On October 19 of the 9th year of Tensho (1581), he arrived at Katsura Kawaguchi Castle and began to live a quiet and tranquil life. In the past, I really didn't expect that I would have such a reputation and influence in the world, and as my figure faded out of Kyoto, the sky over the Japanese archipelago changed dramatically.

Ikeda Tsuneko rushed to the front line in Settsu and joined forces with Nakagawa Kiyohide and Takayama Shigetomo to resist the Hashiba army, but even then there were less than 25,000 men, and he was still at a disadvantage compared to Hashiba Hideyoshi. It must be said that the disadvantages are not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality, and the victory or defeat of the war is not a simple matter, but the result of the intertwining of many factors.

Speaking from the heart, in terms of Hashiba Hideyoshi's personal military qualities, it is not necessarily outstanding, that is, each item is a little higher than me, and it is far worse than Shibata Katsuie. However, he himself was a far-sighted political commander, with genius military advisors such as Kuroda Kanbei under his command; There are members of the ranks such as Hidenaga Hashiba and Nagamasa Asano; There are brave generals such as Kato Kiyomasa, Fukushima Masanori, and Kato Yoshiaki; Yasuji Kyosaka is good at iron cannons; Takenori Takenori, Nagayasu Hirano and others are at least excellent generals. It can be seen from this that the Yuchai army is a good fighting force from top to bottom.

In comparison, Ikeda's side is not so "good-looking", although he himself and Takayama and Nakagawa are all famous generals, but that's all. In several skirmishes, the "Eastern Army" was defeated, and it is said that the loss of personnel was not small. Ikeda was originally an impatient man, but he had to take a defensive stance in the face of this situation, and after a slight retreat and disengagement, he began to build a new line of defense in the central set.

Hideyoshi's initial attack was quite smooth, and for some time after the threat of Ishiyama Gozumi Castle was removed, several castles and rock fortresses, large and small, were taken almost every day, and everything seemed to be so smooth that victory seemed to be within reach. In order to break the resistance to enter Kyoto as soon as possible, he even gave up the competition for some cities and carried out concentrated assaults. But gradually, he realized some "little troubles"!

Ikeda's tactics of exchanging space for time paid off, and the strength of the Hashiba army was weakened by the capture of one castle after another, and finally came to a standstill under the three fortified castles held by the main force of the Ikeda army. Perhaps what made Hideyoshi Hashiba even more strange was that the situation he had expected to be overwhelming and responding in groups did not appear!

Of course, there are still some wealthy families in the areas of Setjin, Izumi, and Hanoi under his banner, but they are still very different from the usual "general trend". The direct embodiment of this difference is that the gap in strength between the two sides has not widened rapidly, but has a tendency to gradually narrow. Faced with this situation, Hideyoshi Hashiba began to engage in another kind of temptation, and he proposed to Ikeda Tsuneko to negotiate or persuade him to surrender!

I remember saying many times before that Ikeda Hengxing was a person who was "crazy people", and even put his nose on his face, and in the face of Hideyoshi's temptation, he immediately replied, that is, he issued a letter calling on all the wealthy clans of Oda's old collar to gather with him to crusade against the shameless "monkeys"! Don't doubt it, that's what he called in his inscriptions.

This is naturally an extremely humiliating thing, and Yushiba Hideyoshi is also ruthless in addition to thundering. However, Ikeda's approach reminded him that he once again sent a message asking the wealthy families from all over the world to join him, but this time not against the enemies of the eastern kingdom, but the conspirators within the Oda family. Anyway, now that Qibu City has declared that it will not participate in all things, then both of them will be relieved and boldly shout for themselves.

Isn't this a remake of the Onin Rebellion? The court immediately became nervous, and sent envoys to both of them, but none of them bought it. Under this strange turmoil, some disagreements have arisen in various places, and "undercurrents" have gathered in the central part of.

Then you can take a look: Hideyoshi Hashiba is a "big man", and Ikeda Hengxing is not an idle person although he is slightly worse! Naturally, some people would respond to their summons, but the strange thing was that none of the wealthy clans with more than a thousand stones made such a response, mainly among those who had one or two hundred stones, and there were also many who received dozens of stones.

It is understandable that the tycoons will be more or less cautious at such times, and they generally like to express their stance when the situation is clearer, and the two days are inevitably a bit shorter. However, this has led to a strange phenomenon, and on the roads leading to Kyoto from the east and south, there are "strange" teams!

The teams were dressed in different attire, with different weapons, and with different accents, but what they had in common was that most of them numbered no more than a hundred. Seeing that their efforts had achieved "results", Hashiba and Ikeda clamored even harder!

Mortals can't generalize, the big princes also expressed their attitudes, Bizen Ukita family with Ukita Tadashi as the general general, 10,000 troops to help Hashiba Hideyoshi. Correspondingly, Izumo Yoshihisa made it clear that he supported Ikeda Tsuneko and personally led 6,500 people eastward.

What a show! I don't know how many smart people in the world are staring at each other, and they still can't see why. Even at this time, no one paid much attention to my attitude, even though it was all caused by my departure from Beijing.

Because the situation on Honshu Island has changed dramatically, it has attracted almost all of everyone's attention, and although Kyushu and Shikoku, the source of ****, are still fluctuating unhurriedly, not many people are paying attention to them anymore. The head is almost gone, who cares about the toes! But everything is happening after all, and it will not change its trajectory because of other people's opinions.

Keiji Maeda stepped up his offensive against Arima Harunobu in Toyozen, and the assistance of Omura and Nabeshima failed to reverse the situation, and all the barriers of Nakatsu Castle have been overcome and exposed to the Maeda army naked. It was reported that Arima was trying to ask the Mori family for assistance, but Chikuzen Yamanaka Kanosuke, who had been neutral and actively mediated, immediately issued a stern warning: If an external force intervenes in Kyushu without permission to explore the West Sea, it will be dealt with immediately!

Shimazu, Otomo, and Ito continued to stalemate in the south, seemingly feeling a little overwhelmed.

The situation in Shikoku was slightly better, Nobukiyo had basically controlled the situation, and the forces of Nagamune and Hosokawa and Tokawa had disengaged, and were blocked by the forces of Nakamura Kazushi and Hori Hidemasa. Initial progress was also made at the meeting at Katsurui Castle: the head of Chomune's department agreed to withdraw his troops to the south of Iyo, and Hosokawa and Jukawa were all bound for Sangi to assemble, and for greater security, the main force of the Tsuyoshi Naval Army was also sent to the sea northeastern Shikoku to stand by.

For those who are worried, this may be the only good news in recent times, but it may seem a little thinner!

Compared to all this, Katsura Kawaguchi Castle is too quiet, and it is really "let him change, I will not move"! In winter, there are scattered waterfowl flying on Lake Biwa, and there is a different scenery in the vast and withered landscape. This is a good place to spend a vacation, and even Nijo Harara's illness is getting better day by day, but sometimes the heart of such an old person is still not quiet, so I often advise him to "take a step back and open the sky".

I spent a few days leisurely until the 27th day of the 10th month of the 9th year of Tensho (1581). I wasn't in a very good mood from the morning of that day, and when lunch was approaching, I finally couldn't help but lose my temper.

"Why hasn't it been born yet? What do those stable women do to eat! With a roar, I slammed the teacup in my hand to the floor, and the splash of juice and tea shattered the face of the maid who was kneeling there. Fortunately, because of the cold weather, there was a thick layer of straw mat on the ground, otherwise this maid would have to break her appearance.

In the face of my indiscriminate anger, she had no choice but to reluctant, and ducked backwards.

"No, I have to see for myself!" I pushed the table and stood up, then walked towards the door.

"Oh......" The maid looked up for a moment, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she didn't say anything, and could only follow me in a frightened heart.

Traditionally, the head of the family should not be in the vicinity of such a child, because according to legend, filth can attract demons at this time, especially for those who lead troops and do business. But at the moment I didn't think about it so much, I just felt a wave of irritability.

Xue's due date was calculated very punctually, and labor pains began at ten o'clock last night, but since it was inevitable to give birth, I didn't worry too much, but patiently waited for the arrival of a new life. I didn't want to be born until more than six o'clock this morning, so I didn't have enough energy and went to rest for a while. I woke up at eleven o'clock this morning, but the baby hadn't been born yet, so I felt a little bad. Recently, I have a very poor tolerance for some things, and I get angry at every turn.

"Ah Xue, you must not have any accidents!" I said this to myself. The birth of the first few children went smoothly, and even the congenitally deficient Dragon King Pill didn't bother much, although I was not around to lead the troops at the time, but I heard afterwards that this was the case.

"Lord......" Sakurai Sakichi walked up to him in the corridor, holding a large stack of paper-like papers.

"Get out of here!" As soon as I knocked something away from his hand, the paper flew up like a butterfly and then fell like snowflakes. I didn't even look at it, and kept walking forward.

The closer I got to the delivery room, the more nervous I became, and when I turned a corner, I could faintly hear some low, chaotic human voices, and as I got closer, I could make out a moan of pain. The maids who were guarding the door were a little stunned when they saw me coming, and I stretched out my hand straight to the door.

"Why are you here?" At this time, the door suddenly opened, Xianzhi walked out of it, and when he looked up, he couldn't help but be stunned when he saw me.