The Void Monk trembled, looking back and seeing the Guoxin monk holding two bright and small knives, the snowy blades showed a dim reflection under the reflection of the lights, and the Void Monk sat on the ground with weak legs and exclaimed: "You...... Fruit Heart...... You've gone and come back! What are you doing here? ”

The corners of the fruit's mouth curled into a slight sneer, and he slowly walked to the side of the Void Monk, bent down and said to him, "Because someone is spending money to buy Master's life, the reward he paid is too great for me to refuse. ”

"What a pay! I...... I'm willing to pay you double! As long as you let me go! The Void Monk wanted to get up in a panic, but he was old and frail and was lost by this frightened ability, and he couldn't even stand up under the persecution of the fruitful monk.

The Guoxin monk gently put the little knife across the neck of the Void Monk, and said: "The reward he gave is all the property in the name of the master, the gold and silver behind the master, the small courtyard and several properties in Kyoto are mine, the master must know who this person is!" ”

"It's my rebel grandson! It had to be him! I didn't expect the old man Yingming to be confused for a while, and he actually raised such a white-eyed wolf who didn't learn and didn't know how to do it! I hate me so much! The Void Monk beat his chest and cried and cursed his grandson, and the corner of his eyes still glanced at the expression of the Guoxin monk from time to time.

"That's it! Guoxin will not delay the time when the master will go on the road, farewell! With a slight stroke of both hands, the two knives were intertwined into a gorgeous line of blood, and the next moment, the head full of astonishment rose to the sky, and the blood sprayed from the corpse cavity splashed on the golden copper coins, witnessing a terrifying story of betrayal.

……

In the summer, the heat in the country of Mikawa is getting more and more unbearable. Even if you have your back to Mikawa Bay and welcome the sea breeze that is not blowing, it will not relieve the heat here. Matsudaira Ieyasu rode a tall horse produced by Michinoku and commanded 5,000 troops to besiege Saijo Castle. Three full years have passed since the First Battle of the Barrel Sasa, and for the past three years he has been conscientiously expanding the territory of the Mikawa Kingdom, and he has never given up his diligent pursuit of power and land, he is a man of ambition and ambition.

In the past, the son-in-law of the Imagawa family has long since transformed into the overlord of the famous Mikawa, only a slightly immature face will reveal his true age, and he can independently lay down a large territory to dominate most of the Mikawa country at a young age, no matter how you look at it, he is an outstanding talent, if you don't count the demonic figure of Kira Yoshitoki. Matsudaira Ieyasu is definitely a heroic figure of the Warring States period.

As early as last year, the conclusion of the Kiyosu Alliance established Matsudaira Ieyasu's dominance over Mikawa was stable, and his expansion over the years was also trying to implement the original strategic goal of dominating Mikawa, and the current Saijo Castle was the last strategic target in Mikawa Country, and he commanded 5,000 troops from all over Mikawa Province, whether they wanted to attack the territory of the Kira family under the banner of Mihaha Aoi.

Since the raid at the beginning of the first month of the month successfully captured several branch towns of the Kira family in Nuta-gun, in less than half a year, the Matsudaira family has been marching all the way to sweep through the people of Nota-gun, Bihai-gun, and Hata-gun, and defeated the Kira army led by Kira Yoshiyasu several times by virtue of the superiority of troops and excellent command.

Counting the counties of the East Three Rivers that have been basically won before. The Matsudaira family can already be regarded as the veritable lord of Mikawa, and such rapid expansion has allowed Matsudaira Ieyasu to accumulate high prestige in just three years. Several genealogy elders who originally had a strong voice were dismissed one after another, completely establishing his position as the undisputed in the Three Rivers Kingdom.

At this time, the 5,000 Matsudaira army was surrounding Saijo Castle to prepare for a general attack, and Ishikawa Sumasa looked at the black siege force and said, "Saijo Castle is worthy of being a fortified castle rebuilt by Yamamoto Sadomori, and even if it is located next to the Yasakugawa River, it still has a solid defense that does not go down to the mountain castle!" It's just that why is that Kira Temple unwilling to open the castle and surrender? ”

"The family didn't plan to do anything to the Kira family, anyway, we are still relatives of the Imperial Yuo, everyone is a Samurai of the Three Rivers, what problems can't be discussed carefully?" Matsudaira Ieyasu rubbed his head in distress and said: "Although there are some contradictions between my Ieyasu and Kira Palace, but it is all in the past, don't care, as long as His Royal Highness Kira is willing to submit to his family, and his family is willing to give him the imperial ...... The treatment of a public! ”

Ishikawa Shumasa hesitated: "Maybe it's because of the town government of Echigo!" ”

"Echigo's town lord?" Matsudaira Ieyasu frowned.

The young Naito's parents said with great interest, "I heard that Kai is a very powerful person, and he has a great reputation in Kanto! Even a samurai as powerful as Takeda Daizen was defeated, and he really deserves to be an example to my Mikawa samurai! ”

Glimpsing the young samurai of the retainers' regiment showing an approving attitude, Matsudaira Ieyasu's brows were about to twist into a pimple, and the retainer of the lineage Sakai Masaraku personally noticed this, so he said casually: "The town government has abandoned Mikawa Echigo, and strictly speaking, it should not be counted as my Samurai of Mikawa." ”

The governor of the Ishikawa family in Nishino, Ishikawa Hinata Shoujiacheng echoed repeatedly: "That's right! The Mikawa Kira family should be the Kira Hall in Saijo Castle, and the town government has long been the Ashikaga family in Kyoto, so he can no longer be counted as our Mikawa samurai. ”

If you want to say that the most taboo topic for the genealogy of the Mikawa Matsudaira family is that during the time of Kira Yoshishi, which was full of beauty in Echigo, Matsudaira Ieyasu himself did not discuss any topic of Kira Yoshishi for ten years, and his genealogy retainers also adhered to the concept of the family governor and never mentioned how beautiful Kira Yoshishi was, even in the Imagawa family back then.

Refusing to discuss and never mentioning it means a gesture of resistance, eagerly approaching Kira Yoshiyasu and even willing to put a hot face on the cold ass, further indicating that Matsudaira Ieyasu's governing strategy has always revolved around the theme of Mikawa Pacification, and he may even think about how to hold Kira Yoshiyasu up for more benefits.

The young samurai didn't notice the turbulence in these words, rubbed his head stupidly and ran to the front of the battle to continue watching, until Sakai Tadashi, who had taken a back seat, said with a smile: "Actually, this Saijo Castle is the former residence of the town lord, and the place where we stand is the territory of the Kamiashikaga family." If we do this, it will definitely cause strong dissatisfaction from the town government! ”

"This ......," Ishikawa Ienari said cautiously, "Do you want to send an envoy to Echigo......"

Ishikawa Shumasa coughed and said, "Actually, that's the case." The lord deeply felt that Mikawa had suffered from war for many years. As a result, the samurai of the Three Rivers were poor and poor, so the lord and the Great Tree Temple raised troops to fight and eliminate the people of the Three Rivers who were in rebellion, in order to restore the order of the Three Rivers Kingdom to normal as soon as possible, and it was a last resort to make some sacrifices for this, and I believe that the town government will be able to understand our suffering. ”

"That's right, that's right!" Several genealogy retainers responded enthusiastically, gradually squeezing Sakai Tadashi out of the circle, and the angry old man secretly scolded this group of people for being so disrespectful to him, the old man of the spectrum family. The huffing horse ran to the back and sulked.

The Tokugawa retainers watched the siege progress with laughter, the siege of Saijo Castle has lasted for more than two months, and the siege of more than 60 days has already forced the 1,000 defenders in the city to the edge of the cliff, since the accidental death of Tominaga Tadashimoto, all the battles presided over by Kira Yoshiyasu have achieved a brilliant record of consecutive defeats, whether it is the support of Okochi Nobusada or Yamoto Yamaoka Yaomoto, Takahashi Masanobu, Ehara Masahide and others, it still cannot change the embarrassing situation of successive military defeats.

Nobutasha Okochi has sent envoys several times to reprimand Matsudaira Ieyasu's shameless invasion, but unfortunately his method can only target the righteous men and gentlemen who abide by the laws of the shogunate, but cannot effectively target the ruthless samurai daimyo, and Matsudaira Ieyasu simply ignores your protests and reprimands. insisted on encroaching on Kira's territory little by little according to his own ideas.

Seeing that this guy was unreliable, Okochi Nobutada sent someone to contact Oda Nobunaga, who was sitting in Owari, to ask him to administer justice. How to say that this is also an ally of the Kira family, it should be no problem to preside over justice, and Oda Nobunaga did immediately respond and was willing to act as an arbiter between the two sides, but the envoy of the Oda family had just persuaded the two families to make peace, and the Matsudaira family found a reason to continue fighting.

Even if there is a little territorial dispute between two villages, it is necessary to interfere under the banner, just imagine that in the countryside of that era, not to mention the conflict of interests between the villages, even the village can still pull out a tall and ugly man, you can imagine how angry he was at Okochi Nobutada, so the two sides fought in ping-pong, and this fight played a series of painful times of defeat.

Mikawa Kira Army has hardly moved troops in the past ten years, since the Imagawa family has been treated as a distinguished family, in the barrel narrow battle Tojo Kira's Kira Yoshian also symbolically sent two melons and jujubes to shout at it, Saijo Castle's Okochi Nobutada did not mean to send troops at all, at first glance this is really cool but in fact it is a further weakening of the military strength of the Mikawa Kira family.

Ten years without a war means that the strong army has to be reduced to a fish belly, not to mention that the defenders of Saijo Castle are not strong troops at all, as the most powerful elite Saijo Bei went to Kyoto with the governor of Nishimikawa as early as twelve years ago, and then all the good samurai and Ashigaru seedlings were sent to Omi to be trained, and the blood transfusion for several years in a row destroyed the samurai ecosystem of Mikawa Province and even the Kira family.

Whether it is Tojo or Saijo, the Mikawa Kira family can be called no more than a palm of the soldiers, and the only ones who can barely be regarded as good are Tojo's Tominaga Tadamoto and Saijo's Yamaoka Yaoyuan, these two are dead and old and can't shoulder the heavy responsibility of commanding the army, and as the general Kira Yoshiyasu does have enough back, from the beginning of the indiscriminate command caused by failure to later pretend to be deaf and dumb and still suffer defeat, so that he, the governor of the Mikawa Kira family, and Huang Haxing are equated.

This defeat and defeat and three defeats continued, even if the confident samurai fell into hesitation and confusion, and the brave soldiers were shaken and confused, as an army, no matter what it lost, there was nothing worse than losing morale and confidence, and the Mikawa Kira family encountered this embarrassing situation.

The huge autonomy given to Saijo Castle by Kira Yoshitomo includes a series of administrative decrees, and even the fact that he did not send to Monomi Bantou just gave Okochi Nobusada a privilege of direct participation, in a sense, it was to change the direction to recognize that Nishimikawa was the autonomous domain controlled by this group of genealogical retainers, and the more they were given, the less Kira Yoshitoki cared about them, after all, the cup of tea in Saijo Castle after being away from home for twelve years should have been cold a long time ago, and the so-called monarch and ministers were just years of relationship and eternal interests.

Okochi Nobutada had written several times to Echigo Kasuga Mountain Castle, but unfortunately Kira Yoshitoki had already gone south to Kanto, and the Gendai people who stayed in Kasuga Mountain Castle did not dare to pass the letter to Kira Yoshito. However, with the expansion of Musashi Kunidai, the military affairs faced by Kira Yoshitoki became more and more complicated. I didn't pay much attention to receiving a letter for help that was a month late.

In Kira's opinion. It was also acceptable to defeat an inconsequential battle, so he sent an envoy to Oda Nobunaga to urge Matsudaira Ieyasu to withdraw his troops immediately, and stated that as long as he withdrew his troops, he would not be held accountable, and then the second and third letters for help gradually became worse, from the first letter of help only one defeat to two or three or four defeats, and finally even most of Mikawa was lost.

However, it was not until half a month ago that all this gradually became clear, and Okochi Nobusada's letter for help was still moving from Mikawa to Echigo to Ueno and then transferred to the moving Kira army's main camp. It's not clear where exactly this formation moved, and I don't know when I will see the latest letter for help, and I haven't thought about how to bypass the layers of barriers to help them at all, they have only one in their hearts, I am a retainer of the genealogy when Kira Yoshishi, and I have to take care of me when I defeat Kira Yoshishi.

Driven by this mindset, from Kira Yoshiyasu to Okochi Nobutada, they did not react too much to the successive defeats, and in their opinion, as long as they were ready to ask for help, the umbrella above would definitely come down to them from a tricky angle, crushing the shameful Matsudaira Ieyasu and defending their interests.

They naively thought that Kira Yoshitomo would not send anyone to spy on Saijo Castle. In fact, it is the trust and support of this group of hereditary genealogies, who can enjoy the grain and sea salt income of Xisanhe to the fullest. Living close to the days when Kira Yoshiki was in the country of Mikawa, they didn't think about betrayal and didn't plan to betray, so why bother to betray this kind of behavior that loses both reputation and profit? Sometimes this kind of thinking is more dangerous than that of a traitor.

It wasn't until the siege of the city for two months that Kira Yoshitoki did not receive emergency rescue, Kira Yoshiyasu and Okochi Nobutaha were desperate to find out that they were wrong, Kira Yoshitoki transferred almost all the main forces to fight in the Kanto region, and they couldn't spare the extra forces to rescue the old lords who were separated by several countries, and they didn't even know whether Kira Yoshitoki was in Kawagoe Castle and Edo Castle at this time, or whether he had already come to Odawara Castle.

The record messenger sent by Kira Yoshitoki kept contacting the Oda family, hoping that he would urge Matsudaira Ieyasu to withdraw from Nishimikawa as soon as possible, but the Oda family's attitude became more and more ambiguous, choosing and playing word games against Yang Feng Yin, and Matsudaira Ieyasu's offensive became stronger and stronger, and several times almost broke the big gate to scare the samurai of the Mikawa Kira family into a cold sweat.

In the assessment room of Saijo Castle, Kira Yoshiyasu said worriedly: "At this time of life and death, do you want to talk about what your family should do?" ”

Jukai Shinzaemon Yaozuna said with a bitter face: "Do you really want to submit?" It's really unwilling! ”

"How can we subdue a samurai family from Kyoto! We and the Samurai of the Three Rivers must not bow down to them! Yamaoka Yaomoto's sonorous speech blocked this last glimmer of possibility, the Matsudaira family is the Kyoto Kamo clan was sent down by Ise Sadashi to suppress the deeds of the Ota County Ichikashi is also widely spread in Mikawa Province, but with the rise of Matsudaira Ieyasu gradually disappeared, but some facts have always been buried in the hearts of the Mikawa samurai will not change.

Nobutasha Okochi was much older than twelve years ago, with gray hair and a rich face, it was difficult to see that he was the personable Mikawa culture man back then, and at this time his eyelids were swollen and his voice was hoarse: "Compared to the Matsudaira clan, which has been less than a hundred years old in the Mikawa country, my Kira clan and the retainers of the next generation are more qualified to be called Mikawa samurai!" If it weren't for us waiting for us to take a wrong step in the Southern Dynasties, why would we let the Hosokawa clan and the Isshiki clan break the blood flow for the head of the Sanhe Guardian Fight! ”

Kira Yoshiyasu listened carefully to the group of genealogical retainers discussing the origin of the Matsudaira family, and found that this assessment seemed to be a bit of a problem, and hurriedly said: "Won't the princes come up with any effective methods? Seeing that this menacing Matsudaira army is about to hit the door! ”

The retainers of Saijo Castle looked at each other one by one, and more than ten years of superior life made them gradually wide and fat, just like the samurai of Mikawa were not elite soldiers and not strong, and the life of worry-free food and clothing made their sense of distress weak, and they could live comfortably without worrying about it at all in terms of strategy, just like the five senses degraded as if the brain was not used more and more sluggishly.

The meeting began with Yoshiyasu Kira's question and ended with Yoshitoki Kira's question, but the genealogists of Saijo Castle did not answer his question, because they themselves did not know how to deal with it, and because Kira Yoshiyasu was not the actual owner of Saijo Castle, the retainers of the Pedigro Dynasty were always a little resistant to this "Yellow Banner Star".

A group of samurai at Saijo Castle had the best time to escape in a tangle, and when Saijo Castle's Otemon Gate was breached, it was already too late to escape, and Okochi Nobutada asked Kira Yoshiyasu to take his family and children to retreat to Owari Province immediately, and then choose an opportunity to go to Echigo to join Kira Yoshishi, who was a leader of Ichimen.

Kira Yoshian thought about the safety of his uncle Yoshiaki Kira and his uncle Yoshitomi Kira, and repeatedly asked the two to follow him out of Saijo Castle as soon as possible, but was rejected by the stubborn old man Yoshitomi Kira, and the filial Yoshiaki Kira also said that he did not plan to leave Saijo Castle, and as a result, this delay wasted the most precious escape time. (To be continued......)