In the first month of the fifth year of Eiroku, when the footsteps of the Takeda family to go out to Ueno Province were getting closer and closer.

But at this time, an event occurred that seemed inconspicuous at the time, but had an extremely far-reaching impact on the entire history of the Warring States. Tokugawa Ieyasu (still known as Matsudaira Ieyasu at the moment) of the Nishimikawa Matsudaira family, relying on the relationship of his uncle Mizuno Nobumoto, connected with the Ocho Oda family, and the two families formed an alliance in Cheongju, which is known as the Cheongju Alliance in history.

In this way, Tokugawa Ieyasu officially severed his subordinate relationship with the Imagawa family, and concluded an agreement with the Oda family of Oda Nobunaga, beginning a twenty-year-long back-to-back offensive and defensive alliance between the two families.

It is said that as early as Tokugawa Ieyasu was still a hostage at the Oda family, Ieyasu and Nobunaga became friends.

At that time, Oda Nobunaga, as described by later generations, was full of ambition in his eyes, and domineeringly held Tokugawa Ieyasu's hand, pointed to the sky with a big wave of his hand, and said: "Takechiyo (Tokugawa Ieyasu's former name), in the future, you and I will fight for the world together, I will attack to the west, and you will attack to the east." ”

Thus began a lifelong friendship between the two.

But this story is, because Tokugawa Ieyasu was only six or seven years old at the time, almost a preschool child, and Oda Nobunaga was already fifteen or sixteen years old, which is already a high school student in modern times. Can you believe that a high school student would say to a kid who can't even snot that we want to dominate the world together?

Rumors are rumors, and later generations often refer to the first two as the three heroes of the Warring States period, and there is another who is still a subordinate of Oda Nobunaga, and Kinoshita Fujiyoshiro has not yet emerged, that is, the later Taiko Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

In addition to the fact that these three people have approached or accomplished the goal of unification in different ways, they also belong to the same township from today's Aichi Prefecture.

There is a famous story in Ben, the title is to say, the cuckoo does not sing, how to make it chirp? The following is a quote from the three heroes. Oda Nobunaga said: It is not a pity to kill. Hideyoshi said: Tempt it to make it sing. Ieyasu said: Don't wait for him.

It is said that I often use these three sentences to reflect the different surnames, ways of doing things, and the subsequent fate of the three people.

Oda Nobunaga was rebellious since childhood, belonging to the category of delinquent teenagers, and later became a daimyo and changed his outlook, after killing Daimyo Yoshimoto Imagawa Yoshimoto with less victory in a dreamlike manner in Tsubasama, and then capturing Inabayama Castle of Mino.

He renamed Inabayama Castle Gifu, followed the story of King Wen of Zhou, and issued a decree on the whole world to distribute martial arts, and began to unify the world by taking the world by force or by force.

He has killed countless people in his life, proclaimed himself the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, and trampled on universal values and ethics, and had the posture of those who follow me and those who oppose me die, and at the same time he is keen on new things, as long as he thinks something is worth doing, he will actively try it, and he belongs to a thorough man of action.

And Toyotomi Hideyoshi was born in poverty and did not have any ready-made environment to rely on, compared to Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu and many other Warring States daimyos, his starting point was the lowest. Toyotomi Hideyoshi traveled around at a young age, passing the Iio clan and the Matsushita clan, and finally officially obtained the qualification of a samurai under Oda Nobunaga.

As the first person to surrender to the Sengoku period, he rose to prominence with his eloquence and imagination that was not bound by common sense, and won the great trust of his lord Oda Nobunaga, and was promoted from a soldier to a daimyo of a country. After Nobunaga's death, he took over the world with the power of the wind and the waves. (The above passage is from the introduction of Taiko 5, I personally like this passage)

Of course, this world does not include it, and he later tried his best to achieve the goal of conquering the Ming Kingdom by conquering Korea.

As for Tokugawa Ieyasu, the last of the three heroes (in the order of the unified version), many people's evaluation of him can only be......

Well, if you have to add one sentence, it is the first in the book of 'forbearance', and the first among the three heroes of 'vitality'.

In this way, the historical novelist Ryotaro Sima (a right-winger through and through, who is said to have written good historical novels, but his character is not very good) once commented on the status of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his own mind.

For example, if you say to a person who says that he is like Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he will be humble on the surface, but he can't hide the joy in his heart.

But if you tell him that he is like Tokugawa Ieyasu, haha, even if he doesn't quarrel with you in person, he will definitely scold you in his heart, you are like Tokugawa Ieyasu, you and your mother are like Tokugawa Ieyasu, ** the whole family is like Tokugawa Ieyasu.

What a tragic Tokugawa Ieyasu!

Unlike most countries, which worship the founding father, such as Washington in the United States, he is more likely to have deep sympathy for the losers.

Among his contemporaries, such as in the Battle of Genpei, he remembered Kiso Yoshinaka, who was known as the Hon-Hang Ha, but not the victor's first shogun, Minamoto Yorito.

During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, he would worship Kusunoki Masanari, who shouted that he had died by stabbing himself to serve the country with seven lives, as the god of war, and disdained the Ashikaga clan who founded the Muromachi shogunate.

When he arrived at the Battle of Sekigahara and defeated the Tokugawa army's main camp with a decisive assault, Sanada Yukimura was also much higher than Tokugawa Ieyasu in his own mind.

In fact, it's not complicated to think about, just like what I like to sing in Dunsheng, fifty years in the world, compared with heaven and earth, is just a small thing. Looking at the world, dreams are like water, let life be for a while, and then disappear and then present.

It is precisely because of the habit of self-injury and self-mourning that the sympathy for the losers can be closer to the reality that they usually say are depressed and depressed, so they love to appreciate the beautiful cherry blossoms that bloom for a short time, but no one cares about the tenacious vitality, and the heavy snow presses the shoulders straight and straight.

Therefore, he also has the spiritual realm advocated in bushido, reaching the peak of his life in a moment of dazzling beauty, exerting his greatest value, and then ending his life without nostalgia.

That's right, since it can't wither at its most brilliant, then the ones who live the longest are the old turtles, so Tokugawa Ieyasu you have to cup.

In "Tokugawa Ieyasu" written by Yamaoka Shohachi, on the eve of Tokugawa Ieyasu's eldest son, Matsudaira Nobuyasu, being killed by Oda Nobunaga, Nobuyasu secretly came to visit his father, which can be regarded as a dying farewell. Nobuyasu cried a lot, but Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was already a daimyo of the Five Kingdoms at the moment, had the only reaction: silence. After Nobuyasu finally saw that there was no hope of avoiding death and cried, Tokugawa Ieyasu cried loudly.

The only painful defeat in Tokugawa Ieyasu's life, the Mikatahara battle against the Takeda family. After the defeat of the Tokugawa army, he was frightened to pull dung on his horse when he fled on horseback. He asked people to draw his sad appearance on the spot and hang it in the house so that he could see it at all times. The portrait is called the "Cheek Image" and still exists today.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was diligent and thrifty all his life, and even after he united with the United States and became a 'man of the world', he ate very frugally, and even rarely ate fish, and ate pickled radish and white rice every day.

Tokugawa Ieyasu was not only critical of himself, but also of others, once when he was wandering around his house, he heard a maid complaining in private, saying that the current food was really poor, and the side dishes were only pickled radish. After hearing this, Tokugawa Ieyasu smiled and said, "Okay, since you don't like to eat, don't eat it."

From then on, the maids of the Tokugawa family even canceled the pickled radish as a side dish, and ate white rice every day.

It was such Tokugawa Ieyasu, and someone once asked him, "What are the treasures of the Tokugawa family?" Ieyasu replied, "Five hundred samurai on the three rivers." ”

In Tokaido, there are folk songs in which the people of Tokai go to grow food, the people of Mikawa go to war, and the people of Suruga sing the whole banquet. It can be seen that the warriors of the Three Rivers are brave and good at fighting, which is famous.

After the Battle of Mikatahara, Baba Nobubo finished inspecting the battlefield and said to Takeda Shingen: "When I looked at the corpses of the Mikawa Army, all those who fell face down with their heads facing our army, and those who fell with their heads facing Hamamatsu all face up, which shows that these soldiers were all killed when they rushed forward to kill, and none of them were beheaded because they wanted to escape." ”

In the Battle of Nagashino, the Oda Tokugawa coalition army was 38,000 people, including 30,000 Oda troops and only 8,000 Tokugawa troops.

In the first month of the fifth year of Eiroku, when the Takeda clan was still focusing on the Uesugi family, the Tokugawa-Oda Alliance, which would be the greatest threat to them in the future, had been established and was rising in the future, and this military alliance was the biggest obstacle to Takeda Shingen Joraku in the future.