In this battle, the Oda family won a crushing victory. From a strategic point of view, the Oda clan completed their plan to build a castle in Sumamata Castle, while also repelling the main forces of the Saito clan, making it impossible for them to threaten Sumamata Castle for a short time.

However, from a tactical point of view, the battle of Konojima can be said to be a crushing defeat for the Oda family. Oda Nobunaga ventured across the river to attack, but was swept away by the flood, and was beaten by the Saito family on the bank of the river, killing and wounding nearly 1,000 troops. If it weren't for Yu Qiuping picking up hundreds of Oda family drowning people downstream, Oda Nobunaga would have suffered heavy losses in this battle. And Kinoshita Hideyoshi's desperate counterattack did not cause much casualties to the Saito family, who quickly withdrew from the battlefield.

Talking about Oda Nobunaga's command and combat level, Yu Qiuping really didn't dare to compliment. After unifying Owari, almost every battle stumbled. In the previous Zhili Surprise Attack, he was forced to retreat after almost no results; The battle of Barrel Sasama was also an ambush by Yu Akihei, and if it weren't for the advice of Mori Shinsuke and Hattori Koheita, Oda Nobunaga would have died and had no place to be buried; After that, he also performed poorly in all the wars with Mino. The Great War of Moribe Shijo was attacked by Saito Ryuko, and it was only through the efforts of Ikeda Tsuneko and Sasa Narumasa that he was able to avoid being completely wiped out; and suffered repeated defeats when attacking Inuyama Castle; Taking advantage of the civil strife in Mino to raid Inabayama Castle, he fell into an ambush on all sides of Shigeharu Takenaka and suffered heavy losses; This time the battle of Kono Island was forced into a desperate situation by the Saito army.

In the history of Yu Qiuping's previous life, Oda Nobunaga's command at the tactical level rarely had any particularly outstanding achievements. At the time of the Battle of Kamiraku, he was crushed in strength, but in the Kanesaki Retreat and the Battle of Ogawa, he was defeated by Asai Nagamasa, and he was able to survive the difficulties thanks to the battles of Kinoshita Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu. In the subsequent battles with the Miyoshi family, Honganji, and Saga, Oda Nobunaga's command was also criticized in later generations. The most glorious battle of his life should be the Battle of Nagashino, which annihilated the army of the Takeda family. However, even in the Nagashino battle, Oda Nobunaga, who had the advantage of troops and was in a defensive posture, was suppressed by the fierce Takeda army for a time. It can be said that when it comes to command at the tactical level, Oda Nobunaga's level is far inferior to that of Hashiba Hideyoshi, who has two textbook field victories in the "Great Return" and the "Battle of Shidake".

Therefore, many people in later generations attributed Oda Nobunaga's achievements to good luck, and there is also a saying that "the weakest Owari soldier in the world" is also circulated. The title of "The Wind and Cloud of the Warring States" is also without sighs for its good luck.

However, Yu Qiuping has a different view on this. Oda Nobunaga may not have been so proficient at the tactical level, but even with frequent defeats, he was always the one who launched the offensive - and what supported him was his strategic vision that surpassed the ordinary.

He was able to start from a small place called Owari, and he seized the opportunities of the times to unify the whole of step by step. Whether it is the unification of Mino, Joraku, or the suppression of, the strategic vision of every step is so precise that there is hardly any mistake. And his excellent internal management ability, meritocracy, discernment, and innovative qualities are all reasons why the Oda family has been able to become stronger and stronger in the midst of repeated failures.

If you use the team of MOBA e-sports mobile games (i.e., dota, League of Legends, Honor of Kings, etc.) that were quite popular in Yuqiuping's era as an analogy, Oda Nobunaga is undoubtedly a team that is very proficient in line operations, economic development, dragon control, order grabbing, and tower pushing, but often does not handle the details of team battles well. However, the advantages he has accumulated through operation and development are enough to make it have a high fault tolerance rate, and he doesn't have to worry about a bad exchange ratio, and even if he is wiped out a few times, he can rely on the advantage of the defense tower to withstand it.

After this war, Yu Qiuping himself stayed in Sumamata Castle. Isolated on the north bank of the Kiso River, it was threatened by the Saito army, and it had to be heavily garrisoned. Anyway, after such a long time of business and trade, the four small wealthy families next to them have almost become close to the Yuqiu family, and it is unlikely that they will do anything with Yuqiuping, so Yuqiuping simply transferred the main force of Chang Panbei to Sumamata City, and the daily training is also placed here.

Therefore, he regretted that he could not go back to attend the celebration party where Kinoshita Hideyoshi was promoted to general. Because his performance in this Konoshima battle is enough to silence those who are dissatisfied with his "rocket ascension" in the past few years. Without Kinoshita Hideyoshi's undisputed reinforcements, Oda Nobunaga would have been defeated by the late arrival of reinforcements, as Napoleon at Waterloo had been.

And in Kinoshita Hideyoshi's letter to Yu Qiuping, the former also wrote his new name given by Oda Nobunaga in an excited handwriting when he signed the payment: Kinoshita Hideyoshi! Anyway, he is also an important member of the Oda family, and he is still called by a common name such as "Fujiyoshiro", which is a little too embarrassing. After a few years, Ashigaru, who could only snort back at the time, has been promoted to a general in a blink of an eye, and is on an equal footing with Maeda Toshiya and Ikeda Hengxing.

However, Yu Qiuping did not pay much attention to the change of position in the Oda family at the moment.

Because his plan is about to begin.

·

Yu Qiuping first sent an envoy to negotiate with the wealthy clans of Nishimino and asked if they could guarantee that the Mitsubishi caravan and the Tsushima merchants could continue to trade. After receiving the answer, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Because in the improvement plan that he discussed with Amano Keitoku, Naoe Tadahei, and Sanada Masayuki, Mino was an indispensable part. After killing Oda Nobunaga, Yu Akihei immediately fell to Mino's side and led Mino's troops to attack Owari, thus taking advantage of the chaos and expanding his strength to protect himself from being wiped out by the angry Oda family. At the same time, the Matsudaira family, who contacted Mikawa, relied on the good relationship between Yuakihei and Matsudaira Ieyasu to ask him to break the alliance with the Oda family and join forces with Yuakihei to carve up the territory of the Oda family.

And this time, he sent an envoy to ask for trade again, in fact, to test whether the attitude of the Nishimino wealthy clan towards him would deteriorate sharply because of the construction of the castle in Sumamata. Now it seems that the wealthy people of Ximino are also keeping their cool, so that his plan can be carried out.

He then began the construction of the castle tower of Sumamata Castle, and the first thing he did was to buy a large amount of raw materials.

Naturally, it was necessary to buy sufficient wood and stone for the construction of the castle tower, but the preparation of gunpowder was the most important thing. In addition to buying gunpowder from the people who were still in Tsushima and Tennojiya, Akihei also asked the Mitsubishi caravan to secretly buy gunpowder in small quantities in the Mino and Omi domains and bring it back, so that the Oda family would not realize that they were buying a staggering amount of gunpowder.

The plan proceeded in a step-by-step manner, and a large amount of stone and timber used to build the castle tower was gathered in the center of Sumata Castle. During this time, Akihei arranged for auxiliary soldiers to build a simple honmaru with a civil structure in the castle to surround the castle tower site and obscure the view. At the same time, the auxiliaries and civilians were asked to dig the foundation of the castle tower, and the excavated sand was piled on the side.

As time passed, no one seemed to notice anything unusual in Sumamata Castle. Oda Nobunaga sent envoys twice, both to ask if there were any problems with the defense of Sumamata Castle, and did not feel that there was any problem with the building materials piled up in the middle of Sumamata Castle.

Finally, when it was time for the autumn harvest, the auxiliaries, like most of the people of Owari, had just finished digging the foundation and were disbanded and went home to busy with the autumn harvest. Yu Qiu had been equal for a long time, and finally waited for this opportunity - he had a reason not to gather the people and auxiliary soldiers to repair the castle tower, but to use his own soldiers.

On August 7, the night before the rammed earth embryo, Sanada Masayuki's ninjas took a large amount of gunpowder from the Iron Gunner's training camp and mixed it with flammable materials such as cotton and straw into the sand dug up inside the Honmaru.

As for the appropriate ratio of gunpowder to sand, Yu Qiuping has done several experiments before. If there is too much gunpowder, there will be a strong smell of sulfur, and the soil embryo will not be very stable. If there is too little gunpowder, it will not explode. After many secret experiments by Yu Qiuping, he finally found a suitable ratio of gunpowder and sand. At this moment, the ninjas were mixing them into the sand and stirring them according to the gunpowder prescribed by Yu Qiuping.

During the entire process of mixing gunpowder, Yu Qiuping personally stood at the head of the city of Honmaru to supervise, for fear of discovering any accidents. Sanada Masayuki also issued a stern order to the ninjas, forbidding them to reveal any military secrets about mixing gunpowder into the sand to anyone. After the deed, these ninjas were also suspended from all activities that required them to go out, and all of them were placed under house arrest in Honmaru's barracks to prevent them from having the opportunity to reveal information to the outside world. These ninjas also knew in their hearts that it was estimated that this gunpowder plan would be a very important matter, so they did not resist much and obediently accepted Sanada Masayuki's arrangement.

After the difficult night finally passed, Yu Qiuping, who had stayed up all night, did not feel the slightest sleepiness. On the contrary, his bloodshot eyes alternately flashed with nervousness, excitement, and excitement, and his hands trembled uncontrollably. Because he understands that as long as this thing is successful, his goal of revenge is half accomplished. However, the collective rammed earth operation during the day today and afterwards is the time when the leak is really most likely.

However, there are still many worries in his heart. It's not that I'm worried about whether the plan will fail, but I'm worried about whether I should tell Kaede Imagawa about it.

She had said that she had let go of her hatred and hoped that Yu Qiuping would be able to let these subordinates who were willing to sacrifice their lives to follow her live a stable life.

She also said that she hated Yu Qiuping for burying everything in her heart and carrying it by herself, and locking her out of all problems.

She didn't want this, she didn't want Yu Qiuping to turn into a red leaf for her.

So should I tell her about this?

Yu Qiuping only felt that his brain was a mess, and his distraction made him very uncomfortable. He took a few sips of water, hoping to calm himself down and finish his next plan.