Chapter 159: Winter in Kinai

Listening to my words, Xinjing fell silent for a while.

"I know that you yourself have people close to you, such as Keimasa, Hirano Nagatai, etc. However, it is impossible for Jing Zheng to stand side by side with Xiujing, Zhou Jing and Yijing, and the future of Hirano Nagatai can only stop at this step, at most, he will make meritorious achievements in the next Kanto expedition, and then transfer to Kanto, and add another 30,000 or 40,000 stone territory. Even the rest of your children, although they don't have to be forced to become monks like the Muromachi shogunate, it is impossible to give a large seal of more than 200,000 koku at will, otherwise the territory will be too severe, and it will be difficult to ensure the dominant position of the clan over the division of the clan, the family over the lineage, and the shogunate over the daimyo, and once a little bit of a change occurs, it will be difficult for the shogunate to sustain it," I sighed, "Although these words are not good, they are the way to long-term peace and stability. If you rashly break the law, or divide the clan at will, even if I am no longer there, the loyal lineage ministers will advise you in the same way. ”

"Understood," Xin Jing was silent for a moment before nodding lightly and asking me for advice, "Then as you said, if you can't easily divide the territory of the clan, how should the rest of the sons except for the sons in law be settled?" ”

"There can be three ways. The first is to give a certain amount of annuity in lieu of the income due to the domain, so that although the burden on the shogunate is increased, the scale of the domain can be maintained completely; The second is to confiscate the daimyo domains and family names that violate the laws of the shogunate, and transfer them to the children of the clan who are scheduled to receive pensions or have already received pensions, and establish them as new feudal clans; Third, when there is a division of the family, a clan or a marriage with a daimyo, the heir will be inherited by the appropriate children of the clan, so as to seek a good family business for them," I thought about it and quickly put forward a ready-made suggestion, "For example, the current Satsuma Shimazu family, the head of the family is nearly fifty years old, and there are only three daughters, Heihime, Tamakihime, and Kamejuhime, I am afraid that they will have to choose adopted sons from the Bichu Shimazu family, the Ueno Shimazu family, or the family of the old Shimazu brothers." However, if you are able to marry Tamaki, who has just reached marriageable age, as a side wife, once you have children, you can appoint him to inherit the Satsuma Shimazu family business in accordance with the custom of the samurai...... In this way, the shogunate will have less appearance and more relatives, and it will be more stable. ”

"My father's suggestion is indeed very clever," Shinjing thought for a moment, "How about I propose it to the Satsuma Shimazu family when the Kanto region is settled?" ”

"That's very good." I nodded.

At this time, Yukihime, who lived in the Forgotten Worry House with Ishiya Nobumasa, walked into the front hall. Because she had to feed Rǔ, she didn't wear thick winter clothes, but fortunately, there were copper stoves in the four corners of the room, which didn't make people feel cold. Then she knelt down in front of us, blushing slightly, and bowed to me and Shinjing. I nodded and explained kindly: "You wait at the screen first, and the child will be handed over to you to take care of later!" ”

Ji agreed, got up and retreated behind the screen.

The three of them didn't say anything for a while, and they all quietly watched the busy shì women in the corridor of the middle courtyard, waiting for the movement in the delivery room in the backyard. I don't know how long it took, but finally a shì girl who was qualified to meet the general under the imperial year sent by the imperial eye came out of the backyard and reported: "Report to the Gongfang Palace, report to the Shaodian, the lady of the Shaoyu Palace has given birth smoothly, and gave birth to a little highness, and the mother and child are all safe!" ”

"Really!" I was glad to order, "Bring it to me and the Senate Lieutenant General!" ”

"Please wait a while, Mrs. De is washing Her Royal Highness!" The shì woman replied respectfully.

"Yes, that's good." I smiled to myself, it seems that I am also a little anxious! "You tell the lady of the young palace to let her recuperate well, and after three dynasties, you will accept the congratulations of the retainers in Beijing with the child...... And everyone who serves shì, you have all worked hard, please continue to take care of the young lady of the palace, and you will have your own rewards when you turn back. ”

"Yes. Please rest assured that the Gongfang Hall and the Young Hall are reassured! The shì woman agreed, got up and exited the antechamber.

After a while, Deji came over with a baby wrapped in embroidered gold family pattern satin, and sent it to me with a smile and said, "Your Highness, look, what a beautiful child! ”

I took the child and looked at it carefully, although I really couldn't see anything beautiful about the wrinkled little face, I also smiled and nodded, and then handed the child to Xinjing: "Well, it is indeed a beautiful child!" ”

Maybe it was the first time to hold a child, and Xinjing was very rusty, and even a little in a hurry. However, his cherished attitude can be clearly seen by anyone. At this time, he was not the heir of the shogunate, not the three important ministers of the imperial court, nor the military general who had commanded nearly 100,000 troops, but just a twenty-year-old young man who had just become a father.

However, the child was a little unappreciative, and cried in Xinjing's arms.

"What's going on? What to do? Xinjing asked, looking at me dumbfounded.

"It's hungry! It's time to leave it to Rǔ's mother to take care of! Deji said with a smile, carefully taking the child from Xinjing's hand, and turning behind the screen with a reluctant expression. A moment later, there was a whisper of comfort from Yukihime, and a slight sound of undressing, and the child's crying came to an abrupt end.

"So be it!" I took the pen and paper next to me, wrote down the three kanji "Keijiro", turned over and stood up with a yawn, "The next thing will be handed over to the Imperial Observatory and you!"

……，……

Three days later, Fuyuhime came to Nijo Castle with Keijiro in her arms and was visited by the shogunate's important ministers, led by the three elders and the five middle elders. Since they were only the sons-in-law of the general, the daimyo who had no office did not have to come, but they all went to Luyuan Temple and Xiangguo Temple to congratulate me and Xinjing, and they sent rich gifts to them. Daimyo such as Beehouse Yoritaka, Niwa Nagashige, Sasa Naimasa, and Shibata Katsutoyo in Beijing, as well as the elders of the clan clans such as Nakagawa Shigemasa Echizen Domain, Hayashi Ischiyoshi Nagato Domain, Sakuma Nobuei Owari Oda Domain, and other clan elders even specifically asked to meet Fuyuhime and his grandson to express their sincere loyalty.

In addition, Xiujing's sisters-in-law, Xiuxing and Gamo Xuanxiu, also pacified Yama Yīn and escorted the relevant criminals to Kyoto to resume their lives, just in time for the He Yi who was born by Keijiro. It's a pity that the main culprits they caught are just a few local middle-level samurai who were instigated by Kuroda Takataka, and the direct retainers of the Kuroda family should have been confessed by Takataka and fled to Kionerai Temple to join him long before the destruction of the first group. In view of this, Zhou Jing took the initiative to ask me for his life, hoping to go to Kii to command the Genraiji expedition and clear this tumor in the country as soon as possible, and I saw that Kita-Omi had stabilized, so I agreed to Zhou Jing, and ordered Jing Zheng to go to assist him as well, and by the way, bring a batch of fish, meat, sake, etc., to comfort the troops who were holding on to the front line.

Although Keimasa was the deputy general of Shinkei's expedition to Kanto, this season, Kanto was still cold, unlike Kii's climate that allowed for large-scale battles. In addition, there was a lot of preparation work in the early stages of the expedition, so it was not until March that the official battle in Kanto was officially launched. Considering that this year's leap month, there are almost three months left for Jing Zheng, which is enough for him to assist Zhou Jing in completing the task of attacking Genlai Temple.

When I was pacifying the Saga people, in order to disintegrate their power, I asked Neraiji Temple to intervene and persuade the southern Saga Sango, who believed in Shingon Buddhism, to surrender. For this reason, after the pacification of the Saga people, the sphere of influence of Neraiji Temple increased considerably, extending from the northern part of Kii Province to the southern part of Izumi Province. Located in the southern part of Izumi, the Kinryosan Wishensenji Temple was originally the same as the Tsukimori and Hidaka Kaizuka Imperial Workshop, and was served as the abbot of the head of the inner town of the temple, as an autonomous area for the disciples of the Ilsho sect within the sphere of influence of the Neraiji Temple, and after that, it was also vigorously expanded, becoming the forefront of the defense of the temple.

The first difficulty in the strategy of Genraiji Temple is to break through the five peripheral branch cities of Sensenji Castle, also known as Jizenji Castle, Hatanaka Castle, Sawajo, Nakamura Castle and Sengokubori Castle, among which Wansenji Castle and Sengoshibori Castle are the most critical.

However, Zhou Kei led his troops back to Izumi Province and did not go directly to the front line, but went to Hitaka-gun in southern Kii from Quanzhou Port to land, and then, as the guardian of the Shogunate Imperial Gate and Kii, summoned the wealthy Yukawa Naoharu and others in the county, and asked them to accompany Tenkai to tell the Honganji Kyoru of Hidaka Gobo that if they were willing to accept the constraints of the Shogunate Temple Society's laws and ordered the Ichijo sect of Kaizuka Gobo to give up resistance, they could give Honganji 10,000 stone temple lords and allow Ichijo to return to Kinai; If Kaizuka Gobo is allowed to continue to help Neraiji, then he will have to crusade against Isōmō as an accomplice of Genraiji Temple, and completely destroy Ichitsuka's two Gobos in Kii. Yukawa Naoharu didn't dare to slack off when he heard this, and soon through his own uncle, the presiding officer of the Hidaka Imperial Workshop, Youcun's original name was Yukawa Shinharu, and the legal name was given by Zhengru and Jiaoru contacted, and in the sī asked this uncle to mediate vigorously, otherwise the conquest of the Hidaka Imperial Workshop, the Yukawa family was naturally the first formation, and it was very unfavorable to his own family and the Imperial Workshop. This statement seemed to have had an effect, and soon the messengers and decrees of the Kyoru arrived at the castle of Yuanquan Temple, advising one of the apostles to leave. Although the abbot Bu Banzhai Zhenzhen knew that this was inappropriate, he did not dare to stop it at all, otherwise he would tear his face with the disciples, and there might be internal strife in the city immediately. And when the sect left the city, he found that the situation was even worse than expected, not only was the garrison in the city greatly weakened, but also the morale was almost collapsed, such a state was obviously unable to continue to resist. In desperation, he had no choice but to surrender and surrender the city to Jing Zheng, who had just arrived.

Keimasa occupied the castle of Yuanquanji Temple, and without waiting for Zhou Jing to return, he immediately distributed the reward he brought, and took advantage of the prestige and morale of the fallen castle to invade forward, and soon conquered and demolished Nakamura Castle, and persuaded Hatanaka Castle and Sawajo to open the castle and surrender through the intermediary of Bu Bansai Zhen. However, in front of Sengokubori Castle, the easternmost point of the defensive line, he had to stop. Not only is the castle very strong, as the name suggests, but the terrain is extremely dangerous, and the defenders of the castle are all die-hard members of the Nerai Temple, and even the ronin such as Kuroda Koko is said to have assisted in the castle. Jing Zheng launched more than a dozen attacks in a row, but failed to break through the city defense, but suffered more than 1,000 casualties under the opponent's tight defense and iron artillery strikes, and was immediately forcibly stopped by Zhou Jing, who rushed in.

I know that Jing Zheng wants to capture Genlai Temple as soon as possible and earn a greater prestige for himself. The fall of Yuanquan Temple was mainly due to the division and co-optation of Zhou Jing, and Jing Zheng accepted the subjugation of Bu Banzhai Zhen, which may be said to be in a hurry, but he was the master of distributing rewards and storming Senshibori Castle, which could not escape the suspicion of unauthorized power. Jing Zheng naturally understood this, and apologized to Zhou Jing afterwards, and explained that the time was relatively tight, so he launched an attack in advance on his own initiative, so as to complete the strategy task as soon as possible and return to Jinai to prepare for the Kanto expedition; In addition, during the Kanto Expedition, he had already been scheduled to be in charge of the outer raids of Odawara Castle, and now he is attacking the branch cities of Genraiji Temple, also in order to exercise his ability to take charge of himself first. Considering that he was motivated by meritorious service, and that he had meritorious service in attacking Nakamura, Hatanaka, and Sawajo, Zhou Jing didn't care much, and according to his request, let him continue to be in charge of attacking Sengokubori Castle.

Half a month later, Sengokubori Castle was really captured by Jing Zheng, but because he was too abrupt, he suffered several injuries in the city's clean-up battle, and was sent back to Kyoto by Zhou Jing for treatment. Hearing this news, my previous dissatisfaction with his abuse of power was all dispelled, and I specially asked him to move into Xiangguo Temple to take care of him, and I personally brought the precious medicine given by the Ming Court to visit him.

"Is the injury okay? Listening to the doctor, fortunately, it is not critical, and I am very comforted to listen to it...... However, don't be like this in the future, you are the identity of a general, why bother so hard? There was a slight resentment in my tone, "The war can be slow, what if people have a mistake?" I value your safety more than victory. ”

"Yes, the boy obeys." Jing Zheng looked very moved.

"Next, take a good rest, the preparatory affairs for the conquest of Kanto, and wait until you recover from your injuries!" I said kindly, "I will also give you a reward for the merit of conquering Sengokubori Castle." ”

"It's all due to my father's prestige, and I don't dare to take credit." Jing Zheng replied.

"Huh? When did you become so humble? I couldn't help laughing, "Father and son don't have to be so polite when talking, just follow your heart." ”

"It's true. It really depends on your prestige, otherwise I am afraid it will take a lot of work! Jing Zheng also smiled, "Speaking of which, this matter is still a little hindered to your reputation, but I have taken care of it, I just hope you don't care." ”

"You said that it was dealt with, then it was naturally okay. And you don't need to care too much about things like reputation, after all, it's hard to reconcile! Isn't a person as holy as the Holy Prophet still slandered? I waved my hand, and didn't take his words to heart very much.

"That's what my father said." Jing Zheng nodded.

"So," I asked casually, "what's going on?" ”

"That's right......" Jing Zheng said what happened. I didn't really care about it.,It's just a casual question.,However,As he narrates,My face gradually became serious.。。