I know that in addition to my orders, Ikoma and Tsuki also have reasons for showing favor to Kyung-so. This book comes from them and it is clear that among Hideyoshi's two adopted sons, Hideji Sunshichiro of Tsuyoshi of Tsuyoshi is backed by his father-in-law, Ikeda Tsuneko, and Keihide has the background of my Kira family and the support of many retainers of the Yura family. If the two families finally reconcile, it must be Jingxiu who inherits the family business of the Yuliang family; Even if Hideyoshi fails, Jingxiu can return to the Kira family, and as Hideyoshi's adopted son, he will collect the power under Hideyoshi's name, so as to gain a good position in the Kira family.

When establishing the heirs of the family, if the first thing to compare between parents and children is the status of the concubine, then the adopted son is to compare the background and achievements.

Shibata Katsutoyo, who Jingxiu wants to attack, is also the adopted son of Shibata Katsu's family. His real father was Yoshida Jibei, a retainer of the Shibata family, and his mother was the older sister of the Shibata Katsuie. The Katsu family himself had no children and no younger brothers, so he had to take five nephews as adopted sons, and prepared to choose one of them to inherit the family business of the Shibata family. Among the five adopted sons, except for Katsutoyo and Shibata Katsutoshi, the other three are all sons of Sakuma Moriji, namely Sakuma Morimasa, who commanded the Kita-Kaga half of the country, Shibata Katsumasa, who inherited the Shibata family's Aoji and Tongji, and Shibata Katsuyuki, who also inherited the Aoji and Tongji, and later married the daughter of Sasa Narumasa as the main house.

Judging from the Miao character and Tong Zi, the three who are currently expected to inherit the family business are Shengzheng, Shengmin and Shengfeng. Among them, Shengmin is deeply loved by the Katsuya himself, and recently when he was in the Yuan service, he inherited the common name of the Katsu family, Quan Rokuro; Katsumasa is older, has already established himself in the center, and has two brothers, especially Sakuma Morimasa's brother, who is the most important minister in the family, so he has great hopes. Compared to them, Shibata Katsutoyo is obviously at a disadvantage, if it weren't for the change of Honnoji Temple, his final status would probably be that of a relative family elder, and the 45,000 stone territory of Maruoka Castle, the branch of Kitanoso Castle that he accepted four years ago, may be the limit of the territory he can obtain, and it is also the best commentary on his status.

This can be seen by anyone with a little vision, so in the Shibata family, Katsutoyo is not very valued by the retainers, and the relationship with Shibata Katsumasa and Sakuma Morimasa brothers is also very tense. Probably seeing this attitude of the retainers, the Katsu family chose him to leave the town of Changhama Castle and guard the gateway of Hokuriku alone, on the one hand, to give him the opportunity to be alone, and on the other hand, to avoid disputes with Katsumasa and others.

The importance of this battle of Nagahama Castle is self-evident. For Shibata Katsuie, Nagahama Castle was a bridgehead from Hokuriku to Kinai, and a buffer zone for Echizen's headquarters, bearing the brunt of the pressure on Kankinai, and at the same time the key to his own interaction with Nobutaka and his influence in Kinai. Because of this, Hideyoshi was able to transfer Nagahama Castle in exchange for Katsuka's concessions, and his current attack on this castle represents a complete break with Shibata and the first step to defeat him.

If we compare the situation of the allied forces of Nobunaga and Asakura Ichiai back then, Nagahama Castle is equivalent to the small valley castle of the Asai family, and it is the center of contention between the two sides. Of course, today's Shibata Katsuya, the strength is naturally far greater than that of Asakura Yoshikei back then, and there is also Mino's Nobutaka who echoes him, if Nagahama Castle is saved, wait until the beginning of spring from Hokuriku to fight a decisive battle, and it is not yet known who will kill the deer.

In this sense, the battle at Nagahama Castle was even more crucial than the battle at Gifu Castle. However, on the Gifu side, it involves the ownership of the Oda family's governor, so it is necessary for Hideyoshi Yura to take charge in person, and pull in Oda Nobuo and Ikeda Hengxing to add momentum. However, Hideyoshi's most elite direct subordinate Huang Muyi and the heavily relied on military advisor Kuroda Takataka were all placed on Jingxiu's side.

Commanding the most elite army in the family, Jingxiu must be able to understand the weight of the burden on his body. Moreover, Nagahama Castle is the place where Hideyoshi started, and it has a very special meaning for the Hara family, and once he takes this castle, he will be able to serve as the lord of the castle and further consolidate his position as the heir of the Hara family.

And for Shibata Katsutoyo, who defended the castle, Nagahama Castle was also related to his future in the Shibata family, and if he blocked Hideyoshi's attack, he might be able to dominate the entire Kita-Omi Province, and his position in the family would definitely be able to go further.

In the original history, when Hideyoshi attacked Nagahama Castle, Shibata Katsutoyo was already too ill to fight, and soon chose to surrender to Hideyoshi. Although he died in an early life, he was deeply favored by Hideyoshi, and his subordinates were also reused by Hideyoshi, and he was the only one among the adopted sons of the Shibata family to get a good death. Therefore, the people of the time had a good evaluation of him, thinking that he knew how to judge the situation and made a wise choice. However, now that the two families have just broken up, it is the time to establish the business, and as the adopted son of the Shibata family who hopes to inherit the family business, and has received the trust of the head of the family, he naturally has to fight hard.

For these reasons, the offensive and defensive battles of Nagahama Castle were fiercely fought, and both sides took the most serious attitude from the beginning and mobilized the greatest forces. The attendants led by Fukushima Masanori, Kato Kiyomasa, Senishi Hidehisa, Otani Yoshitsugi, Kato Yoshiaki and others led a team of elite samurai and hundreds of ashigaru respectively to launch a fierce attack on the gates of Nagahama Castle. These people were all cronies cultivated by Hideyoshi when he entered the Kita-Omi, and they had lived in Nagahama for a long time, and they were all very familiar with the city, including Keihide himself. The way and pace of the attack led by them can be said to be just right, and it also put great pressure on the defenders. However, Nagahama Castle is, after all, one of the few fortified castles in the entire Kinai, and Shibata Katsutoyo is also one of the most powerful generals of the Shibata family, and when he was the lord of Maruoka Castle, he cooperated with Kitanoso Castle to resist the many invasions of the Uesugi family, and he was quite experienced in defending the castle. Therefore, although Jingxiu had the advantage of troops and was familiar with the situation in the city, he did not make much progress for a while.

Faced with such a stalemate, Jingxiu accepted Kuroda Takataka's suggestion and gave up the direct siege of the city. He withdrew his forces from Nagahama Castle and divided them into two parts, one part was the 11,000 troops of Kitakawachi and Yamato, and they went to Yokoyama Castle, where Hideyoshi was a stronghold, to renovate the castle and put on a posture of preparing to hold it for a long time; The other part was the 15,000 troops of Bizen and Tango, who were divided into pieces, led by Kato and Fukushima, and launched an attack on the territory of the local wealthy clans in Nagahama Castle with the advantage of having ruled Kita-Omi for many years and being familiar with the terrain and situation in the territory. After a few days, the cities of seven or eight small and medium-sized wealthy families were conquered one after another, and the family members naturally became prisoners of the Yuliang family.

In fact, even if he Jingxiu didn't do this, Nagahama Castle would have already learned about his actions. And with the fall of small towns, the local wealthy families of Omi who participated in the defense of the city also began to waver, they strongly demanded that Katsutoyo come out of the battle, and volunteered to serve as a guide to break the small forces of the Yura family attack everywhere one by one, but the wealthy samurai brought by Shibata Katsutoyo from Hokuriku only wanted to hold Nagahama Castle, and were unwilling to rashly go out to fight against the Yura family army who was familiar with the terrain, and even did not trust these Omi nobles very much. The two sides insisted on their own words, and there were many fierce disputes in the military discussions, which also gave Shibata Katsutoyo a great headache. It was impossible for him to suppress the Hokuriku faction, which was the basis of his defense of Nagahama; But for those local wealthy families, he also has to comfort them, not to mention that these people are likely to become his direct subordinates in the future, even now, without them to raise military rations, assist in defending the city and undertake labor, only the people of the Hokuriku faction will absolutely not stop the military strength of the Yuliang family.

When the wealthy families released by Jingxiu arrived in Nagahama City, the disputes in the city also reached their peak.

The samurai of Hokuriku continued to defend the castle, and even tried to prevent them from entering the castle under the pretext that there might be a mixture of their family members: the wealthy clans of Omi were extremely unhappy with this, and strongly begged Shibata Katsutoyo to stop the Hara family's movements. And at this time, Shibata Katsutoyo must also do something, otherwise he is likely to lose the support of those wealthy families, and some of them will even immediately throw themselves into the Yura family.

On 17 December, Shibata Katsutoyo received definite information and led 5,000 troops out of the city to attack a detachment of more than 2,000 men. The two sides clashed for half an hour, as the leader of the detachment, Senshi Hidehisa was defeated, and the remaining more than 1,000 Bizen Ashigaru also fled with defeat, and the Shibata army was like a rainbow, and they pursued the fleeing Ashigaru to vent the pent-up resentment that had been suppressed for half a month, Shibata Katsutoyo wanted to accept it when he saw it, but he failed to restrain them, and was entangled by the Fukushima detachment that rushed to reinforce them. Shibata had the advantage of troops, and with the momentum of victory, he had the upper hand for a while; The Fukushima detachment held its position tightly, tried its best to resist the invasion of the other party, and insisted on entangling the other party, and finally waited for the 5,000 Yamato people from Yokoyama Castle to come to the rescue. These Yamato people were basically loyal believers in Kofukuji Temple, and they were somewhat similar to the monks and soldiers, and their combat effectiveness was not weak, and they quickly defeated this army together with the Fukushima detachment and drove Shibata Katsutoyo back to Nagahama Castle.

Although he defeated Xianshi Hidehisa, he was finally defeated by Yu Liangfang, and nearly a thousand people were killed and wounded. This was undoubtedly very unfavorable for Shibata Katsutoyo, who was isolated from the Hokuriku, and the morale of the city was greatly damaged. The ashigaru people, who were born in Omi, on the one hand, saw no hope, and on the other hand, they wanted to go home for the New Year, and they began to flee Nagahama, making the situation in the city even worse.

Five days later, when Yoshitsugu Otani entered the city again to persuade him to surrender, Shibata Katsutoyo finally gave in. On the condition that he would continue to stay in Nagahama City, he handed over his main room and sister-in-law to Jingxiu as hostages. In addition, at the request of Takataka Kuroda, he wrote a letter to Nishimino Inaba Kachitetsu, informing him of the battle of Nagahama Castle and his own subjugation.

Shibata Katsutoyo's main room is the youngest daughter of Inaba Kachitetsu. Jingxiu took her hostage, which was a constraint on Shibata Katsutoyo and Inaba Ittetsu. And Inaba Ichitetsu received a personal report from Shibata Katsutoyo and understood that Nagahama Castle and Kita Omi had thrown themselves into Hideyoshi, so how would he choose?

It's a perfect breakthrough...... I received the news from Shunkei Tsutsui through Keisei and couldn't help but think of it like this.

In the Mino country of Shinkomi, Nishimino is the essence, occupying more than half of the stone height of the entire Mino country. Among the three famous people of the year, the clan Bu Quan died early, and Mamoru Ando was exiled, only Inaba Kachitetsu was still in charge, and he and Nakano Saito Toshiji jointly controlled the state affairs, and is currently stationed in Ogaki Castle to stabilize the Nishimino place for Nobutaka. If he is shaken, then Xinxiao can almost be said to be the general trend.

At the same time as this news, there was also the news that Niwa Nagahide had fallen ill, and a letter from Shunkei Tsutsui. This letter was written during Niwa Nagahide's illness in order to dissuade Tsutsui Shunkei from sending troops to join the Yura family. This was his last resort of mediation. At first, he once sent people to Gifu Castle to persuade Nobutaka and ask him to hand over Jishi, but Shintaka refused; Hideyoshi summoned the army, and he tried to dissuade him, but at the Cheongju Conference, he also signed and exchanged an oath about the arrangement of Yoshishi, so when Hideyoshi politely and resolutely argued with reason, he had to give up mediation and maintain a neutral attitude on the matter; After the failure of the mediation efforts, he was still a little unwilling, so he wrote letters to Ikeda Tsuneko, Hosokawa Fujitaka, Tsutsui Shunkei, Ikoma's parents, and other close Daimyo Daimyo in Kinouchi, asking them to exercise restraint and not to add fuel to the fire. However, at this time, it was a critical moment for each family to stand in line, how could everyone stand by and watch?

Even Tsutsui Shunkei and Ikoma's parents followed my instructions and sent troops, and the authority of the Oda family was almost completely dissipated in the cold wind of December. Although Niwa Nagahide is mentally prepared for this, I'm afraid it will still be very sad to see this, right? In his letter to Tsutsui Shunkei, the tone was very depressed in several places, and the handwriting was a little sloppy, which was very inconsistent with his usual graceful and peaceful style.

"Let Jing Zheng bring gifts and medicinal chalk products, and personally go to Sakamoto Castle to visit His Royal Highness Changxiu in my name." I command Honda to be pure.

Duo Zhengjun replied, and then respectfully asked me, "The Tokugawa family's Hiraiwa pro-Yoshita said that he had something to ask to see the lord, when will the meeting be arranged?" ”

"Politely decline for me," I thought for a moment and came up with a suitable reason, "Tomorrow is the anniversary festival of the Forgotten Sorrow Temple, and you tell him that I have gone to the Bodhi Temple of my family to comfort the soul of the Forgotten Sorrow Temple, and I will not see any outsiders in the two heavens, including the New Year." ”

"Understood." Honda Masasumi put away the order I gave to Keimasa, and respectfully exited the main hall.

I also stood up and walked under the wide eaves outside the hall. Even though the winters in Tosa weren't too cold, I still felt some chill from the wind when I was on Mount Kira. Looking to the east, I saw that the Arakawa Shrine, where Hoshin-in Temple was first inhabited, has now been expanded into the Bodhi Temple of the Tosa Yoshira family, and a mounds have been built for Nana in the temple.

"Time flies," I shook my head a little sadly, "It's been a year."

(It seems that many readers have misunderstood, thinking that I want to tj ......, in fact, I am talking about not being able to update normally, that is to say, there is no progress to maintain one chapter a day, but there are still two chapters in three days.) In short, TJ can't be, and if there's anyone who doesn't want this book to go halfway, it's me.)