"You...... You...... Your Highness...... We ...... here" The old village chief of Taishi Village looked back and forth at a loss, and it was really an eye-opener for him to see so many "noble" samurai at once. Although it is located next to Kishiwada Castle, it is not a major road, so it is rare to see even a great samurai. By the way, the old village chief judged the status of a samurai by the magnificence of his clothes.

I followed Yohachiro to Taishi Village, but I only brought with me 200 Bannermoto and 400 Ashigaru, as well as 50 or so of Mizuki Sorokuro's men and the ninjas who arrived early. Nakamura Kazushi stayed in Kishiwada Castle, and I only brought Hori Hidemasa, a high-ranking general, and I didn't bring out the horse seal that made 10,000 people "look up".

It would be more appropriate to observe the situation than to fight a war, and I would like to see how far Izumi has been harassed. If there were so many people who came that they scared the thieves away, there would be no point in me coming to this place.

Although I was already a simple and obedient person, such a group of men and horses still frightened the villagers of Taishi Village, how many of their reserves would be eaten by such a large number of warriors and soldiers! Even if you can barely cope with two meals, it is difficult to say whether you can satisfy the "guests" who have been invited with great difficulty.

Although there is not much land in Taishi Village, there are 60 or 70 households because of the fact that many people are engaged in fishing, which is slightly larger than the average inland village. However, this does not mean that their lives will be better, and most of the catch can only be sold to the traders who come here at a very low price, and they cannot afford to send their produce to Sakai Town. I could tell from the mournful faces of the villagers that maybe many of them would think that it would be better to let the pirates grab it!

"Why, are we just going to stand in the open like this?" Seeing their embarrassment, I said this deliberately.

"Your Highness's forgiveness! The little people didn't dare to ......" The old village chief's face suddenly turned pale, and he cried out as if he was wronged. My words are big or small, and they really scared him. "Please come to my house to rest first, but it's really simple...... It's too shabby......" he said, looking awkwardly at his house made of planks and thatch.

"Village Chief, please ask Your Highness to rest in that house!" Yohachiro suddenly stood in front and pointed to another house more than a dozen feet away. Although the house was also a thatched house with wooden planks, it was much larger than the village chief's house, and it was newer.

"That'...... The ......" The village chief's eyes widened in horror, and his lips trembled. He looked at Yohachiro in horror, his eyes full of doubt and incomprehension.

"It doesn't matter, Your Highness won't mind this matter!" Knowing Hachiro's concerns, he explained immediately.

"Then ...... Then please ask Your Highness to compromise! Although he led the way there, the village chief still looked uncertain.

The room was indeed very large, and it was enough to fit the whole village of three or four hundred people, and the reason why the village chief was so evasive that he didn't dare let me in was because it was a church.

The church is small but also has a complete set of "internal organs", and a small altar has a cross about two meters high, so the basic elements are complete. It can be seen that the carpenter who carved the cross is very good, and he should have seen the appearance of a genuine European cross. It's just that perhaps under the influence of the traditional concept of Buddha statues, Jesus was carved excessively richly. It's a large wooden floor, as is customary, and there are no rows of benches like those found in European churches, and there are certainly no large stained-glass windows.

"Hmm...... Not bad! I walked around and looked, followed by a large crowd of people. I fully understand the village chief's fears, and although Oda Nobunaga issued an order to accommodate Christianity and was baptized himself, the vassal daimyo, especially some local nobles, took extremely harsh measures against Christians for reasons of their own faith, and killings were not unheard of.

"Your Highness is not too rude, we are grateful!" Seeing that I really didn't show any anger, the village chief let go of his hanging heart a little.

Actually, almost all of the people who came with me were Buddhists, but not so extreme. A few people who entered the hall of this "Demon Sect" instinctively frowned, but since I had expressed my approval, they were not good at saying anything, and there was really no qualification to say anything to anyone else here except Hori Hidemasa.

"That's good, sit down, too!" I sat down in the middle of the wall on the left, and after greeting the others, they all sat in two rows in front of me. The front of the center is under the altar of the cross, and even if I can tolerate Christianity, I must avoid some people's unwarranted speculation.

"Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen, there is really nothing to entertain in a small village like ours, please use some tea first!" Seeing that nothing abnormal had been shown so far, the village chief tried to communicate with us.

"Yes, you can do it! Don't be too much trouble! I casually agreed, and continued to look around with my eyes, blindly rejecting their "dedication" might scare these countrymen.

After a while, several young girls came into the house with trays, each with several tea bowls on each tray. Tea is a rather inferior variety, the cups are uneven, obviously improvised, girls in addition to having a fairly youthful atmosphere is worthy of recognition, the rest is really lackluster!

"Are you often attacked by pirates here?" I put the glass down with just one sip and turned to look outside the door again. In fact, I have made some careful observation just now, and although the faces of the villagers here are also the habitual wind and frost invasion of the working people, they do not have much food, and it seems that at least the problem of eating is reasonable.

"The pirates come to harass me almost every month, but they never kill people or burn houses before...... "The village chief didn't dare to look up at me when he spoke, it seems that although he is the village chief, he has never seen anyone in the market." We don't have any money in this village, and we don't have anything of value, as the pirates know. Every time he came, he took some food, and then he gathered the whole village to scold His Royal Highness of the Oda family...... "This person didn't know how to reprimand the pirates at this time, but he just stated things very simply.

"We don't have a lot of land in our village, and the looting of the pirates really made our situation very difficult!" Probably thinking that the village chief's words were really unsatisfactory, Yohachiro hurriedly took over the words and said, "Thanks to the grace of His Royal Highness Niwa, he has taken care of us innocent people who have been bullied by pirates. Not only did it exempt us from most of our taxes, but it also allowed us to harvest trees and build houses in the mountains to the west, and we wouldn't know what we would have done otherwise! All the people in our vicinity think of him, and what a kind and generous man......"

"Our Oda family from the right general to the right is very sympathetic to the lives of the people, if you can understand this truth!" I know that Niwa Nagahide is indeed a person who manages the place in a gentle manner, and this should be true to Hachiro. However, it is difficult to say about word of mouth, and in my experience, people who have been in the war area for many years do not have a good perception of either side, and generally speaking, only people who are in the core of stable domination will gradually develop a sense of belonging. However, this Yohachiro is a person who has the courage and can see the direction of the wind, and this is an indispensable figure for maintaining the place. “…… However, at the moment, there is still a rebellion against the Kii evil party in the south, and it will take some time to completely eradicate the pirates. If they just want some food, give them first. His Royal Highness Niwa has also given you some compensation, so why is it necessary for us to send troops here? "I am very strange about this, and I don't think they can't bear it from what the two of them just said.

"Your Highness, you don't know anything!" Hearing me ask this, the village chief immediately called out to the sky, and his face twisted like a bitter melon. “…… Originally, those pirates were really just causing trouble, and they didn't cause any big trouble. But in the past month or so, they have gone crazy, changed their previous style, and killed people and set fires everywhere. Six villages in the vicinity have already been murdered, with houses burned down and people often killed. Ten days ago, Genshang Village, five miles south of here, was sacked by pirates, and more than 30 people died because they couldn't avoid it! ”

"Don't you know why?" I really don't know much about this matter, it is similar to the battle of more than 100 people at the village level, and it is in an area that has not yet begun to be directly managed, and similar information may be classified as something that I don't need to deal with personally.

"We don't know exactly what's going on, there are a lot of rumors!" The village chief seemed a little relieved to see that I cared about this matter, but his amount of information was also very limited. “…… It's just that the merchants who came here a few days ago heard that Izumi is going to have a new guardian Highness, and this Highness has a deep grudge against His Highness Miyoshi, who ruled us before. Because of this, the pirates of Awaji were ordered by His Highness Miyoshi to fight to the death with this new highness, and even the common people with us were unlucky. Alas! In this world, we ordinary people don't dare to have too many extravagant hopes for who will rule, as long as we can live our lives......" Speaking of this, the village chief finally stopped talking, and even the dullest people realized that the atmosphere around them was wrong.

All the generals looked at me and then at the village chief, with very strange expressions. Yohachiro's face turned pale, and beads of sweat the size of soybeans on his forehead were pouring out. The words of the village chief are already considered disrespectful, and if you catch up with the grumpy ones, you may kill all the people in the village.

"There's going to be a war in the middle of the night, let's go prepare some food!" I don't think it's worth making a fuss about such a sentence, and the village chief just inadvertently said what the majority of the common people want.