"Tuk, tuk, tuk......"

"When, when, when......"

In the spring of the first year of Koji (1555), along the coast of Aki Province, a large group of craftsmen were busy building a castle in an area of Itsukushima, which was surrounded by the sea on three sides and looked like a protruding nose.

On a hill far away from the construction site, a group of people are standing and watching the work. Among this group, the three leaders are none other than Mori Motosho and the important ministers of the Mori family, Mitsura Kuchiba and Sadatoshi Fukuhara.

"My lord, according to the current construction progress, it will take two months to complete the construction of this city." Sadatoshi Fukuhara, who was in charge of organizing the construction of the castle in front of him, which was named Miyao Castle by Mori Moto, reported to Mori Moto.

"Hmm." Mao Liyuan nodded after hearing this, and then looked at Kouyu Tongliang on the other side and asked, "What is the movement of the Nizi family and the Luo family at this time?" ”

Although Mao Liyuan is determined to fight to the death with Tao Longfang, if he wants to fight Tao Longfang with peace of mind, he can't ignore the Nizi family and the Luo family. Needless to say, the Nizi family has also learned that the Ouchi family has formed an alliance with the Nizi family through the detailed work of the Nizi family, and he is really a little worried that the Nizi family will join forces with the Ouchi family to attack the Maori family. Fortunately, under his previous provocation, Niko Haruhisa finally cut off his arm and eliminated the most elite Shingu party of the Niko family. But even so, Mori Moto still sent a large number of Hosaku to infiltrate Izumo Province to monitor the movements of the Niko family.

As for the Luo family in Kyushu, it is even more fearful of Maori Yuan. Mao Liyuan always felt that the rumors of the secret collusion between Luo Zhengliang and Tao Longfang that had spread from Fengzen Country were true. Because the fall of the Sugi family in Bunzen Province and the Naito family in Nagato Province is too weird. And it was supposed to be the Ouchi family that was attacked on three sides. At this time, the border with the Luo family was unexpectedly peaceful. All these signs indicate that the Luo family and the Ouchi family have secret deals.

If the Luo family and the Tao family really colluded with each other as the rumors said. So this time, Tao Longfang may really pull the Luo family into the camp to deal with the Maori family. Moreover. Even if the Luo family did not join the camp of Tao Long Fang, the Guanmen Strait of the Luo family and the Zhoufangtan area along the coast of Fengqian Country could easily reach the coastal area of Anyi Country through the naval army. Mao Liyuan was really a little worried that the Luo family would suddenly send a naval army to intervene in this decisive battle he had prepared for Tao Longfang. In this way, the things he has arranged are variable, and the consequences are unpredictable.

Although from the perspective of geographical location and strategic location, it is not a good thing for the Luo family to suddenly intervene in An Yi Country, and it is even possible to return to Kyushu in defeat, but after analyzing the past overall record of the Luo family's Governor Luo Zhengliang. Maori Yuan is really a little worried that this Hizen Eagle will make such a choice. Therefore, the Roche family also needs to be closely watched.

It's just that Mao Liyuan is a little headache, but the monitoring of the Luo family is much more difficult than the monitoring of the Nizi family. First of all, the Luo family implements a border blockade policy, and basically after entering its territory, it cannot come out so easily. Even commercial areas such as Hakata and Hirado Island are strictly cordoned off, and it is difficult for outsiders to escape from the Roche family's territory. Secondly, according to the report of the previous lucky escape from the Luo family's territory, the Luo family implements a very strange household registration system, and also uses generous incentives to encourage the people to actively report suspicious people. Therefore, it is easy to find out the suspicious people, even if they are mixed into the territory of the Luo family, it is easy to be discovered.

It is because of these strange systems mentioned above. The details sent by the Maori family to monitor the Luo family suffered heavy losses, and even if a few people escaped by chance, the information they brought back was quite vague. But even so, Mao Li Yuan gritted his teeth and continued to send Hosaku to the Kyushu region to monitor the movements of the Luo family, which he feared the most.

"My lord, since the backbone of the Shingu Party was cleared out at the end of last year, Nizi Haruhisa has continued to gather the remnants of the Shingu Party until now, and has taken over the territory of Nizi Kunijiu's father and son." Hearing his own lord ask him, Kou Yu Tongliang, who was in charge of the family's intelligence work, immediately replied, "As for the Luo family, the ministers and others found that there was no excessive movement around their territory, and everything seemed very calm. ”

"Is that so?" After listening to Kouyu Tongliang's return, Mao Liyuan pondered, but after a while, he suddenly said, "Since this is the case, then the family will have to find a little trouble for the Luo family." Sent envoys to the wealthy families such as the Bungo Hibi, the Ito family of Hinata, and the Shimazu family of southern Kyushu. The family must make the Luo family have no time to take care of the decisive battle between the family and the Tao family. ”

"The lord is wise!" Kou Yutongliang was stunned for a moment after hearing this, and then suddenly praised with enlightenment.

While Mori Moto, while he was discussing with his retainers about dealing with the Tao family and the Luo family, a villager at the construction site called Miyao Castle took advantage of the fact that the others and the guards were not paying attention, and then fled. After escaping from the construction site, the villager rushed directly to Itsukushima Shrine, found the shrine in a priest named Tanamori Fangxian, and told the priest about the construction of the construction site.

This priest named Tanashou Fang Xian (historically, he witnessed the whole process of the battle of Itsukushima, and his work "Fang Xianjue Book" has extremely precious historical value), and the relationship with Tao Longfang is quite good, so he became a spy for Tao Longfang to spy on Itsukushima. After receiving the information sent by the villagers, the shed guard Fang Xian immediately sent someone to urgently send this information to Tao Longfang, who had returned to the Ouchi Pavilion of Zhou Fangguo Yamaguchi at this time.

After learning of this situation, Tao Longfang immediately held an evaluation meeting with all the retainers.

"My lord, I'm afraid this city is a bait to lure my family there. From the perspective of his subordinates, the family should take advantage of the numerical advantage of the family's army, go out from Iwakuni, and attack Sakurao Castle by land. Hongzhong Longbao, an important minister in the family, took the lead in speaking.

"The previous battle of Origobata, which followed this route, right? It turned out to be a fiasco. Tao Longfang said with a frown. Obviously, his heart was not too keen to march from this route, which had just experienced a fiasco.

Seeing that the lord disagreed with his opinion, Hongzhong Takabao still insisted on his opinion and said: "The battle of Orishiki Hata." The strength of the army at that time was not the elite main force of our army. But this time it's a different story. Our army can fully mobilize 20,000 elite soldiers. To the west, you can attack Sakurao Castle in order to try to make Itsukushima; It is also possible to go north to take the mountain city of Jitian County, the old nest of the Maori family, and carry out the plan of besieging Wei to save Zhao; According to the previous detailed work, Maori Moto's men and horses are only four or five thousand, and they are scattered in Sakurao, Kusatsu, and Miyao to defend, once the decisive battle with the army of the family on land, the army of the family will definitely be able to win. ”

"Hahaha, Hongzhong Mikawa Mamoru! Do you know that I have always been a sailor in the world. There are hundreds of warships under his command, and our army can advance and retreat freely from the sea route to Itsukushima, while Maori Yuan has no decent sailors under him, and after our army lands and captures this city, Maori's family will die without a fight. It can be seen from the previous battles that Mao Liyuan is good at ambushing and surprise attacks in the mountains, but on the water is destined to be the opponent of our army. Tao Longfang looked up to the sky and said with a smile.

"My lord, no! His Majesty thought. The castle that the Maori family is building is a bait for the Maori thief to lure the family into attacking from the waterway. My family can't be underestimated anymore! "Hongzhong Takabao saw that his lord was so underestimated. couldn't help but persuade in shock.

However, Hongzhong Longbao's words of "underestimating the enemy" directly stung Tao Longfang, after all, the last fiasco was caused by his underestimating enemy. Annoyed and angry, he simply ended the evaluation meeting directly.

It's just that although this evaluation meeting broke up unhappily, the result is beyond doubt, after all, Tao Longfang is the boss, and he has the final say. As a result, at the beginning of the first year of Koji, the Ouchi family navy, which received an order from Tao Takabo, began to show off their might in the waters near Itsukushima, and along the way, they kept attacking the strongholds of Kusatsu, Yaga, Nihojima, Onaga, and Kaida on the Maori side, and made a lot of appearance.

"Father, please let your sons fight, you will definitely be able to repel the enemy's naval army." Seeing that his territory was constantly being invaded, the second son, Yoshikawa Motoharu, couldn't stand it anymore at first, so he asked Mori Moto.

"No, you can't. This was my father's ploy to lure the enemy. At this time, the third son, Kobayakawa Takakei, said something.

"A trick to lure the enemy?" Yoshikawa Motoharu is not a reckless and stupid person, and after thinking about it for a while, he suddenly realized, "I see, did my father deliberately show weakness to the enemy, and then lure the other party to come to the decisive battle?" ”

"Hmm. The children can be taught! Seeing his sons so smart, Mao Liyuan couldn't help but be happy.

So, as Kobayakawa Takakei and Yoshikawa Motoharu said, in order to lure the Tao family's army with weakness as a mortal enemy, Mori Yuan not only hid more than half of the nearly 10,000 men and horses (historically, in the First Battle of Itsukushima, the Mori family at that time only had four or five thousand people, but this time, because the Mori family unified the power of the Bingo Province, Bei China and other places that originally belonged to the Ouchi family, so the number of people and horses was more than doubled), and also strictly ordered these defenders who were attacked by the Ouchi family's naval army to insist on being a turtle with a shrunken head and never fighting back, Let the Ouchi family's navy come and go at will, and also sent a small saku to rumor: "My Maori family has only a few broken ships, and I really can't compete with the Ouchi family's navy, it seems that my yuan is about to be planted on Itsukushima." ”

Tao Longfang, who got the reward, was triumphant: "It seems that I am preparing to fight the old thief against Maori Yuan in Itsukushima, and this move is right." It seems that Hongzhong Mikawa Mamoru is getting more and more timid! ”

And Hongzhong Mikawa Shoulongbao, who was determined to be a coward by Tao Longfang, was drinking sullenly with his younger brother Hongzhong at this time. After the last evaluation meeting broke up unhappily, Hongzhong Mikawa Shou Takabao was still unwilling, so he immediately found Tao Longfang's wife, and asked him to persuade Tao Longfang to give up the idea of attacking Itsukushima by sea, but who knew that Tao Longfang was directly in front of his wife and laughed at Hongzhong Takabao as a "coward". In this day and age, mocking a samurai in front of a woman is a great humiliation for a samurai.

Therefore, Hongzhong Mikawa Shou Takabao, who learned about this situation afterwards, was not only angry in his heart, but also full of insecurity about the Maori family's appearance this time, and according to Tao Longfang's previous decision to determine Hao, he would lead the follow-up troops to stand by in Iwakuni, and then follow Tao Longfang's first echelon to kill Itsukushima mightily.

Thinking of this, Hongzhong Mikawa Shoutaka Bao directly picked up the wine bowl in front of him, drank a bowl of sake in one go, and after a wine burp, he immediately said to his younger brother Hongzhong: "Brother, this time I will take Taro out together, if something happens to us, you must remember, no matter what, you must pass on the name of your family." ”

Hongzhong, who was drinking on the other side, was shocked when he heard this, and he also knew that his brother was ridiculed as a coward by the lord, thinking that his brother was still distressed about this matter, and even worried that the lord Tao Longfang would attack him in this war, so he immediately persuaded: "Brother, you are drunk." Don't worry, you are a general under the command of the lord, and the lord is just a momentary gaffe. Moreover, as the lord said, the navy of this family is extremely powerful, and in the surrounding countries, only the navy of the Luo family can be compared with the navy of the family. This time, the family will definitely be able to win big. ”

After Hongzhong Mikawa Shoulong Bao on the opposite side heard this, Ai Ye did not make a sound, but directly picked up a bottle of sake and raised his neck and drank it "coo-dong", but he smiled bitterly in his heart: "Even my own brother thinks so, no wonder the main guild is so light on the enemy." At this moment, he was a little nostalgic for Jiang Liangfangrong, who was killed by his own hands in the Amber Temple of Iwakuni.

If Jiang Liang Fang Rong was still talking, not only could he join forces to advise the lord Tao Longfang, but also because he had been in charge of the offensive and defensive affairs in the Itsukushima area before, he was very familiar with that area, even if he took the waterway this time, they would not become blind, and they needed to guard against the sneak attack of the old thief who was good at intrigue at any time.

Just when Tao Longfang and Maori Yuan were preparing for a decisive battle, the Luo family after entering the spring of the first year of Hongzhi was also busy. On this day, the leaders of the first team of the Luo family's navy, the second team of the navy, the first standing ashigaru team, and the second standing ashigaru team were summoned by Masato to the meeting hall of the castle tower on the seventh floor of the academy castle.

Last year, after receiving the positions of Bungo Guardian and Tsushima Mori, Masarashi immediately issued a request to the Saeki family, which is still entrenched in half of Kaibe County, which is still entrenched in the southeastern region of Bungo Province, and the Tsushima family's clan to surrender, but they were brutally rejected by the Saeki family and the silence of the Tsushima family. Now, it's time to get your hands dirty with both. (To be continued......)