There was originally a wasteland under Kasugayama Castle, and the children of the nearby castle town used to love to play, but since the Kira family built a new town three years ago, it has been enclosed by a wooden fence and transformed into a large training ground for garrisons and military training, and the high arrow turrets and small castle guards all indicate that this is a military facility, and all group training that cannot be placed in the small teaching place on Kasuga Mountain can be done here.

Yamaoka straightened his waist and observed Kira Yoshishi standing on the edge of the Great Sect with the corner of his eye, trying to make himself act like a qualified general, today is the day to review the results of Ma Huizhong's training, since he accepted the burden of training Ma Huizhong three years ago, except for the days when he went out to fight, Yamaoka Chang has spent his time here.

After three years of selection like a big wave of sand, from the Echigo nearly 8,000 school-age teenagers selected 300 young people with outstanding riding talent, and a certain talent for archery, these two years the teenagers eat the best food, use the best equipment, and also circle a nearby hot spring for them to bathe and relax, the medical team led by Morima Kanase will come here every half a month to give the teenagers a physical examination, for the Echigo children, this is like a wonderful life like a dream.

Of course, it takes as much effort as you get in return, from the first month, the training time of four hours a day has gradually increased to six hours, from weight-bearing running to wrestling training, to riding and archery training, the daily schedule is full, and the teenagers have not been able to remember how long they have not been home.

A group of twenty young knights rode their horses down the trail in a row, each holding a bow and drawing an arrow aimed at a target thirty-six meters away, and the bowstring trembled. Someone finished a round of shooting action one after another. On this section of the 50-meter-long trail. Each young knight had to complete the required three mounted and archery moves.

The difficult special training can reflect the professional quality of the samurai, some teenagers calmly complete the riding and shooting again and again, each action corresponds to a different rhythm, the three arrows have not been completed after shooting, and some teenagers have already run more than half the distance after shooting two arrows, and hurriedly bent the bow and shot indiscriminately and could not even find the accurate head, and finally could only retreat to the corner in a daze with their heads down.

It took fifteen teams a quarter of an hour to complete a round of mounted shooting, and they watched as the distant target was densely packed with arrows. Kira Yoshitoki applauded the young knight's outstanding performance: "Well done! Two years of kung fu training to this level is very good! Zenjiro didn't necessarily have their level back then, right? ”

"Uh...... The owner! Don't mention the past, okay? Yamaoka wiped the cold sweat from his head in embarrassment.

It's only been a few years since Yamaoka's image has changed a lot, with two dignified mustaches on his mouth, and his messy samurai uniform has been cleaned up neatly and decently, which is much taller than the unkempt appearance of a few years ago.

With the continuous influx of displaced people from all walks of life in Echigo, the population increased by 200,000 in more than three years, and now Echigo is a country with a population of 500,000 people, and the land and human resources are the highest in Hokuriku, and the entire Kanto region can only be compared with Musashi Province.

The population is increasing though. However, there has been little increase in the number of armed trainees due to the shortage of people due to the over-exploitation of land in Echigo. Only the new fields of Kira and Nagao are facing the contradiction of a shortage of more than 100,000 laborers, and a large amount of land has been developed but there is not enough manpower to plant, so they can only sprinkle grass seeds and simply fertilize and harvest pasture, which is a great waste of land resources.

In order to solve the contradiction of labor shortage, the originally planned reserve armed training system had to come to a standstill, and the surplus labor force in the countryside and in the towns was organized into a unified dispatch by the adherents, and several teams went down to the fields to work in the fields.

This is only an expedient move that can solve the fundamental problem of the shortage of labor, and the townspeople have also complained about this impersonal service system, even if they can get a certain amount of grain income after the autumn, they are not very satisfied, at first most of these townspeople were unwilling to be farmers anymore, so they came to the castle town, Minato town, and Mozen town to make a living, and now life is so good, who wants to leave the business in the town and run to the countryside to do rough work.

So at the beginning of last year, the Kira family began to prepare related issues, how to solve the labor shortage can not meet the adverse effects of agricultural production, more than a year of discussion, several drafts finally formed a new law to withdraw and merge the new village, the villagers can achieve the desired effect is not yet known, at present only from the Guanchuan area to start the trial, depending on the effect to determine the degree of promotion.

The main teaching field is divided into several pieces, the outermost earthen wooden fence and the arrow oar are guarded around the clock, and the interior is divided into a shooting range, a battlefield battlefield, a training ground, a house, a soup house, a medicine hall, a canteen and many other facilities, covering an area of ten towns, at the beginning because of the ownership of this land, Yamamoto Tokiyuki and Honjo Minoru quarreled for several days, and it took a lot of effort to get it.

The terrain is excellent, just on the gentle slope of the foothills of Mt. Kasuga, the land is completely flat, and the west side of Kasuga Mountain is also one of the many intersections outside Otemon, the east and north are surrounded by the lower castle town, and the south is blocked by a natural cliff with a height difference of seven or eight meters, not far below the cliff is a farmland, and farther away is a village with smoke curling.

Yamamoto Toshiyuki trained a new army on the training ground, the number of which was only 2,000 people, from the basic queue training to fighting, wrestling, weight running, etc., all refer to the training methods left by the Nanban instructors, and the new army, which has only been trained for two years, has a good quality at present, and the concept of prohibiting orders and allegiance to the Kira family has been thoroughly implemented.

"It should be said that the martial atmosphere of Echigo Country is very good, and these children's talents are also very good, and they can form combat effectiveness after another year of training, and the old minister is ready to find some opportunities for them to experience a little battle and see the blood...... "Yamamoto Tokiyuki dragged his lame leg and tried to keep up with Kira Yoshitoki's footsteps, and Mogami did not forget to explain his training philosophy.

As an unruly maverick samurai, with rich experience in wandering countries, it is not surprising that he has absorbed and summarized the different ideas of the Southern Barbarians, and now he is no longer able to support the overly heavy burden of government affairs at his age, so he took the initiative to fade out of the government circle last year. He devoted his main efforts to the training of qualified samurai and military research.

Kira Yoshitoki also found that his steps were too fast. Hurriedly stopped and waited for his teacher to catch up. Looking at the old Yamamoto Shixing, and then looking at the immature faces on the training ground, Kira Yoshishi couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "In the blink of an eye, the master and craftsman have grown like frost, and the family has gradually grown up from a three-foot child, it is really ruthless!" ”

Remembering that Yamamoto Tokiyuki spent five years to create 800 elites, and now he has organized 2,000 excellent soldiers in just two years, it can only be said that the times are progressing, and the Kira family is getting stronger and stronger. But the years are not forgiving, and the once omnipotent Yamamoto Kansuke is still old after all.

"Lao Chen also feels that he is really old! Recently, sleep is getting shorter and shorter, cloudy and rainy, back pain, legs hurt very much, the old injury on the back is particularly serious, people! It's just that the older you get, the more useless it becomes. Yamamoto Tokiyuki smiled bitterly at himself,

In the blink of an eye, Yamamoto Shixing is fifty-six years old, this age is considered a standard old man in the Warring States, but he has no children under his knees and has nothing to rely on, and in the past year, he has moved out of the cross-courtyard where he lives alone and came to the big teaching field to train the new army with all his might, at the evaluation meeting. He spoke less and less, like an old man in his twilight years. Most of the discussion was spent in a nap.

"I heard that the master craftsman is writing military records? I don't know how it was written? Can you read the master's masterpiece in advance? ”

Speaking of military records, Yamamoto Shixing did not hide the arrogance in his eyes: "It can't be called a military record, but the notes made by the old minister over the years have been sorted out and deleted, from the tenth year of Yongzheng (1513), the Imagawa clan launched the Yuanjiang invasion began to record, and all the things that his subordinates saw and heard in Mikawa, Yuanjiang and Suruga when they were young were written in. It will take about one to two years to complete the collation. ”

Kira Yoshitoki also understands his teacher's thoughts, writing books and saying that it is always a matter of cultural people, Yamamoto Tokiyuki just doesn't believe in this set, when he was in Kira's house, he didn't practice calligraphy with the monk's calligraphy, and the accumulated practice made him write a considerable line.

In the Kira family, the use of kana has not been advocated for writing, and in the words that Kira Yoshishi often says, it is not enough for kana people to understand the characters made by Chinese students, and Hosokawa Fujitaka and Nanaoka, who are cultural people, can only smile bitterly at the attitude of the lord on cultural reform.

It is recorded in the "Records of Ancient Affairs": "However, in ancient times, the meaning of words was not simple, and it was difficult to construct sentences in words. ”

Since the formation of kana in the middle of Nara, the systematic influence of the Manyoshu has formed a strong inertia in the history of kana for more than 800 years, and even illiterate peasants can use kana to write a petition asking the lord to meet the tax in the disaster year, and it is too difficult for them to learn the complex system of Chinese characters.

"Is it recorded from the time of the Suruga Yako Imagawa clan? That's a great piece of history! Speaking of which, a few decades ago, there were really heroes in the storm, and I don't know what kind of scene it will be like for this generation of my family. The two slowly walked to the sidelines of the training ground and watched as the young recruits demonstrated a variety of complex tactical variations.

Yamamoto Shixing pinched his messy beard and said with a smile: "The owner of the hall is the lord of Wuwei and the town palace, and he is the first-rate hero at that time, why envy the dignity of those who have passed away, and now the power of my Echigo country is supplemented by the support of the two Omi counties, which is more than the sum of the three kingdoms of the Imagawa family, and the family business in Japan is just around the corner." ”

"It's just a momentary sigh!" Kira Yoshishi glanced at it with his eyes, and was surprised to find a few familiar figures in the dense queue: "Huh? Isn't that Nagao Dingharu? And Watanabe Moritsuna is also in it, isn't he just Yuanfu? ”

"The hall owner is talking about the two of them! Since that Kan Jiulang saw the new army going out for exercises last year, he went to the old minister here every once in a while, and he had to rely on it to come in and not leave, and the old minister was pestered and had no choice but to agree...... Gengoro was personally sent by his father on the second day of his Yuanfu, and he specially asked the old minister to be more restrained, what a smart man! ”

In the Kira family, the importance of this new army can be seen no more than two palms, in addition to the few important ministers and main officers who participated in the formulation of the plan, only the top of the reserve generals can see the way, high-intensity endurance, combat strength training, the best supply of supplies, and an all-round training and treatment system. This is clearly an idea to cultivate elites.

A sixteen or seventeen-year-old hairy boy in Yishui. The youngest such as Mamoru Watanabe was only fourteen years old. It's scary to imagine this potential, and it's no wonder that Watanabe Takatsuna is running to send off children, and I don't know how many more people will come to send children in the next year or so.

Compared to Saijo ten years ago, these children are much taller, almost no short people under 1.6 meters, so it is not yet known how powerful the new army will be after three years of training, but one thing is certain, it is no problem to surpass Saijo Bei back then.

"How are these boys physical? Are you up to standard in terms of strength and physical strength? He used the new word "standard" to measure whether the physical fitness of the Forces nouvelles was "up to standard." This kind of assessment must first start with this new army, and the new army that cannot march with arms is not qualified, and there are examples of monkeys returning twice, and the first consideration of the new army at the time of Kira Yoshishi is whether the strength and physical strength are qualified.

"There is no problem, the current standard is to carry a weight of five pounds and a mile of cross-country running can run the whole course within a moment even if it is passed, half a month ago in the spring training all to achieve the goal of passing, the next step this standard will be further improved."

One mile is about four kilometers, and it takes fifteen minutes to wait for a moment, and four kilometers can be completed in two and a half minutes with a weight of five pounds, which is definitely an amazing level in this era. With the physical fitness of the younger generation of Echigo greatly improved, it is not too unusual for the best to be able to run this result. After all, it's one out of dozens of people.

"This result can also run down, it is not enough to continue to increase the weight, the distance can also be increased appropriately."

When the two were talking, today's training was basically over, and Kira Yoshitoki looked up at the sun that seemed to be only three o'clock in the afternoon, and asked, "Finish training so early?" Didn't you hear that the training you arranged was very intense? It's only been three hours of training today, right? ”

"There are some special reasons for today, but it's because of the new style of Keju advocated by the owner......" Tokiyuki Yamamoto smiled at him without saying a word.

At this time, more than 2,000 people each held a ball sewn of leather and ran to the newly opened court to play, the first to grab the court more than 20 boys screamed excitedly, the remaining groups of people were not discouraged, quickly ran to the nearby open space to set up a position to play, this kind of game has very low requirements for the field, the streets and alleys can play, as long as two bamboo poles or stones are put as a goal, what sideline offside is indifferent.

Kira Yoshitoki was cheeky and didn't see it: "Keju is Keju, anyway, this is also a graceful thing!" ”

"Keju is a good thing, and the new style of Keju seems to be a little far away from an elegant thing." Tokiyuki Yamamoto caught a glimpse of the gate of the training ground, attracting many samurai to stop and watch, and by looking at their dress, he knew that they were the samurai of the Nagao family, and the kick-off at three o'clock in the afternoon every day became a new entertainment, and this game was indeed attractive to the ancient times who lacked entertainment.

In Kasugayama Castle Town, two young men from Ueno were sitting listlessly in a sake brewhouse, and the investigation in the last few days had yielded nothing, and several people in the house disappeared the next day, and the two of them inquired about the nearby neighbors and did not get any meaningful information.

Unwilling to fail, Nagano Yosegu made up his mind to risk the danger and sneak into the house, but there was still nothing of value, and those people seemed to have evaporated from the world and could never be seen again, and the two thought of telling the Kira family the news, but they went to Kasuga Mountain Castle early this morning to talk about it, but they were chased back by the guarding samurai as a liar who bewitched the public, and if it weren't for the fact that there happened to be an acquaintance on duty as a guarantee, the two would have to take a few hits.

"Those bastards don't believe us! If something really happens, you deserve to be unlucky...... All right! Don't stare at me with that look in your eyes, it's scary! "Nobusada Kohata looked depressed and annoyed, the son-in-law of the young lord of Ueno Kunifeng Castle, the son-in-law of the Kohata family, was blown away by a few samurai guarding the door as liars and madmen, if this was known by the friends in his hometown, he would lose face.

Nagano stubbornly insisted: "You can't just forget it!" Shall we try our luck at the Ruler's Palace? ”

"What? Are you going to go there and come back with a full head? Going to go, you're going! I didn't stay to touch the bag, but to see the mountains and rivers of Echigo. Nobutaha ruthlessly refused his request.

The experience of these few months is enough to disappoint any optimistic person for the Kanto governor, who either hugs the main room and sings the wind and the moon every day, or teases the young son, or simply drinks and gets drunk with Nagao, who is still like a nobleman compared to a month ago, and now he is decadent. Where to listen to the reminder that the two of them didn't even believe the gate guards.

"Yes! The palace will not listen. He must still be thinking about giving his family business in exchange for the opportunity to return to Ueno, right? Nagano Yegu covered his head in a daze.

"It's a fool's sleep! Even if Kira and Nagao are willing to send troops. will never help him get back to Hirai City, who can't see that this steward is a straw bag? Help him take the city sooner or later. ”

"Forget it! Don't think about it, let's go out for a walk! After all, it is still a teenager's heart, and as soon as he wants to go out to play, the two hit it off, and left the house to stay on the street for a while, and Kohata Nobutada said: "Go farther this time, right?" I haven't been to the countryside yet! ”

Nagano Yegu looked at the time at three o'clock in the afternoon, and said in embarrassment: "It's not early. You may not be able to come back if you go to the countryside, right? ”

"If you can't come back, just go to the nearby countryside, anyway, we will go to the countryside sooner or later, we can't stop going out because we can't come back, right?" Nobutaha tried his best to instigate it, and Nagano Yegu thought about it carefully, so he readily agreed.

To the east of Kasugayama Castle Town is the lower reaches of the Sekigawa River Basin, where the town of Naoetsu is located, and along both sides of the Sekigawa River upstream is the main territory of Nagao, and in recent years, the Kira family has also cultivated some new fields nearby, and helped the Nagao family to transfer the territories of the nearby slightly wealthy lords to the new fields in the distant country. The entire Guanchuan Plain has become a situation where the two families dominate, and all this does not affect the old landlords in the grassroots grange.

The so-called old landlord. Also known as the old underground people, the ground servant is another name for the underground people, the status is equivalent to the village elder, the village chief and the like, usually by the respected elders to serve, because of the preservation of the ancient manor system, the formation of the first batch of land servants came from the rich peasants in the manor, the concubines of the middle and low-level samurai.

This kind of person has no chance to become a great samurai, so he can only live in the manor for generations, relying on rudimentary martial arts and some armor accumulated by his ancestors, and defending his homeland with bows and arrows, until the manor system completely collapses, and the guardian system is established, and many lands are derived to form their own grassroots armed forces, and they are the most basic units of the samurai group called "Lang Party" in the Genhei and Kamakura periods.

Then, with the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate, the rise of the Muromachi shogunate, the establishment of the daimyo system, and the rise and decline of the samurai, these grassroots servants were not affected and continued to defend their homeland with centuries-old traditions.

These people were different from the wealthy daimyo who were not engaged in production, they formed a deep connection with the land in the grange at an early age, and they usually had to work in the fields with the peasants, in a sense, they still maintained the status of the rich peasants before their ancestors became land servants.

With the existence of this relationship, in the chaos of the Muromachi period, he stood up and took the initiative to protect the safety of the village, so he was spontaneously elected by the villagers as the elder of the village, and the village without military protection was easily targeted by wild ambushes, bandits, and even unscrupulous lords, and the result of no armed self-defense in the troubled times was definitely a tragic thing.

With the end of the Cargill Rebellion and the famous Tuichi Incident that broke out in Kyoto City, the entire countryside of the world followed this system, so it was almost inevitable that the creation of the grassroots unit of the old landlord was an almost inevitable trend.

Walking on the streets along the Guanchuan River, the high embankment isolates the wide river water, if you climb the high slope and you can see the magnificent scene of the river rushing, they really want to climb the embankment to express their magnificent feelings for the mountains and rivers, but the old farmers who take care of the alfalfa grass on the embankment do not give them face, and take bamboo poles to drive them away like flies.

Nobusada Kohata turned his head to look at the hunched old man in the distance, and said with a look of surprise: "This old man is really interesting, he is not afraid at all when he sees us carrying a sword." ”

Nagano Yegu said disapprerovingly: "People are ordered to take care of the embankment and those pastures, before they get the permission order, no matter who wants to climb the embankment, they must be driven away, even if it is the Wuwei Palace, how can you take care of the embankment when you kneel down and kowtow?" ”

Walking through the countryside with endless paddy fields as far as the eye can see, the Kira family's new agricultural decision to ensure that Echigo's high-quality Koshihikari rice is planted no less than 60% of the total cultivated area, which is tantamount to warning the Echigo samurai not to expect too much hope of replacing all rice with new grain.

This issue also caused a great discussion in Echigo, and the result of the discussion was that it was likely that it would not be profitable to sell new grain, and the greedy people were even more reluctant to secretly release the cultivation of new grain to other countries, and there was not the slightest trend of selling new grain in either Kinai or Kanto, and the main body of grain buyers were merchants and samurai daimyos, who were all traditional groups that did not eat new grain, and new grain could not be sold at all after leaving Echigo.

"So you want to grow rice, leave a small part for the samurai to eat, and sell the rest to Kanto, right? Sure enough, it's a good plan! Nagano Yegu likes to use Echigo's buzzwords more and more, and words such as "expectations", "systems", "standards" and "plans" often come out of his mouth, and it is not surprising that Nobutaha Nobusada who pressed the road with him is not surprised.

Next to a paddy field, a child drove a flock of ducklings to forage on the ridge, and saw two strangers standing on the edge of the paddy field in a daze and smiled disapprovingly, this situation has appeared since two years ago, and last year there were many times.

There were some strange strange warriors who stood in front of the high cornfield and were stunned all day, not drinking, eating, or talking, until the sun went down, and they walked away silently, probably the same with these two strangers.

"What's so nice about the paddy fields." Nobusada looked around and urged impatiently: "It's better to go to the corn field to take a look, I heard that the corn seedlings are taller than people, hide in them to make sure you can't find anyone." ”

"You see there's a ditch dug next to this paddy field, what's in it?" Nagano pointed to the bubbling ditches in the paddy fields.

Rows of neat and tender grass seedlings are not unusual in the paddy fields, but there is also a row of deep ditches in the corners of the rice fields, which are blocked by a net made of layers of bamboo strips, and some small fish fry grow in them, sprinkled with some small insects and duckweed.

"Huh? Isn't this a small fish? Digging a drainage ditch in a rice field to raise fish? What's the point? Kohata Nobusada scratched his head strangely and shook his head, although the warriors of the Hao clan basically did not produce, but they had never eaten pork and seen pigs run, and every year when the farm was busy, they had to follow their father to the fields to wander around, and they had to understand what season was the agricultural season, what season was abnormal weather, and how farmers farmed should also be understood enough.

If you don't know what your own lords do, this lord is not qualified, and the excellent lord can even call the name of each old man, know the general interpersonal relationship of each village, and make a rough estimate of how much food production will be in what year, and survive in this troubled world, if the lords don't have two brushes, they can't hold these cunning old landsmen.

Pure ten fingers do not touch the spring water, do not understand anything can only eat, drink and have fun, spend all day and drink lords are actually very few, the probability of appearing is probably not much different from the probability of a generation of male lords, most of the daimyo, the family governor of the wealthy family has a door, the spectrum of the generation of pressure does not dare to act at will, in case it is not good to be a door, the spectrum of the generation of the tragedy of exile and even death is too many.

For example, a reckless and reckless person like Otomo Yoshijin, and think about how much influence the conversion to Catholicism has on the retainers and the people under the country, as a family governor, there are still relatively few people who don't know the number in their hearts, and of course it is not without this situation.

For example, the successor to the Tosa Ichijo family governor for nearly seven years is the standard daimyo, except for eating, drinking and having fun, that is, his adoptive father, the Ichijo family's governor, the former Zuo minister, Sekihaku, and Neilan, with the assistance of the former minister, Sekihaku, and Neilan, only to keep the foundation of Tosa Ichijo not destroyed. (To be continued......)