

Back to the topic at hand.

When I dealt with the reward plan so much, it wasn't that I didn't expect the heroes to have opinions in their hearts, but I didn't expect the contradictions to intensify so quickly.

What can I do now?

The 19,000 men of the Tieshou Bunxiu were guarding on the other side, and the small group of elite soldiers of Changzong's department was ready to move behind, and the pressure was already on the verge of collapse, but the acting general of the Miyoshi Army still had to divide his energy and think about things outside the battlefield.

In the face of Shichijo Kanezhong's borrowing play, Shinohara Nagabo only felt a headache.

The big war is imminent, and we must not reprimand the number one general in the army now. It is true that there are no resources to appease it for a while.

There is no other way but to fight the mud, at least survive this draw.

"I've thought about what Shichijo-den said." Shinohara's long pondering period of time finally made a very cordial and slightly flattering gesture, "Everyone knows your difficulties, but the matter of controlling the water is really the first priority of the two countries of Awa Sanuki, and it must not be delayed. It's better to be like this - tomorrow in the New Year, how about I privately subsidize you with 300 yuan of silver? Please do not spread the word about this matter......"

Three hundred, not too much, no less.

If it is moved from the public to the private treasury, it can only be regarded as an insignificant little oil and water.

But Shinohara Nagabo is now planning to use private money to repair holes for the public.

Although he is in power, he has never shown the slightest sign of usurping power, and even strongly advocated for Miyoshi Choji to marry Nobunaga's adopted daughter. Everyone can see that Awa and Sanuki have always been surnamed Miyoshi, and Shinohara is just a retainer.

Throughout history, this move is not much worse than a rarity, if not rare.

Kanenaka Shichijo was deeply surprised and at the same time very moved. So his face was not as ugly as when he first came in.

But this does not resolve the essential contradiction.

It's not that 300 is not enough, it's not a matter of money.

I came here today not to get compensation, but to seek justice.

Faced with Shinohara Nagafang's behavior, Shichijo Kananaka shook his head disapprovingly and opened another topic: "Since the matter of water control must not be delayed, then may I ask...... Why were Kunimura Yano and Haru Morimura exempted from the labor required to repair the embankment this year on the grounds that they were able to endure the military disaster? ”

That's the point.

Leave speechless to the point.

Not only was he speechless, but he was also red-faced and self-ashamed.

Shinohara Nagafang is lacking as a leader, and it doesn't matter if he doesn't have enough wrists, but he has a conscience.

Even if it's not in person, it's still very rude to call a colleague by name, and such a choice of words and sentences shows that Shichijo Kanenaka is already very dissatisfied with this matter.

He asked a question that was not easy to answer.

Yano Kunimura and Morimura Haru are both important ministers of the Miyoshi family tree, both of whom are qualified, capable, connected, and powerful, but they don't have much professionalism and integrity.

So Shinohara Nagabo found some conclusive evidence of corruption and malfeasance, kicked the two guys out of the ranks of the "evaluation public", and asked them to leave Shengrui City and return to their hometown to become the overlord of the soil.

This is also one of the reasons why the outside world says that he is "cronyism".

In fact, Shinohara Nagabo generally has a good relationship with all pragmatic and hard-working samurai, but his eyes are completely intolerant of corpse vegetarian meals and the behavior of his hands.

So far, nothing has gone wrong.

Even Yano Kunimura and Haru Morimura themselves are more convinced. I was arrested, and the evidence is ironclad, what else is there to say? Just drove out the evaluation crowd and did not impose other punishments, it was already for the sake of the face of the two people's families to be extrajudicially gracious.

At this time, Miyoshi Changzhi, who was already pro-government in theory and couldn't grasp anything in practice, thought that he had seen a great opportunity to win over people's hearts.

The current governor of the Miyoshi family, the nominal supreme leader, secretly wrote several letters granting Yano Kunimura and Morimura some messy privileges.

This included "taking into account the losses of many years of joint warfare and exempting them from the labor of repairing the levees in winter."

The two bastards, Kunimura Yano and Haru Morimura, actually accepted it honestly and unceremoniously. The two of them had a great family and a big business, and together they were responsible for a total of 580 people, accounting for one-twelfth of the total number of people in the project.

When Shinohara's Nagabo heard about this, he was so anxious that he didn't even wear shoes, so he jumped out of the house, ran all the way to Katsurui Castle Honmaru, reprimanded Miyoshi Nagaji angrily, and urgently formulated a new verbal agreement: "In the future, all military service, military service, and money and tax reductions must be signed by the head of the family, the elders of the family, and the assessors before they can take effect." ”

However, no matter how much it is remedied, the written pleadings sent out cannot be recovered.

After all, Miyoshi Nagaji is the official governor of the family who has been pro-government, and Yano Kunimura and Morimura Harushi are important ministers of the spectrum. Rejecting the pleadings issued by the official family governor to the important ministers of the spectrum will have a great impact on the legitimacy and cohesion.

This impact is not affordable by Awa and Sanuki today.

Shinohara Nagabo can't afford it either.

He couldn't even tell the public what had happened, because that would let everyone know that our nominal head of the family had a very problematic brain, and that he had a fierce conflict with the pen head of the actual ruling family.

To put it mildly, it was only then that Kunimura Yano and Haruharu Morimura were willing to make concessions and admit that the reduction period was limited to three years.

The councillors have done their best.

The quota of 580 people can only be admitted with a hard head.

Obviously, this incident caused the other retainers to feel very unjust, and they were outraged. This is just in the past, the leader occasionally takes care of one or two related households, and the people below can only stare dryly. However, Shinohara Nagabo only promulgated the "New Addition System" two years ago, which specifically stipulated that retainers, regardless of their status, relative distance, should bear equal rights and responsibilities, and suddenly exempted from the labor of a specific person for no reason, it was completely a slap in the face.

The benefits of the Ming Zheng family law are real, effectively restraining the behavior of the retainers and maintaining top-down enforcement. But at the same time, the top level should not act recklessly, and any omissions will also be pointed out and become a handle that is difficult to justify. (This is why Nobunaga hated the testimonies.)

What's more, the person concerned is not an orthodox family governor at all, and he has no title to replace the young lord as a regent, but only after uniting the adherents and assessors with the body of the pen and the old man of the family, he forcibly became the decision-maker.

Then Shichijo Kanenaka dared to take advantage of his military exploits and went straight to the account of the acting general to ask questions.

And Shinohara Nagabo has no way at all.

Of course, the real situation cannot be made public. I thought about several sets of rhetoric before, and I thought that I could barely get through, but in fact, when it was time to confront him, I realized that I couldn't speak at all.

The only thing I could feel was a deep sense of powerlessness.

In the past two years, Shinohara's Nagabo has to deal with the sequelae of Miyoshi Nagayi's troubles, keep an eye on Miyoshi Nagaji, the bear child, try not to cause trouble, appease the retainers and countrymen who have lost the battle, deploy military arrangements for counteroffensives, and maintain diplomatic contacts with Otomo and Urakami......

Physical and mental exhaustion is already indescribable, and it may be more appropriate to run out of oil and lamps.

At that time, how did the Juguang Temple (Miyoshi Changqing) and Myokokuin (Miyoshi Yoshixian) rule vertically, so that the retainers were united and forbidden?

Sure enough, I'm still too insufficient, do I really have the ability to help the heirs of Myokokuin keep their family business? Can I beat a hero like Tieshou Tsunoshi? ——As soon as he thought of this, Shinohara Nagabo began to feel chills in his heart, his mouth was bitter, his eyelids were a little heavy, and the scene in front of him was also a little trance.

He didn't feel it himself, but his old body had begun to stagger, and he couldn't stand on his feet.

Seven Kanenaka, who came in a rage, turned into a calm question halfway through, and now it is mostly sympathy and admiration.

In the end, Shinohara's Nagabo straightened up his spirit a little and opened his mouth with a slightly pleading attitude: "Shichijo Hall...... How about leaving everything for later? What we need to do now is concentrate on this battle. I hope you will fight hard regardless of your past suspicions. ”

It's all like this, what else can I do?

Shichijo Kanenaka's loyalty was clearly not enough—at least not as far as Shinohara Nagabo, but not to the point of being completely cold-blooded.

When he saw this shape, he sighed, bowed, and promised, "My subordinates will do my best." ”

After saying that, Kanenaka Shichijo didn't want to stay any longer.

Get up, turn, step, lift the curtain, and go away, all in one go, the agility of the movements contrasts with the stout body.

Shinohara's face finally showed a little relief.

"Do what I can" is probably the mentality of most retainers at the moment. Although there are dissatisfaction and doubts, they are still willing to perform their duties and maintain a normal military appearance.

It's enough to make Tie Sho Xiu feel wary.

But the troubles of Shinohara Nagabo are not over yet.

The tiger and wolf division of the flat family is on the other side of the river, as the acting general general, how can you sleep if you don't arrange it well?

In the past few months, although the relatives of Changzong and our department have been sleeping and eating day and night, Shinohara Changfang is also dreaming of sleeping and eating at night.

Moreover, the former is only the year of establishment, but the latter is close to the sixtieth year.