"Report to the lord, when Lord Beesuka led the army to attack the city, the enemy suddenly had an army from the east and west, with two thousand people on each side, and Lord Wasuka hoped that the lord would send reinforcements as soon as possible.!"

When the clan heard the news, he couldn't help but be stunned, where did the enemy's 4,000 troops come from? He has been sending people to keep an eye on the enemy's coalition forces in Takatori City, if it is mobilized, it is impossible for him not to know the way, could it be that the Asai family has concealed its strength, and the elite under its command is not 7,000, but 10,000?

This is impossible, the Asai family is only in Kita Omi, and it is not easy to hide the four thousand elites, if so, I am afraid that I have already obtained the news, so could it be that these four thousand elites fell from the sky?

The clan clan thought that the other party had transferred all the elites in the west, after all, Asai Nagamasa had always been hesitant and very cautious in the heart of the clan, but it was precisely because of this that Asai Nagamasa suddenly took a risk, but it was so difficult to prevent it, and now the front-line war is tight, and there is not much time left for Shizong to think about it, so he did not continue to analyze, but immediately ordered Maeda Toshiya and Watanabe Moritsuna to lead their cavalry forward.

The rest of the assault ninjas are scattered around, gathering the Sakuma army that has been defeated and retreated, and the city of Isono Masato saw that the ninja army outside the city has no signs of retreat, and he can't help but feel anxious, he knows that there are more than 9,000 people in the enemy's army along the way, and the enemy who participated in the siege just now is only 7,000, that is to say, the enemy can at least use 2,000 troops to help, once the enemy arrives, then in the case of a comparable number of people, the defeat must be the family, and if the army outside the city is killed by the enemy, Then there are only less than 2,000 people in this city to defend, and it is impossible to stop the enemy's attack, so it must be before the enemy's reinforcements arrive. Kill the enemy outside the city first, only then can the city be held.

Thinking of this, he gritted his teeth and left only two hundred people to defend the city, and he immediately went out of the city with the remaining 1,500 people to fight against the Gao Ninja Army. If the Asai army only attacked from two sides, then the Takayama family ninja army could barely resist, but when Isono Yuanmasa led 1,500 troops from the north to surround them, they couldn't resist it, no matter how Wasuka Masakatsu stopped it, they couldn't stop the retreat of the army under his command.

Although the cavalry of the Takayama family is fast. But when they arrived, it was already too late, and Isono was afraid that the city would be lost, so he didn't lead the army to pursue at all, so the mountain cavalry had to retreat with the ninja army.

The first battle was won by the Asai army, but the situation was not optimistic, the defenders of the city were already small, and the losses in this battle were heavy. Therefore, after returning to the city, the number of defenders in the city had dropped from six thousand to five thousand three, so that they would not dare to leave the city easily.

On the side of the Gaoshan Clan, although the losses were equally serious, after all, the number of people was already more than the opponent, but it was also within the acceptable range. Especially the Sakuma army that retreated first, they were all defeated and retreated to the south, and there was the Takayama army's convergence, plus it did not fight with the enemy for a long time, so the number of losses was not as large as the ninja army, if all of them were counted, the number of Takayama Sakuma army was still 9,000 people, and in terms of numbers, the two armies did not distance themselves because of this battle.

Although it is said that the Takayama clan side lost, it was actually a draw. Neither side was able to achieve its goal.

The day after the end of this battle, the clan clan finally figured out that the four thousand Asai family elites who suddenly killed were transferred from the Western Front while they were free, and only the peasant soldiers were left in front of the Shibata Katsu family, and the clan sect received this news. Can't help but be anxious, now he finally understands the enemy's intentions, obviously, the other party wants to block this way of attacking at the same time, put the Shibata army into the territory, so that after the Shibata army is defeated, and then lead the army to fight with him, I have to say, Asai Nagamasa is really calculating, he can use the advantage in numbers to make up for the lack of combat power, and if you want to crack the enemy's strategy, then there is only one way, that is, your own side must also speed up the attack.

So on the second day after this battle, the clan sent troops to attack Isono Yuanchang, but because the defenders in the city increased from two thousand to five thousand, but the city was so big, the number of attackers could not be increased, and the elite combat power of the Asai family was not weak, so for a while, it was not easy to capture the city, and the clan saw that the city could not be attacked, so he wanted to use the plan to break the enemy, but no matter how he used the enemy, he just couldn't hold out, and he also used the method of stealing the city with the ninja army, and the number of defenders in the city was enough to defend all sides, Even if he sent the three hundred assault ninjas of Kotaro Kazema into battle, they also failed to succeed.

Of course, if you use extreme methods, you may be able to break through the city in a moment, after all, the three shinobi who came with the clan this time are not decorations, let them assassinate the enemy guards, they can definitely do a heavy blow, but not to mention that Fujido Takatora and Wakisaka Yasuharu in the city are both retainers they will recruit in the future, and they can't start at all, and although the clan is not as paranoid as Yama Yama Changjing, he also disdains to use this method on the dignified battlefield, before he was just a retainer of the Oda family, It doesn't matter how much nonsense he has, after all, there are not many people who pay attention to him, but now he is the lord of a country, every word and every deed represents the image of the Gao Shan family, and has attracted the attention of countless people, even if it is a sneak attack that has the spirit of bushido, he rarely uses it if it is not at the time of Guan Jian, let alone sending someone to assassinate the enemy's main general.

Since the enemy can't live or die, he thought of attacking in batches, but the number of defenders in the city is also quite a lot, if he adopts a batch attack, the enemy can also defend in batches, it is estimated that the effect is not large, the clan believes that if there is more time, there is no problem at all to capture this city, even if it is only besieged and not attacked, the enemy will completely collapse because of the lack of food in ten days, but the problem now is that there is no extra time left for himself, if the city cannot be broken within two days, then it will be difficult to catch up with the footsteps of Shibata Katsuya.

Is it possible to break through Takatori Castle in two days, at least for now, there is none. Therefore, after the first attack of the day, the clan immediately ordered people to go to the western front and ordered Shibata Katsuya to suspend the attack.

Shibata Katsuie doesn't look at the single leader of the first army, but he, like Sakuma Nobumori, also fought as a lieutenant general. So although he is the father-in-law of the clan, he will not be polite in the face of the great enemy, after all, it is related to victory or defeat, and the life of his father-in-law. Therefore, the tone of the clan is very strong, for fear that Shibata Katsuya will be confused by the enemy for a while, and disobey the situation, if he changes to attack other forces, when his order arrives, Shibata Katsuya will be dissatisfied. But he will also act according to orders, but now for this Asai family, it will be very different, the clan clan did not take into account the Shibata Katsuya's hatred for Asai Nagamasa, and it was in a good situation, if the Shibata Katsuya could follow the orders of the clan. That's weird.

Five days have passed since Shibata Katsuie's army, and the first two days were blocked by the attack, and there was no substantial progress, but it caused it to lose some troops, but although the attack was blocked, Shibata Katsuie did not feel annoyed at all, because he knew what to do. If we only wait for tomorrow to launch a non-stop attack on the mountain castle of Sawa, then I am afraid that it will not take a day for the defenders in the city to collapse.

What he didn't expect was that the second person was about to lead his subordinates to attack the city as soon as it was dawn, but he found that the elite of the Asai family in the city was gone, and some were just a few low-level samurai leading three thousand unclothed and armless peasant soldiers armed with bamboo guns and wooden sticks on the city wall.

Shibata Katsuie's resourcefulness is indeed a little worse, but he is not a fool. He thought that there must be an ambush in the enemy's arrangement, after all, Isono Yuanchang had already learned the combat power of the army under his command, and it was impossible to send only peasant soldiers to defend, and doing so was no different from giving the city directly to himself. And he didn't think that it was the elite of the Asai family who escaped in the night, because he thought that if he escaped, then how could the peasants in the city stay here.

But he didn't know that the elite of the Asai family had indeed evacuated the city, but because they were too secretive, these peasants didn't know the way at all, and these low-level samurai were constantly bewitching, so they also settled down and waited for the Shibata army outside the city to ambush.

When Isono Yuanchang evacuated, he didn't think about taking the peasants with him, so that he could make the Shibata army's attack faster, but if it was too easy, who knew that he would not become cautious, so he still didn't dare to do so.

After seeing that the situation was different, Shibata Katsuya immediately sent troops to search in all directions, and after confirming that there was no elite of the Asai family within a few miles, he launched an attack on Sawa Mountain Castle with peace of mind.

The peasants and soldiers in the city are all improvised patchwork, in front of the wolf-like Shibata army is like a lamb, from the Shibata army to the city was captured, it only took a meal in total, if it is normal, even if the city is full of peasant soldiers, but after all, there are three thousand people, at least can block the Shibata army for an hour or even longer, but those low-level samurai who stayed in the city already knew that their task was not to fight with the Shibata army, and it was just a pretentious to stay in the city to resist, So as soon as the Shibata army attacked, they opened the back door, and they didn't know where to throw, and those peasant soldiers saw that the samurai had already run away, and there was no reason to fight with the Shibata army, so they couldn't take care of the enemy, and when the samurai ran, they threw down their weapons and ran towards the back door.

Before all the troops under Shibata Katsuya entered the city, there was not a single defender left in the city.

Even the time for this meal, most of it is used to drive away the ashigaru. Shibata Katsuya didn't think much about it after capturing Sawa Mountain Castle, even if there were elites, the enemy would not be able to survive today, and in his opinion, it was the wisest choice for the Asai family elites to flee at night before their army attacked again.

In the following two days, basically every day, he was able to capture at least three cities, as well as several small fortresses, and the speed of basically capturing the castle did not take half an hour, and a lot of time was wasted on rushing and resting.

Shibata Katsuya attacked all the way, as long as it was carried out like this, he could attack under Kotani Castle, originally yesterday he still wanted to wait, and wait for the clan to lead the Southern Route Army to break through the front line of the city, and launch an attack on Kotani Castle together, but because the opponent was too vulnerable, this made Shibata Katsuya's confidence greatly increased, and even the matter of waiting for the clan Sakuma Nobumori was all left behind, he thought that even if he couldn't capture Kotani Castle, he would have to come to the city and join forces with the Southern Route Army in this city.

In this way, he can show his bravery in front of Ah Shi. Due to the rapid progress in the past few days, Shibata Katsuie led his troops to capture Imahama Castle, which is already very close to Kotani Castle, so he planned to let his troops rest in the city for a day, but just as he was about to rest, he saw a junior samurai walking in quickly with a ninja report.

"See Shibata-sama."

"Tell me, why did Senbei send you here?" I only heard Shibata Katsuya ask.

"Back to Lord Shibata, my lord orders you to postpone the attack, lead the Southern Route Army to break through the frontline city, and then launch an attack on Kotani Castle after the two armies converge."

Shibata Katsuya couldn't help frowning after hearing this, and said with displeasure: "You go back and tell Senbei that the enemy is so vulnerable, and the old man will wait for him outside Kotani Castle." ”

"Lord Shibata, as the chief general, this is not a discussion with the adults, but an order, and I ask the adults to carry it out."

"Fart, when the old man fought on the battlefield, Qianbei had not yet been born, you don't have to say more, after seeing Qianbingwei, I will explain, retreat."

The ninja had no choice but to retreat, and returned to the southern front as fast as he could. But he didn't know that it was too late to report to the lord.

Asai Nagamasa couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard that Shibata Katsuya had attacked the present Hama Castle, and he had been very worried about it for the past few days, if Shibata Katsuya attacked halfway and then rested, then the two armies converged, and he could only sit in the lonely city, but Shibata Katsuya really did not stop, but accelerated the speed of the attack, and could arrive tomorrow morning, which made him completely put his heart down.

It's just a two-hour journey, even if Shibata Katsuya doesn't come, he won't delay much time when he leads the army, and now that he knows the movements of Shibata's army, Asai Nagamasa has no time to be idle, so he immediately called everyone to discuss.

Although Shibata Katsuya in order not to disperse the army, so all the cities captured by it, each of the remaining ashigaru will not exceed ten people, and the small stone or something is even less, but there are a lot of castles that can't stand him, plus a lot of losses when attacking Sawa Mountain Castle, so the total number of Shibata troops is only 6,000 at present, and on their own side, not counting the peasant soldiers, there are 12,000 people in the elite alone, among which there are Honganji monks who are stronger than the Shibata army, so to speak, The complete defeat of the Shibata army in this battle was a sure thing.

And at this time, Asai Nagamasa's eyebrows, which had been tightly locked, finally relaxed.

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