Located at the junction of Shinano and Echigo in the early mornings of late summer and early autumn, the Shinano Mountains are filled with silence and tranquility in the dense forests, and are composed of five high mountains: Mt. Myoko, Mt. Madarao, Mount Kurohime, Mt. Togakushi, and Mt. Ariba, with an average altitude of more than 2,000 meters, and have been inaccessible and mysterious since ancient times.

Togakushi Mountain, legend has it that the man who built the speed of Sano did mischief, as the eldest sister, Amaterasu Daigomi angrily locked herself in the Tenwado, so the whole world was sun-moonless, and the gods held a banquet to solve the problem with singing and dancing, Amaterasu Okami curiously opened a gap from the Tenwado to peek, and was forcibly dragged out of the hole by the Tenjuri Male God, so the world reappeared bright, and the origin of this Togakushi is said to be an allusion hidden in the Teniwato.

Therefore, there is a small Togakushi Shrine in Togakushi Mountain, and the local mountain people do not care much about such myths and legends, and they are more accustomed to worshiping the holy sound Bodhisattva enshrined in the shrine, and in the era of the unity of gods and Buddhas, the gods in the sky also asked the Buddha to become a Buddha, and the simple cognition of worshipping God is not as good as worshipping Buddha.

Early in the morning, there were not many mountaineers, and the mountaineers who went down the mountain to fish looked curiously at the two travelers with hats, and the older mountaineers saw that they had swords hanging from their waists, and hurriedly pulled the children in the village to turn around and leave, and the two travelers turned a blind eye to the performance of the mountaineers and slowly walked into the dense forest.

Mt. Togakushi was very large, and the sun rose high after only a few ridges of the mountain, and the two of them came to a river beach to rest for a while, and there was a woodcutter who was collecting firewood sitting by the river, and the woodcutter was a middle-aged man in his forties, and his bronzed skin peeked out from his shabby linen shirt. The woodcutter smiled kindly when he saw the two of them dressed. He lowered his head and sorted out the pyre. The old height of a pile of firewood and heaps is at least two hundred catties smaller.

The two travelers took a few sips of the clear river water, and suddenly raised their heads and said: "Qiaojia, we are travelers from the north, I heard that the Beixin Wuyue Mountain is steep and majestic, and I want to ask what attractions are nearby." ”

The woodcutter seemed to be taken aback by the two people's inquiry, and pointed to the ridge for a long time and said, "It is most convenient to go up the mountain from there, and on the other side of the mountain is Togakushi Shrine, so you can turn your heads and go there before noon." The rest is gone, hehehe......"

"Oh! So where do the Qiao family live? ”

"My family lives in a nearby Shikiwu, and the small place is more secluded and not worth mentioning, hehehe!" The woodcutter seemed reluctant to say much, so he sorted out the firewood and smiled at them, and slowly walked into the dense forest with the pyre on his back.

Toda Gobei walked briskly through the dense forests of the mountains with great agility, and this section of the mountain road would have taken at least two hours for ordinary mountaineers, and he only took one hour to complete the journey, if you count the 180 pounds of firewood he was carrying. This speed is absolutely amazing, and every early summer he carries an axe into the mountains to collect firewood. Twice a day, firewood was collected until the first snow fell in Shinano.

Life in the mountains is difficult, take advantage of the summer and autumn seasons to play more firewood and reserve it, and wait until the winter when the snow covers the mountains can be wintered, a small half of the young and strong in the village are busy in the mountains, either to hunt or to collect firewood, for example, he alone is responsible for dozens of firewood, the winter in the mountains is too cold, the heavy snow covers the mountains for a few months all rely on the reserve of grain and firewood to survive the winter, the more fully prepared the month to survive this winter.

He was surprised to find that the two mountaineers he had met an hour ago had strangely appeared outside the village, and Toda Gobei's spirit was highly tense: "I have traveled thousands of times on this section of the mountain, and I am familiar with every grass and tree here, and it is absolutely impossible for anyone to walk faster than me, even if I carry firewood on my back......"

In a short moment, the change of mind was completed, and on the surface, Toda Gobei only saw two familiar strangers subconsciously slow down, and then he took heavy steps and walked down the hill step by step, and as soon as he reached the entrance of the village, he saw two travelers standing in place and looking at him for a long time.

"Sure enough, there is a problem!" Toda Gobei's eyes showed a look of vigilance, and the next moment he turned back into a simple and simple woodcutter, smiled at the two of them in a friendly way, and was just about to pass over when the two stopped his way.

"It turns out that the Qiao family lives here! I knew that we would go with the Qiaojia, and we followed the path pointed out by the Qiaojia for half a circle to find here, thank you so much! ”

A hint of gloom flashed on Toda Gobei's face, and these two people stopped him with nonsense, and it was clear that the comer was not good, and guessed the intention of the two, so he simply froze in place and didn't speak, but heard the two of them say again: "It turns out that this is Togakushi Village!" Ordinary people can't necessarily find this place after seven or eight days in the mountains, and even if there are tens of thousands of troops, don't want to touch it, it's really a feng shui treasure, the only bad thing is that it's too remote, and it's not easy for Togakushi to live in seclusion here for more than three hundred years. ”

Toda Gobei's face became darker and darker, two sand bowl-like fists creaked, and suddenly an old voice came from a distance: "Gobei! Since the two guests have come from afar, let's invite them into the village to talk again! If we have friends from afar, we will be told that we don't understand the rules. ”

"Yes!" Toda Gobei responded sullenly, his shoulder shook lightly and hit the shoulders of the two, and the two were lightly knocked back two steps, and Toda Gobei squeezed over against the bodies of the two.

"Good fellow, what a race bull." The two of them followed in amazement.

The scale of Togakushi Village is not small, except that the valley has been carefully camouflaged, the entire valley is the living area of the village, and the strange thing is that their kiya houses are not built together, but a handful of rough scattered kiyaki in the east and west are spread across half of the valley, and it is clear that there have been no outsiders here for many years, so there is no secret post outside the village to give two strange climbers a loophole.

There were very few men in the village, and most of them came and went with women and children, and when Toda Gobei came back with firewood to greet him in a friendly manner, and at the same time looked curiously at the two strange strangers, Toda Gobei led the two to the denser group of Shikiya in the center of the village, and saw the old man talking in a straw house.

The two glanced at each other, and took off the hat to reveal two featureless young faces: "Captain Saemon in Momochizuki." This is the younger brother Mochizuki Uemon Lieutenant. I've seen the Togakushi chieftain. ”

The old man was dry and thin, like a piece of rotten wood. Sitting cross-legged under the porch as if he was napping, he opened his cloudy eyes when he heard the names of the two of them: "Hmm! The old man is the leader of Togakushi, Mori Udo Idle Sai, I wonder why the two Koga ninjas came to my country? ”

Captain Mochizuki Saemon said loudly, "I have come by order to ask the Togakushi ninja to serve my lord." ”

Toda Gobei dropped the firewood and snorted coldly: "Then I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint the two, I'm a Togakushi ninja who will not be born according to the ancestral teachings, if the two of you have nothing else, please go back!" ”

"Daoxian Zhai Hall Mingjian, today's chaos is a hero's skill. Togakushi ninja has no skills, but he guards the door and is willing to be a country mountaineer, what a waste! Isn't the Daoxian Zhai Hall thinking about the villagers? When will this hard day of hunger and fullness come to an end! Why don't you go out to help my lord, I think it won't be long before the Togakushi ninja can live in poverty. ”

"Clever words! Get out of here with me! "Toda Gobei stretched out his iron palm and pushed it towards the two, if this palm was pushed to the body, it would be an ordinary samurai to plant a few heels, but he didn't want to hide the doorway of the palm was gently dodged by the Mochizuki brothers, Toda Gobei saw a move and immediately changed his move, and suddenly made a noise to bully the front of him, and the five fingers of his left hand turned into eagle claws and grabbed the shoulder of Mochizuki Zuo Guard, and his right hand slowly slapped his palm into a fist and smashed it over.

"Humph!" Captain Mochizuki Saemon suddenly disappeared from his previous sky, and the next moment suddenly appeared behind him, and Toda Gobei, who felt teased, was furious. The two fists turned into two hammers and danced quickly, vowing to capture the two thieves.

"Gobei hasn't stopped yet! Hurting people is not the way of hospitality. Don't get back now! ”

Toda Gobei didn't dare to contradict the leader and had to retreat, Mori Yudao sighed slowly: "My Togakushi ninja has lived in the countryside for hundreds of years and has been forgotten, I thought it would be like this and have been living peacefully, but I didn't expect it to come or come, what Gobei said just now is right, my ancestor has already established the ancestral precept that you can't go out of the mountain, let the two of you come for nothing." ”

"From Dao Xianzhai's tone and movements, it can be seen that he is insincere!" Captain Mochizuki Saemon was at peace in his heart, and he said after a little organization of words: "The ancestors mentioned by the Daoken Zhaiden are a little bit known from the bottom to the bottom, and the first generation of Togakushi in the Genhei period, Togakushi Daisuke helped Kiso Yoshinaka seize Kyoto, and finally ended up defeated and died, so Togakushi sneaked back into the mountains to escape the world, presumably this ancestral precept should have been established in that era!" ”

"I can see that you have studied my Togakushi ninja quite deeply!" Mori Yu Dao Xianzhai sighed and shook his head and said with a bitter smile: "Since you dare to come to Togakushi, you must have something to rely on, tell me your intentions!" ”

Captain Mochizuki Saemon knew that the first level was a successful step, so he took a deep breath and said slowly: "Since Dao Xianzhai can break my identity in one mouth, he must also pay attention to the outside world, then you should know that the people have suffered from the wars and turmoil in the past hundred years, and people today hope that the world will be stable and the four seas will be peaceful, and my lord is the seedling of the Ashikaga family of the Genji noble, and the specific merits are not mentioned, but the Dao Xianzhai Hall should always remember the name of Ashikaga Kamizaburo!" ”

"Ashikaga Kamikozaburo? Isn't that the name of the third generation of the Ashikaga family governor in the Kamakura period? Could it be that in the past 20 years, there has been an Ashikaga Kamizaburo again? Sen Yudao frowned and thought for a long time and couldn't think of a clue, and said with a smile: "The old man used to travel the world as a businessman more than 20 years ago, and he knew some things about the outside world. ”

"I see, that's easy!" The two Mochizuki brothers looked at each other and smiled, and they talked endlessly about a series of great changes from the beginning of astronomy to the three years of Hongji, which was a full three days, and the two brothers simply lived in the kiya of the Taoist Shosai to tell the cause and effect clearly, which focused on the name of Ashikaga Kamizaburo, the rapid rise of the Kamikawa family like the rising sun, the battle of Katsura River shocked the world, the battle of Kawanakajima shook the Kanto, and the imperial court sealed the name of the general of the town guard and so on.

"I didn't expect that the general trend of the world has changed so much in the past 20 years, and the incomparable Hosokawa family is declining day by day, and everything is like the flow of the four seasons...... Thank you for your enthusiastic answers, but because of the rules set by the ancestors, the old man is inconvenient to give a clear answer, please go back first! ”

“…… How so! In the past three days, the two of them also knew something about Sen Yu Dao Xianzhai, and knew that this person was open-minded and open-minded. It was also said that this mission could be easily accomplished. But I didn't want this old man to finally issue an eviction order. Captain Mochizuki Saemon held down the angry brother and left Togakushi Village, no matter what, not refusing on the spot was a good start, and the two didn't dare to expect more.

Soon after the Mochizuki brothers left, Mori Ushiki was crowded with dozens of people, young and old, including seventy or eighty-year-old veterans and teenage teenagers, not only of different ages, but also dressed in different costumes, some like ordinary villagers with rustic nature, and some like fishermen who had just returned from fishing. Huddled in the room and listened silently to Mori Yu Dao Xianzhai repeating the jokes they had told, the old man spoke quickly and briefly, and it only took two hours to finish what they had told for three days.

The old man, dressed like an old peasant, smacked his lips and said, "It looks like this noble son of the Ashikaga family is quite powerful!" At such a young age, he laid such a large territory, half of Shinano fell into his hands, and when he was so young, General Rising Sun was still running blindly in the mountain nest of Shinano's Kiso Valley! ”

"Not really! The ten-year-old little doll dared to fight, and really let him win, which is what we mountain people can do, I think he will have a chance in the future! Listen to my Wan Erlang! "Manjiro Ueno is a strong man with a full face and a beard, and he does not leave his tattered bearskin jacket all year round. When he spoke, he also ran the train with his mouth full, making the few young people who were huddled behind laugh.

Toda Gobei is angry with this group of unscrupulous guys. Angrily yelled: "Don't talk nonsense! Don't forget that we have ancestral teachings! How can you go out of the mountains and do those things! So don't think about anything, it will snow soon, our winter storage is still a lot off, tomorrow morning at dawn all the men will go to the mountains with me to hunt, and the women will go to collect firewood. ”

The leader of the Togakushi ninja is the capable, and the old and young here are either ancestors who have been the head of Togakushi, or they are the mainstays of the village, such as Kataoka Hirazaemon's father was the leader of the previous generation of Togakushi, and it seems that this old man does not agree with Toda Gobei's attitude.

"If you want me to say it! It's better to go out and see the world! You see the little dolls in our village are dressed in tatters, and they are wearing old clothes that we wore when we were children! When the little doll grows up, the clothes will be sewn and washed for the smaller dolls to wear, many people have never seen new clothes in their lives, and the mountains are poor!

There is nothing except the endless forest, the valley can only grow some vegetables, the village is counting on hunted animal skins, firewood and fresh fish to go to the sneaky town to exchange for some grain and salt to eat, and dare not go over during the day, always have to walk more than ten miles of mountain roads in the middle of the night to exchange for things and then move back overnight, the days have become more and more difficult in recent years, the climate has become more and more wrong in recent decades, how many people have died in our village in the drought in previous years, it is better to let the sons and daughters go out to make a living, so as to subsidize the living expenses of the village!

It's not good for the five guards to be so stubborn, back then Dao Xianzhai wanted to go outside to see the world, but it was unanimously agreed by the village, in the past three hundred years, there are not a few ninjas in our village who have gone out one after another, some have come back and some have disappeared, you should know this! ”

"The people of our Togakushi village know that no one will harm our own people, and when we go out, we are bullied and deceived, what should we do if we have bad intentions towards us?" Toda Gobei shouted emotionally, "I don't understand why I went out, isn't it good for us to live peacefully in Togakushi Mountain?"

Even if life is more difficult, everyone can still get through, I don't object to the clansmen making a living outside, but this person's requirements are different, that person wants our whole village to work for him, don't forget the decline of the Hosokawa Jingzhao family, if that person is defeated, if we get in, won't everyone be doomed? ”

Shimathachiro stood up with a smile and said: "Actually, it's not a big problem, that person is defeated, let's go back to the mountains, don't forget that our ancestors just hid back in Togakushi Mountain to establish our village?" I don't think that person looks like a person with bad intentions, such a loud name and such a big foundation, and he can't deceive us rural people. ”

"I heard a saying that the country has a proverb, you can't have the heart to harm people, and you can't have the heart to prevent people! I think Gobei is right, so it's better for us to be careful. Several of Toda Gobei's close friends couldn't bear to kick in, and the quarrel became more and more intense, and the atmosphere in the house was tense for a while.

"Gobei! Originally, this secret was to be told to you after you inherited the leader, but since this is an opportunity, the old man will not hide it! Sen Yu Dao sighed: "There is also a secret in the ancestral training that only the successor leader can know, and if you meet the master, you can serve it!" ”

"How is this possible? I don't believe it! ”

Kataoka Heizaemon said bitterly: "The location of our Togakushi Village has been exposed, can we still expect that person to be merciful and let us go?" Besides, everyone knows what the situation is in the village, in the village hungry and full of food, the outside world of flowers always attracts the people in the village, people are the first to salute and then the soldiers, first talk to us about the feasibility of the effect, if it doesn't turn into a ninja who spends money to hire us, how many people in the village do you think will follow you to starve and freeze? ”

"This ......" Toda Gobei hesitated, it is true that the mountain people have never seen the world, and the people are simple and simple, but he has no reason to hinder the villagers from pursuing a richer life, not to mention that he is also the leader of the next generation of Togakushi ninjas, and if he continues to be stubborn, he will only push himself to the opposite side of the villagers, which is completely opposite to the original intention of thinking about the villagers.

Seeing that he was still hesitating, Sen Yudao continued to explain: "We practice the ninjutsu passed down from our ancestors in order to pass on the inheritance of our ancestors to future generations, isn't it to come in handy one day?" What do the mountain people of Togakushi Village know other than ninjutsu? A brute force or the craft of hunting? Gobei! Your idea is good, but it's time for us to change in Togakushi Village, do you understand what the old man means? ”

"Got it! Let's do it! Toda Gobei nodded firmly. (To be continued......)

PS: Two more 1.2w words, it's a small explosion! The pressure of 10,000 words a day is very high, so Wumei doesn't have much strength to write the outbreak, so she can only try her best, and she was embarrassed to ask for something before, so she took this opportunity to ask for a reward, thank you!