In the third year of Yonglu, March 25. When the Takeda army was the first to form Katsuyamabe and the Odawara Ise army, they recruited many of the lords of Ashigarami Prefecture, Yamanbushi, wild samurai, ronin, etc., and then prepared to attack Ashigara Castle.

At this time, not long after the light of day, when a ray of sunlight shone on the neat row of arrows of Ashigara Castle Sannomaru, a low and melodious sound of conch was heard from far and near from the plain outside the city. Not long after the sound of the conch ended, the bows of the Katsuyama army and the Odawara Ise army were desperately throwing arrows into the ashgara castle with the bow, and more than a dozen waves of ashigaru resisted the rain of arrows in the city and advanced hard and slowly, as the distance from the ashgara castle gradually approached, the ashgaru and peasant soldiers of the Geshan army and the Odawara Ise army began to die, and several samurai of the Odawara Ise army with great strength raised their swords and rushed to the front of their own army. Soon, they were shot into hedgehogs and sieves by the Okabe army archers and iron cannon ashigaru on the arrows at the head of the castle.

Soon, more than 2,000 ashigaru and peasant soldiers slowly gathered under Ashigaru Castle like worker ants. They now need to brave the rain of arrows at the head of the castle to fill in the besieged moikes they had dug up before and the moikes dug up for the outer defenses of Ashigara Castle. If you want to make the siege more efficient, you must first fill in the several heavy moikeri. However, the process of digging, transporting, and filling the soil is long, not to mention that it is still under the noses of the defenders in the city. Flying stones, rolling logs, arrows, etc., that were thrown from the castle from time to time were extremely dangerous to them.

The solution that the Katsuyama Army and the Odawara Ise Army came up with was to have Ashigaru erect a bamboo wall tens of meters long, and under the cover of the bamboo wall, the people who had been forcibly recruited from nearby could take shelter a little. Each piece of soil is escorted by several ashigaru feet and moves slowly. This tactic of filling the ground and besieging the city is the only way for the Katsuyama army and the Odawara Ise army to attack the city at the moment.

The weakness of the Katsuyama Army and the Odawara Ise Army's lack of siege equipment and their lack of good siege skills was undoubtedly revealed at this time. Under the siege of tens of thousands of troops, it was necessary to use the method of being stupid to attack the ants, block the soil and then pile up the soil into a mountain, and then climb the city wall. They didn't think of any other way, but in order to capture the only fortified castle in Ashigarami County, the Katsuyama clan even sent a hundred iron cannon ashigaru that they had spent a lot of money to the front line of Ashigarami-gun to support a major retainer, Katsuyama Motokiyo, Katsuyama Katsuzen, and others.

Under the cover of friendly forces, 100 iron guns led by Captain Genzaemon Hashimoto came to Ashigara Castle and lined up in a row of 50 people, methodically loading gunpowder, lighting the arquebus, testing gunpowder, cleaning the chamber, loading lead pellets, reloading gunpowder, and aiming and shooting. With the sound of the iron cannon of ping-pong did not cause panic among the defenders in Ashigara Castle, there will be sporadic iron cannon counterattacks on the head of Ashigara Castle, and since the iron cannon spread eastward, the Uesugi family has been equipped with a large number of iron cannons. Until now, iron artillery was not a new thing in the Eight Kingdoms of Kanto.

In order to reduce the casualties of his own people and troops, Captain Hashimoto Genzaemon ordered 100 iron cannons under his command to aim at the arrows on both sides of the Otemon Gate in Ashigara Castle and shoot at them. However, due to the performance of the iron cannon, the hit rate was low, and the initial expectation was not achieved. As a result, they were counterattacked by the indiscriminate fire of the arrows and the castle soldiers, and several of the iron artillery of the Katsuyama army were killed in three or two strokes, and the frightened Captain Hashimoto Genzaemon hurriedly ordered the iron artillery to retreat.

As far as the iron cannon equipped by the Geshan family is concerned, its maximum firing range is only about 30 meters, and the projectile deviates from the target after flying out of the gun and boring more than ten meters, and its power and impact power have also been greatly weakened. Captain Hashimoto Genzaemon made several attempts, but was fired back by the castle soldiers in the arrow turret, and nearly twenty iron cannons were killed, which made the Katsuyama army lose more than a half.

This inefficient siege tactics obviously did not work against Ashigara Castle, the first fortified castle in Ashigarami Prefecture. This siege lasted for a month, and it still couldn't take down Sannomaru on the outskirts of Ashigara Castle. With more than 1,000 defenders and more than 6,000 subjects, Ashigara Castle could not see any hope for the cage battle of more than 10,000 people, and it was a long time to wait for reinforcements, which made Okabe Motoshin a little unsustainable, once the more than 1,000 defenders were consumed, then it was impossible to hold Ashigara Castle for a long time with more than 6,000 untrained people.

However, fortunately, during the period when Otashi Motonobu was holding back the tens of thousands of Katsuyama Army and Odawara Ise Army, he had already assembled more than 15,000 troops in Minami Musashi, and he would soon be able to go out to the west.

However, the Takeda army was not idle during this time, and the Izu generals such as Yonekura Shigetsugu, Imafuku Yukiyoshi, Iwate Nobumori, and Aonuma Tadayoshi had already led 3,000 troops to the castle. Their goal was to capture Oshiki Castle and Okazaki Castle, which were important towns in the central part of the country, so as to cut off the connection between the second leader of Zen Sect and the Okabe Motonobu domain, so that Okabe Motonobu would be completely isolated.

In order not to completely isolate Okabe Motonobu, Zen Soji quickly led an army of 1,000 troops into Oshiri Castle, and moved the headquarters from Okazaki Castle to Oshiri Castle. Not only that, but Zen Soji also quickly repaired and strengthened the Honmaru and Ninomaru of Oshikiri Castle, hoping to use Oshikiri Castle and Kamosawa Castle led by Okabe Motonobu to become horns against each other.

However, although Zen Soji is a rare brave general in the Higashi-Ueno area, he ignores a problem~ Oshiki Castle is a flat castle along Sagami Bay, there is almost no danger to defend, even the water source is outside the city, and the grain stored in the city can only support more than a thousand defenders to eat for a month. Moreover, the enemy that Zen Soji was about to face was not the Odawara Ise Army, which was dominated by a rabble, but the more than 5,000 enemy troops, mainly more than 3,000 Takeda Army, supplemented by more than 2,000 Odawara Ise Army.

At the same time, Yamaguchi Echigomori, a Musashi merchant under the command of the former Odawara Ise family, spared no effort to support the Odawara Ise family and the Takeda family in order to restore the privilege of not having to pay taxes and being escorted in the coastal countries such as Musashi, Shimoso, Joso, Aimo, and Izu. After Odawara Castle was captured by the Uesugi army, he took the initiative to defect to the Takeda family, and was used by Takeda Shingen, using his identity as a merchant to collect information from various countries, and secretly establishing the Takeda family's intelligence bases in various parts of the eastern country.

Under the orders of Takeda Shingen, the Takeda family's Suruga and Enoe naval forces, such as Yoshikami Miura, Masashige Mukai, Mamoru Ita, and Mamoru Kohama, they also led one Ataka ship, ten Sekibunes, and twenty Kozawa ships to the port of Fuchu Castle to the west of Odawara Castle and Goshoyama Castle to the southwest.

On 31 March, after Ota Shimasa had already mobilized more than 18,000 troops, he still had no intention of going out of battle with the prime minister, and many military generals met with Ota Shimasa one after another, ready to ask him to immediately send troops to rescue Okabe Motonobu, Zen Soji, Asahina Taichao and other generals.

"The number of Ota Saemon Saden, the Takeda Army, and the Ichikushi in Xiangshu is increasing day by day, and if it continues like this, it will be difficult for the generals such as Okabe Tanba Mamoru and Zenbei Nakamori to continue to support each other!" Nagano Yoshimori was unable to send troops to support Okabe Motonobu and Zen Soji and others due to the need to defend the important town of Misaki Castle, but he saw that Ota Shimyoshi had already mobilized an army of nearly 20,000 and still did not have the intention of going into battle, so he met with Ota Shimitsu with Anazawa Toshimitsu, Ikeda Morishu, Yamagami Michi, and other generals, and wanted to ask him to immediately send troops to rescue Okabe Motonobu, Zen Soji and others.

"Could it be that Ota Saemon Saden intends to support his troops and prepare for rebellion?!" Ikeda Morishu was already dissatisfied when he saw that Ota was holding his ground.

"Presumptuous! If I'm ready to support myself and prepare to rebel, then why don't I do it while the Ogiya Uesugi family is at its most critical?! Why don't you take advantage of the opportunity to defect when the Odawara Ise family is strong?! Ota didn't want to wait until now, but he felt that the time to send troops had not yet come, and if the time was not ripe, it would likely lead to unfavorable factors such as the unfavorable situation of the battle and the inability to completely calm down the encounter.

"You young people just can't hold your breath, how many places in Xiangzhou are not caught in the war right now? Once our army of nearly 20,000 troops entered Xiangzhou, then the burden of grain and grass became a problem, and Odawara Castle was still a fortified city that was difficult to attack, and a large amount of grain and grass was necessary to capture Odawara Castle. If there is no grain and grass, then our army will not be able to continue fighting, and we can only withdraw to Wuzhou halfway. After that, the Takeda family will be able to successfully seize the entire territory of Xiangzhou, and then Wuzhou will have no peace. "Yamamoto Temple was disappointed with the likes of Ikeda Morishu and Nagano Yosmori.

"What Yamamoto Temple said is that we are too impatient." Ikeda Morishu, Nagano Yosmori and others were awakened after listening to the words of Yamamoto Temple Commander.