At about noon, Iwamatsu Jingding and Yamauchi Kazutoyo entered the city to report. Yan Song Jingding's hands were holding two first-level letters, faintly exuding the smell of blood. This person, did he really bring the head back to life?

"It's good that you're sure, you don't have to bring the head," I shook my head, "who's the other one?" ”

"My lord, it's Umezu Nobunori and Umezu Masanori, father and son," Iwamatsu Jingding's face was embarrassed, "It was originally an order to leave their surnames, but the scene was very chaotic, and several sailors of the former Hattori Party accidentally cut them ......"

"Wait, you're really going to attack the Umezu family? Didn't I say that it was just a disguise to paralyze Hattori Yusada? "I feel a little big.

"Yes. We didn't attack the Umezu house either...... However, the disguise released by the lord not only paralyzed the Hattori Party, but also alarmed the Umezu family. So the two joined forces. When we stormed into the Hattori Party main village, Umezu and his son were discussing with Hattori Tomosada about dealing with their own family. ”

"That's what happened," I nodded, "what about the casualties of the navy?" ”

"The casualties were small, thirteen killed and more than forty wounded. Hattori Tomosada didn't expect the lord to attack him today, and there was almost no one to defend the entire water village, so they all got together to drink, but none of them escaped, and the sons and daughters rushed to cut off the head to receive the reward. ”

"Very good, this operation is perfect, and you should be the first to take the lead!" I complimented, and then asked Kazutoyo Yamauchi, "Hattori Party savings are overwhelmed, right?" How much? ”

"His Royal Highnesses Tsubouchi Risita and Sakamoto Heizo each led fifty people to guard. The specific number has not yet been pointed, according to Hattori Tomosada's cronies, it should be more than 20,000. Kazutoyo Yamauchi replied.

"Then, Yifeng, gather the army and send the reward in public. Five times as many as the dead had a home to give to their families, and twice as many as the wounded. In addition, go and contact His Highness Xiujing, and he and you will preside over the receipt of the savings of the Hattori Party. ”

"Yes."

"It has been decided that after a short rest, we will immediately attack the Umezu family." I continued.

Now that he has killed Umezu Shinnori and his son, it is already immortal. The Umezu family never imagined that I would attack on the day of the build-up, so the head of the family dared to take his heir to Hattori's wedding banquet. Now that they have lost their heads and heirs, and there is no one to take charge of the defense, it will be easier to attack. This operation will be regarded as the first step in my presiding over the Ise Raiders!

"Yes. The lord is clever! Iwamatsu Jingding probably thought of this as well.

"Huh!" The master and the slave smiled knowingly.

……，……

For the Oda family, the five years of Eiroku were a very unquiet year. My two battles, compared to the succession that followed, were almost like appetizers before a big meal.

After the completion of Sumata Castle in March, Takigawa Kazuyoshi transferred to Hashima and roughly established a ruling system in Minohashima County. Honsu Prefecture, north of Sumamata Castle, is also under the control of the Oda family, and has about 8,000 koku of land. Because it was too far away from Cheongju and was located at the front of the battle line, it was inconvenient to govern it directly, so it was necessary to arrange a retainer to be stationed under it. Nobunaga unexpectedly arranged for Nobuyoshi Tsuda, the younger brother of Nobuyoshi Tsuda of Inuyama Castle, to give him this territory.

Tsuda Nobuyi arrived at the territory with 200 men of Inuyama Castle and immediately set about repairing the nineteen-jo castle of the nineteen-jo village in the territory (abolished during the Meiji period and established as Ushimaki Village) to guard against attacks from Mino. The castle was also located on the Nagara River, defending the upper reaches of the river bank opposite Sumamata Castle. To this end, Takigawa Kazuyoshi specially supported 300 people to assist Tsuda Nobuyoshi in the defense.

At the beginning of May, the expected attack came. Taking advantage of the flooding of the Nagara River and the inconvenience of support on the other side, Mino's side launched an attack on Jujujo Castle. Due to the strength of the enemy, Takigawa Kazuyi immediately sent people to Cheongshu for help, but Oda Nobunaga only sent 5,000 reinforcements led by Sakuma Nobukatsu, and led about 10,000 troops into the old Kawanami Castle to join Ikeda Tsuneko stationed at Mitsui Castle to attack Unuma Castle to the east.

After a fierce battle between the two sides for about half a month, Nobunaga successfully captured Unuma Castle, and the lord of the castle, Toshiharu Osawa, committed suicide. But the nine-jo castle side failed. Although Sakuma Nobumori drove his men to force their way across the Nagara River, they were unable to approach Jujujo Castle. His army attacked the besieging Mino army from the village of Shijo and the village of Karumi (abolished during the Meiji period of the two villages and established the village of Masan), and fought with the other side in the heavy rain, but he was still unable to tear the siege apart. In the end, the exhausted Sakuma army had to retreat, and Takigawa Kazuyi entered the castle in response. Soon after, Jujujo Castle was captured, and Nobuyoshi Tsuda was taken by Nonomura Masanari of Minokata.

Having lost a younger brother and being preemptively captured by Nobunaga Castle, he faintly blocked his route to attack Minano, and Tsuda Nobukiyo was very dissatisfied with Nobunaga. At this time, seeing that Nobunaga's forces had extended into Mino, and the front line had advanced to a distance of fifteen or sixteen kilometers north of Inabayama Castle, the Mino trio felt a huge threat. They sent an allied envoy to Tsuda Nobukiyo, promising to hand over the old domains of Mitsui Castle and Unuma Castle to Inuyama, and Tsuda Nobukiyo, who was dissatisfied with Nobunaga, immediately agreed.

In early June, Nobukiyo captured Rakuda Castle, which was guarded by Masasao Sakamoto, cutting off Kiyoshu from Inuyama. Soon, he joined forces with Minokata and attacked the two cities of Unuma and Mitsui from four directions. Ikeda Tsuneko, who was in charge of the guards, was left alone and had to abandon the two castles and retreat to Owari with the help of our naval forces.

Nobunaga immediately sent troops to attack Oguchi Castle, which was holding the passage between the two castles, and sent Iwamuro Shigeshu to guard Nakajima Toyogo, but was refused. In the following days, Oda was unable to pull out the castle and had to retreat to Cheongju, leaving behind more than 200 corpses. Among them is Iwamuro Re-Rest. He took part in the siege as a leading general, only to be killed by iron artillery under the city.

Iwamuro was killed in battle, and I was very sad for a while. When I came to this era, he was the first of those close to me to die in battle. On the eve of the battle of Tsukasasa, several of us stayed outside Nobunaga's dormitory, and later accompanied Nobunaga from Cheongshu. Before returning from Cheongju in the first month, several people were still drinking together at the whale house. But now, there is no way to meet again.

In this mood, I applied to Nobunaga and asked him to send Yoshiyuki Sawaki to be my strength. Originally, I wanted the Li family, but the Li family is now a naked mother, and it is basically impossible to send it out, so I retreated to the next best. Moreover, his surname was too impulsive, and in history, he was kicked out of the Oda family by Nobunaga for assisting Hasegawa Hashisuke in taking revenge on his colleagues, just like his brother Toshiie. But he didn't have the same good luck as the Li family, and soon died in the battle of Sankahara. I'm asking him over now, so I can protect him in advance!

And, because of the expansion of my territory, I do lack a lot of manpower here.

After the elimination of the Hattori Party and the Umezu family, I controlled all the water transportation in Tsushima alone, and the entire eastern part of the Kiso River was included in my domain, and the amount of water I received reached 30,000 koku. I removed the Kawanami people from the navy, and then merged with the existing ashigaru team under my command to establish a reserve of more than 600 men as the standing reserve of the Kira family. It is naturally me who serves as the standing commander-in-chief, and the military commissioner is Masakatsu Wasuka; Yoshiyuki Sawaki served as the gun general, leading 400 spear ashigaru; The 400 men were divided into five spear groups, with five men, Heizo Sakamoto, Manjiro Murakami, Rokuro Wada, Katsujiro Kohata, and Kasaku Uehara, serving as spearmen; The Iron Cannon General is a group of 100 people; In addition, there were forty stables and priests, with Watanabe Masaji as the pen; The remaining fifty were men and packmen, and were served by the peasants in the territory.

Such a "preparation" is the standard establishment of the Warring States Period, which is equivalent to the "battalion" in ancient China, with the number of people ranging from 300 to 1,500, and is led by a general or general. During the battle, several units were formed into a military formation, and then the enemy army was attacked as a unit. Since each company is composed of a separate family, it is more prominent in terms of combat cohesion. However, these units cannot be mixed, cannot form a unified single-service unit, and are more troublesome to command in a large-scale war. That's the downside, but I don't have to think about it right now.

The remaining 700 or so naval forces are still the largest water force in the Tsushima area, and Iwamatsu is the main general. Due to the loss of the Mino trade route and the lack of Hattori Tomosada's connections in Nishimino, the water army's income has now plummeted to less than 500 kan per month, which is not even as good as the previous Hattori Party, but it is more than enough for self-support.

In addition to this, I also ordered Hidekei to check the household registration of the territory, and organized a peasant ashigaru reserve according to Ishitaka as a reserve for the Kira family. Preparing for the division of Maeno Nagayasu as the commander-in-chief, about 1,000 people were recruited at a ratio of 30 koku to one person. This preparation is actually the official military establishment of the general lord of the wealthy clan.

In terms of internal affairs, Hidekei served as the jodai and the castle town commissioner, responsible for the household registration of the territory, the administration and security of the territory, and his deputy was Asano Nagayoshi; Yamauchi Kazutoyo served as the commissioner of the survey and was responsible for the financial revenue and expenditure of the territory. These two positions were established during the Toyotomi regime and then in the Edo shogunate period, and together with the temple and shrine commissioners in charge of administrative and religious work, they are collectively known as the "Three Shoguns". The assessment institute composed of the "three commissions" is the highest adjudication organ in the territory. Before the Battle of Sekigahara, the three commissioners of the Toyotomi regime, namely Masuda Nagamori, Nagashu Masaka, and Maeda Genyoshi, invited Mori Terumoto to serve as the general of the Toyotomi side of the Western Army, and the letter was jointly signed by the three of them. Although the name was not formalized as I do now, the division of responsibilities was similar to mine.

By the way, Genyo Maeda is still serving as the abbot of Owari Komatsubara-ji Temple, and I am currently lacking a temple priest. This is simply a divine arrangement......

In addition, Nobunaga asked me to reforge Kanie Castle, and this mission can also begin. I have appointed Masakatsu Wasuka to be the temporary general commissioner in charge of this work, and he has built Mitsui Castle two years ago and has a lot of experience, so he is really the best candidate. For this reason, I gave him forty percent of the savings of the Hattori Party - a full ten thousand.

After this arrangement, all the affairs of the territory were organized in an orderly manner, and the rule of my Kira family was slowly on the right track.

In July, according to the agreement, I personally served as Yamauchi Yoshisuke Motofu and gave him the name Yasutoshi Yamauchi as my close attendant. And Nana Ishitani's new guards are two teenage children she found from the old collar herself, one is called Kihachi Miyata and the other is Keitaro Shiroto.

According to Nana, both of these children are now being raised by relatives after the decline of samurai, and they have been doing heavy work since they were young, and they have a lot of strength. In the group of children who used to play sumo, these two people basically never lost to others, and they won and lost each other. Therefore, these two little ghosts have received a lot of rewards from Caicai, and they have great admiration for her, and she chooses them to take care of them.

I smiled and tolerated her little surname, promising to give her samurai status when the two children grew up.

Soon it will be harvest season, and according to the standard of stone height and annual tribute, I will receive more than 14,000 stone of grain. Since my family has a lot of savings, as well as the income from several ministries in Tsushima, as well as the Cheongju sorrel house and the money seat, I don't need to sell food, so I will store the tribute as a military supply all these years. And my eyes were also on neighboring Ise Province.

Since I destroyed the Umezu family, in addition to Ito Shigeharu Nagashima, who was attached to the Ichijo clan, the three families of Kuwana Gun, Nanbu, Kause, and Tomita were quite wary of me. Their territories are on the western shore of the Kiso River system, separated by an estuary four kilometers wide and Nagashima Island in the middle of the estuary. Due to the size of my navy, they can only cower on the right bank for now.

Bordering Kuwana County is the Governor and Asaaki Counties, and beyond that is Mie County. These four prefectures were formerly the territories of the Ichishiki clan of Tango and Kita-Ise, with Mie Prefecture as the center. At the time of the Onin Rebellion, the guardian Isshiki family participated in the Western Army, and was robbed of his position by Toki Masayasu of the Eastern Army, and then Toki Masayasu was defeated, and the Kuniji Kitabatake family succeeded him as the guardian of Ise. In 1479, the Isshiki family was appointed guardian of the North Ise and began to integrate the North Ise forces. The Kitabatake family was naturally not reconciled to this, so they led the army to attack Kita-Ise twice, the first time they were defeated by the Isshiki family and the Nagano family, and the second time they finally drove the Isshiki family out of Ise Province, but because of the resistance of the wealthy clans, they had to give up the four counties of Kita-Ise.

Since then, Kita-Ise has become the domain of the wealthy clans, and once an outside force enters, the wealthy clans will temporarily unite and expel each other. Serving as the general of the combined forces was the Sensa family of Okamura Castle, which had about 1,000 ashigaru and was the most powerful, and was faintly the leader of the Northern Ise clan, and nearly ten of the forty-eight clans were his clan. However, the strength of the Sensa family was not enough to unify Kita-Ise, and several other families, such as the Akabori family, the Harusage family, and the Kusu family, were strong enough to confront it, so they could only maintain a loose alliance form.

In March of the first year of Koji (1555), the Rokkaku family of Minami-Omi invaded Kita-Ise with 3,000 cavalry, and the Sensa family gathered the allied forces of the fourteen wealthy clans of Unobe, Goto, Akahori, Kusu, Inaba, Nanbu, Xuansheng, Tomita, Hamada, Ashitoki, Shirase, Takamatsu, Shigefuku, and Kimata, which were able to block the Rokkaku family's military momentum. However, due to the non-cooperation of the Harumabu family, the general Chikusa Nakaji had to compromise with the Rokkaku family, and adopted the younger brother of Goto Kento, a major minister of the Rokkaku family, as an adopted son, named Chikusa Saburo, and became a monk and lived in seclusion. This incident has caused the Hao Alliance to show signs of falling apart......

In the past, there was the Seki family that controlled Suzuka County, and the tribes included the Lufuyu family in Amaki County and the Kobe family in Hequ County; Then there are the Nagano family in Anno County and its four tribes, Hosono, Yunlinin, Branch, and Kusao; These four prefectures were called Naka-Ise, and the two powers were constantly fighting each other, while at the same time cooperating to invade Kitabatake, or resist the Kitabatake family in Southern Ise and the Rokkaku family in Omi.

Relatively speaking, the Kitabatake family in Minami Ise is quite complete. The Kitabatake clan was the Ise Kuniji, who replaced the Toki family as the guardian of Ise during the Onin War, and the tribe had Okochi, Kizo, Sakauchi, Tamaru, Hoshiai, Iwanouchi, Fujikata, and Hahase, and controlled Iitaka-gun, Arino gun, Tatsu-gun, and Dokai-gun, and at the same time divided Ichishi-gun with the Nagano family with the Kumoidegawa River as the boundary river, and sometimes invaded Uto-gun in Yamato Province and Kumano in Shima Province.

The Kitabatake clan has always tried to integrate the Ise country, but has always been stopped by the Nagano family's Nagano coalition forces. Later, Kitabatake's Kitabatake Cai personally married the daughter of the Kobe family of the Guan clan, and finally stuffed his second son in the Eishō period and became the fourth generation head of the Kobe family. This person is the grandfather of the brothers Kobe Toshimori, the sixth head of the Kobe family, and Kobe Gomori, the current seventh head of the Kobe family, who died in the 20th year of Astronomy (1551), and his name is also Kobe Gomori.

With the help of the Kitabatake family, the strength of the Kobe family continued to rise, and gradually surpassed the Seki family, which was the clan family. And with this sand, the central Ise can no longer unite. In the first year of Eiroku (1558), under the joint persecution of the Kitabatake family and the Kobe family, Nagano Fujita, who had no heirs, reluctantly adopted the second son of Kitabatake Gukyo as an adopted son, named Nagano Guto, and then gave up the family business and went with his retired father Nagano Minoruto.

On May 5 of this year, with the support of the Kitabatake family, Nagano Guto murdered Nagano Fujitashi and Nagano Minoto father and son. This incident caused an uproar within the Nagano family, and it has not subsided to this day......

If there were no outside forces, Kita-Ise would slowly integrate with Chikusa Saburo, who was supported by the Rokkaku family, and the Kitabatake family, which controlled Nagano and Kobe, would slowly eliminate the impact of the murder and eventually achieve domination of Naka-Ise.

But, naturally, I don't sit idly by. As far as I know, Chisa Riji was not reconciled after giving up the position of Chikusa Family Governor, and named his own son Sensa Masaburo, obviously wanting to wrestle with that Sensa Saburo; And although Nagano Fuji and Nagano Fuji were murdered, they also left behind a daughter.

The daughters of Chikusa Matazaburo and Nagano Fujita, aren't these two people the ready-made keys to Ise!

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