After Li Xiao made up his mind to attack Echichu Castle, he immediately ordered Yokotani Yukiyo to contact his brother Yokotani Yukishige, Li Xiao wanted to ask him how the ninjas were in charge of collecting intelligence on Echichu recently.

This group of 200 ninjas, but Li Xiao asked the Kohata sisters to run the surplus of the Mingguo ramen restaurant with a high salary.

Naturally, Li Xiao expects them to make some achievements.

After receiving Li Xiao's urgent summons, Yokotani Yukishige did not stop, and came to Kamioka Castle after evening.

Yokotani Yukishige is still dressed as a void monk, and he looks like a dusty man, obviously coming from far away.

Li Xiao first asked Yokotani Yukishige how he had ordered him to prepare for the assassination of the elite ninja team.

Yokotani Yuki returned to his words and said, "Because of the strict requirements of the lord, there are not many people who are eligible. In the six months since its establishment, only twelve ninjas have met the requirements, and they are already in training and ready to carry out assassination missions at any time. ”

Li Xiao was slightly dissatisfied at first when he heard this, but then under Yokotani Yukishige's explanation, he understood the reason.

It turned out that the other party was also in line with the principle of preferring shortage to excess, and since Li Xiao had high expectations for this assassination ninja team, it was not easy to select personnel.

In Li Xiao's opinion, Yokotani Yukishige obviously selected and trained this assassination ninja team as a special force in later generations.

And Yokotani Yushige also made a rule to eliminate the weakest one every two months, of course, in return for their rigorous training, this ninja assassination team is also working with a high salary.

After listening to Yokotani Yukishige's detailed description, Li Xiao was still satisfied with his work.

Then he asked Yokoya Koshige about Joseijo and the Saito family.

Yokotani Yushige had just rushed back from Chengsheng City this time, and immediately reported all the first-hand information he had collected to Chengsheng City to Li Xiao.

Chengsheng City, also known as Snake Tail City, has 460 rooms in the north and south of the city, and about 90 rooms in the east and west, covering the entire hilly and mountainous body, and was regarded as a large-scale mountain city at that time.

The east side of the castle is bordered by the Jintong River, the south side is the location of the Otemon Gate, and all the defenses on the south side are the strongest areas in the city, and the fortifications on the castle include earthen bridges, Maruma exits, double tiger mouths, and artificially cut cliffs.

Apparently after careful shooting by the defenders of the city.

Based on these points in intelligence, Li Xiao learned that if this city was to be attacked, it would not be enough to rely on Li Xiao's two hundred standing reserves and three hundred newly recruited men.

Li Xiao was right.

In fact, before the castle, the castle was surrounded by the army led by the head of the Jimbo family, the head of the Jimbo family, and was attacked for more than a year, but it still did not fall.

Later, the head of the Jimbo family and the head of the Saito family, Saito Riki, under the mediation of the Noto Hatakeyama family, made peace on the condition that the Jimbo Nagashi marry his daughter to Saito Riki.

As a result, the Jimboo family and the Saito family formed an alliance, and the relationship quickly warmed up.

In addition to the strong castle, the Saito family itself is not weak, the Saito family itself has a stone height of 15,000 stones, and with the convenience of Joseijo Castle as an important trading base in Hida Echichu, the annual commercial income is also very high.

There is a standing garrison of about 100 people in Chengsheng City all year round, and if you mobilize and recruit again, you can also gather a peasant army of about 500 people to fight.

In terms of the strength of the two sides, the Saito family is only above the current strength of Li Xiao, not below.

Of course, if Li Xiao continues to develop Shengang Silver Mountain next year, then his strength will surpass the Saito family, but for Li Xiao, if he waits until next year to carry out the Saito family's strategy, it will undoubtedly be a missed opportunity.

And in addition to Saito's own power, Saito Ka also has two powerful alliances, the daughter of the Saito family's head Saito Riki's wife, Echichu Guardian Daijibocho, and his son Saito Nobuyoshi married the daughter of his sister Koji Yoshiyori.

Sister Xiaolu's family is not talking about it at the moment, it will definitely not pose a threat to Li Xiao this year, if it is to rely on the ambition and ability of his father and son in the future, it will be a strong opponent of Li Xiao.

But the Divine Protector is different.

Among the four counties of Echichu, the women's gun (central Echichu) and Shesui gun (northwestern part of Echichu) are the sphere of influence of the Jimbo family, and the head of the Jimbo family, Jimbo Chief, serves as the county representative of these two counties, while the largest area of Shinkawa County (eastern Echichu) is occupied by the Shiina family, who is also the guardian of Echichu, and the head of the family, Shiina Yasuin, is also the Shinkawa gundai.

However, after the third year of Eiroku, Echigo's forces had already entered Shinkawa County.

Tonami-gun (southwestern part of Echichung) is now the sphere of influence of Ichijojong.

The above is only an approximate range, in fact, there are many forces between the counties.

As one of the three guardian generations of Yuezhong in the past, the current situation should be described by the four words of rebirth after the catastrophe.

In the seventeenth year of Eisho, that is, in 1520, the head of the Jimbo family, Jimbo Keimune, was defeated by Nagao Ikei (the father of Uesugi Kenshin), and the Jimbo clan declined.

After that, his son Jimbo Changshi revived the Jimbo family, defeated one of the invading Xiangzong, and restored the old leader of the family, the Shosui County.

After completing the great cause of Zhongxing, the chief of the god was full of spirit and launched the Vietnamese-Chinese United Campaign, attacking another Vietnamese-Chinese guardian Daishii master.

Shiina couldn't withstand the offensive of the chief of the shrine at that time, so he asked for help from Uesugi Kenshin, and became the excuse for Uesugi Kenshin to intervene in Etsuchu.

In the third year of Eiroku, a year before the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima, Uesugi Kenshin went to Echichu for the first time, following the route of his grandfather and father's original army to Echichu.

With the help of Uesugi Kenshin, the Shiina family defeated the forces of the Jimbo chief, and after several fierce battles, Uesugi Kenshin twice captured Toyama Castle, the main castle of the Jimbo family.

The chief of the god had no choice but to surrender to Kenshin Uesugi through the intermediary who was able to deny Hatakeyama Yoshitsuna.

Because Shiina Yasuyin led other countries to intervene in the matter of Vietnam, the chief of the god and Shiina Yasuin formed an inseparable enmity.

After the chief of the god subdued Uesugi Kenshin, Uesugi Kenshin gave him a lenient sentence, allowing him to keep the two counties of Nu Negative County and Shesui County.

Therefore, as an ally of the Saito family in Chengsheng City, the power of the Jibo family is definitely not something that Li Xiao can shake now, if Li Xiao attacks Shibu City, he must consider the reaction and attitude of the Jibo family.

Li Xiao had to take into account that if Chengsheng City was captured and the army of the Shenbao family was brought in, it must be dealt with in this way.

After listening to Yokotani Yukishige's report, Li Xiao made some arrangements for the intelligence of Vietnam, and asked him to step back and continue to be in charge of the monitoring of Chengsheng City.

From the next day, Li Xiao will pay close attention to his standing training, and immediately form a new army to enhance his strength.

At present, his 300 standing reserves have been successfully trained, and Li Xiao immediately handed them over to Dao Shengmeng and asked him to reorganize the 500-strong army in the city with the original 200 standing reserves.

Li Xiao's top priority is to quickly train this standing army into an elite army to enter the battle.

Li Xiao first expanded and organized his own iron artillery team on the basis of Kohata Xiaoxian's original iron artillery team.

Li Xiao spent a lot of money to buy iron cannons from Omi merchants and formed an eighty-man iron cannon team for himself.

The cost of buying the iron cannon almost spent all of Li Xiao's savings, and he also advanced all the income of Shengang Silver Mountain this year, which was equivalent to borrowing a lot of debt from Shioya Qiuzhen, but Li Xiao was convinced that the money was well spent.

In the previous battles, Li Xiao had already seen the role of iron cannons, a hot firearm, in the era of cold weapons.

In addition to the extremely high lethality of the iron cannon, its roaring sound will also deter it, and many subordinates who do not know why the iron cannon are insignificant.

And in addition to the use of iron artillery, Li Xiao also decided to refer to this era, the Spanish phalanx, which has become the mainstream tactic in Europe, and the Maurice phalanx, which will shine in the future in the hands of Gustav II, the lion of the north.

Li Xiao decided to adopt the method of mixing the iron artillery team and the ashigaru team, and trained his standing equipment into a regular tactical formation.

The Spanish infantry phalanx was inherited from the Macedonian phalanx and the ancient Roman legionary phalanx, with companies, columns, and infantry regiments as military formations.

Companies are generally between two hundred and fifty to three hundred men, columns have four to five companies, and infantry regiments have three columns.

With its military establishment, as well as the performance of combat missions, it is similar to the regimental and battalion-level units of modern times.

In the Spanish infantry phalanx, the column was generally used as the smallest combat unit, and a column generally had two different companies, namely the company of spearmen and the company of musketeers, and sometimes mixed with halberders, swords and shields.

For a period in the 16th century, the Spanish phalanx dominated European warfare.

The tactical formation that Li Xiao will adopt is also lined up, mainly following the methods of Gustav II.

Gustav II was known to Li Xiao when he was in elementary school by reading a biography of 20 military strategists in the world, and he was very impressed by him.

Historically, Gustav II was the king of Sweden, and in later evaluation, he was both an outstanding general and an excellent military reformer.

The era in which he shined was the Thirty Years' War, which he participated in as part of the Protestant camp.

However, Gustav's tactics were not his own originality, his tactics were imitated by the famous Dutch general Prince Mosley, and the battle formation invented by Morris was called the "Maurice Horizontal Team", which was also based on the ancient Roman legion phalanx, and later the Spanish phalanx.

After Li Xiao came up with this idea, the next day he found Shima Katsuto, Kohata Xiaoxian, Kinoshita Koichiro and other generals in the family to discuss.

Li Xiao's thoughts are simply unheard of to the person himself in this era, even if he is as well-informed as Dao Shengmeng, he has never heard of any tactical formation.

Dao Shengmeng took the lead in asking Li Xiao a question: "May I ask my lord, what you think and think, your subordinates have never heard of it." Generally speaking, the tactics of the Daimyo reserve units of various countries are in a joint battle, with the iron artillery team and the archery light team shooting first in front of the formation, and then the spear foot light team pressing the attack. ”

Li Xiao explained to Dao Shengmeng: "In the past, the tactics of the past were all applicable to the tactics of bowing and footlight, and were not suitable for the tactics of iron artillery and footlight. Iron artillery is different from bows and arrows, the range is farther, the rate of fire is slower than that of bows and arrows, and the lethality is stronger than that of bows and arrows. ”

A new style of warfare with a light gun?

As soon as Li Xiao said this, all the retainers immediately expressed their consternation.

(To be continued)