Of course, the Gaoshan clan didn't plan to do this in his heart, after all, he was just a horse merchant, he and he were not on the same level at all, there was no need to compete at all, and the clan wanted a war horse, and now someone could provide it, there was no need to build it alone, he did this, just to let the other party know the current situation and recognize the current situation, and now seeing that the other party was really panicked, the clan had achieved its goal.

And then although the clan still agreed with the other party to go to Mutsu to buy war horses, but as for the matter of iron cannons, the clan didn't want to be so cheap for him, although the five hundred iron artillery team Takayama family is nothing, but he has no habit of letting others take advantage, and once the acquisition of the Mutsu war horse is completed, then in addition to the benefits of his own family, this Yoshino Yoshino will also leap from an ordinary businessman to one of the world's wealthy businessmen, it can be said that the benefits he obtained are also huge, So how could the clan let him glove the white wolf empty in front of him, so the five hundred iron cannons were still sold to him at cost price.

After settling the matter of war horses, it can be said that the armament problem of the Takayama family has been completely resolved, and the next step is to wait, once the Takayama family completes the expansion of the army, then it can directly launch a full-scale attack on the Kanto region.

And this is more than a year, and now it has come to 1578, in the past two years for the Takayama family, it can be regarded as a period of great development, during this time, the clan not only won the country of Ueno, and after helping Uesugi also obtained the mining rights of Sado Kaneyama, in addition, the military strength of the Takayama family has been greatly expanded, and now the total strength of the Takayama army has reached 45,000 people, this is only the direct military force, if it is counted as other armies have exceeded 50,000 people. Although the combat power of the Ueno Army was slightly weaker, it also reached the combat power of Sakuma and Shibata Army.

However, although the Takayama family has developed a lot, and the Hojo family has not been idle during this time, especially after learning that the Takayama family has added an Ueno army of 10,000 people, the Hojo clan has to use the savings accumulated by the Hojo family over the years in order to ensure the advantage of the military situation, and on the basis of the five-color preparation, the expansion of three 10,000-person reserve teams, if you add the military strength of the retainers, then the military strength of the Hojo family at this moment has reached 80,000 people, which is 10,000 more than the 71,000 people at the peak of history, of course, This extra 10,000 troops will last for four or five years at most, after all, this army is maintained by the Hojo family's savings for many years, and once the savings are exhausted, then this army will collapse, but for the Hojo clan, it is enough to be able to hold on for four or five years, because he knows that if the Takayama clan fails to occupy the Kanto region before 1580, then it means that its mission has failed, and this gives the family more time to prepare, so the goal of the Hojo family at this stage is to hold on until 1580.

In terms of military strength, there are 80,000 people, which also makes the Hojo family full of confidence, after all, they have carefully calculated that once the 80,000 army is dispatched, then with the advantage of geographical advantages, the family will not be at a disadvantage at all.

Although the eastern country has been relatively calm for more than a year, except for some minor frictions, in the west, earth-shaking changes have taken place.

In this short period of more than a year, the situation of the Oda family's domination of the world is more obvious, especially in the middle of last year, Kinoshita Hideyoshi eliminated Shimizu Soji in Bichu Matsuyama Castle with the help of Tokugawa Ieyasu and then took control of Bichu, and Tokugawa Ieyasu took advantage of the Maori family to capture Izumo, it can be said that the cooperation of the two can be described as tacit understanding, when Kinoshita's army attracted Maori in the armament, Tokugawa made a decisive move, and once Tokugawa succeeded, then he went south to aid Kinoshita to fight Beizhong, In addition, if the two families are united, they will surpass Mori a lot in terms of military strength and retainers' ability, so Mori finally has to choose to submit in order to keep his family name, so that no one in the world can stop Nobunaga from completing the strategy of the world's military deployment.

Just last year, after Kinoshita Hideyoshi was forced to surrender Maori, Nobunaga sent people to Kofu to urge the clan to use troops against Kanto as soon as possible. Nobunaga was in such a hurry because he couldn't wait to make a move on the emperor.

And although Nobunaga is in a hurry, the clan is not in a hurry, seizing Kanto and eliminating Hojo is by no means something that can be completed in three or two months, it will take at least a year, that is, even if the clan wants to do it, it will have to wait until the beginning of the year, and he doesn't want to affect his strategy because of the arrival of winter.

In addition to Honshu, the situation in Kyushu is also full of war, the Shimazu clan after eliminating the Ito family of Hyuga, is not satisfied with the Otomo clan, Ryuzoji Temple three points of Kyushu, so in 1578 just at the beginning of the year, gathered 30,000 troops to prepare to invade Bungo, once you can defeat Otomo, then Shimazu will be in charge of southern Kyushu, overwhelm Otomo and Ryuzoji, become a veritable overlord of Kyushu, and Otomo Sorin, after getting the news, immediately convened his retainers to discuss.

Although the Shimazu family is still as powerful as it was in history, the Otomo family is no longer as easy to defeat by Shimazu as it was in history after receiving the support of the Takayama family.

In January 1578, Otomo Sorin, appointed Tahara Shonobu as the general and Kakuma Ishimune as the military division, and the army of 12,000 people was deployed in Ogawa, don't look at the Otomo family only sent 12,000 troops, but this army was to complete the separation of soldiers and peasants, and all of them were equipped with weapons and armor purchased from the Takayama family at a low price, and although the Shimazu family had 30,000 people, but eight of them became peasant soldiers, even if it was the remaining thousands of elites, it was only slightly stronger than those peasant soldiers, after all, whether it was Kyushu or Shikoku, they all belonged to remote areas, The Shimazu family wanted to separate the soldiers and peasants, but with the financial resources of the Shimazu family, it was impossible for them to have the funds to do so, so it is not surprising that they are still using the method of fighting the peasants and soldiers.

In order to improve morale and open the situation as soon as possible, the Shimazu brothers began to cross the river with 5,000 banners led by Shimazu Yoshihiro, the first commander of the Shimazu family, to establish a position north of the Ear River, once it can be completed, then the Shimazu army can continue to gain a foothold in the north of the Ear River, as long as the army can arrive, then with the advantage of numbers, it is not difficult to win. After all, the Shimazu family at this moment has not experienced the fruits of the separation of soldiers and peasants at all, so they don't have much experience.

However, Shimazu Yoshihiro soon realized that when he led the Shimazu army to lead thousands of elite Bandu Erchuan, he was subjected to the fierce attack of the big friendly army, and the projectiles fired by the iron cannon and the arrow rain shot by the heavy vine bow continued to harvest the lives of the elite of the Shimazu army, although Shimazu Yoshihiro was brave, but he was not a fool, and immediately ordered a retreat after seeing that something could not be done, but due to the long range of the heavy wisteria bow, even if he withdrew in time, he also paid the price of hundreds of casualties, and this is only on the surface. When the Shimazu family saw that the other party was so elite, their morale plummeted.

If the Shimazu family chooses to retreat at this time, then maybe they can keep the Hyuga who has just arrived, but the head of the Shimazu family, Shimazu Yoshihisa, does not believe in evil, and on the second day, he gathered more than 10,000 troops to cross the river, he thinks that although the opponent's weapons are excellent, but according to his observation, the iron cannon is only a hundred, and the number of heavy vine bows is never more than a thousand, if the other party uses it intensively, it will indeed cause obstacles to the family to cross the river, but once the battle line is extended, more troops will be sent, Then it is impossible for the other party to block his footsteps with this more than 1,000 long-range military strength.

And just as he thought, on the second day, the Shimazu army, with 10,000 troops and a long battle line, did break through the opponent's attack and reach the north bank of the Ogawa River, but before they could gain a foothold, the 10,000 Otomo elites who had already prepared launched a fierce attack on these peasant soldiers.

Although the samurai of the Shimazu family are slightly better than the Otomo family in terms of bravery, but if you talk about Ashigaru, it is completely incomparable, often an elite of the Otomo family can eliminate two or three peasant soldiers, in this way, the Shimazu family is sad, after Ashigaru was eliminated or surrendered, those samurai have been alone, in addition to the people who were taken, more middle and lower-level samurai have surrendered to the Otomo family after seeing that the family has been irretrievably declining. One of the Shimazu brothers, Shimazu Suehisa, was unfortunately killed in this battle. After the war, the number of Shimazu troops who fled back to the south coast was less than 3,000. At this point, the battle had already been decided, but the Otomo family didn't plan to let go of the enemy just like that.

On the third day, when the Shimazu family was preparing to withdraw from the army, the general of the Otomo family, Tahara Shonobu, ordered Takita Town to lead 3,000 elite people to cross the river, and at this moment the Shimazu army was demoralized, and due to heavy losses, they could no longer stand on the upper hand in the army, so they had no ability to block the opponent's attack at all.

Shimazu Yoshihisa was unable to stop the other party from invading Hinata, and in order to be able to buy more time to prepare, he gritted his teeth and immediately made a decision to abandon Hinata and lead the army back to his lair overnight. It can be said that he did this completely right, the first Hinata has just been captured by Shimazu, the Shimazu family has not gained a firm foothold in this place, if you fight with the enemy here, then the Shimazu army at this moment has absolutely no possibility of victory, and if you can retreat to Satsuma, Okuma, it will be different, first of all, after Otomo gets Hinata, he will inevitably divide a lot of troops to digest this place, so that the Shimazu family can get a respite. And after the withdrawal of the army, Shimazu Yoshihisa immediately sent someone to Hizen Ryuzo Temple to show the strong relationship, and the Ryuzoji family also knew that if Otomo was too strong, then after Shimazu was eliminated, the next unlucky person was himself, so after discussion, he immediately ordered Naoshige Nabeshima to be the general and led 8,000 troops to attack Otomo. Otomo Zonglin had no choice but to immediately order the army to return, but the Ryuzoji family saw that the goal had been achieved, and did not fight hard with the other party at all, and immediately chose to retreat when its elite returned to help.

After this war, although the Otomo family failed to eliminate any of the forces, its position as the overlord of Kyushu has been completely consolidated, especially those small forces in Kyushu, seeing that the Otomo family's army is so strong, so they have switched to the Otomo family's command, and in just a few months, the power of the Otomo family has been expanded again.

And the clan clan far away in Kofu, after receiving the information from Kyushu, couldn't help but feel very satisfied, the stronger the Otomo family, the greater the use for themselves, especially after learning that the Maori family has been surrendered, the usefulness of the Otomo family is even more obvious, but Kyushu is a remote and backward place after all, although the strength of the Otomo family is second to none in Kyushu, but if it is put in Honshu, it is nothing, especially after Kinoshita Hideyoshi obtained Harima, while attaching importance to the development of the military, he did not ignore business, Especially after accepting Xiao Nishiya, the financial situation is no longer as stretched as before.

The development of the Kinoshita family has made the clan feel threatened, if Kinoshita Hideyoshi only attaches importance to the military, then even if it is stronger, the clan does not feel any threat, after all, once the battle is money, once there is no funds, then even if the army is strong for a while, it will not be able to be strong for a lifetime, but once the other party has funds, then even if it fails once or twice, it is not a big deal, after all, as long as there is money, the army can be recruited again.

Especially after the other party took the Beizhong, Shi Gao has broken through 1.2 million stones, and with the addition of nearly 800,000 stones from his ally Tokugawa family, the stone height controlled by these two families alone has reached two million, not counting, although Takigawa Kazuki in the Kinoshita faction is a little sad, but he also controlled nearly 400,000 stones in Kii last year, and with the newly attached Oda's gross profit of nearly one million stones, the strength of the Kinoshita faction has been on par with the clan. If you want to overwhelm the other party in terms of strength, then you must attack the Kanto.

And now the Takayama army can be said to be strong and strong, and the morale is high, although the Hojo family is not weak, but if all the forces of the Kanto region are used to fight against it, then the clan believes that the victory must be on their side.

With this premise, in February 1578, the clan immediately summoned his retainers to Kofu Castle to discuss the seizure of Kanto and the elimination of Hojo. This time, not only all the direct retainers of the Takayama family arrived, but even the retainers who had already obtained Zhixing appeared in the assessment room, and even the Soshin who had inherited the Suwa clan did not fall behind.

In the assessment room, the retainers immediately expressed their excitement after hearing that the lord had decided to use troops against Hojo, for them, this is definitely what they have been looking forward to for a long time, and the retainers who have already obtained Zhixing hope to be able to improve the stone high under their rule through this battle, and the retainers who have not yet obtained Zhixing are even more excited, because they know that once the lord wins the Kanto, then the family will have a large amount of land for reward, and one of these pieces must belong to them, and the samurai do not care about their lives, If you want to accomplish this goal, then you must have a territory as a place of inheritance, otherwise no matter how brave you are and how famous you are, it will only be a flash in the pan. (To be continued.) )