After Shioka Kazuha left, the heavy rain continued to fall, and the streets of Takato Town were already empty. At this moment, the sound of horses' hooves sounded in the distance of the street, and five cavalry galloped from the direction of Gaoyuan City. The leader is a military general wearing a belly roll, the other party is full of beard, burly, and looks very rough.

After dismounting, the military general went straight to Takeda Katsuyori, saluted and said, "Your Highness Katsuyori, I haven't seen you for a long time, and I have finally grown into a man."

Takeda Katsuyori laughed and said, "Really? Akiyama-sama. ”

Li Xiao looked at this person, the other party's name was Akiyama Nobuyo, also known as Hu Fan, from the Akiyama clan, a branch of the Kai Takeda clan. His clan, the Akiyama family, has always been a genealogical retainer of the Takeda family. And after Akiyama Nobutomo himself served the Yuanfu, he was a fierce general of the Takeda family, and made a lot of outstanding military exploits, and was promoted to the general of the 250 cavalry by Takeda Shingen, because of his combat bravery, he was praised by Tokugawa Ieyasu as the fierce bull of the Takeda army.

In this battle of Kawanakajima, he did not lead the army, but as the garrison of Ina Prefecture, he stayed behind Takato Castle to guard against the military situation in the direction of Mikawa Mino.

Takato Castle has always been the direct leader of the Takeda family, and Akiyama Nobutomo served here as the castle representative, not the lord of the castle, and his domain was sealed elsewhere. With Takeda Katsuyori as lord of the castle, Akiyama Nobutomo was to move to Iida Castle, which was the border with Shinano and closer to Mikawa and Mino.

Takeda Katsuyori, Li Xiao, and Yamamoto Kansuke are back on the horse. The horses' hooves trampled on the uneven pavement one after the other, and muddy water splashed everywhere. Takeda Katsuyori suddenly whipped heavily and galloped forward, Akiyama Shinari, Li Xiao and they hurriedly urged their mounts to follow, while Nishimura Heizo and his ashigaru team also quickened their pace, following the horse team and trotting all the way from the back.

The outline of Gao Yuancheng became clearer and clearer in front of Li Xiao's eyes.

As Pingshan City, the scale of Gaoyuan City is still quite large. The exterior of Takato Castle shows that the castle was built on a solid foundation, and then on top of a stone wall built with huge stones to prevent enemies from climbing, and on top of the stone wall was a curved wheel (castle wall) surrounded by a circle.

The inner part of the outermost one is called Ninomaru, and the inner one surrounded by the innermost one is called Honmaru. There is a trench dug under the outermost tortock, which is called a hori. Takato Castle is one of Yamamoto Kansuke's masterpieces of castle building, and the empty hori outside Takato Castle is designed as a feature of "Three Tsukihori".

The so-called "Sangatsukihori" is that in front of the two sections of Hori, there is a crescent-like Hori, and the Sandanbori form a protruding semicircle, and the soil dug up during the excavation is all piled up behind the Hori, forming an earthen rampart to cover the soldiers defending the city, and when the enemy army attacks, it can only go around to the narrow passage on both sides of the "Sangatsukihori", and in the process of marching, it will be densely killed by the defenders' bows and iron cannons, and even if they rush in, they will be attacked by the defenders from many sides.

There is also a similar idea here, as well as the 'wildebeest exit' that the Hojo family often used when building the castle.

This structure is somewhat similar to the salient design of the later European prismatic forts, all of which were designed to kill and injure more enemy troops. In addition to Takato Castle, Yamamoto Kansuke also built Fukashi Castle, Komoro Castle, and Kaizu Castle based on this structure, all of which were built by Takeda Shingen in order to consolidate Shinano's rule at that time or to prevent invasion by other forces.

It is not surprising why when Li Xiao played Nobunaga's Ambition, Kansuke Yamamoto's surname would be S-level.

Coming to the earthen bridge on the empty hori, Takeda Katsuyori, Li Xiao and his party slowed down their horseback riding speed and slowly walked towards the tiger's mouth of Takato Castle. The tiger's mouth is where the curved wheel opens, and the gate located in the tiger's mouth is called Otemon, or Chaseemon. On the other hand, the gate at the back of the castle is called the Tsute Gate.

Now that the Otemon Gate has already been opened, the Takeda family samurai who are guarding the castle on both sides of the passage behind the gate are standing on the left and right sides, preparing to welcome the arrival of Takeda Katsuyori.

Although the rain was unabated at this time, Takeda Katsuyori still put on a lord's posture, sat on his horse with his back straight, and rode his horse along the horse path into the city, all the way to the front of the Honmaru Gate, before dismounting. Then he entered the Honmaru surrounded by Nobuyo Akiyama and others.

On the same day, Takeda Katsuyori and Akiyama Nobutomo handed over Takato Castle. Since Takeda Katsuyori still has no family, Li Xiao and Yamamoto Kansuke moved into the castle tower in Honmaru together. The castle tower of Takato Castle is relatively small, and it is a bit reluctant to call it a castle tower, or it is more appropriate to call it a small arrow tower such as a turret. But it's better than nothing.

The castle tower is the permanent residence of the castle lord, and it is also the headquarters in wartime, and it is generally attacked by enemy troops in the cage battle, which basically means that you are done playing.

In addition to the castle tower, there are also weapons and rations stored in the main pill, and there is a large pool of water that has been dug up a long time ago, which is stored in case the other side cuts off their own water during the war in the cage castle. In Ninomaru, there is a residence for the garrison samurai, a horse farm, and a horse path that connects the main gate of Honmaru to the Otemon gate at the foot of the mountain, and circles up the mountain, building a horse road that looks like the current winding mountain road.

In order to prevent the enemy from breaking through the Otemon Gate, he directly attacked Honmaru on this road. The defenders will also set up various obstacles to prevent the enemy from deploying their forces and delay the enemy's offensive. The defenders could shoot at the enemy with iron cannons or bows and arrows through the towering castle tower or through the curved wheel narrow (shooting hole) around the outer perimeter of the main maru.

From the design of the narrow room, you can also see the meticulousness of the person. It is said that the reason for this design is that the bow and arrow have different angles and movements when firing.

Now Li Xiao is like a curious tourist, carefully observing everything up and down Gaoyuan City. With the design of the castle, it has become a purely militarized building, and before the appearance of advanced weapons such as artillery, it is easy to hold on to the enemy's superior forces for a while, and then wait for reinforcements.

Someone has counted more than 80 battles fought by Takeda Shingen in his life, except for a few, they were all active attackers, and more than half of the offensive battles were also siege battles. The cage battle lasted from a few days to a year and a half. Otherwise, with the majesty of Takeda Shingen, as well as the elite of the Kai retainers, how could they spend more than ten years on Shinano's strategy, and most of the time was spent besieging the city.

Since he loves to read Sun Tzu's Art of War, it is absolutely impossible not to know the wise saying 'siege for the city', but he still has to do it. The reason is also very simple, Shinano's castle or 砄 is too fucking much.

Therefore, it is often said that Takeda Shingen advocated attack, so he never repaired the city, and no enemy hit his own city in his life. According to the phrase that Takeda Shingen said repeatedly before, "Man is a mountain, man is a city, and man is Hori." And 'The fortified city cannot be defended, only a strong retainer group can be trusted by my Xinxuan.' ’

But Li Xiao has seen the design of Gaoyuan City and Haijin City, and feels that there is still a discrepancy in his understanding of Takeda Shingen's words. But that doesn't mean his rule in Shinano was just as strong. The four castles built by Takeda Shingenmei Yamamoto Kansuke were all located in Shinano.