The end of the Middle Ages was an era of feudal ignorance, people worshiped ghosts, gods, ancestors, spirits, mountains, rivers, and everything, and there was a complex social system in the Eastern social system.

Not to mention that Ezo, which runs all over the eastern country, is difficult to deal with, as a new conqueror, balancing the various mountains in the East China Sea region of the western province of Ki has exhausted all the power of the imperial court, and the emperor is only the nominal head of the aristocratic group, more like the king leading the aristocracy than the Chinese emperor's absolute dominance over the ministers' territory.

From the Asuka period to the Nara period, the Ritsuryo system stumbled to the era of the Seki administration, and the Fujiwara family once dominated the imperial court for hundreds of years in the Heian period, relying on intrigue to eliminate political opponents and manipulate the emperor to depose.

In just two hundred years, several powerful emperors and emperors emerged, dealing a heavy blow to the relatively stable political system of the imperial court and destroying the ecosystem on which they depended.

In the early days of samurai society, the Yuan family and the Heping family, or they could be concentrated on the pillars of the two families, Yuan Jingji and Taira Zhensheng, who were both eagle and dog minions driven by the emperor's white gate, doing some dirty work that decent nobles were unwilling to do, and living a life that was not as good as the pigs and dogs of the Xia Dynasty.

They longed to be respected, understood, and loved, but they could only reap endless ridicule and insults, and the samurai who claimed to be royal blood gradually became insensitive, mentally distorted, and made the violent law enforcers who hunted and killed bandits rampant in the countryside gradually rebellious. Therefore, there is a knot of grievances between the Genpei era and the Genyi Dynasty. Minamoto Yorito's successor to the shogunate, Hojo Masako, instigated the Shokushi Rebellion and established a new political system. Samurai shogunate.

At first, the samurai did not know what loyalty was, and the samurai with swords in the ten miles and eight towns consciously united under the noblest and most powerful samurai, which was not an ethereal loyalty, but an animal instinct hidden in the body for thousands of years, the invisible line that has continued in the process of evolving from the clan tribal system to the feudal manor system, and the strong people who rely on the tribe to protect their own interests and obtain more benefits, it is as simple as that.

The lack of a system that does not understand loyalty means that the samurai can unscrupulously exude the evil side of human nature. Greedy, ruthless, and unscrupulous to achieve the end, such as father and son enmity, brother rivalry, husband and wife against each other, mother and son turn against each other, monarch and minister antagonism, and so on, the drama is constantly renovated every day, until the law and ethical system of the samurai family in the late Kamakura period were established one after another.

With the advent of the Muromachi period, the samurai society became more and more prominent, and the splendid traditional culture of Kyoto had a great impact on the new samurai society, and the Muromachi shogunate in Kyoto had a more mature and developed government system than the puppet Kamakura shogunate, and the splendor of the Ashikaga Yoshimitsu era is unforgettable, but all this has little to do with Kanto.

The defects of the system led to the coexistence of the Shogunate in Kyoto and the Kanto Shogunate in Kamakura, and the Kamakura period left too much spiritual wealth to the Kanto samurai. They have a glorious history of glorious exploits, and they are eager to recreate the glory of Kamakura, and they are not sober in the head of the Eternal Rebellion. One hundred and thirty years after this beating, the Kwantung samurai were left with extremely painful memories, so much so that they did not dare to do or say many things and many things.

The precedent of the Kamakura Princess's competition for the general of the Seiyi is still in the ears, from the Ashikaga clan Manchu, Ashikaga Mankane to the Ashikaga Mochi clan three generations of repeated attempts have failed, especially when the Kanto samurai regarded it as the hope of the Ashikaga Mochi's tragic death, triggering the strong resistance of the Kanto samurai to the shogunate, and at the same time deeply shocking the hearts of the Kanto samurai, such a strong force can not fight the shogunate, probably there is no hope.

This is not the idea of a few samurai, but it is common in the hearts of all classes in the Kanto region, and it can be called empiricism, which is a high degree of cognition that has been derived from experience and induction and deduction over hundreds of years, just like in the early Kamakura period, when there was no law, ancient precedents and principles were often used to judge punishments.

This can also be called the anchoring effect, when the samurai make judgments about the major events that affect the course of the Kanto orbit change, they always can't help but think of the painful experience more than 100 years ago, and it is easy to be dominated by the first impression of being hit, just like the anchor of a ship sinking to the bottom of the sea fixes the samurai's mind somewhere.

Every time I think of Ashikaga Yoshitoki's ambitions, I can't help but substitute my thinking into the Eiko Rebellion more than 120 years ago, when countless samurai elites died tragically under the butcher's knives of the shogunate's crusading armies, bloody heads piled up on both sides of the Kanto streets, children lost their fathers, wives lost their husbands, countless families collapsed, and many samurai families were wiped out.

This deep-rooted thought haunts the mind of every Kanto samurai like a nightmare, and the scar is too painful to make people feel afraid of the well rope after being bitten by a snake for ten years, and when they think of the ambition of Ashikaga Yoshitoki, they will involuntarily start the mental warning and subconsciously make avoidance, so even if Ashikaga Yoshitoki has not made it clear that this is a taboo topic over the years, the Kanto samurai have consciously sealed this topic in the depths of their minds and dare not touch it.

The illusion was punctured, and the samurai found out that they were ostrich mentality, and their thoughts of embarrassment and fear were varied, but Date Terumune, the Oshu daimyo of the Imperial Palace, did not have such thoughts, and his eyes flashed and he asked: "It turns out that His Royal Highness really has the ambition to stabilize the world, but isn't this to go down?" ”

Kitabatake's house seemed to have expected it, and he glanced at it with a smile and smiled: "Non-yes!" The so-called subordinate and superior, the lord is in power but usurped power for the ministers, this is the lower and upper also! His Royal Highness has 100,000 warriors in the Kanto region, but he is willing to be one of His Royal Highnesses the Shogun, and he has not dared to act rashly for several years. ”

"A hundred years of chaos in the world began in Kyoto, and now the crisis of the shogunate also started in Kyoto, since the turmoil in Kyoto, the Miyoshi family has wanted to abolish the establishment several times, what does it have to do with my Kanto Ashikaga family? How can the heavens allow the petty people to frame at will? If His Royal Highness intends to usurp the throne. Why do you have to stay in Kanto for many years and dare not act rashly? Have you forgotten that His Royal Highness the Shogun's Imperial Book predates the commotion in Kyoto! ”

Tokimasa Hojo clenched his fists excitedly more than anyone else. His clan was not a pure Kwantung samurai. At the time of the Eternal Peace, the ancestor was still serving as an official in the shogunate, and the so-called ostrich mentality had nothing to do with him, all he thought about was to revitalize the ancestral industry and restore the prestige of the Hojo clan.

Each samurai has different ideas, and each samurai's family origins, interests, and even the preferences and judgments of the family governor are different. There are loyal and ambitious people such as Hojo Tokimasa and Satake Yoshishige, as well as Utsunomiya Hirotsuna, Nasu Shiyin, who are discouraged and discouraged by Michinoku, and many small country lords who have a pure soy sauce mentality.

Ashikaga Yoshitoki did not think about forcing everyone's thoughts, each has his own hobbies and takes what he needs, the general trend of the world is like a rolling tide carrying the incomparable power rushing, deep in this wave of many samurai is not much choice, either take advantage of the trend to accept the baptism of the wave, or go against the trend to resist the lapping of the waves, the former may not be able to carp jump over the dragon gate, but the latter will definitely end up dead without a place to be buried.

Everyone's situation is different. No one will painstakingly persuade stubborn people how to live a better life. The ups and downs of the times all depend on their own understanding and creation, and Ashikaga Yoshitoki often has a sentence on his lips: "Those who can't keep up with the times will eventually be abandoned by the times." ”

It didn't matter how entangled the Kwantung samurai were, and the fact that these new senators had less than half of the voting power at most, and were torn apart by Ashikaga Yoshitoki's cloud-turning tactics, the big head followed the attitude of his ministers who had started from Echigo and even Kyoto and Mikawa, and they all seemed very supportive of the attitude of competing for the world.

But there are always exceptions, Hosokawa Fujitaka from the shogunate is not very happy, although he has followed Ashikaga Yoshitoki for more than ten years, but after all, there is still the loyal blood of the Kyoto samurai in his bones, and the shogunate who has served as the shogun for generations in the family serves the public, and his uncle and adoptive father Hosokawa Mototo, who is over seventy years old, still dies for the shogunate Tadatsu, he is not very willing to see violent turmoil in the Ashikaga family.

Hosokawa Fujitaka reluctantly said: "His Royal Highness must have a way to rescue His Highness the General!" After all, His Royal Highness the General is kind to my Kanto Ashikaga family, as long as His Royal Highness the Shogun sends an army from Sakamoto to Kyoto to destroy the unsubordinated people, and then personally raises the army into Luo to calm down the evil and sweep the world, presumably His Royal Highness the Shogun can also understand the distress of His Royal Highness the Prince! ”

Honda was dissatisfied: "Why did the Hosokawa Military Department Hall say this? Not to mention that the changes in Ki have little to do with His Royal Highness the Principal, and His Royal Highness the General's behavior is beyond the influence of His Royal Highness the Prince, only with the small soldiers in the corner of Sakamoto surrounded by enemies on all sides, it is very difficult to defend Chengdu and forge ahead, and it is even more difficult to fight, not to mention that the channel to fight in the land of Jingluo has been blocked, so what can Nakajo Deyu take to enter Jingluo?

The front foot entered Beijing and the back foot lost Sakamoto, and the army's heart was shaken and then defeated again, did you lose both people and money? As for the absurd conclusion that the army is going to enter Los Angeles, let's not mention it! His Royal Highness the General's Imperial Teaching Book is still there, and it is against the edict to go to Luo under any banner, does the Military Department want to trap His Royal Highness the Duke in unkindness and injustice? ”

Hosokawa Fujitaka knew that this was completely wrong, but he still forcibly defended himself out of loyalty: "But if His Royal Highness the General loses his position, won't His Royal Highness the Princess's reputation be damaged?" ”

"How can it be damaged? His Royal Highness was ordered to press the army and not move, let 100,000 tigers, flying eagles, and lackeys hunt around, and would rather enter Kuma and release Nanshan than not think about it, why would his reputation be damaged, and why should his reputation be damaged? Forcibly violated the edict to Shangluo to rebel, and then was condemned by the general's palace to be claustrophobic and a monk in the name of loyalty? Why did you not see the origin of Yoshijing? How can such pedantic thoughts be called a martial artist? Ben was flicking his sleeves and turned his face sideways in disgust to look at him.

Hosokawa Fujitaka lowered his head in frustration and lamented: "I, Fujitaka, also know that this is not the way for my Kanto Ashikaga family, but His Royal Highness the General is kind to me!" From the Kira family, to the Kami-Ashikaga family, and then to the Kanto Ashikaga family, step by step is inseparable from the full support of His Royal Highness the General, even if His Royal Highness the General has changed his mind over the years, that is also the benefactor of my Kanto Ashikaga family! Allowing His Royal Highness the General to be in danger is really a loss of loyalty to his ministers. ”

When the situation reverses and changes costs for a long time, he is speechless, and loyalty and kindness are always the threshold that cannot be bypassed, and Ashikaga Yoshiteru has great kindness to Ashikaga Yoshitoki. This is a difficult point that cannot be avoided no matter what. Without Ashikaga Yoshiteru, there would be no Ashikaga Yoshitoki today. Even if he claimed to have repaid all his kindness, it would not change the world's stubborn view of this judgment.

The kindness given by Ashikaga Yoshiteru is fame, and the power of fame is sometimes worthless to samurai who are born in local tyrants, and at most it is the icing on the cake, such as the Echizen Asakura family, the Owari Oda family, and other special circumstances can bring extraordinary influence.

If he didn't get the approval of Ashikaga Yoshiteru at the beginning, and just changed the Miao character to Ashikaga without authorization, then the gold content of his Kanto Ashikaga family would have been attenuated by seventy or eighty percent, as long as the shogun's imperial teaching book did not recognize his self-proclaim. If he is pointed to as an enemy or issued a crusade order, a large number of careerists will jump out from all corners to instigate rebellion.

These careerists may have come from the dozens of samurai here, perhaps some or most of them, in short, they caused a great upheaval and caused a great upheaval within the family, forcing him to spend a lot of time on internal firefighting, and if there was some accident in the middle of the ten or eight years, maybe what the future of the Ashikaga family would become.

The power of the name is so wonderful, just like the three artifacts are meaningless in the hands of an old man, a child, or a samurai, and the best choice is nothing more than to enter Beijing and dedicate it to the Heavenly Emperor. Then he was rewarded with an inconsequential five subordinates, who couldn't be emperors with three artifacts. You can't even order the hundred officials and ministers to obey you, because the three artifacts are not farts if they leave the royal family.

Therefore, the Akamatsu family, which was exterminated in the Cargill Rebellion, made a fuss that the remnants of the Akamatsu clan voluntarily joined the same remnants of the Southern Dynasty, infiltrated Yoshino Palace to steal the three artifacts of the Southern Dynasty from the palace of the puppet emperor, and escaped and returned them to the Northern Emperor of Kyoto, so the merit was granted permission from the shogunate to revive the Harima Akamatsu clan.

It is also like there are only three white flags of the Genji, which are one side of the Hachiman Taro Minamoto Yoshiya, one side of the right general Minamoto Yorito, and one side of the Ashikaga Taka clan of the holding house, these three are up to four meters high The white flag of the flag, and the rest of the white flags awarded to the samurai are not the white flags of the Genji, many samurai have a few feet long white silk written on it "Minami no Hachiman Great Bodhisattva", which can only be called the white Hachiman Great Bodhisattva flag, which can be referred to as the white flag, but does not have any appeal and influence, at most it is good-looking and highlights a strong sense of justice.

In the same way, it can be substituted into any dynasty, not everyone is the royal family of England with the Tudor rose flag, not everyone surnamed Zhu can enjoy the treatment of dragon sons and grandsons, no matter how big the name is given to him without the support of birth and blood, it is useless to give him a big name, and the fake can't be real after all, no matter how famous the family is without a name, it can't work after all, at least before the Muromachi shogunate is destroyed, this iron law still exists.

The pressure of the rank given by the shogun is very weak for ordinary samurai, but it is very strong for the promotion of the Kanto prince Ashikaga Yoshishi, who is promoted to the branch of the people, if he is not given a title at the beginning but is given a reward for money, food, land or guardianship, the effect will immediately be reduced by several grades.

No matter how much money, food and land are not as precious as giving him a righteous name to compete for the world, this is very clear to Ashikaga Yoshiteru, the reason why he still dares to give this title knowing that it is so, is because there is a magic weapon that limits the scope of activities of the Imperial Religion, and if you give your name to restrict your behavior, there will be a reason to cut you if you violate it without authorization.

If Ashikaga Yoshitoki was a thick-skinned samurai, maybe he wouldn't be afraid of Ashikaga Yoshiteru's petty means, but Ashikaga Yoshitoki couldn't, this samurai with moral purity and unwilling to usurp the throne, he had to bow his head and admit the effect of this trick, no one would be stupid enough to believe that he would abide by this imperial book forever, just like Ashikaga Yoshiteru could not be a peaceful shogun in the crisis-ridden Kyoto.

The shogun is middle-aged and has no heir, sooner or later he will have to face the pressure of establishing an heir and there is not much time left for him, even if there is no crisis in Kyoto, he must face the urging of the ministers, and the health warning line of many middle-aged generals in his thirties, the heirless general must be established as the political heir of the adopted son when the position is relatively safe, as long as it evolves into a general, it is no longer a simple subordinate to the heir, this is the heir issue within the Ashikaga family, and the non-Ashikaga family is not even qualified to discuss it.

The atmosphere in the hall was stagnant, and the important ministers of the spectrum looked up nervously at the expressions of Ashikaga Yoshitoki, and when they thought about it carefully, they would always notice the embarrassing position of the Kanto Ashikaga family, and it was indeed true that they were rewarded and loyal to Ashikaga Yoshiteru's promotion, and it was impossible to quietly erase their identity as a courtier.

It can't really be that the Kanto Shogun's Mansion is the shogunate of the Shogun. Actually, it's just a mouthful of a dry addiction. Just like in the past, it was one thing for Ashikaga Yoshitoki to like to call himself the Ashikaga family. Even if the shogunate knows about it, he can't do anything about it, and what he can't get is always the best anyway, and this innocuous self-claim will not change the status of the Kanto prince lower than the shogun, and there is still an invisible ceiling between the two.

Ashikaga Yoshitoki stroked his palms and sighed: "Fujitaka's words made people wake up, it is really my Xuanchengya!" ”

"His Royal Highness the Duke praises falsely, and Fuji Xiaoshi does not dare to compare himself to Duke Wei Wenzhen." Hosokawa Fujitaka did not dare to compare himself with Wei Zheng, and comparing himself with Wei Zheng was equivalent to implying that Ashikaga Yoshitoshi was comparing himself to Li Shimin, and the lord's casual sentence did not necessarily have a deeper meaning. But when the courtiers must not pretend to be stupid, and then, when it is rumored that no one in the outside world will say Ashikaga Yoshishi, he will not praise him deeply, but will only scold Hosokawa Fujitaka for his reputation as a non-loyal minister.

Ashikaga Yoshitoki didn't think about the twisting and turning eyes at all, and after boasting, he continued: "What Fujitaka said is very true! Yu Ruo didn't know that the crisis in Kyoto was coming, and he knew that there was danger but didn't remind him that it was not the courtier's doing, so Yu sent an envoy to inform His Royal Highness the general as early as last month.

Yu said in the letter that the recent turmoil in Kyoto has been frequent, and this chaos is really a warning sign of rampant evil, so Kyoto is no longer a place where His Royal Highness the General has lived for a long time. It is not too late to wait for the situation to change and then go to Luo to restore the right.

In addition, there is an extra layer of precaution. In order to prevent the letterhead from being intercepted and obstructed, the letter was made in triplicate and sent to the Nijo Imperial Palace, the Konoe Sekihakufu, and the Koo Gokokuji Temple, and the servant who signed the letterhead was instructed to make the following records, so that no one would accuse Yu of failing to fulfill his duties as a courtier in the future. ”

Satake Yoshishige smacked his lips, looked up and saw that the ministers in the hall were either wandering out of the world, or bowed their heads and pondered and didn't know what to think, after thinking about it, he still decided to swallow back the words that came to his mouth, he instinctively felt that jumping out and saying that the lord was cautious and hypocritical, and it seemed that there would be unforeseen great danger, and muttered in a low voice: "I don't want to go to Sado Island......"

"Huh? What do you think about Yizhong? Ashikaga Yoshitoki looked sideways.

"Ahh His Majesty felt that His Royal Highness Gongfang's precautions were very good, and now that my Kanto Ashikaga family was in a sensitive and delicate position, His Royal Highness's words and deeds would be paid special attention, and the chaotic scene in Kyoto at this time required a special method to solve the embarrassing dilemma, so ...... Your Majesty thinks it's very good! Well! Very good! Yoshishige Satake clenched his fists hard to show his full support.

It wasn't until Ashikaga Yoshitoki removed his gaze with a satisfied smile that he realized that the placket on his back had been soaked with sweat, Satake Yoshishi covered his forehead and quietly wiped away the sweat, and said secretly: "It's only a dozen breaths, it seems like a lifetime of so long, just now that there was no murderous look in his eyes, but it was more terrifying than a knife on his neck, and I was so scared that I almost thought I had stopped panting!" It's really not a place for people to stay, and if you come a few more times, you'll be scared out of the water, right? ”

Satake Yoshishige's almost successful trick was only a brief episode, and few people even noticed that he was quietly walking in front of the ghost gate just now, and the eyes of the important ministers shifted to Hosokawa Fujitaka's body, only to see him let out a sigh of relief and said: "This is no better, this method can put an end to the world's criticism of my Kanto Ashikaga family, and future generations will not make irresponsible remarks about His Royal Highness!" The actions of the Imperial Palace should be taken as a warning, especially for an aspiring samurai like His Royal Highness. ”

The light knock on the case attracted the attention of the important ministers of the spectrum, and Ashikaga Yoshitoki coughed and said: "In addition, Yu also arranged for Kamiizumi Isemoru to hide in the Nijo Imperial Palace with a few swordsmen, which can protect the safety of His Royal Highness the General at a critical moment, the martial power of the Kyoto samurai is generally very weak, and he should not be able to strengthen the personal police of His Royal Highness the Shogun, with Kamiizumi Ise Mamoru can always deal with ordinary crises, I believe that Kyoto will not be in greater danger, right?" ”

Hosokawa Fujitaka said with a smile: "What His Royal Highness said is extremely true! It won't be what it will do to His Royal Highness, right? The half-general didn't dare to do this, and the group of ministers of the Miyoshi family must have no reason! Unless they're crazy! ”

"Haha...... Oh, yes! Unless they're crazy! ”

The relaxed ministers laughed loudly, only Ashikaga Yoshitoki held a bat fan and laughed without saying a word, and looked up to the sky to find that it was already the moon in the middle of the sky outside the window, and sighed faintly: "They are indeed crazy!" (To be continued......)