At the beginning of March of the second year of Koji (1556), after a few days of resting at Utagatake-jo Castle in Yoshishiki-gun, Zhou Defense Province, Masara led by Masara continued to march to the Yamaguchi area, the center of Ouchi family's rule.

When the black eagle banner on a white background appeared in the array of the marching Luo family's army, the people who had just been "invited" back from the nearby mountains and forests by the Luo family's peasant soldiers couldn't help but look at it.

After getting along for a few days, these people found that the soldiers of the Luo family did not loot like the soldiers of other big names, but seemed to be very disciplined, and even some of the people who were in trouble because of this war had recently received food assistance from these Luo family troops. So gradually, these people who originally belonged to the Ouchi family began to come out of their homes, and boldly watched the strength of these neat Luo family troops.

In this battle of the cage city of Youtian Yue Castle, the Luo family lost a total of 45 standing ashigaru, 133 peasant soldiers, more than 200 local surrendered Hao clan coalition soldiers, and more than 400 people, including samurai, standing guards, and peasant soldiers, a total of more than 400 people were injured by different Cheng dù. As for the enemy defending the city, more than 450 soldiers were killed, including the wounded captives, a total of more than 2,800 prisoners.

These captives, along with their families, will be escorted by the Luo family's internal cabinet and the navy army, and will be moved to various territories of the Luo family in Kyushu, and become slaves of the Luo family. These slaves will work for the Luo family for a certain period of time (during this period, the Luo family will only ensure their food and health and will not increase any additional pay), and the most heinous slaves will become the training objects of the recruits in the Luo family's boot camp. Their fate will only be death. and their families will be slaves on the slave farms; Slaves in general. Soldiers such as hostile forces will become slaves for the Luo family to build roads and demolish cities, and their families will become slaves on slave farms; Prisoners who are forced to fight against the Roche family by hostile forces will become slaves on the slave farm, participating in various workshops and planting work on the farm.

Of course, the duration of enslavement and the duration of enslavement will be different for different slaves. These slaves would be freed to work for the Roche family for a certain period of time, and then be freed according to the work schedule established by the Cabinet of the Interior. As a result, he became a leader of the Luo family, and obtained a certain amount of land and a house to live in.

As for the food, weapons, coins and other materials confiscated this time, they are still being cleaned up by the personnel urgently dispatched by the Cabinet of Internal Affairs.

In addition, the Luo family's internal affairs cabinet also began to take over the newly occupied territory with the help of the soldiers defending the city, and they settled the local people who were gradually returning to their homes, and compiled household account books. On the one hand, the military pavilion counts the military merits and prepares to issue rewards to the dead and those who have obtained military merits (generally they will be directly distributed to the families of the soldiers in the Luo family's territory, and those who do not have family members will receive them in the hands of the military officers of each team afterwards), and on the other hand, they will assist the logistics department in treating the wounded.

It's the same as the castle that fell before. After leaving the wounded and some soldiers to guard the castle of Youda, Masayo's army immediately went out again.

Due to the convergence of a part of the soldiers of the Second Route Army led by Isono Yuanchang. Therefore, although there was some damage caused by the newly concluded First World War, and it was necessary to leave some soldiers to stay in the newly occupied area, the two teams of men and horses ready to go out had a large army of more than 3,000 people when they were combined.

Among them, Masarashi was the main general of the main camp, and the deputy generals were Kato Danzo, Andel, Irita Yoshimi, and Takahashi Shaoyun, and it was composed of 80 cloaks, 320 samurai, 300 iron cannons, 300 standing ashigaru, and 500 reserve peasants (equivalent to reserve standing), a total of 1,500 people.

The main commander of the vanguard formation will be Isono Yuanchang, and the deputy generals will be Yoshikawa Kokei, Calai Naritsune, Akao Kentane, and Akaxue Mitsukiyo, and the second standing cavalry team will be 50 people (equipment for one person and one horse), 200 standing ashigaru people, and 550 reserve peasant soldiers, a total of 800 people.

The commander of the rear formation will be Honda Toshimasa, the military physician Akimine Hidemasa, the deputy generals Yamazaki Xingsheng (former minister of the Ouchi family), Jiang Liang Kenxuan (former minister of the Tao family), Noda Nagabo (Tao family retainer), Suki Du Longkang (Zhou Fangguo Suki Du family governor), 500 temporary peasant soldiers, and more than 300 troops from all over the country who surrendered to the Hao family, a total of more than 800 people.

Mt. Udatake Castle was built at the foot of Mount Udadake and is the only way to get to the Yamaguchi area from the east. After passing through Mt. Udadake Castle, there was a canyon trail formed by Mt. Udada and Mt. Seime, and the more than 3,000 troops of the Luo family advanced along the rugged mountain road, and after entering the Senkiri Pass, the army accelerated its pace, and finally entered the wide canyon area formed between the two mountains of Mt. Yue and Mt. Hime.

In the middle of the gorge is a river called the Sabashi River, and a castle called Himeyama Castle sits on the east bank of the river. Although the army could make a detour from the other side of the fortress and head straight for the mountain pass area, it was also dangerous to have such a time bomb ready to attack at any time in the rear of the army, so Masarashi was prepared to remove the last obstacle to the mountain pass area.

It's just that to Zhengliang's surprise, before the army of the Luo family set up camp under this city to prepare for the siege, the defenders in the city took the initiative to open the city gate, and Uno, a former minister of the Ouchi family, who was the defender of the city, personally led the defenders of only more than 100 people to surrender to Zhengliang.

In fact, this is also the normal helpless move of the defender Uno, after learning that the Utadagake Castle in the east has fallen, in just a few days, there have been more than 200 deserters in Himeyama Castle, even the defenders who stayed in the city are not willing to fight at this time. Seeing that the Ouchi family was not far from being destroyed, Uno had no choice but to be a smart person in order to save his life and that of his subordinates.

With the surrender of Himeyama Castle, the eastern gateway to the Yamaguchi area, the center of the Ouchi family's rule, was completely opened. After leaving some of the defenders to take over Himeyama Castle, Masarashi immediately led an army of nearly 3,000 men into the plains of the Yamaguchi area, and arrived in front of Yamaguchi Castle, the home of the Ouchi family, in the evening of the same day.

Ouchi Clan's Yamaguchi Castle is located in the middle of the Yamaguchi Basin, and Kuwaku is bordered by the Yamaguchi River. After many years of operation, Yamaguchi Castle is also a strong castle. Topographically, the entire Yamaguchi area is a basin surrounded by mountains, and there are three ways to enter the basin: a mountain trail in the mountains to the north, a river beach along the Yamaguchi River in the west, and a mountain road to the southeast where Masayo's army walked.

The mountain trail to the north is the most difficult to walk, because not only do you have to climb the towering mountains and forests, but the mountain roads are very narrow, and the Ouchi family has built a mountain castle on the mountain path.

The road to the west was the easiest of the three roads for the army to travel, but at the narrowest point of this passage, the Ouchi family also built a shoshikodake castle. Since the castle was relatively deep in the Yamaguchi Basin, it was easy to be attacked from the rear by the enemy forces of Youtiandake Castle to the east of Laizi, and if the enemy forces of Shoshiko Castle were attacked at the same time, the Luo family's army would be in danger of being flanked from the front and rear. At the beginning, Isono Yuanchang also saw this, and in order to join up with the army of the lord Masayo in advance, he abandoned this road and attacked the Utagake Castle on the eastern coast first.

The last road to the east, because Youda Castle is located at the intersection of the east and west regions of Zhou Fangguo, is the place where the army led by Masato needs to march into the Yamaguchi area, so there is the previous Cage Castle War, and after the capture of Youda Castle, the fastest way to enter the Yamaguchi Basin is naturally the east road through the nearby Himeyama Castle.

The Yamaguchi area, where a large number of ministers and various artists gathered, is the place with the strongest cultural atmosphere in the West, known as "Little Kyoto", a few years ago Tao Qingxian rebelled and forced Ouchi Yoshitaka to die, which caused a lot of damage here, and after several years of recovery, it soon became a cultural place again. But with the arrival of the Luo family's army, this place immediately fell into a panic, many people here have personally experienced the scourge of the last Tao Qingxian rebellion, and now they are naturally nervous when they encounter the military disaster again.

Since it was already evening at this time, and Masato did not intend to cause chaos in the area, Masahiro arranged for people to start camping and sent people to rectify the local law and order.

And in Yamaguchi City, at this time, because of the arrival of the Luo family's army, it seemed that the rumors were in the air, and the hundreds of guards responsible for defending the city climbed to the top of the city, looking nervously at the camps of the Luo family outside the city.

At this time, Ouchi Yoshicho, who was the governor of the Ouchi family, did not go to watch the barracks of the Luo family's army outside the city like everyone else, but instead sat quietly in the room, looking out the window at the sky that was sinking in the west.

"Boom, boom, boom......" At this time, the sound of wooden planks being trampled came. The mood of the visitor was obviously very anxious, which is why he made such a loud noise. Soon, a middle-aged man opened the wooden partition of Ouchi Yoshicho's room and walked in.

"Lord, the soldiers in the city are a little shaken by the appearance of the enemy army outside the city, and please hurry up and encourage the soldiers!" The visitor immediately said earnestly.

"Fang Zhong, I've become a loner!" Instead of responding to the visitor's request, Ouchi Yoshicho muttered to himself.

"My lord?" was asked by Yoshicho Ouchi, and the visitor was obviously stunned. He immediately thought that the words of the lord Ouchi Yoshicho were almost wrong, and during this period of time, he heard the news of the fall of his own castle and territory almost every day, and at this time, it was estimated that the Ouchi family was left with the last piece of territory in the Yamaguchi region. (To be continued......)