Kira Yoshian defends his dignity with his life, he has been forced to surrender to the Imagawa family by life, and can no longer surrender to the Matsudaira family for the crisis of reality, his self-esteem does not allow him to break through his psychological bottom line again and again, and he is not allowed to surrender to a lowly Matsudaira family, he chose to surrender to the Imagawa family, and there is still a lot of fame to hold it, and he is mixed with the status of a son-in-law, how to look at it, it is not a loss, but it is too difficult for him to surrender to an Ise clan.

The samurai who died in Saijo Castle in addition to the retainers of the Ichigan lineage, there were also two heavyweights of the Kira family, the uncle Yoshitomi Kira who was over eighty years old but in good spirits, and Yoshiaki Kira, the biological father of Ashikaga Katsuhime, this is not as simple as dying a Kira Yoshiyasu, even the current boss of the imperial court, Konoe Maehisa and the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiki, and the overbearing Kira Yoshitoki who is running rampant in the Kanto region.

These few things were achieved at the same time, Matsudaira Ieyasu was a little unsure whether he went out and didn't look at the yellow calendar or forgot to bring toilet paper, the Saijo Castle family was all finished, and the Matsudaira family was really unlucky and there was no place to cry.

The mess in front of him forced Matsudaira Ieyasu to dare not do anything, and searched for Imagawa Tsuruhime and his sister-in-law Mantakemaru, who were escorted away by the dead soldiers of the Kira family, and a fire attracted everyone's attention, giving the mother and son who fled in makeup a lot of room to escape, and a group of more than a dozen people went to find it like a drop of water into the sea.

As a result, he was busy working for half a month and didn't get anything, and then the arrival of the envoy of the Oda family was ushered in, and this time the envoy sent by the Oda family was no longer an ordinary commissioner. It is Oda Nobunaga's right-hand man, Niwa Nagahide. Matsudaira Ieyasu knew that the messenger of the Oda family was a bad comer.

The two respectfully saluted and greeted each other in turn. I heard Niwa Nagahide's voice say, "I heard that the Saijo Castle tragedy occurred near the Yasaku River, and that the uncle, uncle, and brother of the town government all died at the hands of the Matsudaira Tibetan Temple, and my lord was very shocked and indignant at such a bad act, so he specially sent him to Okazaki Castle to question the Matsudaira Sanjin Hall on behalf of my lord!" ”

Matsudaira Ieyasu said secretly, and sure enough, he took a deep breath like a young samurai facing a major test, stared with bated breath and said, "Please say it from Niwa Hall!" ”

Niwa Nagahide coughed and said, "First, why does the Matsudaira Sanjin Hall repeatedly dissuade my lord. Insisting on attacking Saijo Castle? Second, why did the Matsudaira Saurato Temple force the Kira Mikawa Moriden and his relatives and genealogies to death when attacking Saijo Castle? Third, why did the Matsudaira Sanjin Temple ask for half a month, and even the widows and orphans of Kira Mikawa were unwilling to let go? The lord's questions are all asked. ”

Matsudaira Ieyasu heard the cold sweat that broke out, and immediately leaned over and said in a panic: "I, Ieyasu, swear to Amitabha Buddha in the Western Elysium in the name of a believer in the Pure Land Sect, and I realized in my heart the slightest idea of harming the Kira Mikawa Guardian Temple, and the purpose of attacking the city was only to force the Kira Mikawa Guardian Temple to give up resistance, and my Ieyasu did not expect that the Kira Mikawa Guardian Temple and the monarchs in Saijo Castle would commit suicide at all!" The search for the widows and orphans of Mamoru Mikawa Kira is to ask them to come back to inherit Saijo's will, and my Ieyasu has absolutely no other intentions! ”

Niwa Nagahide nodded noncommittally. Behind him, Ikeda Hengxing pursed his lips disdainfully and suddenly said, "Matsudaira Zoto His Royal Highness has caused a catastrophe!" Did it be because of the invasion of the Kanto region by the army of the town government that he dared to provoke the Kira Domain? If it weren't for the fact that my lord was entangled in the Mino affair, he would never have allowed Matsudaira Sanito to do such an excessive thing! The safety of Lady Imagawa and His Royal Highness Mantakemaru is not worried. ”

Matsudaira Ieyasu hesitated: "This ......"

"I'll go back after three questions. I'm really embarrassed to disturb the Matsudaira Kurato Palace's troubled reception, so I take my leave! Niwa Nagahide quickly got up and said goodbye, the whole movement was clean and neat, without the slightest drag.

Matsudaira Ieyasu's side approached Honda Heihachiro and wanted to argue unevenly, but was held down by the quick-eyed Hondo many times, and Kubo Tadashi, the boss of the spectrum family, asked suspiciously: "Why do you think that the envoys of the Oda family are not good, and look at their tone as if they are reprimanding us for not doing things well, why did my Matsudaira family's allies become like this?" ”

No one from the genealogy of the Matsudaira family spoke, and Matsudaira Ieyasu hesitated for a while and said: "This matter ends here, the Ishikawa Boqi Shouden serves as the head of the Nishimikawa Banner, and the task of the Boqi Shouden is very heavy!" I must pacify the people of the former Kira domain as soon as possible, and serve as a samurai to pacify Nishimikawa, so that my Matsudaira family can establish enough trust in Nishimikawa! ”

Ishikawa said respectfully, "Yes! Please rest assured, your subordinates will go to the soup for the Matsudaira family! ”

Matsudaira Ieyasu also said: "Appointing Sakai Saemon Captain Tadaji as the head of the Higashi-Mikawa banner, responsible for stabilizing the countrymen of Higashi-Mikawa, and shouldering the vanguard of the attack on the Enoe country, my Matsudaira family's future strategy will be Enoe, please take advantage of your strength to help me overcome this difficult hurdle together!" ”

……

On June 28, the fourth year of Eiroku, in the castle tower of Kiyoshu Castle in Owari Province, Oda Nobunaga put his arm around Guidie's shoulders and shouted, "Bring the wine!" Bring the wine! I'm going to have a drink to celebrate today's good day! ”

A few small surnames panted and brought a few bottles of sake, Oda Nobunaga opened it and sang it and threw it aside, shouting for the limited supply of the Kira family, Gui Die pulled his arm and said angrily: "Your Highness, what's wrong with this today?" was inexplicably happy all day, making the concubine think that His Royal Highness was sick! ”

"I'm in good health so I won't get sick!" Oda Nobunaga smiled and said, "There are two joys in this family, and the first joy is that your father-killing brother Saito Yoshiryu died suddenly!" Speaking of Gui Die, this brother is really interesting, he only killed his father-in-law for three years before he got leprosy, and he died after only two years of illness, this must be the gods and Buddhas who can't see this father-killer living in the world, and deliberately sent disasters to take his life. ”

"Is my brother still sick and dead? It's better to be dead......" Saito Guidie hung his head melancholy, no matter what Saito Yoshiryu did to her father, after all, it was her brother-in-law who had an inextricable blood relationship, and suddenly learned from her husband that the news of her brother's death was described as a joy. It is inevitable that there is a little loneliness and loneliness in my heart.

Oda Nobunaga then laughed: "This second joy is that Matsudaira Takechiyo's stupid boy is on the road." accidentally forced Mikawa Kira's house to death. This can provoke the behemoth of Echigo, under the gaze of the monster in Kanto, Matsudaira Takechiyo, this kid will not be able to escape the palm of his family in this life! Isn't this a very happy move? ”

"Didn't that Matsudaira Saurato Hall just form an alliance with His Highness? Tokuki also married Chiyo Kotake of the Matsudaira family, such a close relationship...... The concubine really can't understand it! Saito Guidie thought for a while and said: "The concubine still remembers that His Royal Highness often said, I go west and you go east, and the two brothers divide the world equally?" ”

"Oh! That sentence was actually written down by Madame! Oda Nobunaga took a fresh drink and drank it down, then laughed and said, "This is just a few excuses made when the alliance was formed, and the family still doesn't believe it." How could that kid Takechiyo believe it...... Now Matsudaira Takechiyo has offended Echigo, and the days to come will be more and more sad, the more sad his days are, the more he has to hug the big tree of his family and pray for a chance to shelter from the wind and rain, don't forget that this family is investing two precious sisters for the Echio Alliance! If you can't earn it back with interest, wouldn't it be a big loss! ”

Men's world is always full of intrigue and bloody brutality, even if Oda Nobunaga is essentially the same, the Echio Alliance he refers to is actually the Owari alliance between Echigo and Oda Nobunaga at the time of Kira Yoshishi, the original intention of the alliance between the two is far less pure than the Kiyoshu Alliance, and Oda Nobunaga is not Matsudaira Ieyasu who ran to Kiyoshu to ask for a thigh hug.

The marriage and alliance between Oda Nobunaga and Kira Yoshitoki was essentially a political speculation by both sides, and the territories of the two sides did not directly border each other, and there was no stake in the family business. It is just a political attempt to attack from afar, so the two sides have not evolved into a weak side holding the strong side and asking for an umbrella. It has not become an equal alliance between several Ming Dynasty forming an offensive and defensive alliance for a certain goal or the common development of several goals.

The Oda family on the relatively weak side does not feel that they are weak, Oda Nobunaga controls Owari Ichikuni and actively invades Higashi Mino, trying to gradually compress the Mino Saito clan's activity space, he needs the military, political and economic support of the Kira family, but not the establishment of an uneven thigh hugging covenant, which makes Oda Nobunaga's attitude towards Kira Yoshitoki far less awe than imagined, but seven points of jealousy, two points of vigilance and one point of admiration.

The situation was similar on Kira Yoshitoki's side, and his attitude towards the Oda family was more about using the Oda family than forming a sincere alliance, just like using the Asakura family to turn the confrontation situation in the first half of Hokuriku into a pot of porridge, and the Oda family was another war hammer in Kira Yoshitoki's hand, in order to crack open the hard eggshell of Kinai, so that he could open up more space for the future layout of Kinai.

If the two of them don't have a good mind, they can't talk about who is sorry for whom, not to mention that the political minds of these two people are at the top level, and from each other's coping strategies, they can probably see some of each other's thoughts and form an invisible tacit understanding, this tacit understanding is that each other knows their respective interests and establishes a set of political relationships that use each other, and how long this relationship can last depends on the changes in the situation and the decision of the two governors.

These days, Imagawa Tsuruhime and Mantakemaru live in Cheongju, and she and her sister-in-law, who is less than three years old, hide in the kiya arranged by the Oda family all day long and dare not go out, for fear that the Oda family will one day make a move to send them back to Mikawa, but from the situation, Oda Nobunaga seems to have plans in this regard.

A few days later, the diplomatic envoy of the Kira family came to Kiyoshu City, because it was half a beat, so the envoy of the Kira family was completely unaware of the great changes that had taken place in the Mikawa country, and still urged the Oda family to withdraw the Matsudaira army from Nishimikawa as soon as possible, unaware that Matsudaira Ieyasu had completed a series of processes to destroy the door and grab the land.

When Imagawa Tsuruhime came to the envoy of the Kira family with Wantakemaru, the messenger asked in a panic what happened to Mikawa Country, this question actually scared the timid messenger on the spot, and was finally helped up by the small surname of the Oda family, and the messenger found that the impact of the matter was completely out of his imagination, the purpose of his trip was to come for Mikawa, and now that Mikawa is gone, it is meaningless to stay, so he threw down a few cruel words and returned to Echigo with Imagawa Tsuruhime and Mantakemaru.

Looking at the convoy slowly departing in a carriage, Oda Nobunaga stood in front of the terrace and leaned on the railing to look into the distance, secretly thinking, "Kill!" Let's make trouble! The more chaotic the Kira family, the better! It's best to be trapped in Kanto for decades and can't come out, so that the family can eat Mino as soon as possible and open up the channel to Shangluo! I, Nobunaga, will one day realize my dreams. The dream of Buwu in the world! ”

……

In June, the Kanto region enters the season of rain. Wave after wave of storms hit from the Pacific Ocean. Forcing the Kira Army to abandon the tactics of rampage and change to a strategy of long-term siege, more than 50,000 troops were deployed along the border between Sagami and Musashi, completely dividing the two countries into two theaters.

Xiaoji City finally couldn't support the endless attack and harassment at this time, not because of the lack of ability of the Hojo clan Yao, nor because the Hojo samurai did not work hard enough, the absolute gap in strength and the harassment of the Kira army day and night is really incomprehensible, people always have to eat and rest to have the energy to do things, but when they beat drums during the day to attack the city and disturb at night, how can people eat and rest at ease.

The most commonly used food starvation strategy of the Kira Army was effective, and it had a great impact on Koki Castle and even the entire Hojo family. The three consecutive years of disasters in the Kanto region had a huge impact on the Hojo family's grain reserves, and it was common sense that the grain stored in the castle could easily be maintained until the end of the autumn harvest, but after all, this was a war time different from the food consumption in peacetime, and the soldiers had to eat three or four meals a day in order to ensure sufficient energy, and recruited the townspeople to repair the destroyed mounds, and the arrows and turrets needed to consume more food.

At first, I didn't think that this was a lot of consumption, but as time went from spring to summer, it gradually became unbearable, and the siege of the Kira family was not simply sending 810,000 troops to stand in the four corners, but the 50,000 male divisions of the Eight Classics completely blocked the eight directions, which changed from the traditional blocking of the city gate in the Warring States Period of Japan to the eight-sided siege tactics that were more similar to the Ming Empire.

The so-called siege of the city is to give the enemy a chance to survive and let him escape. As long as the general, who is not strong-willed, thinks about abandoning the city and fleeing at this time, as long as he has this thought, he is destined to flee. Escaping from the city is equivalent to losing the support of the fortified city, and there is no way to survive in the face of the army in ambush on all sides in the wilderness at any time, so escaping will die faster than defending the city.

Many generals understand the truth of besieging the city, this trick is used to deal with those stupid generals, as long as they are not stupid generals, they will not choose to abandon the city and flee this dead end, of course, Hojo Shiyao also understands this truth, so he chooses to stick to it even if he faces the crisis of falling into the city at the last moment, he will never give up, but some things are not useful if he does not give up.

Hojo Shiyao was still dead, and he stubbornly persisted for more than three months under the siege of more than 50,000 troops of Uesugi Terutora, and finally could not escape the end of breaking the city and dying, even if Uesugi Terutora was unwilling to lose his troops and adopted the method of attacking and harassing the city as the main and attacking the city as a supplement, he still could not hold on in the third month of the siege, that is, at the end of June.

As the fourth brother of Hojo Shiyasu, Hojo Shiyao died very heroically, he first made representations to ask the town government to pardon more than 1,000 soldiers in the city, and after receiving a positive answer, he committed suicide by seppuku in the big wide room, more than 100 people including Hojo Shiyao's son-in-law, genealogy retainers, flag moto samurai, and small surnames knelt on both sides and died of seppuku as if they held an assessment meeting, and more than 20 people such as Hojo Shiyao's wife and two minor daughters and maids committed suicide by poisoning, and no one survived the destruction of the Hojo family.

The fall of Koki Castle marked the fall of the Hojo family's last stronghold in Musashi Province, and all the plans of the Sagami Hojo clan to conquer Musashi Province for decades collapsed, just like the Kai Takeda clan lost Shinano Province, the entire Hojo family was devastated by this news, and the Hojo clan had no heart to think about rescuing Suruga and maintaining the territory of Shimokoku and Upper Kigaku.

Especially when the Hojo clan and the Hojo clan brought back an important piece of news, the Hojo clan and the Hojo Tsunari were likely to die in the hands of the Kira family, and the Hojo family was even more worried about their fate, and the young governor of the Hojo clan was a little unable to grasp the situation, and he needed the help of his wise father.

Hojo Shiyasu has long been aware of the seriousness of the matter, as a retired family governor, he needs to face not only the crisis of the family business, but also worry about his eldest son, the current family governor Hojo clan some changes in mind, in order to support the Hojo clan government and have to reduce the number of public appearances, after all, he is already a retired family governor, can not hinder the new family governor to establish prestige, this family will eventually have to be handed over to young people.

Under the crisis, the Hojo clan asked his father for help, which was not only a low-profile call for help, but also showed that he was temporarily unable to deal with the current crisis, and needed Hojo Shiyasu to temporarily return to suppress the chaotic Hojo family, in a sense, this was also a huge loss to his prestige as the governor, but the situation was stronger than people, and he couldn't destroy the Hojo family for face and prestige.

The temporarily returned Hojo clan Yasu made various adjustments to the Hojo family, first of all, he sent Hojo Phantom to serve as an envoy to ask for a truce, and repeatedly stated that he had no intention of challenging the Ueki Ashikaga family and the town government, and at the same time sent Itabe Okae Yukisai to Kyoto for help, the Hojo family is an authentic Kyoto samurai, and a bunch of genealogy retainers in the family were still in Kyoto for the shogunate decades ago or even a few years ago, and the relationship is still very easy to find. (To be continued......)