It is said that it has entered the cold winter. The goose-feather-like snow fell in the air, covering the entire Takato Castle and the castle town.

As the day dawned, the snow gradually stopped, and the castle tower was covered with snow, and the ashigaru soldiers in the castle began to remove the snow with brooms and sweep the steps. The samurai stationed in the city also began a day's training, and they all changed into wooden swords and practiced one-on-one with each other.

On the training ground, in addition to sparring with knives, you can occasionally see a stout man with only a crotch cloth hanging all over his body, and one person can deal with four or five samurai armed with wooden swords empty-handed.

On the horse farm on the side of Ninomaru, more than a dozen horseback warriors with quivers and longbows on their backs drove their horses to practice riding and archery towards an arrow target twenty or thirty paces away.

At this time, in addition to swordsmanship, samurai must also be proficient in marksmanship, jiu-jitsu (non-judo), archery, horsemanship, and at a higher level, they must also learn cultural kanji. Generally speaking, the best weapon for samurai is the sword, and there are still fewer guns and bows and arrows.

Similarly, as a samurai, you have to get up early and work late to practice your martial arts, which has been a tradition since the Heian period.

Unless there are those samurai who have hereditary territories, as an ordinary samurai, it is necessary to have a good martial arts, which is the cost of the samurai's food, and it is also the condition for the lord to hire you. The daimyo will generally give you a fortune based on your contribution to the master's family and your ability, and if the samurai is neglected or unfit to fight, the daimyo will mercilessly deprive you of it.

This is the same as the words that the boss often said in later generations, the employee's ability must be worthy of your salary, otherwise be ready to leave.

During the Warring States period, due to the repeated wars, it was said that Ben was a barren place, so it was normal to make disasters and famines. At this time, not only the peasants, but also the samurai and even the lord of the castle himself did not have enough to eat. At this time, some daimyo either took the means of reducing their salaries, or they were ruthless and directly expelled the samurai at the bottom of the family.

The most excessive is the demon king of the Oda family.,In order to maintain the motivation of his generals.,From time to time, a few juniors will be expelled.,For example, the veteran Sakuma Nobumori.,His son Sakuma Nobuei.,Lin Xiuzhen、Ando Morisashi、Niwa Katsu, etc. are all in the list of dismissals.。

Therefore, in Takato Castle, even if there is no urging from Takeda Katsuyori, the samurai under his command maintain a training state every day, and no one will be lazy rain or shine.

While the warriors in the city were practicing their martial arts, in a small courtyard in Gaoyuan City, the sound of guns and wooden knives constantly rang out.

There was a chilly smell in the air, and occasionally a large cloud of snow could suddenly roll up from the tip of the spear. In the cloister of the courtyard, a dozen samurai sat in various positions, wooden swords and armor casually thrown around them, and they held their breath and watched the confrontation in the courtyard.

Li Xiao stood in the center of the field with his legs spread apart, holding a gun in both hands, and wearing a bamboo armor headband. Now the tip of the large gun, which is more than four meters long, has been removed, and a cotton ball is wrapped around the two ends of the barrel, which is stained with black charcoal powder.

And confronting him were eight warriors around him who were holding wooden knives and also wearing bamboo armor, they were slowly moving parallel around Li Xiao, their eyes were firmly fixed on each other, not daring to be distracted in the slightest, several people in this winter, the hands holding the wooden knives were so nervous that they were sweating, and even their breathing could not be calm, and white smoke erupted between their mouths and noses.

At this time, Li Xiao still looked calm, his eyes lowered, and he felt that this big gun had become a whole with his people at this moment, and his breathing was smooth and orderly. In the face of a large number of people on all sides, it is impossible for him to take into account the 360-degree range, and the opponent is also confused by the rapid and slow movement, making himself feel that the grass and trees are all soldiers.

The more you need to be calm at this time, and then concentrate all your strength to launch a ferocious blow to the attacker.

Ten minutes passed, and Li Xiao sat down like an old monk, not moving. At this time, one of the warriors finally couldn't hold his breath and attacked Li Xiao with a wooden knife horizontally, while the other warrior took advantage of his idea to attract Li Xiao, and he took the opportunity to force the gap behind Li Xiao.

At this moment, the big gun in Li Xiao's hand was like a big python, and it first attacked the warrior behind him, only to hear a muffled sound, and the gun was just stabbed on the bamboo armor on the opponent's chest, leaving a dark trace of charcoal powder. And the other party was also hit by this momentum, and his tank fell to the ground.

One.

Li Xiao shouted, twisted his legs to dodge the wooden knife cut on the left side, pulled his left arm, and the barrel of the gun bounced back like a spring, and cleanly stabbed another person with the tail of the gun. Immediately, Li Xiaoheng shot and opened the wooden knives attacked by the other two.

Two.

Then Li Xiao threw the big gun sideways, danced impermeable, and forced away several other warriors who wanted to take advantage of the short inch of the wooden knife and wanted to attack Li Xiao's circle of big guns and fight him at close range.

Use the length advantage of the big gun to keep enough distance and not give the enemy any chance to attack the circle, so that you can stand undefeated. This is the only trick to using a spear and a katana to fight each other, as the saying goes, an inch is long and an inch is strong, and an inch is short and an inch is dangerous.

Of the eight samurai, two were struck by the black charcoal powder on the tip of their spears and were sentenced to retreat to the side, leaving six people on the field.

"Lord Li Xiao's martial arts have improved again."

On the castle tower of Gaoyuan City, a small window was opening diagonally, and the position of the window was facing this corner of Li Xiao's competition.

And behind the small window, the city lord Takeda Katsuyori and Yamamoto Kansuke were both standing, holding their hands on their chests and watching carefully, how Li Xiao picked one against eight. These eight people were no ordinary peasant soldiers, they were all samurai of the Takeda family, and several of them had experienced several joint battles.

Hearing Yamamoto Kansuke praise Li Xiao so rarely, Takeda Katsuyori said with a smile: "Yes, a month ago, his strength was almost one person to challenge four samurai, and ten days later, it increased from four to six, and five days ago, he was able to fight against eight samurai." ”

Kansuke Yamamoto shook his head and said, "No, what does this mean, it just shows that he is very good at group fighting, and the head of the long-handled weapon is not in the battle array?" If he encounters a master of swordsmanship, a one-on-one duel, Li Xiao may not be so easy. ”

As soon as Kansuke Yamamoto finished speaking, Li Xiao flew up and kicked a samurai into the air, and solved another one in the blink of an eye.

Takeda Katsuyori said with a smile: "I don't see it that way, you don't know yet, Li Xiao said in a chat yesterday that he went to a Katori Shinto-ryu swordsmanship temple in Suwa Town ten days ago to try it, and one person defeated the other party's hall master plus six or seven disciples in the wheel battle. ”

Yamamoto Kansuke's eyes narrowed slightly, Li Xiao went to the competition in Suwa Town, how could he not know, Li Xiao's whereabouts were reported to Yamamoto Kansuke by a special ninja.

In the information sent back from the ninja, that time Li Xiao went to Suwa Town, where was the competition, it was simply a kick in the hall, and the process was to go first to the introductory disciples who practiced swordsmanship in the opponent's dojo, first knocked over a dozen of them, and finally used verbal ridicule to force the other party's hall owner and the hall owner's personal disciples to make one-on-one heads-up.

Li Xiao used a big gun to engage in a wheel battle with the disciples of the Pavilion, winning seven games in a row, and the last battle broke the ribs of the opponent's Pavilion Master. That's it, the most excessive thing, when Li Xiao left, he also took away the signboard outside the Taoist temple, the reason was to keep it as a souvenir.

Thinking of this, Kansuke Yamamoto couldn't help but shake his head, he didn't know that in China four hundred years later, there was a movie called Jingwumen, and there was an actor named Bruce Lee in the movie, who was Li Xiao's most admired idol when he was a student.

The most powerful thing in the film is the scene where Bruce Lee uses a nunchuck to fight this dojo alone. So after the crossing, Li Xiao decided to carry forward this sport, and prepared to take it as a hobby for himself in the future and stick to it for a long time.