Maori Domain, Hagi Castle of Zhou Defense Province.

In August, when the harvest was assembled, the peasants in the countryside had worked hard for more than a year, and almost all of the rice that had been turned into hard work and sweat gathered here, and almost at the same time, the samurai also gathered in the feudal hall like a market, and here they received their rice.

It's a pity that since the Battle of Sekigahara, this was supposed to be a happy day, but there has never been a good time, and this year, it seems to be particularly deep and angry.

"What? It's down again! It went down last year! Will it fall this year? And it's too hard, isn't it? ”

"Yaga! Are you minions who are minions bullying our samurai family? ”

However, in the chaotic hustle and bustle, those rice shops were very disdainful of waving their sleeves like chasing flies.

"This year's rice harvest is bumper, the price of rice has dropped, and you don't like to change it in this market!"

"Baga, bitter slave pressing the road!"

Angry eyes were red, a bearded, tall, 1.6 meters of samurai even angrily wanted to draw a knife, so panicked that the rest of the samurai had to quickly hold him down, dragged him back, and in a burst of baba shouts, these samurai scattered in a chaotic manner.

There was no, looking at the samurai who were going away in embarrassment, the mustache of the rice grain tie was raised upwards in disdain, and he snorted disdainfully.

"One Three Samurai!"

It is said that it is a farmer and a businessman, but in fact, in the Wa Kingdom, the status of the samurai is also very embarrassing, the superior samurai and the retainers of the spectrum are okay, they have the knowledge of the land, belong to the big landlords, the ruling class, but the number of lower-level samurai is different, their entire source of income is to receive support rice from the shogunate or their own family daimyo.

However, rice can't be spent as money, and you can't just eat rice while you're alive, and the samurai pretend to be forced knives, and the armor and equipment you have to pay for it, and you have to dispose of rice, and the shogunate has a special kind of merchant, Zacha! The rice issued by the shogunate or the daimyo was directly distributed by Zasha, and the samurai who wanted to exchange rice for silver money were also exchanged directly from Zasha, which was the rice-based economy, and rice was used as a general equivalent.

But the troubled times are good, eating rice is the enviable and jealous privilege of the samurai, but in the peaceful years, it is not a benefit, with the stability of the society, the increase in grain production, the price of rice has naturally fallen, and the prices of other commodities have been raised, then the quality of life of the samurai will naturally decline, and the samurai are still hereditary, and they can't run to farm, do business, that is illegal, and even be sentenced to disembowelment, some samurai have to borrow from Zacha with next year's rice, But the samurai, who were hungry for interest for almost a quarter of a year, and had no extra income, could not afford to repay at all, and could only make profits year after year, and many samurai were poor except for two swords, but a big stone, and when it was cold, they would lift a stone to keep warm, and when they were hungry, they would press the stone on their stomachs to support their hunger.

is also a hardcore crop, the Eight Banners people receive hard currency silver, but there are also broken Eight Banners, and the life of the samurai under the rice standard is even worse.

Even if the samurai lived like this, among the three or four hundred thousand samurai in the entire Edo period, none of them fared worse than the Maori samurai.

It has to be traced back to the Battle of Sekigahara, although the Battle of Sekigahara was led by Ishida Mitsunari and these civilian officials, but the general of the Western Army was one of the five elders of the Mori Terumoto, the governor of the Mori family, to be honest, the Battle of Sekigahara was really not a one-sided force dump, on the contrary, as the Eastern Army actually had a great advantage, it is said that during the Restoration, the German instructor who trained the new army for the emperor saw the Sekigahara formation and concluded that the Western Army would win, and he was particularly stunned after learning that Ishida Mitsunari was the loser.

The Mori family also pressed the treasure on this, and once Tokugawa Ieyasu was defeated, the Mori family would step on Tokugawa's corpse and soar.

But here, the Maori family made a classic Three Kingdoms period Yuan Shao's problem, and refused to do a big thing, in Ii Naomasa, Fukushima Masanori and other teams fully entered the Western Army, Konishi Yukinaga, the Uki family fell into a bitter battle, sit and watch, and the famous Maori family Yoshikawa Hiroshi also secretly communicated with the Tokugawa family, and deliberately obstructed the advance of the army under the promise of the Tokugawa family to guarantee the territory and increase the seal of Kyushu, and when the other river of the Maori two rivers Kobayakawa Hideaki rebelled, the Western Army was already defeated.

However, the Maori family here is considered to have been played by the Tokugawa family, the Battle of Sekigahara has come to an end, and the hegemony of the Tokugawa family has become unstoppable, and the seal has been added? The Yoshikawa Hiroshi family was waiting with joy, but what they were waiting for was a comprehensive punishment of the Mori family, a large-scale reduction of the seal, and the Mori family, which occupied the Seven Kingdoms at the strongest time, was reduced to 365,000 koku in the two countries of Zhou Defense Nagato, and the retainers and vassals were still right, but the fiefdom Shigao was reduced by more than half, and from then on, the finances of the Maori clan did not turn over until the end of the Bakugawa period.

The lord was poor, and the money he paid was already small, and then he was coaxed down by these zacha to reduce the price of rice, and the annual silver money of the Maori samurai was as small as you can imagine.

As a result, the Mori family's hatred for the Tokugawa family was even said to be a solemn question every year when the feudal lords greeted him on New Year's Day.

"Lord, is it okay?"

The Kuroda family is an old fox, provoking them to do something to the shogunate, and letting the Toyotomi family, that is, Mao Jue, pick up peaches in the back, that is something that you don't even think about! Although the Maeda family has a handle in the hands of Mao Jue, the relationship between the Maeda family and the Tokugawa family is too close, and this time the Maeda family was disabled by Mao Jue.

Poor and hateful! Now that he has not been in contact with Mao Jue, this Maori family has naturally become the target of Mao Jue's black hands, and the samurai have just dispersed in the Tibetan store of the Zacha, and on that end, a cold triangular eye provoked a smug smile.

Put the hat back on, and the ninja leader Inoue Fujitaro quickly disappeared into the night.

In the next two days, Motoho, Chofu, Sanma, Yanagida, and a series of large and small towns under the Maori domain had samurai riots, and some samurai even rushed into Zaza's Tibetan accommodation in a rage, ordered the granary, and robbed the money, at this time, the lord of the Maori domain, Mori Moto, had just finished disposing of the battle of Kyushu, and it was in Edo Castle that he learned the news of the rebellion in the domain, and had to quickly ask for resignation from the shogunate, and hurriedly returned to the domain to deal with the affairs of the domain.

However, history is destined that the Maori family will not be comfortable this autumn.

On August 25, a lightly armed and simple team marched in a hurry on the muddy and dilapidated official roads of the Wa Kingdom, and more than 60 red cavalrymen wearing red armor looked tired from side to side, and a samurai team of about 4,500 people behind them also walked lazily with guns.

It is really called the broken house to rain overnight, in the autumn wind, an autumn rain came unexpectedly, and the sky was clouded, and in the annoying raindrops, there was a scene of thunder falling, and the sedan chair man who carried the sedan chair was violently trembling.

With a creak, the small door of the sedan chair was opened, and a middle-aged man with long hair combed and a high hat, a bit like Onmyoji Abe Harumi, couldn't help but poke his head out, glanced at the sky, and then turned his head and asked Congren.

"It's a rock flow, right?"

"Back to the lord, it's here!"

The dense rain curtain obviously frightened the middle-aged man, and he raised his eyebrows, and he waved his hand again, and commanded the servant.

"Send someone to tell the Mori Governor, Jichuan Hiromasa will not go down the same road with him, and will return to the domain first!"

"Yes, my lord!"

Under the hat, the man hurried past, and after a while, he turned around angrily.

"My lord, the people of the Maori family ignored it and left directly!"

These words made Yoshikawa Hiromasa's face also show a wave of anger, and then he let out a long sigh.

"Forget it, let's go!"

"Hello!"

The two feudal lords who were originally walking side by side parted ways, which made the team a little looser, and the pace of walking in the rainy night was even slower.

Thunder one after another, the rain ran down the crackling pond of the hat, smelling the rich earthy smell in the autumn rain, Inoue Fujitaro couldn't help but take a deep breath.

He is actually not from Nagasaki, his ancestors were born in Iga, and he is a descendant of ninjas who are rooted in Miaohong, but ninjas are not as handsome in this era as anime and movies, on the contrary, they are a group of people who have been abandoned by society, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who used Mingjiao, to turn around and completely abandon Mingjiao, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who used the ninja to take the throne, immediately carried out a purge of ninjas, and the samurai who once dreamed of knowing and doing nothing at all, many ninjas were forced to go incognito and flee to other places, Inoue Fuji, who is in the name of a wild samurai, is actually one of them.

Therefore, he also hated the shogunate, which was also one of the reasons why he did not hesitate to defect to Mao Jue.

The thunder sounded again, and the thunder light reflected the hideous face on his wet face, this is the fate of the ninja, who was used up by one lord, abandoned, and picked up by another as a cheap commodity, but struggling in it, who knows if he can become the next lucky Hattori family, Hattori Hanzo! Get out of the lowly ninja status and become a noble samurai master! At least now Mao Jue has given Inoue Teng hope.

The standard ninja masked black cloth covered his face to death, threw it in his pocket, and Inoue waved his hand forward sharply.

唰~唰唰~

The sound of rain obscured the crossbowstrings, and the exhaustion lowered the vigilance of the Akabi samurai, and when the bow and crossbow approached, they reacted suddenly, but it was already too late.

"There are assassins! Yes!!! ”

In the terrible screams, the last warning of life was issued, these loyal samurai had already turned over and fallen off their horses, fell to the ground and died, but their reminders did not buy much time for their colleagues, in the straw that had not been cleaned on the side of the road, more than a dozen short ninjas dressed in black night clothes suddenly stepped out, the sharp and short ninja knife was gently dragged from the neck of the samurai, and those samurai wearing carcass heavy armor could only breathe hard like bellows, and fell limply, bright red blood and rain intertwined, The soil was stained red.

Between the lightning and flint, the monkey-like ninja has slashed more than a dozen samurai guards in a row like in the movie, and when he reached the edge of the sedan chair, a middle-aged man wearing a princess's costume and a half-bald moon belt staggered down from above in panic, but then his heart was cold, in his disbelief, a sharp blade passed through his chest, blood drops dripping on the ground, as the blade was withdrawn, all his strength was withdrawn, the man knelt down weakly, and immediately fell to the ground.

"Lord!"

In the roar, the remaining Akabi was already angrily pumping his horse back, and the samurai of the brigade also began to outflank, looking down at the corpse, the ninja leader whistled, and more than a dozen ninjas also walked away with one blow, and once again got into the straw.

This is the legendary grass escape.

"Chase!"

The samurai roared and drew his horse forward, pulling out the bow that had become soft because of the rain, and the foot warriors were also shooting arrows forward, in the darkness, the ninja seemed to let out a miserable scream, and in the empty sedan chair, several wooden planks suddenly moved, and then turned over, and a middle-aged man who was exactly the same as the daimyo who had just been stabbed to death staggered off the sedan chair, and glanced at the corpse that fell under the knife, and the face was white and bloodless.

Fortunately, there is a shadow samurai to die this time, otherwise, it will be him who dies.

A moment later, the galloping Akabi samurai turned back again, and several round things were thrown to the ground with red marks, and several samurai who carried them immediately lifted the veil, and immediately a sturdy retainer who was extremely tall, full of 1.62 meters, with a big waist and a round waist, angrily carried the head back, and knelt fiercely on the ground where blood and mud were intertwined.

"My lord, it's from the Yoshikawa family!"

"No wonder he, Yoshikawa Hiromasa, this bastard was just about to part ways with the lord, he set up an ambush to take the lord's life!"

"Catch up and kill him!"

"Bitter slave pressing the road!"

With a roar, the samurai of the Maori family went berserk, and he was about to catch up, but at this time, Maori's sanity had not been overshadowed by fear, and he roared angrily.

"Stop it all for the governor of the family!"

"Lord!"

Looking at the angry and convulsing faces of his retainers, he took a deep breath and said gloomily.

"No words at this time! Let's go back to Hagi Castle with all our might!"

Under his scolding, the guards had to hold back their anger, mounted their horses again, and hurried southwest.

However, if it was so easy to be suppressed, it would not be an elaborate trap, and the Maori Governor and his party marched less than ten miles, and came in front of them, a swarthy army with bright torches, rushing towards the Maori Governor, the torches in the dim light of the rainy night, reflecting the pale yellow three-star flag of the Maori family, were filled with a sense of darkness.

"But the lord is in front?"

(End of chapter)