Just when Li Chenfang was busy forgetting the punishment of the volunteers, Kataoka Saemon arrived at the west gate of Sannomaru before noon in plain clothes.

With the connivance of Li Chenfang, the volunteers who participated in the Honmaru celebration banquet yesterday had already spread the news of the punishment received by Kataoka Saemon and others.

For the ordinary townspeople in the city, what they are most concerned about is whether the ruler who seized the city after such a turmoil yesterday has the will and ability to restore order in the city.

Li Chenfang's punishment of Kataoka Saemon and other volunteers, as well as the Anmin notice posted by the former Maemachi commissioner Mizuno Nobuko himself, finally made the originally panicked townspeople see hope and began to slowly feel at ease.

Before noon, the townspeople of the castle rushed to the west gate of Sannomaru to see for themselves whether the new lord of Osaka would really punish Kataoka Saemon and others.

Seeing Kataoka Saemon appear on the streets of Hirano in plain clothes, the townspeople finally believed the rumors. It was also at this moment that many people began to believe that the content of the Anmin notice posted in the morning may not be fooling them.

Li Chenfang stood on the castle tower and looked condescendingly at Kataoka Saemon, who came according to the agreement, and couldn't help but admire a little.

In the white stone-paved garden, there are three straw mats lined up side by side, and this is the seppuku place for the three Kataoka Saemon. Compared to Kataoka Saemon, who had a calm face, the other two couldn't even stand on their feet.

Li Chenfang didn't give instructions to start for a long time, and he thought for a long time before he asked Kataoka Saemon unhurriedly, "Have you already arranged what happened after your death?" But what are your last wishes? ”

Kataoka Saemon looked at the onlookers behind him, and did not complain, but calmly said to Li Chenfang: "The sinner's aftermath has been properly explained, and there are no unfulfilled wishes. ”

He paused for a moment before he sighed and said, "It's not so much a last wish as a little regret." If the adults had understood the righteousness earlier, sinners would not have committed such sins..."

Li Chenfang looked up at the onlookers and found that most of them showed unbearable expressions, he thought for a moment again before asking, "You can come according to the agreement, but you can be regarded as a good man." But why don't you run away? Outside of Osaka Castle, it is not our army's territory. ”

Kataoka Saemon was silent for a moment and then said, "It is already a big deal for a sinner to betray righteousness, and if he steals his life for his own sake, he will also involve his siblings and break his agreement with adults.

What will be the face of sinners in the future, living in the world under the name of Kataoka Saemon. Instead of living incognito for the rest of his life in the future, it is better to die a vigorous death as a samurai today. At least, in the future, people in the world will know that I, Kataoka Saemon, am not a villain who is greedy for life and afraid of death. ”

Li Chenfang looked up at the cloudless clear sky, but thought in his heart that today was really not a good weather for killing.

Li Chenfang lowered his head and looked at Kataoka Saemon for a long time before he said, "To have such an understanding is worthy of the name of a samurai."

I have no right to forgive you in the face of righteousness. But since you can maintain your character as a samurai until you die, I can give you a more honorable way to die.

Hyogozu is an important town on the streets of Saikoku and an important port. Most of the Choshu Expeditionary Army led by Abe Masaji was stored here, and many of them were shipped from Osaka.

Kataoka Saemon, would you like to recruit volunteers to take Hyogo Tsu and alert Osaka to the movement in the direction of Nishikoku? ”

Hearing that Li Chenfang had the intention of pardoning Kataoka Saemon, and without waiting for Kataoka Saemon to reply, Gorou Saemon and Ishida Kishi and the two immediately shouted and expressed their willingness to go to Hyogo.

Li Chenfang glanced at the two of them contemptuously and said, "Not everyone can get this kind of glory, you two better not tarnish the reputation of the samurai, and honestly accept the punishment of seppuku." ”

After hearing this, Kataoka Saemon, who was still hesitating, finally replied to Li Chenfang: "Sinners are willing to accept the good intentions of adults, and if they can't capture Hyogo, sinners will never survive Osaka..."

Li Chenfang nodded to him, then motioned for the guards to take him aside, and then ordered Gorouzaemon and Ishida Kishiwa to start seppuku. It was also the first time for Li Chenfang to see the punishment unique to samurai, and he had always been very suspicious of how these two samurai who were greedy for life and afraid of death were going to complete the punishment of seppuku.

In the end, he realized that the so-called seppuku was nothing more than a ritual, and the two samurai simply took a short knife and made a cut in the abdomen, and then the wrong person swung the knife and cut off the heads of the two of them, completing the seppuku punishment.

Li Chenfang watched the whole process expressionlessly, and asked the family members of the samurai who were crying and crying to come forward to collect the corpse, and then retreated to the castle tower. Zheng Xiang, who was following him, asked, "Is it really good to let that Kataoka Saemon go?" Do you really want him to take people to attack Hyogo? ”

Li Chenfang replied: "The point is not to attack Hyogojin, but to take this opportunity to transport part of the gold and silver deposits in the treasury.

I'm going to let them take a ship to attack Hyogozu, and the more than 110,000 taels of gold in the Honmaru vault are all shipped out under the guise of military supplies, and as for how much silver can be transported, it counts. Otherwise, we have no excuse to transport things to the docks..."

Zheng Xiang's eyes suddenly lit up, and the Japanese calculated more than 110,000 taels of gold, that is, more than 44,000 taels of Chinese gold. If you add silver, you can ship about 200,000 taels of gold and silver.

Osaka is the only commercial city in Edo and Kyoto, and the wealth of the city in Japanese terms is no less than 800,000 taels of gold, most of which is in the hands of the shogunate and a small half in the hands of Osaka's wealthy merchants.

Of course, in the Chinese way, I am afraid it is not worth so much, after all, except for gold and silver, other goods are not worth so much in China. The price of grain alone, calculated at 3 times per stone, is already three times that of China.

Therefore, only gold and silver are the wealth that Zheng Xiang and others can look up to. Hearing that he could use this opportunity to smuggle the gold and silver in the vault, Zheng Xiang agreed with Li Chenfang's disposition of Kataoka Saemon. Then they turned back to the question of how to train the army to resist the shogunate's counteroffensive.

Just as Li Chenfang and others were organizing the defense of Osaka Castle, rumors that Osaka Castle had been taken by His Royal Highness the Great Commander Yan Zhongzhong also spread to the surrounding areas of Osaka Prefecture along with some officers, soldiers and merchants who had escaped from Osaka Castle.

If you want to say that the fastest to receive the news, it has to be Tokugawa Yorinobu, the lord of the Kii domain who lived in Wakayama Castle. Tokugawa Yorinobu was the tenth son of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was originally enshrined in the Hitachi-Mito Domain, near Edo, and then in the Junen Domain, which received 500,000 koku.

However, after Ieyasu's death, at the behest of the second shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu had to take the initiative to transfer the title to Kishu, where he received 370,000 koku from Wakayama, plus a total of 555,000 koku from Ise, Matsusaka, Kii and other places.

However, although the Kii domain encompasses most of the Kishu Peninsula, it also threatens the Kii waterway, and is known as the key point of the western country. However, it is a barren mountain range, and 70% of the domain is mountainous, except for the Wakayama Plain in the lower reaches of the Kigawa River and the narrow area around the mouth of the Arita and Hidaka rivers.

Compared to the Junyuan area, which is located on the passage between Kyoto and Edo, it is like moving from the city to the countryside. And the so-called 555,000 stones are also imaginary. The people here are poor, the mountain people are fierce, and the Warring States period is known for the frequent riots of the countrymen. The people here are comparable to the docile people who have developed and matured the fields of Junyuan. Of these 555,000 stones, it would be good if Tokugawa Yoshinobu could control half of them.

Tokugawa Yorinobu, who was dissatisfied with the result of the resealing, couldn't help but be much more irritable when he first arrived at Wakayama Castle, and he was often beaten and scolded by his retainers. In Tokugawa Yorinobu's view, the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada, said that he wanted him to monitor the movements of the capital and the western country nearby, in essence, he wanted to trap him in the remote countryside of the Kishu Peninsula and keep him away from Edo, the power center of the shogunate.

The reason why Tokugawa Hidetada was so wary of this younger brother was not only that Tokugawa Yoshinobu was deeply loved by Ieyasu, but also loved Confucianism, and was deeply praised by some Confucian scholars, such as the Korean scholars Li Meixi and Li Rongzhen who were captured by Japan, and the Japanese sinologists Nagata Yoshiki and Arakawa Keimoto.

After the Osaka Summer Battle, peaceful rule of the world became the consensus of the shogunate. And how to govern a peaceful Japan, learn from the Ming Dynasty Confucianism, the most popular doctrine of governance in Edo. Tokugawa Yorinobu's excessively high prestige among Confucian scholars was clearly detrimental to the political interests of the shogunate in promoting Confucianism.

Therefore, sealing it far away to the Kishu Peninsula was also a move by the second shogun to stabilize his own power. However, for Tokugawa Yorinobu, being driven to the countryside of Kishu has always been a thing that makes him haunted. Therefore, he had been hoping that Edo would be able to make some joke and let him vent his grievances.

Tokugawa Yorinobu, who had been in Kishu for nearly 12 years, from the time he came to Wakayama Castle in the fifth year of Motowa, finally waited for this opportunity. Tokugawa Yorinobu, who met with Shigesumi Sakai on the surface, not only did not feel angry about the fall of Osaka Castle, but felt a burst of joy in his heart.

Looking at Sakai Shigesumi, who was crying to him with a dirty face, Tokugawa Yoshinobu finally couldn't listen anymore, he coughed heavily and said: "Sakai, you lost Osaka Castle, you didn't go to Kyoto to ask Lord Itakura Shigemune for help, what did you do when you came to me crying?" ”

Sakai Shigesumi lay on the ground and said with a sad face: "Lost Osaka Castle, the sinner is really unforgivable, and he should have gone to Kyoto to ask Lord Itakura Shigemune for his guilt."

But the fall of Osaka Castle this time is really not because the sinners are ineffective in fighting. Who would have thought that His Royal Highness Tadacho would be so bold and send troops disguised as shogunate soldiers to raid Osaka Castle.

If he went to Kyoto to confess his guilt like this, wouldn't he have committed the crime of rebellion of His Royal Highness Tadashi. Although the sinners were willing to be punished by the shogun, they did not dare to trap the shogun in injustice, which became the beginning of the shogunate's fratricide. At this time of turmoil, we can't let those Western daimyo see the jokes.

When I was in Edo, I had heard of the prestige of His Royal Highness Kishu for a long time, and I thought that this matter was not for His Royal Highness Kishu, and there could be no best of both worlds. He asked His Highness Kishu to come forward and persuade His Highness Tadacho's subordinates to surrender Osaka Castle and go to Edo to confess to the shogun. Then the scourge of fratricide in the shogunate can be solved, and His Royal Highness Kishu has also saved the reputation of the shogun and the life of His Highness Tadashicho..."