This war once again demonstrated the prestige of the Nagao family, Saito Asanobu with his outstanding performance in the two joint battles, spread the name of Echigo Zhong Kui to the Kanto countries, and also famous Honjo Shigenaga and other Vietnamese reserves, of course, this is not the point, the most surprising thing is that Nagao Keihu took less than three days to go out of the Higashi Ueno, swept the Higashi Ueno, and returned to the glorious record of the Nishiueno to repel the Hojo Army.

Half a day's rapid march of dozens of kilometers, and participate in an important joint battle to defeat the Hojo family's tens of thousands of troops, this section was widely spread by the people of Ueno Province, and soon the Kanto Eight Kingdoms and even the world knew that there were such a few powerful generals, this operation was also called "Ueno Daikai".

The name of the dragon of Echigo spread to the world with his unique shape of the dragon flag, many curious samurai, cultural people, and ape musicians began to collect information about him, and the righteous brother of the famous shogunate general Kira Yoshishi, at the age of fourteen, raised an army to kill his brother and enemy, and the history of invincibility for more than ten years was turned out, and people realized that Echigo actually had two famous generals in the world.

Combined with the Shinano Punitive War that was also spread and the earlier Battle of Kawanakajima, the Kira Army easily defeated the Takeda Army, and the extremely brilliant record was also hyped up.

The Kanto samurai, who were suspicious of the "Echigo myth", gradually corrected their mentality and began to pay attention to the strong neighbors in the north, and more and more information pointed to the extraordinary influence of the Kira family's downward direction, and Echigo suddenly turned from a deserted country of 300,000 koku to the first country in the world with 2 million koku, which is even more bizarre than the Arabian Nights.

If there were doubts before this, supporting two wars of more than 10,000 and intense intensity at the same time would be enough to crush all the doubters. There are many daimyo who take out an army of 20,000 or 30,000 in one go, since ancient times. But there has never been an example of a two-front war that can achieve brilliant results at the same time.

Echigo rose to become the top power. The Kira family and the Nagao family were also the first samurai to achieve great fame with the power of a country, and at the same time, the strange system of Echigo was exposed, and many people once wondered if this system of the two retainer groups blended with each other and was clearly distinct would cause greater hidden dangers, of course, they asked the Echigo samurai and could not get any answers, and the answer was always hidden in the deepest part of their hearts.

"Where will Echigo go?" Hearing the doubts from the outside world, Longtail Jinghu smiled silently, and his sharp gaze gradually turned to firm and peaceful: "I, Jinghu, have never doubted that he will ...... Never! ”

The punishment of the two major families of the Shirakura clan and the Kurakano clan made the people of Ueno realize the power of the Nagao family, and the Uesugi Kenmasa, who used to be like a mother-in-law all day long, was gone. In the case of the Echigo Army, which was brave and skilled in fighting with swords and guns, they used only one edict from Uesugi Kenmasa to easily drive two of the eight families out of Ueno, and the principle that authority is based on strong force was once again fully demonstrated.

The Kira family learned the methods of some overlords, and forcibly took away the entire territory of Ueno through military blackmail and diplomatic means, and this display of soft power opened the eyes of the Kwantung people.

The people of the indigenous country in Kanto know better than anyone the arrogance and domineering of the Hojo family, and after taking the Furukawa Princess, they clamored to annex Ueno Province and ascend to the throne of the Kanto Governorship, so the Hojo clan Yasushi will uncharacteristically hunt down and kill Uesugi Kenmasa. The only way to kill the descendants of the Uesugi family in Yamauchi and kill Uesugi Kenmasa himself. He was able to forcibly climb to the top on the grounds that the Uesugi family was the heir.

The Hojo army happily went to Ueno, and returned to Odawara dejectedly, Hojo Shiyasu was angry for a few days and couldn't eat, he Hojo family had never eaten this kind of nest gas, when Kawagoe fought at night with 80,000 troops besieged the city, he didn't coax it, and now the role of 30,000 troops was forced to admit defeat by a few words of the Kira family, this defeat is really too heartwarming.

The Hojo retainers also suffered a blow, losing the fat of the Ueno country and being crippled by the Edo people, losing nearly 5,000 lives, if it wasn't for the command of the samurai, such a high battle loss would definitely collapse, and the price paid by the Nagao family on the opposite side was only the loss of more than 1,000 people, and the people of the Ueno country were prepared by the Hojo family several times, and all the losses were relatively large, and more than 2,000 people died in the battle to add a blood debt to the people of the West Ueno country and the Hojo family.

A few days after returning to Odawara Castle, Hojo Shiyasu was angry and couldn't afford to be sick, Hojo's retainers were in a hurry, Hojo Shiyasu's health has not been very good, his clan has a history of high blood pressure, Hojo Sakumo, who had a hard time starting a business in his early years, only lived to sixty-four and died, Hojo Shigang died of illness at the age of fifty-five, and Hojo Shiyasu's younger brother Hojo died of illness at a young age, all of which cast a shadow on the future of the Hojo family.

"Kotaro! Don't stand outside, come in! Hojo Shiyasu was helped by the Zuifu hospital to sit up with difficulty, and he couldn't afford to be sick for more than ten days in a row, and now he has just recovered somewhat, and the sickness and fatigue on his face are hard to hide.

"Yes! Lord! The tall and burly Wind Demon Kotaro tried to shrink himself into a ball, bowed his head slightly, and said, "I'm sorry! Your Highness! ”

"Kotaro is the minister of my Hojo family, but Shinkuro often mentions it to me." The dignified and generous Ruifuin is now nearly forty years old, this smiling woman has an extraordinary affinity, but whenever there is a Ruifuin attendance, she will be warmly welcomed, and her movement has made a great contribution to the peace of the Hojo family, and has also been unanimously loved by the Hojo family.

"I'm going to see how the children are doing, and I won't bother you anymore! By the way, this bowl of soup must be drunk! Zuifuin stood up with a smile, nodded at Wind Demon Kotaro and slowly left.

As the daughter of the Imagawa clan and the younger sister of Imagawa Yoshimoto, she married into the Hojo family at the time when Imagawa and Hojo had the best relationship, but then his brother fought for power with another cousin, so he secretly allied with the Takeda family behind the back of the Hojo family, when she was just pregnant with her first child.

Because of his brother's betrayal and was blamed by the Hojo family, the ashamed and angry Rui Yuan soon affected the fetus in the womb, and the eldest son who was born less than a year old died young, which made Hojo Shikang very guilty, but he chose to be silent when he needed help the most in his main room, so he was particularly fond of Rui Yuan afterwards. Several of the sons and daughters of the Hojo family were born to her.

Even if it takes a hit. Ruiyuan is still so generous and kind. The more amiable she became, the more the Hojo retainers respected her, and this woman had become a symbol in the Hojo family, representing the soft side of the Hojo clan, working hard for her husband to associate with the wives of the main families and appease the people who had suffered losses.

Hojo Shiyasu swallowed the unpalatable decoction with a bitter face, and when he saw that the wind demon Kotaro was still distracted, he said with a smile: "My family has been sick for so many days, and I haven't heard you mention a word about political affairs except for visiting the sick. Can't help but say it today? Tell us about what's happened lately! ”

Wind Demon Kotaro said cautiously: "Recently, everything in the family has been safe, as long as the lord's health is good, I will be relieved......"

"Tsk! Did Kotaro also start talking clichés to fool his family? Talk about the point. Hojo Shiyasu pointed to his pale cheeks and laughed at himself: "Is Kotaro so terrible to look at his family?" Like that heart-eating youkai? ”

"It's not! Your Majesty does have something to report to your lord. Wind Demon Kotaro's sweat was about to come out, and he took a deep breath and said, "It's about that." ”

"That thing? What do you mean...... News of that knife? Hojo sat up suddenly, and a pair of tiger eyes stared at him for a long time before he calmed down: "Tell me what the hell is going on." ”

"That sword appeared in Kasugayama Castle in March of this year, and it was during that assassination operation that it was given to Honjo Echizen Mamoru by Governor Kira Zagobei as a reward for his work in protecting the Savior......" Wind Demon Kotaro explained this passage clearly, and he had been carefully observing Hojo Shiyasu's expression. Finding that his face was getting more and more ugly, he couldn't help but drum in his heart.

When hearing the news. Hojo's head went blank at that moment, and his mouth involuntarily said, "Why did you tell the family now?" Why didn't you tell the Hojo family before the defeat of the Hojo family? ”

"Because I can't be sure of the truth of the news, I sent the Wind Demon to check the reliability of the news through many relationships, so dozens of ninjas were brought in, and the intelligence team of Echigo was wiped out, and then several ninjas were sent to Mikawa, Omi to investigate the source of the so-called allusion to buying a knife.

Then I found a very important piece of information, more than a month before the Kanto earthquake, the Hattori clan suddenly left the Matsudaira family and switched to the Kira family, it is said that the reason is that the Matsudaira family treated the Hattori clan harshly, and during the earthquake was sent to investigate the rumors in Shimo, Musashi, Sagami, and other places, it was found that there were fragmentary information infested by unknown outsiders at that time, but a major earthquake destroyed all the information, and after so many years, the impact of the earthquake and floods made it difficult to collect information, and it can only be verified here. ”

In the past few months, Wind Demon Kotaro has been running back and forth, just doing verification work for this information, he knows that the impact of this matter is not trivial, involving a Ashikaga family's royal family, with the situation of the Hojo family, it is okay to be a small overlord in Kanto to coerce the lords of various countries, and it is definitely irrational to fully confront the Kira family.

His intentions are good, the information that has not been verified is likely to be false information, if he brings the false information to the Hojo clan, he will be fully responsible for all the bad consequences caused, the so-called lesser of two evils, weighing the pros and cons, he still decided to rather bear the responsibility for hiding the information, and must verify it clearly before reporting.

"That's why you made preparations for half a year without telling your family?" Hojo Shiyasu's face was very bad, his hands trembled as if he was trying his best to suppress the anger in his heart, and he reprimanded angrily: "No matter how you deceive your family, you will have to bear the responsibility, and your family will punish you for demotion by one level, and your salary will be reduced by half, and next time you don't do it again, you will not be spared!" ”

Repelling the wind demon Kotaro, the anger in the heart of the Hojo clan is burning, try not to restrain and not roar at the retainers, this is his style and habits, since he was a child, his father has explained that he is not in a hurry with major events, and does not lose the demeanor of the family governor in order to make the retainers awe from the bottom of their hearts, panic, impatience, fear, and anger are all enemies, and to be a good governor of the Hojo family must learn to overcome these enemies.

"I didn't expect that the enemy that my clan Kang was looking for day and night turned out to be you! His Royal Highness Yoshitoki, the governor of Kira's left guard, and the general of the town guard house! How did this family offend you and make you go to great lengths to frame your family? Because of a knife? No, no! It's never that simple, why? Hojo roared angrily, tearing at the futon as if this was Kira Yoshitoki, and wanted to tear him apart immediately.

He couldn't remember how long it had been since he had lost his temper like this, it seemed that twenty years ago, during the Hanakura Rebellion, he and his father heard the news of the betrayal of his cousin Imagawa Yoshimoto, and he and his father Hojo Tsunade frantically destroyed all the artifacts they saw. The entire castle tower was smashed to pieces.

Twenty years ago reaped betrayal. Twenty years later, the harvest was framed. Every blow is fatal to the Hojo family, so many years of bearing the responsibility of killing the public side, his reputation and the reputation of the Hojo family have been lost, countless days and nights he has been praying to his father to forgive his stupidity, and now, when he learned that the mastermind behind the scenes was Kira Yoshi, how could he endure it anymore.

After tossing for a long time, I couldn't stand the tired sick body, and I lay down sweating profusely. Said hatefully: "No matter why! I, Hojo Shiyasu, will definitely come back with revenge! Our family wants to wash away years of grievances! Let the truth be revealed! ”

……

Kishirayoshi, who was far away in Echigo, was unaware of the changes in the Hojo family, and he was busy holding assessment meetings, which were of special significance at the beginning of the first month of the first month and the beginning of October, the former being the plan and outlook for the new year, and the latter counting the agricultural output of the year after the autumn harvest was over and the late rice was dried and put into storage.

According to the preliminary statistics, this year's grain output should not be a big problem to stabilize at 2.1 million stones, and the detailed data should be carefully calculated. I believe that the error can be suppressed below 10,000 stones...... "As an important presiding officer of the evaluation, the Kira family tree is surveyed and pursued on behalf of the public. Hosokawa Fujitaka was not happy because of the harvest, and even his tone was very stiff, and the many retainers present closed their mouths one by one and did not speak.

"Now let's talk about the problem we encountered, why is there only 2.1 million stones? We took the lead in opening two small polders, but this move added 1,700 steps of high-quality rice fields, and the new fields that expanded piecemeal in various places combined to exceed 2,300 steps. Two million stones last year, two million stones this year, what's the problem? ”

"The new fields will be opened one day, and the easily cultivated wasteland will be fully developed within three years, and in order to ensure the density of the forests and protect the water and soil, the next step will be to prohibit the cutting down of forests, so the only land we can develop is Niigata Town, and the more remote vicinity of Uonuma County, so we always open new fields to grow new grain, what problems have we found in the past three years? What rules have been summed up and what have been gained? This needs to be talked about freely. Hosokawa Fujitaka threw out a few questions in a row, causing the congregation to fall into deep thought.

"The Soldier's Hall is right! I am going to talk about the problem of new grain that has been discovered in the past year. Honjo Minoru raised his hand and summoned a few small surnames to send a thin document to all the retainers present, and then said: "Ladies and gentlemen, look at it, this is a yield that is not against the land, from the statistics from the vicinity of Joetsu Neckjo County, Chuetsu Uonuma and Mishima County, Shimoetsu Urahara County, and Iwashu County, compared with the yield in the last two years, there have been varying degrees of decline.

After consulting below, I learned that this involves the hybridization of grain varieties, which I don't understand, but I know that I have been doing research continuously, and I can only take out the best grain varieties of Omi to cultivate, and it is best not to keep the seeds of the high-yield grain cultivated every year, but it is not enough to rely on the output of Omi's improved varieties without leaving seeds, and we must establish an experimental field in Echigo to meet the corresponding needs. ”

Farming is a science, of course, this knowledge is not something that their group of samurai can understand, and it is not easy for a group of Echigo elders to patiently read this incomprehensible term, as for what difficulties they have, they don't care, as long as they can solve the problem, they are willing to applaud as an audience.

There are a lot of samurai who can't understand, but as a member of the Nagao family, you must understand, not only to understand but also to keep up with the rhythm, Saito Asanobu scratched his head and said hard: "The experimental field is one thing, I think potato planting is still a bit of a problem, the main thing is that it is not suitable for storage, the messenger digs the cellar for storage, and by the spring of the next year, there will be a lot of potatoes that are rotten and mildewed."

There are also many cases of food poisoning from eating moldy potatoes by mistake, and the yield of potatoes has been declining, and last year it will often break through eight stones and five buckets, and this year it is generally only seven stones and two or three buckets, should it be reduced accordingly. ”

The Echigo samurai, who didn't understand the professional vocabulary, also understood, and nodded approvingly, for them, potatoes are a good thing and a bad thing, Echigo has abundant rain and snow, especially in winter when it is the most precipitation of the year, and it doesn't matter if the snow falls and freezes, but the soil moisture and air humidity are very high, especially the potatoes stored in the cellar are easy to spoil and deteriorate, as long as they are eaten by mistake, it will cause big trouble.

The aura of high yield of new grain has attracted too much people's attention, and as the halo gradually fades, various problems have also followed, and the yield has declined. The plants are unevenly tall. Adverse effects of pests and diseases. As well as the exploration and improvement of watering and drainage facilities, it has become the top priority faced by the practitioners and agricultural experts.

The people have a heavy responsibility, to ensure that the steady increase in grain production is the most important task at present, the people take food as the sky, there are high-quality land resources and warm and humid climatic conditions, and the development of so many new fields will slow down the growth rate of total grain output, last year's two million stones, this year's two million stones is to sound the alarm for all the people, the next step in the slowdown in growth will be a decline. How much a fall below two million stones would be a blow to the confidence of Echigo's nearly half a million civilians.

This year, there are 2,300 more towns, but the grain output has only increased by more than 100,000 stones, which means that the increase in the output of cultivated land has not increased much, and compared with the same period last year, it is equivalent to a continuous decline.

So many problems focus on the large decline in potato yields, the need to use a lot of fertilizer to maintain high yields of corn and pumpkin, and the inability of fertilizers in some places to keep up, or the slowdown of artificial fertilization has caused a large-scale decline in yields, which are all headaches.

After careful analysis and argumentation. Kira Yoshitoki also nodded and admitted, "This is indeed something that the family has never noticed before!" However, Omi is working on techniques related to the autumn rice harvest queen and the cultivation of autumn potatoes for the late winter harvest. Judging from the current progress, the trial should be successful in the next two years...... Let's not talk about these first, when it comes to the second phase of the work, what thoughts can you say, after all, the research in various places has been tested many times in the past three years, and what fruitful results have been achieved? ”

"I'll do it first!" Naoe coughed and signaled that he was about to start his speech, so please prick up your ears and listen.

"At present, several sets of rotation methods have been summarized, the first is the rice-wheat rotation method from the Ming Dynasty, that is, the traditional second crop, the second is the corn and wheat rotation method, the third is the rice-soybean rotation method, plus the rice-potato rotation method This is the four, in the next feeling that the climate of the more Yuehou is more suitable for rice-wheat rotation, corn and wheat rotation, the second phase of the crop is not to be talked about for the time being, the hybrid technology of corn grain is currently the deepest, and the yield of corn is relatively stable, so it can reduce potatoes and increase the planting amount of corn. Corn and wheat rotation is used to ensure total grain returns. ”

"Another point, potatoes are not as good as rice and noodles as vegetables, so it is better to study crop rotation than to try to rotate with other vegetables! There are also cabbage seeds brought by Ming Guoxiucai, according to him, they can also be used for corn and cabbage rotation, but I don't know what the situation is. Saito Asanobu said.

Soon the practitioners on both sides began to talk about it, and the output of more than 2 million stone in the second crop without overwintering would be more than 2 million stones, and it would not be surprising that if the rotation technology of wheat, soybeans, cabbage, and potatoes was popularized, the grain output would increase by two or three percent.

Take some of the experimental fields in the Guanchuan River basin to do rice and wheat rotation, a total of 10 towns of cultivated land, the average yield of winter wheat per anti-cultivated land reaches about three stones, and the average yield of summer rice also reaches about three stones, so that the grain yield of one plus each anti-land is four or five times higher than five years ago, but correspondingly, it is also necessary to apply five or six stone of compost and manure.

For example, Nagao Masaki proposed to divide terraces for wheat and corn cultivation on the flat land of some of the mountainous areas of Uonuma, and to make use of the abundant water resources and high precipitation in Uonuma to ensure that Uonuma would not lag behind in agricultural production.

Another example is that Honjo Minoru proposed to standardize the method of cage culture of fish and shrimp, and formulate corresponding regulations in order to follow the rules of guiding fishermen in various places to breed fish, promote and standardize grass carp and loaches in rice fields.

This meeting alone lasted from early morning to evening, and three meals a day were briefly dealt with in the assessment room, and just after a watch, the eyelids of many samurai began to fight, and when they saw a group of adherents who were full of interest and did not get tired in the slightest, they decisively chose to leave.

This can be a pit of Ji Liangyi alone, Nagao Jinghu left early in the name of "cultivation", only he had to try to keep his eyes open and listen to the endless discussion of the adherents, but fortunately, they also noticed that Ji Liangyi yawned for a long time, and it ended hastily at the third watch in the middle of the night. (To be continued......)