Heavy dark clouds wrapped in leaves and pressed over the only land passage between Bungo and Hyuga provinces in Kyushu, and the trees on either side of the trail, which were relatively low due to the lack of soil, whined in the west wind.

"Looks like it's going to rain again!" Shimazu Takahisa, who had a few more gray hairs on his head recently due to being too troubled, was sitting in the military tent guarded by the Shimazu family at this time, looking at the dark world outside, he couldn't help but sigh.

"Oh no, lord!" Just then, a retainer ran in.

"What?"

"My lord, those Ming pirates are making trouble again." The retainers immediately reported it.

"Damn!"

After hearing this, Shimazu Takahisa immediately slapped the marching horse beside him fiercely and said angrily. When these Ming pirates decided to go out to support the Saeki family, they spent a lot of gold from the Shimazu family to hire them from Wang Zhi, and the purpose was naturally to hope that the more superb iron cannon skills of these Ming pirates could help the Shimazu family's military strength cause greater damage to the Luo family's military strength.

It's a pity that when he started a war with the Luo family in the territory of the Saeki family in the Bungo Kingdom, the appearance of these Ming pirates disappointed him. Yes, the accuracy of their iron cannon shooting is indeed good, but they are too afraid of death, and after being shot and killed by the Luo family's army at the beginning of the war, they simply hid in the rear of the Shimazu family and only shot instead of rushing to the front. Due to the sneaky tricks of these pirates, until the coalition forces were besieged here, they actually suffered more than ten casualties, and the remaining more than 200 people were unscathed.

And now, because of the siege in the valley for days, the supplies are getting less and less. These Ming pirates couldn't stand such a predicament. He even incited the surrounding soldiers to demand more food and other supplies. But. The supplies in the coalition camp have long been almost exhausted, and even the last food is estimated to be completely eaten in these few days, and by that time, they will not even have the opportunity to drink gruel.

What's even more odious is that at this time, in the coalition camp, the camps of the Ito family and the Shimazu family have been completely divided into two. The reason for this situation mainly starts with the box that the Luo family gave to Ito Yoshiyu half a month ago.

Originally, after learning that Roche Masahara had sent a box to Ito Yoshiyu, Shimazu Takahisa had already concluded that this was Roche Masahiro's discordant plan. But what puzzled Shimazu Takahisa was that on the night that Ito Yoshisuke received the box that Masarashi said about Roche, several screams came from the camp of the Ito family (since the two families were united and encamped, it was naturally easy to know the movements in the other camp's camp at such a close distance).

On the second day, Shimazu Takahisa learned that it was Ito Yoshisuke who suddenly got angry last night, and a few unlucky ghosts just touched the head, so they were brutally slashed by Ito Yoshiyu. After learning the reason, Shimazu Takahisa didn't pay attention to it anymore, he simply thought that Luo Shizheng had given it a gift to Ito Yoshiyu. It should have angered Ito Yoshisuke, so Ito Yoshisuke found his subordinates to vent his anger.

But things didn't go the way he expected. A few days later, there seemed to be a strange atmosphere in the camp of the Ito family. In such an atmosphere, Yoshisuke Ito suddenly sent someone to invite Takahisa Shimazu to his military tent to discuss the important matter of breaking the siege of the Luo family.

In the past, Shimazu Takahisa would have really agreed to go, but due to the strange atmosphere in the camp of the Ito family, the retainers of the Shimazu family immediately advised Shimazu Takahisa not to go. And what makes everyone in the Shimazu family feel even more abnormal is that according to the results of the previous negotiations between the two families, if there is a major matter to discuss, a military tent will be set up directly at the junction of the two camps, and the two sides will discuss it together, but now Ito Yoshisuke directly invited Shimazu Takahisa to go to the camp of the Ito family, is this Ito Yoshiyu forgetting this agreement? Or is there another reason for deliberately not following the agreement?

So after some deliberation among the Shimazu family, it was decided to test whether Ito Yoshisuke really had another conspiracy. They politely declined the invitation of the Ito family, and even invited Ito Yoshisuke to the Shimazu family's military camp to discuss things together, but Ito not only refused the invitation of the Shimazu family, but also immediately strengthened the surveillance and vigilance of the Shimazu family's camp.

Ito Yoshisuke's behavior caused the Shimazu family to explode immediately, and some retainers were even so angry that they immediately took people to the Ito family's camp to directly ask Ito Yoshisuke face to face, but they were still stopped by Shimazu Takahisa. Although Ito Yoshiyu's previous invitation must have been a conspiracy, with the situation that the two families are besieged by the Luo family at this time, the two families really can't completely stiffen the relationship, otherwise they will really fall for the Luo family's counter-plot. As for the conspiracy design of the Ito family this time, it will at least wait until the siege of the Luo family is highlighted.

So Shimazu Takahisa decided to send someone to find out what was going on with the Ito family, which made Ito Yoshisuke make such a strange move when he was besieged by the Luo family and could only unite with the Shimazu family to break through the siege.

And after sending people to infiltrate the Ito family's military situation and continue to investigate, Shimazu Takahisa finally knew the reason. It turned out that the box that Luo Masara had given to Ito Yoshiyu before actually stored some of Ito's objects in the county seat of the Hyuga Residence Castle, and in addition, it also contained a stack of letters from many local wealthy families in the Hyuga Country and even the retainers of the Ito family who surrendered to the Luo family.

When he learned the news, Shimazu Takahisa instantly understood two points, one is that the news that the Luo family has been preaching to them for a period of time about the large-scale invasion of the Hyuga Province and Satsuma Country and other places is being invaded by the Luo family, as well as the large-scale surrender of the wealthy families in various places, this is very likely to be true. And among them, the shape of the Ito family is the strictest, and it has even reached the stage of life and death.

As for the second point understood, that is, Ito Yoshisuke really jumped off the wall in a hurry, and when he couldn't break through the siege of the Luo family, Ito Yoshisuke actually started the idea of the Shimazu family, trying to use himself and other heads of the Shimazu family as gifts in exchange for the liberation of the Luo family.

Let's not mention whether the cunning Luo Masarashi will agree to Ito Yoshiyu's request, but with the relationship between the Ito family and the Shimazu family before the alliance, it is in this predicament now. It's really possible for Yoshisuke Ito to do that. After all, Yoshisuke Ito has a grudge against the Shimazu family. At the beginning, Ito Yoshisuke's grandfather Ito Yoshikuni died in the war with the Shimazu family, so it is inevitable that Ito Yoshisuke has hatred for the Shimazu family.

Before the alliance between the two families, Shimazu Takahisa also planned to attack the increasingly powerful Ito family, especially when Ito Yoshisuke invaded the Shimazu family in Toyoshu, a division of the Shimazu family in the southern part of the country, Shimazu Takahisa had plans to fight (in history, the two families did start a ten-year continuous war because of this).

If it weren't for the sudden appearance of a strong force and the overlord of the Shimazu family and the Ito family at any time, the Luo family would become stronger and stronger. Shimazu Takahisa would not be moved by the fact that the territory of the Shimazu family in Toyoshu, which was a separate family, was almost annexed by the Ito family, and even took the initiative to invite the Ito family to form an alliance with each other to resist the Luo family.

As for the Ito family, because he had a conflict with the Luo family at the invitation of his ally Otomo family, and the ally Otomo family was destroyed by the Luo family, it seems that the next target of the Luo family is likely to be the Hyuga country, so although Ito Yoshisuke hates the Shimazu family in his heart, he also endured his hatred and agreed to form an alliance with the Shimazu family.

Even in order to unite with the Shimazu family to resist the Luo family, he deliberately strengthened the attack of wealthy clans such as the Kitahara family in the southwestern region of Hyuga Province, and united with the Shimazu family to pacify the Satsuma Province, Osumi Province, and Hyuga Province in the border area of southern Kyushu. Dispatched heavy troops to garrison the area, and together with the Shimazu family, they monitored the military situation of the Luo family in the South Higo area across the mountain.

It's just that. The alliance that was originally united because of the need to unite to resist the Luo family, now facing the life and death of the family, the hatred of the Shimazu family in Ito Yoshiyu's heart naturally rekindled, although the sudden infighting with the Shimazu family may have fallen into the trick of the Luo family, but it is better than being besieged by the Luo family and waiting for death day after day like now! So, naturally, there were some strange actions of the Ito family before.

After thinking about Ito Yoshisuke's thoughts, Shimazu Takahisa also found that he also had the same problem as Ito Yoshiyu. Since the previous conspiracy of Shimazu Takahisa was discovered by the Shimazu family, it is no longer possible for the two families to unite together, and the reason why basic peace is still maintained is that Ito Yoshisuke did not think about completely tearing his face with the Shimazu family for a while because he was afraid of the Luo family outside, but as time goes on, Ito Yoshiyu will one day be impatient.

Similarly, the same is true of Shimazu Takahisa, since he already knows Ito Yoshisuke's thoughts, then Shimazu Takahisa naturally will not stick out his head like a fool and let people cut it off. Only, even so, what should the Shimazu family do?

Just when Shimazu Takahisa was thinking about it, as if he knew Shimazu Takahisa's thoughts, Luo Shimasarashi actually gave him some gifts. Inside are also some tokens of some castles in Satsuma or the submission of some local wealthy clans.

"Damn!" After seeing these things, Takahisa Shimazu finally realized Ito's original mood. And what's even more odious is that just when Shimazu Takahisa was thinking about what the Shimazu family should do, those Ming pirates actually made trouble. It was only with great difficulty that these pirates were temporarily pacified, but today they actually started to make trouble again.

"If it weren't for the fact that there might be a need to use Wang Zhi's sea power in the future, I really hope to cut down all these guys." These Ming pirates, it is said that in the Ming Kingdom, they were all the families of some local coastal wealthy families, or bandits, although the accuracy of the iron cannon shooting is good, but once they leave the iron cannon, the courage is not enough, with the elite strength of the Shimazu family, it is completely possible to destroy these people with very few casualties.

"Hmph, it's just a bunch of guys who only dare to be arrogant in front of ordinary people." Shimazu Takahisa decided to ignore these guys for the time being, but instead he shouted, "Come on, gather the generals to me." ”

"It's time to decide on the future of the Shimazu family, and we can't delay any longer......" Shimazu Takahisa muttered to himself as he looked at the still dark sky.

Just as Takahisa Shimazu gathered all the retainers to decide the future of the Shimazu family, Masarashi had just met with some of the coalition deserters who had fled to the camp of the Luo family last night.

Due to the persuasion of the Luo family to surrender and the continuous reduction of the materials and morale of the coalition army, for a period of time, there have been coalition soldiers who have come to surrender one after another.

Of course, the defection of soldiers is not allowed by either the Shimazu family or the Ito family. And they also tightly control the checkpoints in the mountain road. Naturally, even though many coalition soldiers had the idea of surrendering. But he couldn't take the initiative to surrender to the Luo family.

It's just that even so, there are some brave soldiers who will look for opportunities to escape, and most of these people will be caught and then publicly executed, while some lucky ones will not be caught, mainly because they almost all sneak into the nearby Beichuan at night when no one is paying attention. Then drifted along with the current to the vicinity of the Luo family's positions on the north and south sides, and was rescued by the Luo family's patrol soldiers.

Of course, some of these guys who were lucky enough to jump into Beichuan were unlucky. This is mainly because the water sources of Beichuan are mainly formed by the spring outlet at the bottom of the Beichuan River and the stagnant water in some alpine and dense forests along the Beichuan River, such a water source situation naturally causes different water sources to form different water flows after entering Beichuan, so as to collide with each other in Beichuan, forming a large number of underwater vortices (this is also the reason why no one uses boats to sail in Beichuan, and such hydrological conditions are easy to lead to capsizing). And those deserters who jumped into the Beichuan and escaped from the coalition camp were drowned by the whirlpool in the water if they were unlucky.

Due to the constant passage of people guò Kitagawa escaped. As a result, corpses are floating in the North River from time to time. In addition, in the camp of the coalition army, the corpses of the soldiers who were injured in the fierce battle with the Luo family army and finally died due to lack of medicine were thrown into Beichuan by the coalition army. And so it goes. From time to time, corpses floated into the river next to the north and south camps of the Luo family.

In order to avoid the plague, Masara had to order that, on the one hand, no water source could be obtained in the Beichuan River (anyway, there were many mountain springs and stagnant water in the nearby mountains, which could be used as a water source for consumption), and on the other hand, he had to set up a salvage team in both the north and the south to search and rescue the coalition deserters who escaped along the water, and was also responsible for salvaging the bodies in the water.

After all, the water of the Kitagawa River flows to the plains where Matsuo Castle is located in Hyuga Province to the south, and the Kurusu River in the south of Bungo Province to the north. These areas are now the territory of the Luo family, and Masahiro doesn't want to cause a plague in these areas because of these corpses.

After appeasing the dozen or so deserters of the coalition army who had recently taken refuge, and arranging for these people to enter the special surrender propaganda team set up by the Luo family (specially used to recruit surrender to the coalition camp in a way that is used to demonstrate the way of loud propaganda in the guò), Zhengliang returned to the military tent to continue to deal with some government affairs brought by Hai Dongqing today.

Until the evening, when Masarashi had just finished dinner, Asakura Sote, who was in charge of the first half of the night vigil tonight, hurriedly walked in, "My lord, the Shimazu family sent a messenger to ask for a meeting." After the salute was finished, Asakura Zongdi said with a little flushed face. For the Luo family, the arrival of the envoy of the Shimazu family is definitely good news, which shows that the other party has obviously softened a little.

"Oh?" When Masashi heard this, it seemed that he had expected that the Shimazu family would send someone to come, so he simply nodded and signaled that he understood.

"My lord, this ...... Do you meet with each other? Seeing that the lord Zhengliang was not excited, Asakura Zongdi couldn't help but be stunned, he really didn't know what the lord was planning, so he had to ask hesitantly.

"Well, let them in." Masarashi then nodded again.

"Foreign Minister Ijiin Genshiro Tadahiro pays a visit to Masahiro." Soon after, the lame Ijiin Tadaro, accompanied by Asakura Munetashi, walked into Masayo's military tent.

"Well, sit down." At this time, Masara had already returned to the desk and sat down, and was working on a plan for the resettlement of hundreds of Ming refugees sent by Ming merchant Wang Hai. After putting down the plan from his sister-in-law, Masarashi motioned for Tadaro Ijiin to sit down.

Masara didn't expect Shimazu Takahisa to send this important minister of the Shimazu family. For Ijiin Tadaro, Masara also appreciates it very much, and the other party's internal affairs ability is indeed comparable to the Togo Heiji of the family, Arima Haruki and others. However, after seeing the injury to the thigh of Tadaro Ijiin, the political conscience smiled in his heart.

Takahisa Shimazu is still quite smart! In the case that the coalition forces no longer have herbs at this time (Masarashi learned about these situations from the deserters who escaped), with the condition of the injury to Tadaro's thigh in Ijiin, sooner or later he will die. Now, Ijiin Tadaro is being sent to Masarashi as an envoy to the negotiations, on the one hand, in the hope that the identity of Ijiin Tadaro will show Masarashi the importance that the Shimazu family attaches to this negotiation. On the other hand, it is hoped that the Luo family can uphold the righteousness. I can help heal Tadaro's injured leg in Ijiin.

Come to think of it. Masara asked with a smile, "Lord Guijiu is good." ”

"Excellent! Thanks to Masahiro's concern, the lord of the family had told the minister to express his gratitude to Masayo before the foreign minister came, and thanked Masayo for the gift he had given to the head of the family, but the family believed that the Shimazu family would definitely not have those situations, and Masayo was afraid that he had been deceived. Ijiin Tadaro replied with a stern face.

"Huh!" Regarding Ijiin Tadaro's answer, Masara just smiled. I don't care, after all, whether those surrenders are true or not, the Shimazu family is naturally very clear, Masato doesn't intend to argue with the other party at all, anyway, this is just a response made by the other party trying to fight for some more favorable conditions in the negotiation, thinking of this, Masara simply pretended not to know why the other party came, and asked suspiciously: "Since Lord Guijiu is fine, this is good." It's just that I don't know why Your Excellency came here this time? ”

For Masa's sudden question. Ijiin Tadaro really felt very aggrieved in his heart at this time, and he couldn't remember how long the Shimazu family had been in such a weak situation. The Kyushu eagle in front of him knew the purpose of his visit this time, but he still pretended not to know, this is really a great humiliation to the Shimazu family! It's just that, after all, the Shimazu family is on the weak side at this time, and they can only endure it, so Ijiin Tadharo can only pretend to be very sincere and say: "This time, the foreign minister is on behalf of the Shimazu family, and I hope to reach an agreement with you, as long as you can let the family leave, the family is willing to surrender to you, and from now on, I will explore the topic of Kyushu with Masahiroko, and obey the command of Masahiro." ”

After finishing speaking, Ijiin Tadaro seemed to have no change in his face, but he looked at Luo Masarashi on the throne extremely nervously, hoping that the other party would agree to this surrender agreement of the Shimazu family.

It's just that to the disappointment of Ijiin Tadaro, after listening to his words, Masa's face did not change at all, and he still said with a smile: "Hehe! It seems that Your Excellency's leg injury is very serious, and since this is the case, let's go down and heal it first. Zongdi, take care of our guests. ”

"Yes!" Asakura Zongdi, who had been accompanying him all the time, immediately received the order.

"This, Zhengliang Gong, the ...... of this family" Ijiin Zhonglang on the side did not expect Luo Shizheng Liang to respond to his submission agreement in this way, and immediately became a little anxious.

"Please!" It's just that before he could finish speaking, Asakura Zongdi beside him had already stood up, beckoned the two Luo family warriors at the door of the military tent to come in, and directly took Yijiin Tadashi out of the military tent.

"Hey, I'm thinking about it!" After Ijiin Tadaro was taken away, Masarashi sneered and muttered to himself.

The so-called submission expressed by the Yijiin Tadashi after Tadaura came in and the agreement just proposed by the other party is nothing more than an alliance between the Xitu Temple family and the Luo family.

After surrendering to the Luo family, the Shimazu family, just like the Xitu temple family, is equivalent to becoming the external alliance of the Luo family, as long as Masato is called, the Shimazu family will immediately act as Masaliang's little brother and charge for the Luo family. In normal times, the Shimazu family maintains its independence, has its own territory, has its own military strength, and only needs to pay some tribute to the Luo family at the designated time every year.

It seems that this seems to be very good for the Luo family, at least nominally, the Luo family has subdued the Shimazu family. But with the situation of Shimazu Takahisa and the Shimazu family at this time, it was the Luo family who suffered a loss to get such treatment.

After all, as long as the Luo family continues to stand still and continue to besiege the Shimazu family and the Ito family alliance in the valley, they will retreat in the fortifications to counterattack when they come to attack...... Anyway, in the end, when they are so hungry that they have no strength to resist, won't they become the fish of the Luo family? Why talk nonsense with them?

(What do you think should happen to the Shimazu family next?) Hehe, welcome to discuss in the book friend group. (To be continued......)