"Your Highness, we can use rice balls. Onigiri is easy to carry, easy to eat, you can eat it with it, and it is not easy to spoil. It's also very simple to make rice balls, that is, you can make rice balls by hand and press them repeatedly in the palm of your hand," Onishi Kuniji immediately suggested after Masarashi raised the issue of military rations.

Rice balls? Masarashi immediately remembered the later records about rice balls. The first is the production of onigiri, which was often made before the war, and was usually made by a soldier or a woman from a samurai family. After it is done, wrap it in a long strip of dry food cloth, according to the standard of one rice ball for one meal, two rice balls for one day, and then tie a knot on the outside of the dry food bag with a rope, and tie it diagonally on the shoulders of soldiers or samurai at the back, so that the dry food is generally carried only for no more than ten days at most. When it's time to eat, just untie the knot and you can take out enough rice balls for one meal, which is really convenient. This kind of cloth bag that carries military rations is called "waist poop". In addition to the dry food carried by the lord, the lord also had to make a large number of rice balls as public food, and this work was often done by the lord's wife and the servants of the city and the women of the samurai family. In fact, the lord's wife during the Warring States period was not an easy task, not only did she have to take care of her husband's life, but she also often had to lead her handmaidens and samurai women up the mountain to dig wild vegetables, tie arrow shafts, and even clean and makeup the heads of their severed enemies.

After these rice balls are ready, they are rolled up with clean grass and transported by carts pulled by manpower, and distributed to soldiers at any time. In addition to making good food, a lot of raw rice was also prepared as military rations for the war to be eaten when the war was prolonged. After the general gave the order to rest, the soldiers would find a clean lawn and sit on the ground, build a fire, boil some hot water, and take out a portion of the meal and roast it hot on the fire. Some people like to roast the rice balls over the fire until they are fragrant, so that they can also taste unique. The sour plum juice seeps into the rice and makes the rice balls more flavorful, and the seaweed, which has a salty taste of sea salt, also makes it a side dish for those who eat the balls. In addition, the seaweed wrapped around the rice balls also acts as a wrapper, so that the eater does not have to touch the sticky rice directly and get his hands dirty. Prunes have a certain antiseptic effect and can kill E. coli and staphylococcus bacteria in the gradually spoiling rice balls.

At this time, the amount of food is very small, and the usual meals are only eaten until eighty percent full, and only two meals a day, two rice balls are enough for a soldier to ensure a day's physical strength plus the scope of the battle at that time is not large, most of the time it is only within a radius of a few kilometers, and the farthest is only one hundred and ten kilometers, when the future Kansai overlord Maori Yuan fought with the local tyrant Takeda family, the two main cities were only less than two kilometers, and the actual time spent on the journey was not very long, So those small-scale wars often ended when the rice balls carried by the soldiers were finished. Later, Toyotomi Hideyoshi fought two large-scale marches in his life, the first was to exterminate the Western Kingdom Great Turnaround of Akechi Mitsuhide, and the other was to eliminate Shibata Katsuya's Shibatake Great March, and in both battles, he did not carry much military rations in order to advance lightly. At that time, Hideyoshi took out ten times the price of gold and silver as a price, and ordered the common people and merchants on the roadside to open their own warehouses, take out all the rice from their homes to cook, wrap it in straw bags drenched with salt water on the inside, and carry it with oxen and horses. If the trotting army was hungry, they reached into the rice bag and grabbed a handful of salt-soaked rice and began to eat it. The purpose of pouring salt water is to ensure that the rice does not go rancid, and the hot rice that permeates the salt water is especially delicious for hungry soldiers. It's just that in that era before appendectomy, I don't know how many soldiers in Langdao got acute appendicitis while running and eating. Of course, rice balls are just an expedient food made for easy portability, after all, there is no freshly cooked food that tastes good. …,

"No, the rice balls can only be used as food for the ashigaru and the samurai in the short term, if you need to carry a large number of them, then you need to use a board cart to carry them, in order to prevent the rice balls from going rancid, you also need to prepare some plums, whether it is a plate cart or a plum, the family does not seem to have a large number of them; What's more, the roads in other powerful territories are generally narrow, which is not conducive to the movement of board vehicles, which will drag down the marching speed of the army; The last thing is the problem of rice, there is so much rice in my family" Before Masara could speak, Kizo Shigetada raised an objection, "Your Majesty's suggestion is to go to Hakata to buy a large amount of dumplings, and make some pickles by yourself if you can." During the battle break, the soldiers only had to draw their knives, cut the dough piece by piece into the pot, cook it, and mix it with pickles. ”

Dumplings? Pickles? Isn't this the exclusive military ration of the Takeda family? The Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima was an inconclusive Armageddon between the Sengoku duo of the Takeda family and the Uesugi family. The total number of troops dispatched by both sides exceeded 30,000, and in the Warring States Period, where a major war often involved several hundred people, it was definitely a strategic Armageddon worthy of special mention. In this battle, the Takeda army used woodpecker tactics and divided the army into two teams, a large part of the Uesugi army camp that attacked Mt. Tsumi and Nyo, and the 8,000 army set up a formation in Hachimangahara to prepare to make dumplings for Uesugi. As a result, Uesugi Kenshin, who saw through Takeda Shingen's scheme, went down the mountain ahead of schedule to attack the Takeda Honjin, which had only 8,000 men, and almost took Takeda Shingen's head. Thanks to these 8,000 people, they fought hard until the reinforcements appeared, and then the defeat turned into victory.

The battle lasted from half past seven in the morning to the afternoon, and neither side had time for lunch. The Eight Thousand Takeda Army, which was inferior in strength, was never defeated by the Uesugi Army, which had an absolute advantage. Analyzing the reasons for this, in addition to the usual training and the commandery of Takeda Shingen, there is also a point that is not very noticeable, although they are all divisions of a hundred battles, the Takeda army may be better than the Uesugi army in terms of physical strength, so even if you don't have lunch, you can still hold on. The secret lies in the fact that Takeda Shingen usually vigorously promoted the consumption of easy-to-digest knife-cut noodles in the army, and ate pasta all year round. In fact, there was no real meaning of noodles in Japan at that time, and that thing had to be brought to Japan after the Ming Dynasty Confucian Zhu Shunshui crossed to the east after the Ming Dynasty died. At that time, it was actually said that it was a knife-cut noodles from Japan that came from the Tang Dynasty, and it was called Udon noodles at the time, and it was also said to be udon noodles. This thing is also very convenient, when the battle breaks, the soldiers only need to draw their knives, cut the dough piece by piece into the pot and cook it, and mix it with pickles.

Speaking of pickles, it is said that they were also vigorously promoted by Shingen Takeda. At that time, the main varieties of pickles were pickled radishes and wild vegetables. Pickles are very salty, cut into a small piece to eat, and easy to carry, not easy to spoil, but also to ensure that soldiers can take in vitamins, is really a must for marching to fight and kill people and plunder land. Eating knife-cut noodles and pickles for a long time made the physical strength of the Takeda army much better than that of the Uesugi army, which only ate rice, so after a day of fighting, the hungry Uesugi army had long been exhausted, and it is estimated that there were also fainting and attrition due to low blood sugar. The Takeda Army, which was not superior in numbers, was able to hold on to the bowl of noodles they ate in the morning.

"Lord Muzhuang, there don't seem to be many coins in my family, how can I buy a large amount of noodles? As for pickles, can they be pickled in just a few days? As soon as it came to money, Togo Heiji quit and immediately refuted it. The two most stingy retainers in the Luo family, the first is Xingsuke, nicknamed "Iron Rooster", and the second is Togo Heiji, every time he spends money and food lavishly, he will be in pain.

"Okay, let's be quiet" Seeing that the issues of the retainers were getting more and more off-topic, Masahiro had to come forward to stop it.

In fact, Masayo's heart is more inclined to another kind of military food, and that is miso. As far as Masarashi knows, the Takeda Army also used miso as another type of military ration. Takeda Jun ate "field miso", also known as "white miso", which is made by fermenting soybeans, koji, salt, and soybeans in a soup. "Field miso" is said to be not only delicious with rice, but also to relieve fatigue and cure stomach problems. Takeda's army's "field miso" was particularly vigorous, which was probably one of the reasons why the Takeda army was physically superior to the Uesugi army. Another person who used miso as a military ration was Date Masamune, who used "Sendai miso", which has a long shelf life. Later, when Korea was invaded, almost all the miso brought by the generals was spoiled, and only the "Sendai miso" of the Date Army was still fresh. "Sendai miso" became the traditional military miso of the Date family during the Edo period, and it was shipped to Edo every year by ship from the Sendai Domain. However, there were 3,000 Sendai feudal clans stationed in Edo, and transportation was time-consuming, so we decided to make our own "Sendai miso" in Beppu, Oi. The smell of miso was permeated in Date's mansion, so the people of Edo called the Date Mansion in Edo "Miso Mansion". In addition, Date Masamune, who has been delicious all his life, has also vigorously developed a variety of military rations, such as frozen tofu and natto, which are also included in the list of military rations. …,

Although the idea of miso is good, the Roche family does not have enough financial resources to make it so far, and more importantly, the time is running out. And the suggestions put forward by the retainers lacked such and such conditions, and for a while Zhengliang fell into contemplation.

"Oh, isn't it just eating? Hunting a rabbit in the mountains will solve the problem," Tsuda Hiromune muttered quietly.

Zhengliang glared at him fiercely when he heard this, this thing knows how to fight and kill, and he doesn't use his brain, is the hare so easy to catch? And when the war started, the time to hunt? He really thought he was going to hunt in the autumn fields?

Seeing Masayo's eyes, Tsuda Hiromune immediately shrunk his neck, if he was punished by the head of the family to learn etiquette or something, he would really be better off dead.

"Take out all the rice in the territory, mix it with a small amount of other grains, and make it all into rice balls," Masara decided later, "These rice balls are estimated to be enough for us to last about eight days." Ladies and gentlemen, this means that we must defeat and even destroy the Akasaka, Higashiyama, Kawachi, and Kanmu clans within eight days, and connect their territories with Yunoo Castle so that we can continue to provide food. ”

"Hiss" The retainers gasped, the head of the family really smashed the pot and sold iron this time, even the rice comparable to shark fin bear's paw was all used, and he had to complete the strategic goal of the western strong strategy within eight days, everyone suddenly felt a lot of pressure, especially the few retainers who were directly involved in the strategy, their faces were particularly solemn.

"Guys, are you confident that you can complete the goal of this raider? This will be the first step for the Luo family's martial arts to prosper, and everyone's exploits will not be forgotten," Zhengliang said solemnly.

"Please rest assured, Your Highness, your subordinates will definitely bow down and die," all the retainers said.

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(PS: The surgery is finally done, and I have to go back to work today, and then I have to take sick leave to go to the hospital for a follow-up every afternoon this week, so tired.) But rest assured, I'm not going to stop changing. ）